"Tell me what happened, it was Zed wasn't it?" I ask Hardin through the bars.

"Yeah." He tries to meet my eyes but I look away.

"Who started it?" I ask, trying my best not to jump to conclusions like I normally do when it comes to Hardin.

"I went to find him after I walked you to class."

"You promised me that you would leave him alone."

"I know."

"So why didn't you?"

"He was pushing it, he started provoking me saying that he fucked you. You aren't lying about that are you?" He questions and I nearly lose it.

"I'm not answering that again. I already told you that  nothing happened between us and here you are in a freaking jail cell asking me again." I say in frustration.

He rolls his eyes and sits down on the small metal bench inside the holding cell. He's pissing me off.

"Why did you go find him? I want to know."

"Because he needed his ass beat Tessa. He needs to know that he isn't to come near you again. I'm sick of his fucking games and the way he thinks he has some sort of fucking chance with you. I did this for you!" He's getting angry.

That makes two of us.

"How would you feel if I had been the one to go find him today after I told you I wouldn't? I thought we were both trying to make this work and you blatantly lied to my face. You knew you weren't going to hold up your end, didn't you?" I cross my arms over my chest.

"Yeah, I did okay? It doesn't matter now, what's done is done." He huffs like an angry child.

"It matters to me Hardin, you keep getting yourself in trouble when it isn't necessary."

"It's very necessary, Tess."

"Where's Zed now? Is he in jail too?"

"This isn't jail."

"Hardin.."

"I don't know where he is nor do I give a shit and neither do you. You aren't going near him."

"Stop being like that! Stop telling what I can and can't do, it's pissing me off."

"Are you cursing at me?" He appears amused.

Why does he think this is funny? This is anything but funny.

I begin to walk away from him and the smile disappears from his lips.

"Tessa, come back." He says, making me turn around.

"I'm going to find your father to see what's going on."

"Tell him to hurry up."

I growl at him, literally, as I walk away. He thinks just because his father is the chancellor he is going to get out of this easily and honestly, I really hope he does but it's still nerve-wracking how lightly he's taking this.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" I hear him say and I rub my fingers over my temples.

He is so stubborn, still mouthing off the campus police. I find Ken and Landon standing next to an older man with grey hair and a mustache. He's wearing a tie and black dress pants and the way he is standing gives me the feeling that he's important. When Landon notices me standing in the hall and walks over to me.

"Who's that?" I ask him quietly.

"He's the Provost."

"That's the vice-chancellor right?"

"Yeah." Landon looks worried.

"What's going on? What are they saying?" I try to hear the two men talking but I can't make out a word.

"It's.. well it's not looking good. There was a lot of damage done to lab that Zed was in, I'm talking thousands of dollars worth of damage. On top of that, Zed has a broken nose and a concussion. Someone drove him to the hospital."

My blood begins to boil. Hardin didn't just start a fight with Zed, he seriously injured him. He broke his nose!

"Also, Hardin shoved a professor to the floor. There's a girl who's in Zed's class that already wrote a statement saying Hardin came in there looking for Zed specifically. It's looking really bad right now. Ken's trying his best to keep Hardin out of jail but I don't know if that's going to happen." Landon sighs, running his fingers through his hair.

"The only thing that can keep Hardin out of jail is if Zed decides to not press charges, even then I don't know what will happen." Landon tells me.

My head is spinning.

"Expulsion." I hear the grey haired man say and Ken rubs his hand over his chin.

Expulsion? Hardin can't get expelled from school! Oh my god, this is a mess. I don't know what's worse, jail or expulsion. Personally I'd rather go to jail than get expelled but then again the idea of jail terrifies me. I wouldn't last five minutes in jail.

"He's my son." Ken defends and I try to take a sly step closer to them.

"I know but assaulting a professor and damaging school property isn't something we can cover up easily." The man says.

Hardin and his damn temper.

"This is a disaster." I tell Landon and he nods.

"It really is." He agrees.

I want to throw myself on the floor and cry or better yet, I want to stomp over to Hardin's cell and punch him in his face. Neither of those things will help.

