by Kant, Komal
She looked so torn up about this when it wasn’t her fault. She had no idea Three would react like this. “Don’t blame yourself. You don’t control him.”
I wasn’t sure if my words were enough comfort, but she nodded anyway. “I hope everything else goes to plan tonight. We’re going to see Vincent. Come on, Ray.”
“I really hope you’re okay, Eddie,” Mariah said, studying me in concern. “We’ll be there in spirit.”
“I’ll live,” I said with a tight-lipped smile.
With that, the two girls turned around and headed out to the street where the guys were waiting for them. Mariah and Estella got into Mariah’s car, and with thunderous roars, the bikes kicked to life and pulled out after Mariah’s car.
“Wow, that Estella is something else,” Riley commented as the sounds of the bikes faded down the street. “I never thought she could make a bunch of Maddens cower like that.”
“Are you sure you’re okay, Eddie?” Ashton asked quietly, patting me on the back.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said, pulling out my phone and glancing at the time.
5:23.
Crap. We were running way behind schedule.
“We gotta go,” I said, hurrying down the front yard. At the same time, I was sending Hadie’s mom a text message, letting her know that we needed some extra time. “Hadie can’t get there before us.”
My friends rushed after me, and we all got into Riley’s van. The mood was definitely a serious one in the aftermath of me getting my ass kicked, and no one said anything the entire way to the library.
Yep, the library. That was where my big surprise for Hadie was. It didn’t sound like much, but a lot of planning had gone into it.
I had to hand it to Riley, he got us there in record time. He ran a couple of red lights, and was probably going faster than he should’ve been, but we made it there in one piece.
Riley zipped the van into the parking lot of the library and slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt. I wasn’t sure if he had been watching the Fast and Furious movies too much, or if he was just nuts. Either way, we were alive and he had somehow managed to pull into a spot perfectly.
Dude had a career in stunt driving.
As the six of us walked inside, my Aunt Mary was lingering behind the front desk and gave us a broad grin. She had muted, green eyes, and long, red hair that fell around her shoulders in tight curls. Her flowing, multi-colored dress made her look like a nature-loving, gypsy woman.
In reality, Aunt Mary was the head librarian here and was married to my uncle, the principal of the high school. She had always been my favorite aunt, not only because she was so kind, but also because she was a lot of fun. She’d been the one to introduce me to punk rock music when I’d been a kid.
A bookworm who liked to rock out. It was kind of hard to beat.
“Eddie!” she exclaimed as we approached her. “Everything’s set up in the conference room for you. Oh, and the food is in the employee’s lounge, so don’t forget to take it up with you.”
Aside from being a librarian, Aunty Mary was also a great cook, and had offered to create a three-course meal for my date. She had immediately jumped at the chance to help me surprise Hadie by ensuring that the upstairs conference room of the library was available for us to use.
“We’ll go get that,” Ashton said, immediately striding in the direction of the employee’s lounge. My friends followed after her, leaving me alone with my aunt.
“Thank you so much,” I said, giving her a quick hug. “I am so freaking nervous, I might pass out.”
“Trust me, Eddie,” she said with a reassuring smile as she released me from the hug. “She is going to love it. Normal teenage boys don’t do things like this. They’re generally more concerned with, you know, other things.”
I knew she was right, but normal teenage boys also didn’t have a ghost to compete with. I had to step up my game if I wanted to get the girl.
“I’d better get upstairs. She’ll be here soon.”
“Sure thing,” Aunt Mary said, “I’ll handle everything down here.”
Taking a deep breath, I walked across the silent library and headed upstairs to where the large conference room was located. The blinds had been drawn, making it impossible to glimpse what was waiting inside.
God, I hoped it blew Hadie away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hadie
“Mom, you’re not making any sense right now,” I said, shooting my mother an unimpressed look.
The disastrous drive had begun with my mom telling me that she wanted me to go with her to the grocery store, and then had proceeded with her zig-zagging through the quiet Statlen streets, driving down dead-end streets and changing up her route multiple times, as though we were in a James Bond movie and the bad guys were hot on our trail.
The only difference was crazy car chases in James Bond movies usually ended with a top secret hideout, or a dangerous leap onto a luxurious yacht, not at the local library.
My mom rolled her eyes at me, for a second reminding me how alike we looked. Same fair skin, same smattering of freckles across our cheeks. However, we did not share the same ability to be confusing as hell or drive like a lunatic.
Yes, sure, sometimes I rambled awkwardly, but at least I didn’t randomly pull up in front of the library and demand for her to get out.
“Just get out of the car and walk into the library,” she said, giving me a look that resembled ‘my daughter is an idiot and can’t follow simple instructions’.
“Mom, what are we doing here?” I asked, staring at her as though she was nuts. “You told me we were getting groceries.”
“Get inside before I drag you in there myself!” she exclaimed, swatting at the air in front of me, her eyes wide and crazy-looking.
