by Komal Kant
“Hey.” She actually gave me a wave and a smile as I approached her.
“Hey, Hades,” I said, returning the smile.
Hadie bit her bottom lip but didn’t say anything at the mention of the nickname I’d given her. I guess she was used to it now or she never really minded that much to start with.
As we got into her car, I gave her a quick look. “So, where are you going to take me today, buddy?”
A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips as she started up the car. “You said your dad was born in Verdana, right?”
I nodded.
“Well, there’s a great diner there, so I hope you’re hungry.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, even though I wasn’t hungry at all.
Instead, there was this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that was unsettling me. I wasn’t sure if it was nerves or something else, but I tried to ignore it as Hadie began to drive down streets that were starting to become familiar now.
As usual, we didn’t say much to each other. Hadie pointed out various landmarks which I acknowledged with a nod. I think she was starting to get over how quiet I was so she eventually stopped acting like a tour guide and just focused on driving in the silence.
Initially, I’d been in a good mood but now my mood was souring. I hated it when I slipped into these dark mental states; it took me a lot to break out of them, but I was not going to ruin today. I was going to snap out of it.
As I stared out the window, I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. I concentrated on the trees, the fields, and the dark clouds that were gathering across the sky. I was concentrating so hard that eventually everything became a swirl of green and brown and grey.
“Lincoln.”
“Huh?” I snapped out of my deep thoughts and glanced around to find Hadie studying me in concern.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Uh…yeah,” I lied. “I just got lost in my thoughts.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, a small frown lingering on her features. “We’re here.”
I’d been so distracted that I hadn’t even noticed that the car had stopped. I sincerely hoped she wasn’t weirded out by me. Sometimes I wasn’t the greatest company.
Bringing a smile onto my face was hard, but I did it anyway. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go inside.”
We got out of the car and I saw that we’d stopped in the parking lot of a large diner called Halley’s Diner. There were a few cars parked outside, but the place didn’t seem to be too busy.
As we entered the diner, I could tell from the bright green and pink color scheme that the place had been recently painted. There was some old 1970’s music playing through the speakers that I couldn’t quite name, but sounded familiar. Booths lined the walls, and Hadie immediately led us to one in a corner. I slid in opposite her, as the waitress approached us and handed us a menu each.
Hadie’s hand rested on the table top as she studied her menu, and I resisted the urge to reach across the table and take her hand. That would be really inappropriate. Besides, this wasn’t a date. I wasn’t too sure what it was, but it definitely wasn’t a date.
Hadie glanced up, and when she found my eyes on her, she turned a light shade of pink. “So…um…see anything you like?”
“I see a lot of things I like.” My eyes were still trained on her, and she turned an even darker shade of pink.
Crap. Damn. I shouldn’t have said that, but the words had slipped past me before I could stop myself. I was acting like such a loser right now.
“Uh…” I cleared my throat. “Is there anything you recommend?”
“Umm…” Hadie glanced down at the menu again, appearing grateful at having something to do. “Pork schnitzel? It’s a specialty.”
“What are you getting?”
“I usually just get a burger and fries.”
“You always get a burger and fries?”
Hadie seemed surprised by my question and nodded. “Well, yeah. I mean, I like a burger and fries, so it makes sense to get the same thing.” Then she laughed, shaking her head. “Okay, I realize how boring I just sounded, but that’s just who I am. Boring Hadie Swinton.”
I leaned across the table, propping my elbows up on the table top. “You’re not boring. You just play it safe, which is fine. That’s what everyone does, but sometimes it’s fun to take a risk, try something new.”
“I guess.” There was still uncertainty in her eyes. She wasn’t convinced.
I pointed at her sweater. “You wear a lot of sweaters.”
She pursed her lips. “It’s fall. Of course I wear a lot of sweaters.”
I looked right into her eyes and was glad to see that she was matching the look I was giving her. “No, you wear sweaters because they make you feel safe. You wear them because you’re trying to hide yourself. Stop hiding; don’t be afraid of change, of trying something different.”
Her mouth parted as if my words had hit home, and I swear I had never wanted to kiss a girl as much as I wanted to kiss Hadie right now. The sweet, innocent look on her face was enough to make me check myself and fall back into my seat.
Thankfully, the waitress approached us just then and saved me from saying or doing anything that I was going to regret.
“You ready to order?” she asked, pulling out a notebook.
I stood up and whispered the order into the waitress’s ear. When I pulled away, she gave me a weird look, but wrote down the order anyway before walking off.
“What was that about?” Hadie asked as I sat back down. “She didn’t even take my order.”
“I ordered for you.”
Hadie titled her head to the side, studying me curiously. “How do you know what I want?”
I rested my elbows on the table again. “How do you know what you want?”
Hadie laughed uncomfortably and pressed her back against the plush seat of the booth, her body tense. “You make no sense.”
I cocked a brow. “Are you sure about that?”
She fell silent and bit her lip before turning to stare out the window. “It’s starting to rain.”
She was right. The dark clouds that had been gathering overhead on our drive over here had finally given way, and now the rain was starting to fall heavily, dampening the ground within seconds.