"Maybe you should talk to Zed about pressing charges?" Landon suggests.

"Hardin will freak out if I go anywhere near him."

Not that I should even listen to him, he doesn't listen to me.

"I know but I don't know what else to suggest at this point."

"I guess you're right." I look back at Ken then down the hall where Hardin is.

Hardin is my first priority but I do feel awful for what Hardin did to Zed and I hope he's okay. Maybe if I go talk to him he will decide not to press charges which will eliminate one problem.

"Where is he? Do you know?" I ask.

"I think I overheard them say he's at Grandview."

"Okay, well I will go there first."

"Do you need a ride back to your car?"

"Shit. I didn't drive."

Landon digs his hand into his pocket and hands me his keys.

"Please drive carefully." He asks and I nod.

"Thanks." I smile at my best friend.

I have no idea what I would do without him. He's leaving soon so I guess I'll have to find out. The thought saddens me but I push it back, I can't think about that right now.

"I'll go talk to him and let him know what's going on."

"Thank you again." I wrap my arms around Landon's neck in a tight hug.

Just as I reach the door Hardin's voice booms down the hall.

"Tessa! Don't you fucking dare go find him!!" He screams.

I ignore him and open the double doors.

"I mean it Tessa!! Come back in here!"

The cold air drowns out his loud voice as I walk outside. How dare he tell me what to do like that? Who does he think he is? He's made a huge mess because he can't control his temper and jealousy, I'm trying to help clean up this mess. He's lucky I didn't slap him for breaking his promise to me. God, he's so frustrating.

When I arrive at Grandview, the woman behind the nurse's station doesn't want to give me any information on Zed. She won't confirm if he's here now or been here at all.

"He's my boyfriend and I really need to see him." I tell the young bottle blonde.

She obnoxiously pops her chewing gum and twirls a lock of her hair between her fingers.

"He's your boyfriend? The kid with all the tattoos?" She laughs, obviously not believing me.

"Yes. He is." My tone is clipped, nearly threatening and I'm surprised at how intimidating I actually sound.

"Go down the hall and make a right. First door on the left." She tells me before standing and walking away.

Well that wasn't too hard. I should be more forceful more often. I do as she told me and approach the first door on the left. It's closed so I knock lightly before entering. I hope she gave me the right room.

Zed is sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. He is shirtless, wearing only jeans and socks. His face.

"Oh my god!" I can't help but blurt out as I take in his appearance.

His nose is broken, I already knew that but it looks so bad. It's so swollen and both his eyes are black. His chest is covered in bandages, the lips inked on his chest are the only thing not covered in bandages or cuts.

"Are you okay?" I walk over to the bed.

I hope he's not angry at me for coming here, this is my fault after all.

"Not really." He says timidly.

"What are you doing here?" Rebecca's voice sounds from behind me.

She walks out of the small bathroom in the room and glares at me.

"I came to see if he's okay." I turn to her.

"You shouldn't be here! This is your fault." She snaps.

"Becca, leave her alone." Zed says through swollen and busted lips.

"No! I won't leave her alone! This is your fault because you can't keep your psychotic boyfriend away from mine!" She starts to yell at me.

I've only been in one fight and that was with Molly but if Rebecca doesn't stop yelling soon I will explode. I can feel my anger building very quickly. Today isn't the day for her to try to yell at me.

"Which one?" I say equally as harsh.

"Which what?" She is confused.

"Which boyfriend? Noah or Zed?" I ask and I catch the flicker of uncertainty behind her eyes before she recovers.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about but you need to go. Just leave Zed alone, you seem like a sweet girl but you're causing too many damn problems." She seems to have lost her anger.

"Becca, lay off of her. She can be here if she wants." Zed defends me.

"If she stays, I'm going." She challenges.

"Fine, go then." He is clearly irritated at her outburst.

She doesn't say anything, she glares at the two of us and Zed closes his eyes for a second.

"I'm not going to play your game much longer Zed." She says through her teeth before leaving the room.

