Hardin Leaves Washington for England

Hardin’s departure from Washington for England turns a breakup into a chosen separation: after nine days without contact from Tessa, he packs, boards a plane, and goes to his mother’s home rather than reaching out to repair the relationship. He tells himself he needs space, but makes his return conditional on Tessa calling before the flight and insists that she, not he, should take the first step. The journey therefore carries both the pain of separation and his refusal, at this point, to accept responsibility for ending it.

The Decision to Leave

Nine days have passed since Tessa left the apartment, and Hardin describes each hour without speaking to her as increasingly difficult. On the night she went, he waited for her footsteps and expected her to come back and confront him. She did not return. Her absence becomes the immediate fact around which he organizes his next decision: the following morning, still hoping she might come back, he leaves the apartment and heads for the airport.

The departure follows a night of drinking. Hardin finishes the beer in his refrigerator and smashes the evidence against the wall; when he sets out the next morning, alcohol is still on his breath and his white T-shirt is stained. He does not call his mother before going to the airport. These details make the trip less a considered reconciliation with family than an abrupt flight from the apartment and the silence inside it.

Hardin frames leaving as a way to get space, but his reasoning remains tied to Tessa’s possible response. He keeps thinking that if she calls before he boards, he will turn around. If she does not, he tells himself, she has had her chance. The condition gives her a narrow window to reverse his departure while allowing him to treat the decision as hers to influence rather than his to reconsider. In his account, the journey is at once an escape from waiting and another form of waiting.

A Breakup Recast as Blame

Hardin does not initially regard the separation as a consequence of his own conduct. He acknowledges that he lied to Tessa, but minimizes the lie and views her response as an overreaction. He also resents that she brought Zed to his home and that Landon intervened physically by slamming him into a wall. Those grievances compete with his admission that the situation may be his fault; he recognizes that possibility, then retreats to the conclusion that Tessa should come back to him.

His insistence that he will not make the first move reveals the contradiction at the heart of the departure. He says he loves Tessa and cannot bear the days apart, yet treats contact as a test she must pass. He expects her to return because, in his experience, she has done so before, and struggles to understand why this time might be different. The plane is thus not simply a means of putting distance between them. It gives physical form to his withdrawal while his attention remains fixed on whether she will call.

Arrival at His Mother’s Home

Hardin spends the first day of the journey sleeping off his hangover on the plane. After landing, he takes a cab to his mother’s home and complains about the fare for the ten-mile ride. His mother is shocked and happy to see him, and cries briefly before Mike appears. Her emotional welcome is a contrast to Hardin’s own guardedness: he has arrived without warning, but has not come prepared to discuss the separation or ask for help.

He learns that his mother and Mike have begun moving her belongings into Mike’s house and that she plans to sell her own. Hardin says he is indifferent to the sale. The old house, he reflects, is full of painful memories of his father’s drinking. His arrival therefore places him amid a change in his mother’s life while also returning him to a family past he associates with distress.

Significance of the Departure

At his mother’s home, Hardin values the ability to think without Tessa’s influence. He recognizes that, if she were present, he would feel guilty about being rude to his mother and her boyfriend; her absence seems to free him from that restraint. The observation shows how closely he connects Tessa with accountability, even as he interprets her absence as a relief. It also complicates any reading of the trip as a straightforward attempt to reconnect with family: he is glad to see his mother, but the immediate appeal is distance from the person whose judgment might challenge him.

The departure does not resolve the breakup. Hardin leaves Washington with no evidence that Tessa has agreed to follow, and his private rule about turning around depends on a call that has not come. His physical movement toward England contrasts with his emotional fixation on the apartment and the possibility of her return. In that tension, the journey marks a rupture without yet establishing acceptance: he has left, but still expects Tessa to undo the separation for him.