Before Hadley

by J. Nathan

  “So this is my fault?”

  My eyes drifted away, feeling like complete shit now that he’d called me out. I watched as Conner’s eyes scanned the bar, making a slow sweep over the room as if searching for someone. His head jolted back when his eyes collided with mine. A sad smile conveyed his hello. I mirrored it with my own before my eyes focused back on Jake. “No. It’s not your fault.”

  In a perfect world I wouldn’t have been there. With my head feeling like it had been shoved in a blender and spit back out. With my heart being pulled in two completely different directions. With my present across the table begging me to give him my all and my past across the room inciting me with his mere presence—not to mention his words swirling around inside my head.

  “I’ll be back.” Jake hopped down from his stool and took off for the men’s room.

  I watched him go, wondering why I was so torn. Wondering what I’d say when he returned to make it better. Wondering how I’d be able to get myself out of such a mess.

  My phone vibrated on the table. I didn’t need to check the screen. My eyes shot across the crowded room to Conner who stared at me with his phone to his ear. I stared into the same dark eyes I’d been unable to shake for three years. Eyes that looked at me like I held his future. Eyes that knew me better than most. Eyes that when they held indecision and kept me at arm’s length three years before, it had all been to protect me. All been an attempt to push me away so I didn’t end up hurt.

  My phone continued to vibrate on the table. I didn’t answer it. I couldn’t. I didn’t know what he expected me to say. What he expected me to do. Luckily, he didn’t know I’d read his letters. Then he wouldn’t be calling. He’d be hounding me.

  When he realized I had no intention of answering, he nodded subtly and slipped his phone into his pocket. His attention moved away from me as he joined his group at the bar. The little pixie handed him a shot that he threw back without hesitation.

  That’s what he meant when he asked if the campus was big enough for the two of us. I was beginning to think the state wasn’t big enough.

  Jake returned, but I found myself drawn to Conner’s group and their increasing volume and laughter. Was he creating new memories with different people? People I’d never know? I watched girls around the bar eyeing him, while others boldly approached him. It was Katie McGraw’s party all over again. The first time I saw him. The confidence. The ease. The pull that drew others to him. And as usual, he did what he always did. He made them comfortable. Greeting them with a warm smile and patiently answering their questions. I hadn’t seen that smile in three years. And as hard as it was to admit, it hurt seeing him wasting it on girls he didn’t know.

  Was that what it would be like to see him moving on? Was the attention he received reminding him what it felt like to be free? To be available? I’d given him no indication that anything had changed between us. He was a single guy who’d been surrounded by guys for three years. Would he consider going home with one of those girls? Or was the pixie more his style now?

  Would it affect me if he moved on? Would I be jealous? Hurt?

  Yes.

  I jumped to my feet, suggesting to Jake that we leave—before I confused myself even more.

  I tried not to look at Conner as I walked to the door, but I couldn’t stop myself. His eyes were focused on the little brunette on her tiptoes whispering something into his ear. Something that garnered a smile. The smile that used to be meant for me and only me. I don’t know what I expected. But his eyes on another girl who was rubbing up against him was not it.

  Jake and I walked in silence through the dark parking lot toward his car in the rear of the lot. My emotions were all over the place. Were Jake and I over? Was I pissed at Conner? Was I meant to be alone? Was I—

  “Hadley.”

  Shit.

  Jake stopped and spun toward the voice. I wanted nothing more than to keep walking, but I had no choice. I stopped, cringing as I turned.

  Conner jogged out of the bar. “Weren’t you gonna say goodbye?”

  My eyes expanded. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What was he doing?

  “Hadley?” Jake stared at me, confusion clouding his eyes.

  I looked back to Conner who stopped in front of me. “Goodnight, Conner.”

  “Conner?” Hate dripped from Jake’s lips as he assessed Conner for the first time, now standing directly in front of us exuding that frustrating confidence.

  “Um…” My eyes jumped frantically between them, both just a couple feet apart. My past and my present.

  “You knew he was here?” Jake’s eyes stayed on Conner.

  “I…um…”

  “Speak, Hadley,” Jake demanded. “I asked you a fucking question.”

