by Komal Kant
Instead of being upset, I actually let out a dry laugh. “You’re joking, right? You’re grounding me? For how long? A week? A month? A year? Is that even possible?”
“Don’t try and guilt me out of this.” Mom’s nostrils flared and her mouth formed a tight line. “You know what the rules are, yet you went ahead and broke them anyway.”
“Because they’re stupid!” I yelled. “Because you can’t control me for the rest of your life. One day I’m going to leave you guys and then you’ll be sorry!”
Becky gasped and jumped up from the kitchen table. She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me down the hall outside my bedroom door. When she turned on me, her face was a mask of anger and disgust. She looked like she wanted to slap me at the very least.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded. “Don’t you know what Mom has done to accommodate you, yet you treat her like absolute shit. She is going through so much right now, having to deal with so many things, and then you say that to her! Are you out of your damn mind?”
I couldn’t believe how naïve Becky was. Didn’t she get how stifled I felt? Didn’t she realize how stupid the rules were? The rules weren’t put in place to protect me; they were put in place to stop me from living.
“You don’t get it,” I said, feeling frustrated. “You don’t know what it’s like. You’ll never know.”
“Mom’s done a lot for you, for all of us. She’s the one holding this family together. She isn’t your enemy, Link. She’s your mother and you need to acknowledge her feelings.”
My mouth fell open. “Acknowledge her feelings? What about my feelings?”
Becky sighed and pushed her hair out of her face. When she spoke next, her tone was gentler. She hadn’t spoken to me like that in a long time.
“Look, I understand that all of this is hard for you, but spare a thought for Mom. She is hurting so much. She worries about you constantly. She feels like you’ve changed and that she’s losing you. And then she has to hear about some girl you went to see last night. Can you, even for a second, imagine how that makes her feel?”
Dropping my head, I let my sister’s words sink in. No matter how many times I tried to tell them that I did care about them, they never seemed to get it. They didn’t get that I needed space and I needed time to find myself. I wasn’t doing any of this to hurt them. I was doing what I felt was right even though I would probably end up regretting it soon enough.
“I can’t explain to you what Hadie means to me. She was in serious trouble last night and I had to go to her. Okay, I shouldn’t have taken the car, but I couldn’t see another way around it. Hadie is important to me.”
Becky’s tone turned snarky. “She’s that important to you? Are you going to marry this girl one day? Have kids with her? Or is this just about having sex?”
“Hey, that’s not fair.” It hurt me that my own sister could be so nasty about something that was so important to me. “I would never base a relationship solely on sex.”
“You have in the past.”
“I was a different person back then. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve changed since then. I guess that’s the part that’s hardest for you guys to accept. The fact that people can change.”
Becky leaned against the wall and folded her arms across her chest in a defensive pose. “You can’t blame us for thinking like that, Link. You may have changed but when you do stupid, reckless things like take the car out, it makes Mom think of the old you. Sometimes you have to prove yourself more than once.”
“And sometimes you have to give people the benefit of the doubt,” I countered.
“Okay, whatever you say,” she said, straightening up and looking down at her nails. “I think you just snuck out to take your girlfriend to the field party last night.”
I didn’t bother correcting her about Hadie being my girlfriend. She wouldn’t believe me anyway. With that, Becky returned to the kitchen, no doubt about to repeat our entire conversation to Mom.
A few seconds later I walked into my room and collapsed onto the bed, feeling completely exhausted.
My family absolutely exhausted me. I wasn’t saying I was right—I definitely wasn’t right all the time—but sometimes I just wished they would really listen to what I was saying or to what I wanted.
How could I feel connected to a bunch of people when they didn’t even acknowledge me? Sometimes they felt like strangers, not like my family.
I must have fallen asleep at some point because I jerked awake at the sound of my phone ringing. Groaning, I rolled over to grab it off my bedside table and noticed that it was 12:11 in the afternoon. Crap, I’d slept for most of the morning.
Glancing at my phone, the caller I.D. informed me that Hadie was the one calling. Without hesitating, I answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
There was a pause. “Um…hey, Lincoln. It’s me.”
“Hey, Hadie. How are you feeling?”
“My head kinda hurts, but I’m mostly alright,” she said, sounding embarrassed. “Um, listen, I’m not doing anything today so I was wondering if you wanted to hang out? Maybe go to the lake? I could come by your house and pick you up.”
Oh, shit! Of all the days to be grounded, it just had to be today when Hadie was practically asking me out. Well, I didn’t care. I was going to see her anyway even though the logical part of me was telling me that it was a bad idea to spend time alone with Hadie, especially after she’d confessed her feelings for me last night.
“Are you alright to drive?” I asked, and then realized that the alcohol had probably left her system by now. It had been well over fourteen hours since her last drink.
“Yeah, I don’t feel tipsy or anything and my mom made me drink lots of water. I basically spent the entire morning throwing everything up. So, should I come get you now?”
Panicking, I sat up dead straight and ran a hand over my hair. “Uh, no, I’ll walk over to your house and we can go from there.”
