Falling for Hadie (3 page)

“I’m Mariah!” She said it with so much enthusiasm that she was practically shouting.

I would have to remind her later on that Lincoln wasn’t deaf and that he could hear her perfectly fine if she spoke in a lower register.

Lincoln flashed her a grin, and I swear Mariah was practically quivering under his gaze. This was how guys like Lincoln got a huge ego. Because girls acted like complete idiots in front of them like they were the best thing to walk this earth. Well, they weren’t and Lincoln wasn’t an exception.

“It’s nice to have such a warm welcome. Some people just aren’t capable of that.” His eyes met mine and I felt my face heat up. He turned back to my friends. “Sorry to cut this short, but I’d like to get to my first class on time.”

As if on cue, the bell rang, and without so much as a backwards glance, Lincoln sauntered off and disappeared amongst the flurry of students who were heading to first period.

I was the one who was supposed to show him to his first class! I hadn’t even finished the tour yet! The nerve of that rude, egotistical…

Mariah turned to me. “Oh my God! I want to lick that boy’s skin off!”

Beside her, Estella pretended to gag. “Mariah, do you have any limits or boundaries?”

“Not when it comes to a hunk like him.”

Lana nodded in agreement. “Like we have a chance with a guy like that. He’s going to be sitting over there with Kance and her friends by the end of the day.” She stared wistfully at the benches in the center of the courtyard.

“It doesn’t hurt to try!” Mariah said. “Gosh, it’s good to have some fresh meat around here…”

Mariah fawning over a guy she didn’t even know was really starting to get on my nerves. “Ray, just because he’s good looking doesn’t mean he’s a good person. He’s just like the rest of them. He’ll sweet talk you, get in your pants and then cheat on you!”

I hadn’t realized how much anger was in my voice until I saw the identical expressions of shock on my best friends’ faces. I’d been trying to keep it together after what had happened on Friday night, but obviously I’d failed. The break-up with Bennett was affecting me a lot more than I cared to admit.

“Oh, honey,” Mariah said as she pulled me into a hug, “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be acting so apathetic right after you and Bennett…um, you know?”

Estella gave me one of her calming smiles as she rubbed my shoulder. “Hadie, I know you’re hurting, but not every guy is like that. It’s still too soon. It’s normal for you to hate the male species.”

As her words sunk in, my eyes fell on a familiar figure that was walking past. Our eyes met and instead of feeling angry like I should, I felt small, insecure and pathetic.

Bennett—my best friend, the guy I loved—walked past me like I didn’t exist. Like I hadn’t mattered to him when I knew that I had. And that’s what hurt me the most; the fact that I meant nothing to him.

His friends said something amongst themselves and snickered as they passed me. Oliver Carson, quarterback of the football team, let out a hoot of laughter, and I distinctly heard someone say, “Skank.”

My friends encircled me as though trying to shield out the jeers, but it was too late. The taunts had hit me hard and my shield had crumbled, leaving me weak and defenseless. I tried to focus on Estella’s reassuring grip on my arm, but it was difficult not to break down into tears.

My heart felt like it was going through a paper shredder. I shook with a grief that didn’t feel like mine. I didn’t want be the distraught girl who cried over a guy. I was supposed to stay collected and be strong.

But I couldn’t stay strong. It was too hard.

Bennett had pierced a part of my heart and it was irreparable.

Hadie

Lincoln Bracks was in my first period English class.

When I’d mentioned wanting to get to my English class, he had known all along that he was in it. Yet the jerk had said nothing. For some reason, that made my mood sour even further.

Lincoln approached Ms. Flick and they spoke in lowered voices. I studied the way his brown leather jacket hugged his broad shoulders and made the muscles in his arms bulge. Even with the jacket on you could tell that the guy was sporting some major biceps. He definitely played sports. There was no way he could get that kind of body without being athletic.

