by Komal Kant
Lincoln ignored me and bent down on one knee so he was at eye-level with Halo. Halo began sniffing his shoes cautiously. I was kind of hoping he’d take a bite out of Lincoln’s face, but instead he began licking Lincoln’s outstretched hand.
My dog was a complete traitor.
“Hey buddy,” Lincoln was saying in a voice you would normally use to address an infant under the age of five. “What’s your name?”
“Halo,” I spat out.
Lincoln stood up and smirked. “I don’t believe it. Hades has a dog named Halo. What are the odds?”
“You are seriously messed up, you know that? My name is Hadie, not Hades, so stop calling me that.” I gave him my best glare.
“Why are you so uppity?” Lincoln asked, drawing closer to me.
His proximity to me made me uneasy, and I inhaled sharply and took a step back. “I am not uppity. I just don’t like arrogant jerks.”
Lincoln raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m an arrogant jerk?”
“I don’t think you’re an arrogant jerk; I know it.”
“Oh, yeah? How do you know that?”
I tapped a finger against my chin as if contemplating his question, even though I already knew the answer. He watched me in amusement, and for some reason it bothered me the way he was studying me.
“Hmm…it couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you told me you’re used to girls throwing themselves at you, and then you implied that I was one of those girls. I get that you’re hot and everything but…”
I stopped mid-sentence as a broad grin spread across Lincoln’s face.
“What?” I demanded.
“You think I’m hot?” he asked, leaning in so close that I forgot to breathe.
The way he was looking at me made my stomach flip backwards. For a moment, we just looked at each other, our breaths entangling in the cold air—neither of us said a word. Something unspoken was passing between us, making my heart thrum and my hands shake.
Coming to my senses, I placed a hand on the center of his firm chest and pushed him back. When Lincoln was that close it made it hard to think.
“That’s not the point,” I argued. “The point is that I know your type and I don’t like your type, so stay away from me.”
Lincoln’s smile faded and he actually looked hurt for a moment. He turned to the side, lost in thought. For a second, I couldn’t help but admire his profile—the strong jaw, the straight and narrow nose and the thick, dark lashes that stood out against his face.
When he turned back to me, those azure eyes were on fire. The look in them was so scorching, so intense, that my knees went weak. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. No one had ever looked at me like that before.
“It’s going to be hard to stay away from you, Hadie.”
My breath caught in my throat, and I swallowed. “W-why?”
Lincoln tilted his head to the side. “Because you’re…” He trailed off, the words hanging in the air.
“I’m what?” I squeaked.
It was amazing the affect Lincoln was having on me. I’d been adamant that I would stay away from him, that I wouldn’t get close to him, but he was making that increasingly difficult for me. The boy was definitely attractive and now I knew how Mariah had felt earlier on.
A smile lurked around his mouth. “Because you’re my buddy for the week.”
The spell between us broke instantly, and I took another step back and glared at him. “I’d rather stab myself in the eye repeatedly with a hot poker.”
Lincoln laughed, raising his hands in front of him. “Whoa, settle down there, Hades. No need to get your panties in a bunch.”
My mouth fell open and I pushed him back with a hand. I couldn’t believe the audacity of this guy. “You are so gauche!”
Lincoln raised an eyebrow. “I’m a what now?”
“Look it up in the dictionary!” I snapped and stormed back the way I’d come. I wanted to get as far away from Lincoln Bracks as humanly possible. The boy grated on my nerves. All he was was a pretty face. There was no substance or depth there at all. Just good looks and a body that filled out his clothes well.
Okay, that last part wasn’t necessary. I didn’t care how well his body filled out clothes. I didn’t care about him at all.
“Nice to see you too, Hades!” Lincoln’s voice followed me around the corner, and I gritted my teeth, refusing to turn around.
Chapter Six
Lincoln
Hadie Swinton’s angry brown eyes haunted me all the way back home.
I couldn’t figure out why she hated me so much. What had I done to her that was so bad? What could possibly make her act that way towards me?
When I’d watched her with her friends today, she’d seemed happy enough, albeit a little quiet. There was this sadness about her along with a lot of anger too. Even though she seemed to hate me, I’d seen sincerity in her eyes. And I liked that.
As I hurried back home, I took in the surrounding houses that were almost identical. Statlen was so different to New York City. For starters, the buildings there towered over you, and New York was noisy. There was noise from traffic and from the millions of people who lived there, always in a hurry, on their way to work or home or some super important business. Everyone seemed to be going somewhere.
Statlen couldn’t be more different from my old home. The people here didn’t seem to be in a hurry at all. They took their time, they helped their neighbors take the groceries inside, and the air was clean and peaceful. If I closed my eyes and stood in the middle of the street, it was so quiet that it felt like I was alone in the world.
The funny thing was that even though New York was a concrete jungle—vast, expansive, like a labyrinth—I’d never once gotten lost there, but in Statlen the streets were so unfamiliar that I’d gotten lost twice already. It was bizarre walking the streets and not really knowing where I was going or where anything was.