Zed lets out a deep breath and ruffles his hair before opening his eyes.

"I'm sorry about her." He says.

"Don't be. Did you talk to her about cheating on you?"

"No, I've been a little busy." He tries to smile but flinches and sucks in a deep breath.

"Are you okay? It looks so painful."

"It is." He pats the bed next to him and I walk over to sit next to him.

"Will you tell me what happened?"

Zed's caramel eyes meet mine and he nods.

"I was in the lab, not the one I showed you but our plant tissue lab and he came in there and started telling me to stay away from you."

"Then what?"

"I told him he doesn't own you and he slammed my head against a metal bar." I flinch at his words, looking at his nose.

"Did you tell him you slept with me?" I ask, unsure whether I believe this or not.

"Yeah. I did, I'm really sorry for saying that but he was attacking me and I knew that was the only way to get to him. I feel like such an asshole for saying that, I'm so sorry."

"He promised me that he would stay away from you if I did too." I tell him.

"Well he broke another promise didn't he?" He points out.

I stay quiet for a minute and try to put together the fight in my head. I'm angry at Zed for saying that to Hardin but I'm glad he admitted it and apologized. I don't know which of these boys to be more angry with. It's hard to be angry at Zed as he sits here with so many injuries that I basically caused and despite all of that he's still being so kind to me.

"I'm sorry that this keeps happening because of me." I tell him.

"It's not your fault. It's mine, and his. He just views you as some sort of property and it pisses me off. You know what he said to me? He said that I should know better than to 'fuck with what is his', that's how he talks about you when you aren't around Tessa." His voice is soft and calm, totally unlike Hardin's.

"He's just territorial."

I don't like the way Hardin seems to think he owns me either but it bothers me when someone else says it. Hardin doesn't know how to handle his emotions and he's never been in a relationship before.

"You can't really be defending him right now."

"I'm not, that's not what I'm doing. I don't know what to think. He's in jail, well in a holding cell on campus and you're in the hospital. This is just too much for me. I know I shouldn't be complaining but I'm so sick of this drama all the time. Every time I feel like I can breath, something else happens. It's drowning me."

"He's drowning you." He corrects me.

It's not only Hardin that's drowning me. It's everything, it's this college, my so-called friends who betrayed me, Hardin, Landon leaving me, my mother, Zed, Rebecca and her cheating.

"I did it to myself though."

"Stop blaming yourself for his mistakes. He does this shit because he doesn't care about anyone but himself. If he cared about you he would have stayed away from me like he promised. He wouldn't have stood you up on your birthday, I could go on for ages."

"Did you text me from his phone?"

"What?" He presses his palm to the bed to shift his body closer to mine.

"Fuck." He hisses from the pain.

"Do you need something? I can call a nurse?" I offer, momentarily distracted from my question.

"No, I'm getting ready to leave here. They should be finishing up my discharge papers. Now what were you saying about me texting you?" He asks.

"Hardin seems to think you are the one who text me on his birthday pretending to be him so I thought he was coming but he didn't know he was supposed to."

"He's lying, I would never do that. Why would I?"

"I don't know, he thinks your trying to make me hate him or something." Zed's gaze is too intense, I have to look away.

"He's doing a pretty good job of that on his own, isn't he?"

"No, he's not." I defend Hardin.

No matter how angry I am with him and how confused Zed's words are making me, I won't allow Zed to talk bad about Hardin.

"He is only saying that to do what he claims I'm doing. He wants to have control over you so he wants you to think I'm some sort of villain when I'm not. I've always been there for you when he wasn't. He can't even keep a simple promise to you. He came in there and attacked me and a professor! He kept on saying he was going to kill me and I really believed him. If Professor Sutton wouldn't have came in, he would have. He already knows he can take me, he's done it multiple times." Zed shivers and stands to his feet.

He grabs his green t-shirt from the chair and lifts his arms to pull it on.

"Shit." He drops it to the floor.

I hurry to my feet to help him and grab the shirt from the ground.

