Falling for Hadie (19 page)

As I started walking away from the table, I heard Estella call out my name but I didn’t bother turning around. Instead, I decided to head to the sanctuary of the library so I could spend some time in peace.

Just as I walked out of the cafeteria, I heard someone say my name. I’d been so preoccupied that I’d almost walked past Eddie and his friend, Riley Adamson.

“Oh, hey,” I said, not bothering to fake a smile.

There was no energy left within me to try and project a happy demeanor. I was completely over everything for moment. I just wanted to be alone.

Eddie’s smile faltered, and he glanced at Riley. “Hey, you go ahead. I’ll catch up with you in a second.”

Riley shot me a curious look, but nodded and headed into the cafeteria, leaving me and Eddie standing alone in the corridor. From the way Eddie was studying me, it was clear that he had figured out that something was bothering me.

“You don’t look too good,” he commented, confirming my thoughts.

I shrugged, staring down at the ground so I wouldn’t start crying like the sad, pathetic person that I was. “It hasn’t been a great week. Actually, it’s been a pretty crap week. I really just want this week to be over.”

Eddie’s hazel eyes were sympathetic as they regarded me. “You know I’m here to listen if you ever need to vent about something.”

I sighed. “I know. I just have no energy left in me. I don’t want to do anything. I can barely bring myself to get up in the morning.”

“Is it your ex again?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “You know what? That jerk has barely crossed my mind all week.”

And that was the truth. Bennett barely registered on my radar anymore. I mean, yeah, I did think about him from time to time, but his betrayal didn’t devastate me as much as it had a few weeks ago.

Eddie gave me a smile. “I told you that you’d wake up one day and Bennett wouldn’t mean a thing to you.”

“Yeah, you did say that.” I nodded, realizing that that was exactly what’d happened. What Eddie didn’t know was that now Lincoln was the one on my mind, even though I didn’t want him to be.

“Well, the offer still stands,” Eddie said, toying with his lip ring. “If you need to talk to someone, I’m your guy.”

“Thanks, that means a lot to me. I’ll definitely come to you if I need someone to talk to.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Eddie said, and then glanced towards the cafeteria. “I better get going. My friends are waiting for me. I’ll see you around, Hadie.”

“Yeah, see ya,” I echoed as I watched him walk into the noisy cafeteria.

Letting out a long breath, I continued at my slow pace to the library. At a time when Lana was acting really weird, it was good to know that I had someone like Eddie as a friend. He kept a low profile, but I liked that about him. He didn’t care what other people thought of him.

The message tone went off on my phone, and I pulled it out of my pocket to find a text message from Lana.

Sori 4 calling Lincoln over…he didn’t sit with us so u can come back

I appreciated the message, but I still wasn’t eager to return to the cafeteria. I needed some time to myself to think about everything.

It’s ok. I’m going 2 the library. Have some work 2 do

My definition of “work” was to do some research on my English essay as I tried my hardest not to think about Lincoln.

***

Lincoln

I kind of felt like a stalker as I followed Hadie out of the school and down the street to where she always parked her car.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t trying to be a stalker, but the only way I could get her alone so that I could to talk to her was if I did it outside of school.

Today at lunch, she’d bolted at the sight of me. I couldn’t blame her. I’d treated her horribly on Sunday and if she couldn’t bear to look me in the eyes, it was understandable. Still, it’d hurt me when she’d run off like that.

I mean, I wouldn’t have sit with them anyway, but the fact that she couldn’t stomach me for more than a second was too much for me to take. We’d filled each other with so much fun and laughter, but now we could barely be around each other.

I’d had to tell a terrible lie to keep her away from me, but I didn’t want things to be difficult around each other. I still wanted to be able to talk to her and to approach her without wondering if she would run away from me.

The rain began to fall harder by the time I caught up to Hadie. She had just reached her car when I stretched out and grabbed her by the elbow.

Hadie spun around, her eyes wide with alarm. When she saw that it was me, her mouth curled in disgust and she wrenched her elbow from my grasp.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

We were both getting drenched as the rain pounded down around us, but neither of us seemed to be bothered by it too much. Probably because we were too bothered by each other.

I took a step back so she wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed, and ran a hand through my wet hair in frustration. This whole situation frustrated me so completely. I wished things didn’t have to be this way, but what choice did I have?

“I don’t want things to be weird between us…” I trailed off, at a loss as to what to say. “I want us to still be able to talk to each other and um...spend time together.”

There was hostility in Hadie’s eyes as she watched me. “That’s not possible. Not after everything that happened between us. I don’t want to spend time with you. It’s something that I can’t do.”

All of a sudden, Hadie reminded me of the girl she’d been on the first day I’d met her. She was closing herself off to everyone again—closing herself off to me. She was becoming the person I didn’t want her to become.

Not able to contain myself, I took a step towards her. “Hadie, listen to me. I really am sorry for what I said to you on Sunday. You put yourself on the line and I completely rejected you. I can’t tell you how bad it makes me feel. I didn’t want to do it, but…”

I stopped talking. I’d already said too much. I was letting her back in again instead of staying away like I’d told myself I would. I possessed such little self-restraint that I couldn’t even stay away from Hadie for four days.

Something sparked in Hadie’s eyes as she stared at me in amazement. “I’m not crazy…”

“What?”

A ferocity grew in her eyes, and she took a step closer. “I’m not crazy. I didn’t imagine anything. You do care about me. Your rejection has nothing to do with me; it has something to do with you.”