Statlen seemed to be made up of a large network of houses and then basically forests and large, empty fields for miles. It was beautiful and frightening at the same time to be in such isolation.
I finally found my way back to my own street, which was actually only two blocks away from where I’d run into Hadie. Our house was the largest one on the entire street and I think Mom was somewhat proud of that fact.
She had what I liked to call “Big City Syndrome” where she thought that she was better than people from small towns, which was weird because Dad had been born in Verdana, which was the town next to Statlen. His family had moved to New York when he’d been quite young, so he was right at home here and was already mingling with the neighbors and reconnecting with old friends.
Mom had been a nurse back home, but here in Statlen she preferred to stay at home and spy on the neighbors when she thought they weren’t looking. She acted like she was too good to speak to them, but kept complaining that they weren’t speaking to her. Hypocrite much?
As for Becky, well, she thought that being one minute older than me gave her the right to act like she could boss me around in big sister fashion. She absolutely hated the fact that we’d chosen Statlen of all places to move to. And she blamed me for it. Sure, the reason we’d moved here was because of me, but I couldn’t believe that she couldn’t understand why this was so important to me.
“Lincoln, is that you?” Mom’s voice carried from our new kitchen.
“Yeah, Mom, it’s me,” I said, as I walked into the kitchen and found her putting some frozen fish fingers and chicken nuggets on a baking tray.
Mom didn’t do home-cooked meals. Back in New York she’d had crazy night shifts at the hospital, which had left little time for home-making skills. Becky and I’d grown up on frozen dinners so it wasn’t anything new. Recently, Mom had been attempting to cook but I guess today was one of those days where she’d given up.
Speaking of Becky, she was sitting at the kitchen table and gave me one of her overly cheerful looking smiles that didn’t
quite reach her eyes.
That’s another thing Mom and Becky had in common: their fake smiles. To the unsuspecting eye the smile seemed genuine enough, but I knew them well enough to know that that wasn’t the case. See, Mom and Becky liked to talk about other people like it was no one’s business, especially after flashing them one of those smiles. Seriously, I would never understand females.
Mom put the tray in the oven and straightened up, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. “You’re back early. I thought it might be your father home from work.”
Dad had been an accountant in New York, but accountants weren’t really in high demand in Statlen, so he’d settled for a boring desk job at the bank.
I shook my head. “No, it’s just plain, old me.”
“You haven’t told me about your first day of school yet,” Mom said, brushing her stringy brown hair out of her eyes as she sat down at the table, looking at me expectantly.
Man, I hated this question. What was I supposed to say? That I’d had the bestest day ever trying to navigate my way through a small, close-knit school where all the students stared at me like I was dressed in drag?
I leaned against the wall and shrugged. “There’s nothing really to tell. The kids ignored me for the most part. And there’s this girl who’s really unfriendly…”
“Mom,” Becky began in a whiny tone better suited to a five-year-old, or a boiling kettle, “What am I going to do in this redneck, hillbilly town? Today was, like, the most boring day of my life.”
If the attention wasn’t on Becky for more than a minute, she would make it all about her. That’s just the self-centered person Mom’s pandering had turned her into. As kids, Becky had always been the perfect child who could do no wrong, while I’d been the one who would get into trouble over the tiniest things.
If Becky achieved something, it would be a huge deal and Mom would brag about it to anyone who’d listen. When it came to me, Mom never showed the same enthusiasm. Now that I was teenager, Mom found even more to blame me for. Story of my life.
Naturally, Mom ignored me and gave attention to her favorite child. “But you said you had such a great day, and you made friends with the most popular girl in school. I’m sure you’ll get invited to lots of fun social events.”
My mom always complained that I didn’t tell her anything but in all honesty, she just didn’t care enough to listen. Which was cool. I was used to it by now.
“I know, Mom.” Becky flipped her hair over her shoulder. “But it’s so hard, you know? Therese Skyped me this afternoon and told me about this cool party they went to over the weekend. It’s such a bummer that I had to miss it because of the move.” She shot me a pointed look like it was all my fault that she’d missed some stupid party that’d probably gotten busted by the cops long before midnight.
“Who asked you to come with us?” My tone came out a lot harsher than I’d intended, and Becky’s eyes widened.
“Lincoln, apologize to your sister right now!” Mom snapped.
Once again, everything was my fault. Seriously, I never caught a break.
“Sorry,” I muttered and jammed my hands into the pockets of my shorts. “Well, this has been fun, but I gotta go do some homework. See ya.”
As I left the kitchen, I heard Mom say to Becky in a low tone. “It’s not surprising he hasn’t made any friends yet…”
Before I could hear the rest of their conversation, I slammed the door to my room shut. Even though my new room was still foreign to me, it was the only place where I had refuge from my family.
I’d tried to add my personal touch to my new room—posters of my favorite bands hung from the walls, my clothes and shoes were strewn across the floor—but it was going to take some time to warm up to it.
But a strange room was the least of my worries. At this very second, the thing that was most prominent in my mind was my family.