Aside from the fact that I was grounded and couldn’t go out, I was pretty sure my mom would have a major freak out if Hadie turned up on our doorstep unannounced.
If Hadie thought my request was weird, she didn’t mention it. “Okay, sure, I’ll see you soon.”
“See you soon,” I echoed, hanging up the phone.
Since I was still dressed in my boxers from the night before, I quickly changed into some clean clothes and then opened my bedroom door a fraction. The TV was on in the living room and I could vaguely hear the voices of my family mixed in with the sounds coming from the TV.
Shutting the door again, I walked over to the window and slid it open. Placing my leg over the ledge, I jumped out and landed on my feet. Thank God I lived on the first floor.
Looking over my shoulder and finding the coast clear, I headed to Hadie’s house.
***
Hadie and I sat by the lake, eating out of the picnic basket that she’d packed for us.
I was kind of grateful that she’d thought ahead because I was actually pretty hungry. She’d used the leftover meatballs from her Mom’s Bolognese sauce last night and had made them into sandwiches.
The weather was pretty sucky today—dark clouds were rolling overhead, threatening us with the possibility of rain—but at least the food was good.
“Your…mom…is the…best…cook…ever,” I declared in between huge bites.
Hadie smiled as she watched me, her eyes bright. “She really is. I wish I was half as good as she is. What about your mom? She must be a great cook too.”
I shook my head as Hadie handed me a napkin to wipe my mouth with. “Not really. Actually, she kinda sucks. She doesn’t cook much.”
“How come?”
“She was always busy with work so she never had time. We grew up on frozen food and take-out. I swear, the guy at our local Chinese take-out place knew my order off by heart.” I wiped my mouth with the napkin and lowered my hand.
“You missed a spot,” Hadie said with a laugh, taking the nap
kin off me.
She dabbed at a spot on my cheek, her face deep with concentration. Her brow was creased and her mouth was scrunched up as she attacked my face with the napkin. She looked so damn cute that I wanted to kiss her.
But I couldn’t do it. I had no right to touch her, to kiss her, to have her. Hadie deserved someone a lot better than me.
Hadie’s cheeks flamed up and I could tell that she was thinking about kissing me too. Thankfully the moment passed and she absently started cleaning up, placing the leftover food back in the basket.
When she was finished she took a deep breath. “There was a reason why I wanted to see you today. I wanted to talk about the way I acted last night.”
Oh, shit. The last thing I wanted to do was rehash the events of last night. Especially what had taken place in the back seat of the car.
“Do you remember some of it?” I asked.
“I actually remember all of it.”
This surprised me considering how intoxicated she’d been last night. I’d been pretty sure she wouldn’t remember much of what had happened. Maybe she was a better drinker than I’d given her credit for.
She looked at me with steady eyes. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I remember everything. I remember everything that I said and everything that happened between us. First of all, I just want you to know that I’m not one of those girls that go out and get drunk every weekend. This was a one-time thing and I’m never going to do it again.”
“I never thought for a second that you were one of those girls.” The tone of my voice made her blush, but she held my gaze. “I haven’t known you for very long, but I know you well enough to know what kind of a person you are.”
“Um, thanks,” she mumbled, seeming to lose her train of thought. “Uh…so, anyway, I’m also not one of those girls who throw themselves at guys. I know it may have seemed that way last night considering I was with two guys when you found me, and the way I…we…nearly…the way I was all over you last night.” She took a deep breath as if to compose herself.
“Hadie,” I said, exercising all my self-control so I didn’t touch her in some way, “I know you aren’t like that and I should’ve stopped you a lot earlier. You were drunk and you had no idea what you were doing.”
“That’s the thing,” Hadie said, her tone soft. “I’m not one of those girls who would sleep with a guy just for the sake of it. I knew exactly what I wanted last night. Being drunk just gave me the courage to go after it.”
Her brown eyes glinted at me as I stared at her in surprise. What the hell? Was Hadie trying to tell me that she didn’t regret what had happened between us last night? That she had wanted to do and say those things anyway? If that was the case then it was going to be very hard to stay away from her.
“What are you trying to say?”
Hadie took another breath and met my gaze, her eyes confident. “I’m saying that I like you, Lincoln. A lot. I got drunk and acted like an idiot because I was upset by the way you acted towards me on Friday. I was hurt. I thought we had a connection but afterwards I wasn’t sure. When I got drunk, I said everything I’d ever wanted to say to you. I did everything I wanted to do with you. Well, almost…”
Wrenching my eyes from her, I turned away to stare out at the water, watching the way the cool breeze caused ripples to appear on the surface of the lake. Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. The sky overhead was perfectly reflecting my mood.
Hadie was saying she had serious feelings for me, and it was a relief to know that she didn’t still have feelings for her ex-boyfriend, but there was no way I could be in a relationship with her. It’s not that I didn’t want to—believe me, I did—but a relationship between us was impossible. It would never work out and when she found out the truth about me, she would hate me.
I’d been selfish. I’d wanted her and I’d made my feelings for her too obvious. I should’ve stayed away from her when I’d had the chance, but now it was too late.