My mother was insane, and I wasn’t waiting around for her to force me into a library. Giving her a glare, I jumped out of the car and slowly walked up the front steps of the library and entered through the automatic sliding doors.
Before I could take a step further, the middle-aged, red-headed librarian came rushing over to me. “Hadie! You’re here!”
Uh. I looked over my shoulder, even though no one else could possibly share the same name as me.
“Y-yes?” I stammered.
“I’ve been waiting for you!” she said, her voice full of excitement.
I had no idea who this lady was, other than knowing she was the full time librarian here. I wasn’t sure why she’d been waiting for me. I was a little freaked out. What had my mother orchestrated?
“Um, why?” I was trying not to come across rude, but I really wasn’t sure what a normal reaction in this situation was.
She gave me a guarded smile. “You’ll see soon enough. Just take those stairs and head right into the conference room.”
The conference room? What in the hell was in the conference room?
My brow furrowed as I gazed up at the stairs. If this was another attempt by my crazy parents to integrate me back into being a normal teen then there was no way in hell I was falling for it.
I glanced back at the librarian, bewildered. “Is this some weird thing my parents have set up?”
“Oh, darn!” She flung her hands up in exasperation. “I completely forgot to give you this!” The librarian rushed over to her desk and came back to me, holding a folded piece of paper. “This will explain everything.”
With that, she left me standing in the middle of the library with a bunch of questions running through my head.
Carefully, I unfolded the piece of paper and stared down at the words on it.
You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one. (Michael McMillan)
Something about those words wrapped around my heart and tugged on it. What was this? Why had the librarian given this to me? It was funny how she said it would explain anything, when it didn’t really explain anything at all.
I stared around at her, but she was po
intedly avoiding eye contact with me as she tried to appear busy behind her desk. I had a feeling that she wasn’t about to answer any of my questions, and I wasn’t going to find anything out by standing around.
As I moved away from the center of the room and towards the stairs, anticipation began swelling in my chest. I wasn’t sure what I would find, but something was telling me that it was going to affect me in a way I hadn’t been affected in a long time.
My pace quickened as I made my way up the stairs, hesitating when I reached the top. The door to the conference room stood in front of me. Anticipation grew in my chest. I took a deep breath and moved towards the door, pushing it open gently.
The entire room was bathed in darkness, and I froze, wondering if someone was going to jump out in a scary looking mask and scare the bejeezus out of me. Because if they did, I was about to knock someone the heck out.
My body tensed. “Hello?” I called out.
No response.
I was beginning to regret my decision of walking into a creepily dark room completely unarmed. The least I could’ve done was grab a copy of Deathly Hallows—it was about 700 pages of genius, but also would’ve made for a great weapon.
All of a sudden there was a whirring sound, and the wall right beside me flickered with light before words in cursive appeared on it like magic.
Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live. (Norman Cousins)
I sucked in a deep breath as my heart began pounding out of time. Before I could even fully register what was going on, another line of words appeared on the wall directly in front of me.
To realize that just because we lost a love doesn’t mean we’ve lost the ability to love entirely. (Kassandra Kush (The Things We Can’t Change, Part 4))
I felt my knees weaken, and my bottom lip quivered. I closed my eyes, feeling hot liquid prick at them. I knew who was doing this. I knew why I was here.
“Eddie,” I whispered, just as he pressed a hand into the small of my back.
I crumbled against his chest, feeling my knees buckle, but he was there to hold me steady. Just like he had always been. My protector. My friend. My Eddie.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, my voice muted as the tears spilled down my face.
I had been awful, flaky, back-and-forth, mean, rude, every word under the sun to Eddie, but he was still here. He was giving me more than I deserved.
“Just watch,” he said, his tone gentle as he stepped away from me.
Words formed on the wall again. My heart dipped a little as I read them.
All of us are broken, a little more than others, but if you love someone, you accept them and their past, even if it’s ugly. – Lisa Cardiff (Wrong For You)
Reeling from the familiar words of the books I loved, I turned to seek Eddie out in the glowing darkness. He stood there, studying me patiently; I could make out the pleasant smile on his face, and all I wanted to do was reach out and pull his mouth against mine.
But I hesitated.
Even though Eddie and I had slept together, obviously giving into feelings we’d both been suppressing, I still didn’t feel like he was mine. I still didn’t know if it was okay to really show him how I felt. Because this feeling, it had been gnawing inside of my chest for weeks now, even though I’d been ignoring it fiercely.
Yet, it was still there, and so was Eddie.
There was a cough somewhere in the darkness, making me jump. I looked at Eddie in question. “Uh, is there someone else in the room?”
In the darkest corners of the room, it was impossible to make out anything. Was my prediction of someone jumping out in a mask about to come true?
“Uh,” Eddie said, his tone sheepish. “Five someones, actually.”
“Your friends?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him before squinting around the dark room. “That’s a little weird.”
He laughed at that. “I needed someone to run the projectors and lights.”
“Lights?” I asked, glancing around to see if I’d missed invisible lights.
“Look,” he said, pointing upwards.