There was clunk as the waitress put a plate down on the table and left. Hadie glanced at what was on the plate and raised her brows, looking skeptical. “You ordered a salad? Is that a nice way of telling me that I need to lose weight?”
I gave her a mysterious smile as the waitress returned and put down a plate with four slices of bread on it and another plate with fries. She left again to bring back a large tray which had pickles, onion, ham, pepperoni, cheese, ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard on it.
“What the heck?” Hadie asked, her eyes widening as the waitress walked away. “Are we making our own sandwich?”
“Sort of,” I said, reaching for the bun. “I’m making you a sandwich.”
Her mouth formed an ‘O’ as she watched me spread a slice of bread with mayonnaise before layering it with pepperoni, ham, cheese, pickles, onions and fries. Then I drizzled mustard and ketchup over the whole thing, and put another slice of bread on top.
Hadie’s eyes sprung wider as I pushed the plate across the table towards her. “You seriously want me to eat that?”
“Yep.”
“And what about you?”
I reached over and pulled the salad towards me. “This is for me.”
She stared at me in disbelief as I took a bite out of a cherry tomato and chewed it slowly. “You’re making me eat this…this…I don’t even know what it is, while you eat a salad?”
“I’m not making you. I’m advising you.” I bit into another forkful of salad. “You have a choice. You can stick to what you’re used to or you can try something new and different. You don’t have to love it, but change is inevitable no matter how hard you try to resist it.”
Hadie til
ted her head to the side as she studied me curiously. “Are we still talking about the sandwich?”
I shot her a teasing smile. “Just eat the damn thing, Hades.”
We stared each other down, neither of us looking away. Finally, with a defeated sigh, Hadie reached for the sandwich and sniffed at it before taking a big bite out of it.
She made a face like she was about to gag. “I’m going to get you back for this.”
I smirked back at her. “Empty threats, baby, empty threats.”
Chapter Thirteen
Hadie
After I’d washed down the weirdly gross taste of the sandwich out of my mouth with soda, I gave Lincoln my best withering look.
“That was the worst idea ever,” I declared, placing the glass down on the table and wishing the gross taste would leave my mouth. Forever.
Lincoln was laughing as he studied me with those azure eyes of his that were the exact color of the sky just before it went dark.
“Hey, I said you had a choice.”
The smile playing around his mouth was making my heart flutter at an odd rate. I was trying to calm myself, but it just wasn’t happening. Not when Lincoln was sitting across from me looking at me like I was the most fascinating person in the world.
And I couldn’t stop looking at him either. It was super embarrassing how obvious I was being.
“But you said change was good.”
“I did,” he agreed with a nod, “but you could’ve ordered a salad instead.”
His smile broadened as I reached out to slap him. “You’re an ass!”
Lincoln burst out laughing at my pathetic attempt to slap him, and his laugher was so infectious that I was joining in seconds later. The deep tone of that laughter did funny things to me. Just being here with him today and spending time with him had changed me. Something warm, thrilling, and anxious all rolled into one was budding in the pit of my stomach. A part of me knew what it meant but I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself.
As our laughter faded, my ears perked up at the sound of a familiar voice entering the diner. The warm feeling in my stomach quickly dissolved and was replaced a feeling so cold, like I’d swallowed a bucket of ice.
It was Bennett, but he wasn’t alone. The “hoe bag” from Penthill High was hanging off his arm as they chatted away. She was even more gorgeous in the daylight than she had been at night. Her hair was as long and golden as her legs, and she had a pretty, heart-shaped face. There was nothing to criticize about her at all. I could see why Bennett was into her. She was the kind of girl every guy would want to be seen with, not a Fanny Price like me.
Bennett seemed at ease, but I knew him well enough to know that something was bugging him. His posture was stiff and he wasn’t saying much as his eyes darted around the diner, like he was searching for something.
It took me a few seconds to realize that he was looking for me. He knew I was here because he’d probably noticed my car parked outside.
Darn it!
I was just about to slink down in my seat when Bennett’s eyes landed on me. Then his face transformed into a look that I’d never seen before. His eyes narrowed, he stopped walking, and instead of glaring at me, he was glaring at Lincoln instead.
What on earth?
Lincoln hadn’t noticed Bennett’s entrance at all. He was still smiling at me and studying me in a way that made my face flush. And then it all started to make sense.
That look on Bennett’s face was jealousy, plain and simple. He was jealous that I was here with a guy like Lincoln. Bennett was threatened and jealous because I had seemingly moved on.
“What’s the matter?” Lincoln asked suddenly.
“Oh, um.” I checked to see if Bennett was still standing there, but he and the hoe bag had taken their seats. “I should be getting home now.”
Lincoln nodded and stood up. “Let me go pay and then we’ll go.”
I was too distracted to argue with him about paying for the food. I just wanted to get the heck out of here and far away from Bennett. Besides, considering how well this “non-date” had gone, I was pretty sure I’d have plenty of chances to pay in the future.