No matter what I did, it was never going to be good enough for them. It was like I was always letting my mom down, and Becky always had to be her mouthpiece. She took everything out on me like she was my second Mom or something. I didn’t need a second Mom. I just needed my sister, but she just didn’t get it. She didn’t get me.
Sometimes I just wanted to run away, but I had nowhere to go. I’d run all the way to Statlen, but my problems hadn’t escaped me. They’d come all the way to Statlen with me. There was no escape from this. Not ever.
***
In similar fashion, my first week at Statlen High pretty much sucked ass.
After quickly discovering that sitting in the cafeteria drew me too much attention—and allowed way too many girls to approach me and attempt to flirt—I ended up wandering outside to the field and sitting by myself there.
The only problem with that was that Hadie Swinton and her friends were in my direct line of sight and I had to spend the rest of the week at lunch looking anywhere but at her.
It was a lot harder than it sounded. For some reason, my eyes kept finding my way back to her. My mind was trying to be rational, but my damn eyes couldn’t get enough of her.
What truly sucked was that no matter how much you tried to lie to yourself about something, your feelings always spoke the truth in volumes. See, I was trying to stay away from Hadie, and I was doing a pretty good job at it, but I didn’t want to stay away from her. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t intrigued by her, but my smart ass feelings were telling me something else.
I was completely screwed up.
Still, I’d managed to avoid her for the whole week and she’d cleverly stayed away from me despite being my assigned buddy for the week. It was obvious that this bothered her for whatever reason. Maybe she couldn’t handle my rejection of her or maybe she actually cared that I chose to sit alone when it was obvious that I should be in the “popular” group.
Hadie Swinton couldn’t figure me out. Just like I couldn’t figure her out.
And man was I trying to figure her out.
I’d finally come to the conclusion that everyone wasn’t staring at her friends; they were staring at her. Why? That part was still a mystery to me.
For all the time I’d spent at lunch pretending not to watch her, I’d noticed that she seemed, well, pretty normal. She wasn’t wild or outgoing or crazy, so I couldn’t figure out everyone’s fascination with her.
“Hey, loser.”
The grating voice snapped me out of my thoughts and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
“What?” I asked, my tone dry as my sister came to a standstill in front of me.
There was a girl with her dressed in a cheerleading uniform. She had long, brown hair in two pigtails, and was looking at me like she’d never seen a male before. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her too.
The girl elbowed Becky not-so-subtly, and Becky actually did roll her eyes.
“Link, this is Ciara. She’s one of my new friends. Ciara, this is my brother.”
The Ciara girl fluttered her fake lashes at me and giggled. “Hi, Link, it’s so nice to meet you! Why are you sitting here all by yourself? Come and sit with us in the courtyard.”
I didn’t want to come across as rude but I didn’t get why this girl, who I didn’t even know, was asking me to sit with her.
“Um, no, I’m fine here. By myself.” I put extra emphasis on the last part so she would get that I wanted to be left alone.
“Oh.” Ciara’s face fell at my response. Obviously, she’d been hoping that her charms would work on me.
“I told you my brother is boring,” Becky said derisively, glancing around the field. Suddenly, her entire demeanor changed. “Link, isn’t that your buddy? That Haley girl?”
“Hadie,” I said through clenched teeth, not liking her tone of voice.
“Whatever,” Becky said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Isn’t she supposed to be showing you around?”
I shrugged. “I told her not to bother.”
Becky and Ciara gave each other a meaningful look. Then
Ciara spoke, fluttering those ridiculously fake lashes at me again. “You have such good judge of character, Link.”
The way she said my name made me want to hurl, but I was interested enough to contain myself.
“Why’s that?” I asked, trying not to seem too eager to know about Hadie.
Becky leaned in and spoke in a loud whisper as though she knew some top secret information. “You don’t wanna know.” I could tell she was bursting to tell me. “Let’s just say that considering her reputation, you don’t wanna be seen with her.”
I blinked several times, trying to clear my head. What the hell did she mean by that? Hadie had a reputation? What kind of a reputation?
“Yeah,” Ciara said, lowering her voice as well, “let’s just say that she’s easy.”
It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice into my stomach. I sat there, motionless, waiting for the icy cold feeling to leave me.
Becky and Ciara must’ve taken my silence as something else, because neither of them seemed to notice that I was even more closed off than I’d been moments earlier.
“Anyway, we’d better go,” Becky said, straightening up. “Kance is probably waiting for us.”
“Yeah, we’d better.” Ciara shot me a disappointed look.
“Laters, loser.” Becky waved at me before walking off towards the C building with Ciara, who shot me a final look of longing over her shoulder.
Gross.
It didn’t take my eyes very long to find their way back to Hadie again. I was surprised to find that she was staring at me hard, like she was trying to figure out a complicated puzzle.
When she caught me looking at her, she glanced away quickly.
Obviously, her eyes had issues just like mine did.
Chapter Seven
Hadie
“Did you hear that Bennett’s still going out with that hoe bag from Penthill High?”
Mariah’s question was enough to force myself to drag my eyes away from Lincoln Bracks and onto my best friend.