"Lift as much as you can." I say and he brings his arms straight forward in front of him to aide me in dressing him.

"Thank you." He tries to smile again.

"What hurts the most?" I ask, accessing his swollen face again.

"Rejection." He timidly answers.

Ouch. I look down at my hands and begin to pick at my fingers.

"My nose, when they had to snap it back." He answers the way I intended him to the first time.

"Are you going to press charges against him?" I finally ask what I came here to ask.

"Yeah."

"Don't', please." I stare into his eyes.

"Tessa, you can't do this. It isn't fair."

"I know. I'm sorry but if you press charges he will go to jail, to real jail." The thought sends me into a panic again.

"He broke my nose and nearly killed me. I have a concussion, if he would have hit my head against that floor again it would have killed me."

"I'm not saying that's okay but I'm begging you. Please don't, he will already be getting in trouble through WSU. I know how wrong it is to ask this of you but please Zed, at least think about it."

"And what are you going to do?" He asks.

"I don't know, there is too much going on right now for me to think straight." I admit.

"Fine," he sighs, "I won't press charges against him but please promise me that you'll really think about this. All of this, think of how easier your life would be without him Tessa. He attacked me for no reason and here you are cleaning up his mess, as always." He says, clearly irritated.

I don't blame him though. I'm using the feelings he has for me against him to persuade him to not press charges against Hardin.

"I will, thank you so much." I tell him and he nods.

"I wish I would have fallen in love with someone who could love me back." He says so quietly that I barely hear him.

Love? Zed loves me? I know he has feelings for me but he loves me? This is a revelation and I'm not quite sure how to feel about it.

"What?"

"Nothing." He sighs, not wanting to repeat it but I heard every word.

"Zed Evans?" A nurse enters the room with a folder in hand.

"I better go." I say and he nods.

"Thanks for coming, please remember what I said." His eyes are pleading.

"I will." I promise and exit the room.

Hardin's POV.

"Call her damn it." I say to Landon again.

"I'm not calling her, she is the only chance you have at not going to jail and that's if the university doesn't press it's own set of charges against you." He tells me.

"And you think sending her to him is a good idea? If I wasn't handcuffed I'd punch you through these bars." I growl and he looks down the hall, unaffected by my threat.

As annoying as my step-brother is, I'm sort of glad he's here. I guess.

"He's just going to feed her more of his bullshit and mess with her head. You should have saw the way he acted all fucking innocent the moment that professor came in. He was smashing pots against my damn head then seconds later he was in tears. He's a fucking sociopath."

"Damn it!" I shout and try to shift the cuffs from my wrists for the hundredth time. I know my skin is torn from the metal cutting into my skin but I don't give a shit.

"Here comes your dad, don't be a dick." He tells me.

"Are they going to let me out now? I've been in here long enough, I've learned my lesson, blah blah now tell those pricks to let me out."

"They are going to let you out, for now. But I'm still working to make sure you don't have a court date for the damage done to the lab, that was a lot of expensive.." My father says but I interrupt.

"A court date? What the fuck dad? You're supposed to be getting me out of this? What's the point of having you here if you aren't doing shit?" I yell and he takes a step back away from the cell.

"I'm trying okay! I can't just wave my finger and make this disappear, this is a big mess son!" He starts to yell at me.

Who the fuck does he think he is?

"You don't think I know that! I'm in fucking handcuffs. This is your fault!" I yell, blaming him for something he has absolutely nothing to do with.

"It isn't my fault! I'm doing my best to keep you out of jail Hardin! This isn't the first time either!"

"I sat in that shit jail for two weeks last time before you did shit about it!" I yell back at him.

"Because I was across the world Hardin!"

"That's your fault, not mine! You're a piece of shit, you know that!" I shout at him and Landon steps forward.

"Stop talking to him that way! He's helping you when you aren't even trying to help yourself."

"This is it, this is exactly why you're most likely being expelled." My father says and walks away.

Expelled?

What the fuck. There's no way I'm being expelled... the look on Landon's face confirms it.