The more time I spent with Lincoln, the more I forgot about the douchebag who’d broken my heart.
***
Lincoln
The next morning I sought out Hadie in the halls before first period.
I had to see her, had to see that smile that warmed every part of me. She was something special. There was something about her that made my head swim. After the amazing afternoon we’d spent together yesterday, I had to be close to her again. She had this way of affecting every part of me, like she understood me without having to explain a thing.
I caught sight of her at her locker and hurried down the corridor towards her. She was staring at something inside her locker with great concentration, so my arrival went unnoticed.
Sneaking up behind her, I poked Hadie in the side and she jumped sideways. Her face turned ashen when she saw me—she didn’t laugh or even look annoyed. Instead, her bottom lip trembled and she looked like she was going to cry. Had I poked her that hard?
“Hadie, what’s wrong?” I asked, starting to worry.
She shook her head and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Nothing…I was just zoned out. You scared me, that’s all.”
I didn’t believe her. Not for a second. She was acting completely different to the girl who had opened herself up to over the last few days. This was not the same girl. Something was very wrong.
“I scared you enough to make you want to cry?”
“Really, I’m fine,” she tried to reassure me, but I knew she was deflecting. I knew because it was what I did all the time.
Glancing around, I saw that most of the people in the corridor were staring at us. Some of them were even laughing. What the heck…?
My eyes fell on Hadie’s locker and what was inside them. My jaw dropped open.
Condoms.
Around twenty of them sat in her locker, and now that I looked down, I could see that some littered the floor at her feet. On instinct, I shut the door to her locker and my mouth fell open at what was written on it.
With compliments, SLUT.
I took a step back and stared at Hadie in disbelief. Her face was a sickly white color and she looked visibly ill.
What the hell was going on here? Was Hadie some sort of sexual deviant and I just didn’t know about it? Becky and that Ciara girl had said something about Hadie being easy, but I hadn’t believed it at the time.
As I stared at the distraught girl in front of me, I knew without a doubt in my mind that Hadie was none of those things. No, she wasn’t like that. I didn’t need to know every little detail about her life to know that she was a good, kind person and that she was not a slut.
“Hadie, who did this?” I asked in a controlled voice.
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Tears were spilling out of her eyes, and her body was shaking as though she was wrapped up in a chill. I had this sudden urge to protect her. I wanted to make that sadness go away.
I leaned over and grasped her by her small shoulders, forcing her to look me in the eye. “Hadie,” I said in a gentler tone, “please tell me who’s doing this to you.”
Hadie swallowed and lowered her gaze. “I…I don’t know who’s doing it.”
Her voice sounded sincere and I knew she wasn’t deflecting this time. She really had no idea who was calling her a slut, but she had to at least know why they were doing it. Hadie wasn’t low enough on the social scale to be picked on by default. She must’ve done something to make herself a target.
My voice was even as I spoke. “What’s the deal with these condoms and why would someone write “slut” on your locker? What happened?”
Hadie took a sharp intake of breath and let it out before looking up at me again. “I was dating a jock, Bennett Anderson. We used to be friends when we were younger. For some reason he asked me out, even though we
haven’t been close in years. Things were going well until I found out he was cheating on me, so I confronted him about it at a party nearly two weeks ago.”
“Wait a second,” I said, the pieces clicking together in my brain. “He’s the guy you pointed out on my first day. The guy you said was your boyfriend. So he cheated on you, but they’re calling you names?”
“I guess he and his friends didn’t like the fact that I humiliated him in public. Since then they’ve been writing…writing…” Hadie’s voice broke and she buried her face in her hands, unable to continue.
This time I couldn’t keep my anger in check; it was bubbling up within me, burning and searing my insides.
I slammed my fist hard into Hadie’s locker with a loud bang, leaving a dent imprinted on the door. The sound drew the attention of the students standing nearby, and a hush fell over the previously noisy corridor.
Everyone was staring at us like we were some kind of spectacle, something to be gawked at. It didn’t matter who was writing the horrible stuff on Hadie’s locker; the bystanders who stood by and did nothing to help were just as bad.
“If I ever see another bad word written on Hadie’s locker,” I began, my voice rising until I was sure everyone in the corridor could hear me, “I will find out who is doing it and I will KILL YOU. You will never be able to write a bad thing about her again because you will have no fingers to write with, that’s how bad I’m going to beat your ass.”
The students scattered at my words, ducking their heads to avoid making eye contact with me. It was like they thought I would snap and beat them up just for looking at me. Well, I wasn’t like that. Not anymore. Not since my world had been torn apart.
I’d been a jerk to a lot of people in the past. I used to be the guy who wrote the horrible crap on people’s lockers and then laughed about it. But I wasn’t that guy anymore. I would never be that person again. Not for as long as I lived.
I guess standing up for Hadie was my way of making it up for the all the terrible things I’d done to other people. I would’ve stood up for the victim regardless of who it was, but because it had happened to Hadie it only made me angrier. Hadie was amazing in a way I couldn’t describe. She was kind without even trying. She was caring because it came naturally to her.