Mariah nudged me, and I swear her voice went up by ten octaves. “Oh my God! It’s Lincoln!”

I ignored her and continued watching him. I wasn’t too sure why I was watching him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He’d stopped talking to Ms. Flick and his eyes were roaming all over the room. Then they landed on me.

Darn!

I shrunk lower in my seat and stared out the window as he walked down the aisle. Please don’t let him stop at our table. Please don’t let him stop…

“Lincoln, over here!” Mariah called out with a wave.

Oh, crap!

I turned to Mariah, widening my eyes and motioning my head in Lincoln’s direction so she would understand that I didn’t want him anywhere near me. Instead, she gave me a blank look and frowned as Lincoln stopped at our table.

Her smile quickly returned. “Why don’t you sit with us?”

I needed to have a good talking to with Mariah once Lincoln was out of earshot. She and I totally weren’t on the same wavelength today.

I glanced up to see Lincoln shake his head. “Thanks, but I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Before Mariah could say anything else, I cut in. “That table at the back is always empty.” I pointed my thumb towards the back of the room and waited for him to vamoose.

It was like Lincoln had read my mind because his cool blue eyes lit up for a fraction of a second and a hint of a smile appeared on his mouth. “Thanks for the tip.
Hades
.”

He’d barely made it past our table before Mariah whacked me on the arm. “Hadie, what is wrong with you? The boy is gorgeous! Just because you’re anti-male, doesn’t mean I am too!”

“Ray, he’s a total jerk,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “Do you know what he said to me this morning? He asked me if I had a pole stuck up my butt! I mean, the nerve!”

Mariah was pressing her lips together so hard that her dimples were showing. It was obvious that she was trying not to laugh.

I shot her a glare. “It’s not funny.”

“It kinda is,” she said. “You’ve had the biggest personality change in the last three days. I get that you’re miserable and heartbroken, but you need to stop acting like such an ice queen. It’s not you.”

I much rather preferred extroverted, boy-crazy Mariah to this insightful and mature one. The sad part about all of this was that she was right. I couldn’t take one douchebag guy’s actions and hold it against every single male on the planet.

“You’re right, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the new guy. You know, his nickname is Link? How pretentious is that?”

Mariah’s eyes lit up. “He can link with me any day.”

“Ray, that’s disgusting!”

“Hey, I’m just putting myself out there.” Mariah raised her hands in defense.

“You sound like a hooker.”

“I’m whatever Link wants me to be.” She gave me a playful wink and I whacked her on the arm again. Mariah burst out laughing, and I knew she was only saying most of this stuff to get a reaction out of me.

Still, I didn’t care how good looking the guy was. Looks weren’t important to me at all and I would never date a guy based on how good looking he was. I wasn’t about to change that rule just because a hot guy happened to walk into my school.

Mariah’s laughter ceased and her face turned serious as she looked at the front of the room. Reluctantly, I followed her gaze, already knowing what it was that she’d seen. Or who.

Bennett was in this class too.

When we were dating, he sat at the desk next to mine. Today, he and his friend walked past my row and sat somewhere behind me. I hadn’t expected him to sit in his usual seat, but it still hurt that he would completely ignore me like that. I expected an apology at least. It was hard to swallow that he was too proud to even make a small gesture like that.

As if on cue, everyone’s heads in the room swiveled towards me, liked they’d practiced it. I seriously wanted to disappear through the floor. I couldn’t stand all the staring or the whispers. Or the hurtful words on my locker.

And it was all Bennett’s fault. He was the one who had cheated on me. He was the one who had gotten his friends to make fun of me. And as much as I hated him, I loved him too. And that’s what I hated the most. That I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He had broken my heart and I didn’t hate him. I hated myself more because I’d turned into one of those stupid girls who loved a guy that didn’t deserve her love.