I lifted my head to stare up at the dark ceiling, confused as to what I was looking at. A few seconds went by with no change, and just as I was about to glance over at Eddie, I saw what he wanted me to see.
Fairy lights had been positioned across the ceiling, filling the room with the warm glow of yellows, greens, blues, and reds. It was beautiful, magical. It took my breath away.
When I turned to Eddie, I gasped. Behind him was a lavishly decorated table lit with candles with a tall bouquet of flowers as the centerpiece. Two plates had been laden with food and were sitting there waiting to be devoured. I couldn’t believe that he had gone to so much trouble for me.
“This is all…for me?” I asked, letting myself forget that we had an audience.
“Yes.” Eddie nodded, a smirk creeping onto his face. “It was supposed to come before the amazing sex, but our bodies had other plans.”
I felt myself blush, and lowered my gaze. “Why?”
“I guess our hormones got in the way.”
My face grew several degrees hotter. “No, why did you do all this?”
“Because he loves you, duh,” someone said from the darkness.
“Riley!” a girl, who sounded a lot like Stacey, snapped.
Eddie seemed embarrassed as his gaze fell away to the floor. That simple act made my heart swell, and I had to restrain myself from reaching out and touching him. First, I had to hear what he was going to say.
“You told me you didn’t read anymore because stories weren’t real, especially not the romance books you always read.” He looked up at me slowly, his face struggling with a mix of emotions that were foreign to me. “I wanted you to fall in love with stories again; the kind of stories that consume you completely, take your breath away, and leave you believing in happy endings.”
“I don’t deserve this,” I whispered. “I’ve messed up so much, disappointed my parents. I’m far from perfect.”
Eddie gave me a wry smile. "Hadie, there is no such thing as perfect. There are good and bad sides to everyone. It's okay to be angry and to hurt. It's okay to feel all the things that you're feeling. It's okay to be imperfect. Because I would still love you if you were the most imperfect creature in this world."
The swelling in my heart reached its limit, and my chest soared. I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I reached out for Eddie, and he came easily into my arms as though he was meant to be there the entire time, as though my past discretions had been forgotten, as though I was getting a first chance with him.
“Kiss him already!” This time I knew it was Riley.
“Dude, shut it!” Luca called out.
Eddie rolled his eyes in Riley’s direction, before gazing down at me, a smile on his face. He was always patient, always kind. I had been missing out on this incredible guy, and it was all my fault.
My lips trembled as I studied his handsome face, and finally the months of pain and heartbreak I'd been bottling inside burst like floodgates. I pushed my mouth against Eddie’s with so much force that I thought my lips would bleed.
He didn’t resist at all; he had been waiting so long that everything felt right as our lips touched over and over again. Words weren’t needed; there had already been enough of those. All I needed was Eddie in my arms in this moment. In my forever.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Eddie
So my friends had crashed my date with Hadie.
I wasn’t even kidding.
Once Hadie found out how they had helped me plan the date, and also the more unsettling fact they were lurking in the shadows, she asked them to join us for our meal.
Luca and Riley had brought in more chairs from the room next door; Elly and Ashton had carried in another table to add to the one already set out with food; and now all seven of us were squeezed around the conjoined tables, sharing the three-course meal Aunt Mary
had prepared for my date.
Luckily, my aunt had made a ton of food—chicken marsala, baked potato, couscous, bread rolls, coleslaw, and a chocolate cake—so there ended up being more than enough for everyone.
Which was lucky because Riley had a huge appetite and ate like a teenage boy who’d just hit puberty. I wasn’t sure where it all went though, because he was as skinny as a broom handle.
Even though the food looked and smelled incredible, I was too focused on Hadie to be hungry right now. I was amazed that she was sitting beside me, one soft hand holding mine as she took bites out of her chocolate cake and listened to the conversations happening around the table.
An elbow dug into my right side, and I jerked around to find that Ashton was trying to get my attention. She motioned her head to the side ever so slightly, and I looked past her to see what she was trying to show me.
When I caught sight of Riley and Stacey staring transfixed at each other in the dim lighting, I stifled a laugh. He was looking at her the way I was probably looking at Hadie. There was no reason those two couldn’t be open about their relationship status.
“So, Riley,” I said, clearing my throat to get his attention, “is it official yet?”
Riley snapped his head in my direction, and turned a dark shade of red when he noticed everyone watching him. “Uh, um, what?”
Stacey glared at him. “He’s talking about us.”
“Oh,” Riley spluttered, glancing at Luca as though he might say something. “Uh, I-”
“Riley, seriously, dude,” Luca said, with a shrug of his shoulder. “You and Stace don’t need to hide anything. We wanna see you happy. For real. Next year, we’re all gonna be doing our own thing; traveling, college, work, relationships. What matters to me is that you, that all of us, are happy.” Luca turned his head, giving me a slight nod of his head which I returned.
“Yes, it’s official,” Stacey said, rolling her eyes at Riley. “I told you no one would care.”