Her conclusion terrified me, because she was right. It did have everything to do with me. We couldn’t be close because of me, and I hated that. I hated that I wanted her so much, but I couldn’t have her. I hated that I had to push her away, because it was the last thing I wanted to do.

“This was a mistake,” I said in a low voice. “I should never have tried to talk to you.”

“Lincoln, don’t go.” Hadie’s voice was filled with a quiet desperation that hurt me. “Tell me what the problem is. Maybe we can figure it out together.”

Hadie was too good for me. The fact that her cold exterior had crumbled within a few seconds out of concern for me, made that point even clearer. No matter what I did, I would never be good enough for someone like her. I was selfish—she was selfless. She would find someone better than me, but I never would.

“I have to go,” I said throatily.

I began to turn away, but this time Hadie was the one to grab my arm. And, because I was so weak and selfish, I stopped in my tracks. Her touch was enough to send a shock through my entire body. The shock connected us somehow—created some sort of a bond that neither one of us could break.

“Hadie, please,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut and wishing that I hadn’t followed her to her car. I really hadn’t thought things through.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this. In fact, you don’t even have to tell me why you’re doing it,” Hadie said, releasing her hold on me. “Just stop denying that this isn’t real, Lincoln, when we both know that it is.”

I pressed my lips together, my mouth tense. Hell, my entire body was tense. All I knew was that I had to get away from her. I had to get as far away from Hadie as humanly possible.

“You should go. It’s raining,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “You’ll get sick if you stay out any longer.”

This time I was determined to leave, because if I stuck around any longer I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stay away from Hadie.

Hadie

Lincoln knew just as well as I did that we couldn’t stay away from each other, and now that I knew the truth—that he did have real feelings for—I wasn’t going to let go of him so easily.

We had a real connection, one that transcended the physical. That’s why, as much as it’d hurt, it’d also been hard to believe Lincoln when he’d said that his feelings for me were based on lust and nothing more. The things he’d said to me on Saturday night, when I’d been drunk, were not things you said to someone you lusted after—they were things you said to someone you truly cared for.

As confused as I felt right now, there was some sense of clarity in my head. One thought was starting to become clearer. I wasn’t going to give up. When a guy like Lincoln walked into your life, you didn’t let him go. I was going to hold onto him until he confessed how he truly felt for me.

I admit, I didn’t know as much about him as I would’ve liked to, but that didn’t mean that I knew nothing about him. I had watched him enough to know when something was wrong with him and when he was trying to hide something, and there was definitely something more going on with him.

I was going to make him tell me how he felt and, eventually, I would get to the bottom of the mystery that was Lincoln Bracks.

I was going to show the boy, who had taught me to let go and try new things, how much he had changed me in a few short weeks. I was going to show him in a way that was unexpected and that was going to make him confess his feelings for me.

“Hadie, what are you doing? It’s freezing!” he called out to me as I backed away from him.

Ignoring him, I took a couple of steps to the right and jumped into a small puddle. The water splashed around me and immediately soaked into my low-heeled ankle boots. I did a twirl and spun in Lincoln’s direction.

He was walking towards me, looking uncertain. “Have you lost your mind?”

I flung out my arms and spun around until I felt dizzy. The motion made me lose balance but for some reason I knew Lincoln would catch me, and he did. I fell into his arms heavily, my head hitting his firm chest.

For a second I was afraid he would move away from me but when he didn’t, I raised my head to sneak a peek at him. There was crease on his forehead that I wanted to erase, and those lips of his had drops of rain on them that I wanted to kiss off.

“Hadie, what’s wrong with you?” he asked, the concern clear in his voice.

That’s when I knew for sure. I knew Lincoln Bracks did care about me. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be here, holding me like I was his. His rejection had to do with something else entirely, but it had nothing to do with me. Maybe it was something that he wasn’t willing to share with me right now, but it was obvious he did have feelings for me.

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” I said, pulling away and taking a step back so I could study him. “You’re the one who said to try new things.”

He tilted his head to the side. “So you’re trying to catch pneumonia?”

I shook my head and spun around again, drops of water flying around me. “I’m dancing in the rain.”

Closing my eyes, I continued to spin in circles not caring if I looked like an idiot. I was done caring about what other people thought of me. All I cared about was being in this moment and making the most of it, regardless of what had just happened or was going to happen. I couldn’t change what I’d admitted to Lincoln and I couldn’t tell the future. The only thing I could do was seize the present and let things happen.

Even if that meant embarrassing myself. Even if it meant never having Lincoln.

“Hadie.” Lincoln’s voice was low in my ear and I shivered, not from the rain but from everything that that single word conveyed.

His utterance of my name told me that his feelings for me ran deep—deeper that he cared to admit—and that he couldn’t stop feeling them as hard as he tried to deny it.

Lincoln’s muscular arms wrapped themselves around my waist and stopped me from moving. He turned me around so that I faced him as the rain continued to beat down on us. Everything around was chill—the air, the rain, our clothes—but our bodies were emanating a heat that burned in the center of my chest.

I let out a gasp as I felt myself being lifted off the ground. Still holding onto me, Lincoln brought me up until we were at eye level. I felt helpless, yet safe in his arms.

He had a small smile on his face as he began awkwardly stepping from side to side, and I couldn’t help but let out a laugh at how ridiculous we must have looked. Our sullen moods had disappeared—Lincoln’s rejection forgotten—and we were now the upbeat Hadie and Lincoln that we always were around each other. We brought each other’s happy sides out like no one else could.