Forgetting Bennett wasn’t easy though. I’d had a crush on him since elementary school. Back then he’d been a different person. He’d been quieter, reserved, and didn’t have many friends. Physically, he’d been a little chubby, with crooked teeth and bad acne, but that hadn’t mattered to me. He’d always been sweet to me.

When middle school began, Bennett met Ashton Summers. She’d been so pretty, with her golden hair and cornflower blue eyes, that I couldn’t blame him for paying extra special attention to her. As the years went on, Bennett began to spend less and less time with me. Don’t get me wrong, we’d still talk in the halls and after school sometimes, but as his appearance began to change, so did he. His skin cleared up, braces corrected his teeth, and he lost weight and muscled up from playing sports.

Ashton never paid me much attention—maybe because I didn’t interest her—and I was simply content to hang out with my childhood friends, Mariah, Lana and Estella. But Bennett had always been on my mind, and I had clearly been on his because he’d asked me out a month ago and we’d started dating. Things were going pretty well until I’d found out he was cheating on me with a cheerleader from Penthill High.

Yep, Bennett definitely wasn’t the same guy I’d grown up loving. He was popular, arrogant, attractive, and a little mean. His bad side had become clearer when Ashton was kicked out of the popular group and he didn’t stand by her. He chose to stick with his wealthy, good looking, and athletic friends: Oliver Carson, Carter Hammond, Matthew Sutton, and a few others. His need for popularity had gone to his head.

I was so different from him. I was a straight-A student, a book nerd, and definitely wasn’t popular. It was a wonder that Bennett had asked me out at all.

Glancing over my shoulder, my eyes locked with Lincoln’s blue ones and I quickly turned back to the front, embarrassed that he had caught me looking at him.

The last thing this school needed was another Bennett.

Lincoln

At first I thought I’d imagined it, but now it was pretty obvious that Hadie Swinton hated my guts.

I wasn’t too sure what I’d done to make her feel that way towards me.

Sure, I’d rather brashly asked her about the pole up her ass, but I’d only been joking and she’d obviously taken it the wrong way. Anyway, it wasn’t my fault she acted so stiff, like it would kill her to crack a smile. The girl was the definition of an ice queen.

Just then she turned around to look at me, her chocolate brown eyes as cold and hard as a stone. When she caught me watching her, she promptly faced the front again. Yeah, she definitely hated me but I couldn’t figure out why.

There was obviously something going on with her that was making her act that way towards me. It was amazing how warm her friends were. How they managed to stand her insufferable attitude was a mystery to me.

I pulled my attention away from her as the teacher, Ms. Flick, shut the door and addressed the class.

“So, I hope that by now you’ve all had a chance to read
Wuthering Heights
. I want you to jot down a list of themes in the book and then expand upon them. You’re going to have to write a 2000 word essay on it, so make sure you make the most of your time, even if the book wasn’t to your liking.” She gave a bunch of guys in the second row a pointed look.

The class groaned at the mention of “essay” and “2000 words” and Ms. Flick gave them a wry smile before making her way down the aisle to me.

“Lincoln, wasn’t it?” she asked as stopped in front of me.

I nodded in response.

Ms. Flick smoothed back a stray hair. “What were you studying at your last school?”

“Hamlet.”

Ms. Flick frowned. “It’s only been four weeks into the school year, so I’m not too worried you’ll fall behind in this unit. Still,
Wuthering Heights
can be a little tricky to understand if you haven’t read it before. You haven’t by any chance, have you?”

I reluctantly nodded.

At the look of surprise on her face, I sighed. “I was in the hospital a lot last year and my great-aunt got me a couple of books to read. I was so bored, and it was either that or
Twilight
. So, yeah, that’s when I read it.”

I could see Ms. Flick trying to fight a smile. “Okay, well, I’m going to go find you a copy of the book and get you a copy of the course outline so you know exactly what’s going on. You’ve missed a lot of notes on the text that you’ll need to catch up on. I’ll find a student who can give you their notes and tutor you until you’re caught up.”