I was falling for Hadie and I couldn’t stop it from happening. It was like there was an invisible pull between us that made it impossible for us to stay away from each other. When she was with me, it felt like a missing part of me had returned. She fit into my life like she was meant to be in it and it was hard to fight these overwhelming feelings for her.
But I had to because it was the right thing to do.
“Lincoln?” Hadie prompted, sounding worried.
I turned back to her, and the concern on her face tore my heart apart. There was no easy way to tell her that we could be nothing more than friends. Either way she was going to get hurt. At least this way the pain would be temporary. If we started dating, if she invested herself in a relationship with me, the pain would be permanent.
It had to be done. I had to tell her. In a matter of seconds I was going to destroy all her hopes and feelings for me. It killed me to do this to her, but I had no choice. It was better this way and if she hated me for it then that was for the best too.
I focused on a spot just past her. There was no way I could look her in the eyes as I broke her heart. “What happened last night was a huge mistake. It should never have happened because it gave you the wrong idea. My lust took over and I wasn’t thinking straight. You’re a nice girl and I like spending time with you but I’m not into you in the way you’re into me. I should’ve made that clearer.”
Hadie’s face fell and her eyes were somber as they drank me in. “Are you joking right now?”
With a sigh, I stood up as small droplets of rain began falling on us and the ground around us. “Yes, I’m being serious. What happened last night was lust, plain and simple. There was nothing more to it.”
With every word that I said, I felt a painful stab in the chest. From the way Hadie was shaking, it was obvious that she was in just as much pain as I was. But the pain would go away. This short-lived pain was for the best. For both of us.
“We should go,” I said, as the rain began to fall heavier, soaking us both.
Hadie nodded mutely and I turned to enter the trees first, unable to face her anymore.
I knew I was doing the right thing, but that didn’t mean it was easy. I wanted nothing more than to tell Hadie how I felt, but how could I? There was no point. There was no hope for us.
As I led the way back to the main road, I was grateful for the rain because it concealed the tears that I hadn’t been able to contain.
Chapter Twenty
Hadie
I spent the rest of the week avoiding Lincoln and feeling like an absolute moron.
Lincoln had given me a grimace on Monday morning, which was probably his attempt at smiling at me, but I had acted as though I hadn’t seen him.
I think he’d gotten the hint, because he didn’t try to grimace at me again.
In English, I’d adamantly stared at the front of the room and refused to turn around and acknowledge his existence. I didn’t know how long it would take for me to get over Lincoln, but it didn’t seem like it would be any time soon.
Mostly, I spent the first half of the week feeling like someone was kicking me repeatedly in the gut. My stomach would clench painfully every time I saw Lincoln, even from a distance.
I had put myself on the line and told him how I felt and he’d turned me down. Yet, it had seemed like he hadn’t wanted to. Or maybe that was just me being delusional. I mean, he had said that I’d read the signals wrong so I didn’t have much confidence in my judgment anymore.
I was so stupid.
As if having my heart broken by Bennett wasn’t enough, now I’d let Lincoln do the same thing to me as well. Was I ever going to learn from my mistakes? I’d told myself to stay away from guys like Bennett, but I’d fallen for Lincoln without even realizing it.
At least Lincoln had the decency to stop sitting on the field, and by Thursday I was feeling a little more at ease as my Government class ended and I walked out to lunch, relieved that the school week was over.
All I wanted
to do this weekend was lie around in bed all day and watch the first season of Supernatural on DVD. The Winchester brothers were the only ones who could make me feel better after the terrible week I’d had.
My spirits fell when I noticed that it was raining. That meant that we couldn’t sit on the field and had to eat lunch in the noisy, overcrowded cafeteria instead. For some reason, staying indoors during lunch made some people stir crazy, and they were even louder and more annoying than usual.
Great. Just what I needed.
A text message from Mariah let me know that she had already secured a table, which I was grateful for. It was a battle finding an empty table to sit at in the cafeteria on an average day, let alone on a day like this when most of the school was inside. I wonder how many people Mariah had elbowed, shoved aside, and wrestled in order to find a place to sit.
When I walked into the cafeteria the noise was overwhelming. Students were yelling to hear each other over the noise and acting like idiots with their friends. Trying to ignore it as best as I could, I glanced around the cafeteria in search of my friends and found the three of them sitting at a table against the nearest wall.
As I approached them, I saw Connor walk past and plant a kiss on Mariah’s lips before heading off to a table to join his friends from the basketball team.
By the time I’d sat down beside Lana, Mariah looked like she was going to explode from all the gushing she was doing. Her eyes were wide and bright as she talked Lana and Estella’s ears off.
“Oh my gosh! He is so hot and I can’t believe we’re dating! Last night we drove up to Verdana and got something to eat and then we made out for, like, an hour in his truck!”
Lana was the only one who seemed to be interested in what Mariah was saying. Estella looked bored as she stuck a fork in her fruit salad and played around with a grape. I was happy for Mariah, but with my Lincoln woes getting to me, I was feeling pretty down.
“You are so lucky!” Lana said as I reached into my bag to grab the peanut butter sandwich I’d packed. “I would die if someone like Connor asked me out! He is so cute!”