  Conner’s eyes narrowed as he stepped toward him. “Speak to her again like that and I’ll level you.”

  Jake’s head jerked back, a scary snarl on his lips. “You think I’m gonna let some punk ass criminal tell me how to speak to my girlfriend?” Jake stepped right up in Conner’s face, bumping him hard with his chest.

  “Jake,” I warned, my heart hammering inside me.

  “If you think this punk ass criminal’s gonna sit back and let some college boy talk to her that way, you’re delusional.” Conner bumped him back, his eyes glaring into Jake’s.

  Shit. I sprang forward, pushing myself between them. I was surprised that with all the testosterone in the air, they actually let me. I faced Jake, my hands braced on his chest. Normally, he seemed so big and broad. But opposite Conner, he seemed smaller. “Come on. We’re leaving.” I pushed my hands with as much force as I could, but he didn’t budge. His eyes weren’t even on me. They were over my shoulder as he shoved up his sleeves.

  Conner leaned down, brushing his lips against my ear. A ripple rolled through my stomach at the contact. “Hadley, I’m gonna need you to move out of the way.” He grasped my shoulders gently, walking me backward a couple steps.

  “This is ridiculous.” I tried appealing to him, the seemingly saner one.

  He gazed down at me, his eyes holding that same gentleness he’d always shown me. “Promise me you’ll stay right here.”

  My eyes begged him. “This is stupid.”

  He tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear, stealing my breath away. “When have I ever backed away from a stupid decision?”

  “You asshole,” Jake growled, charging toward us.

  Conner whirled around moving me out of the way just as Jake lowered his shoulder and plowed into his stomach, propelling them both to the ground with loud oomphs. Jake jumped to his feet, towering over Conner. “Stay the fuck away from her.”

  Conner’s head slowly lifted. I expected to find rage in his eyes. Expected him to jump to his feet and lunge at Jake. Expected something. But he just climbed to his feet with a knowing grin. “That all you got, pretty boy?”

  I stood helplessly. They doubled me in size. And neither seemed to be listening to reason.

  Jake lunged for Conner again, but Conner moved, shoving him by the shoulders down on the pavement. Jake landed hard, but he jumped up swiftly, anger etched in the lines of his face. He lunged at Conner again, shoving him in the chest with all his might. Conner stumbled back a couple feet, his chest more of a brick wall than the punching bag Jake expected.

  “Last time you caught me off guard. That won’t happen again,” Conner assured him, that same stinking arrogance I fell for years ago still very much present. “Now, we can do this all night, but that wouldn’t be fair to Hadley.” Conner’s eyes cut to mine, a lopsided grin fixed in place. “It’ll only prove what a pussy she’s dating.”

  Oh, shit.

  Jake growled, charging at him with his fist flying out from behind his back. It connected brutally with Conner’s face. That caused Conner to reel back, grasping his nose.

  “Jake,” I screeched, my eyes daggers. “What the hell?” I rushed to Conner, his nose already bleeding profusely. I dug in my handbag and pulled out some crumbled tissu
es. “Here.” His fingers brushed mine as he took them. “Are you all right?”

  He sopped up the blood with the tissue. “Your man’s a wuss.”

  I hurried over to Jake who shook out his sore hand, clenching and unclenching it like he’d broken something. Served him right for being an ass. “Let’s go.” Though he resisted at first, I pushed him toward the driver’s side of his car. “Get inside. I don’t want to do this here. You got a piece of him. That’s what you wanted, right?”

  “I wanted more than a piece,” he shouted loud enough for Conner to hear. “I wanted to kill him for what he put you through.”

  My heart ached at the idea that he’d done it for me. He’d tried to defend me. He’d wanted revenge for me. I opened the door and urged him inside.

  He paused, looking behind the car at Conner. “That’s just the beginning of what I intend to do to your face, criminal.” I shoved him in the car, and this time he let me.

  “I’ll call you later, Hadley,” Conner called, no longer holding the blood-soaked tissue to his nose, though blood dripped down to his mouth.

  I braced my hands on Jake, stopping him from jumping out of the car like he looked like he wanted to. “He’s trying to provoke you. Please, let’s just go.” I closed his door, rounding the car quickly so he didn’t do something stupid like jump out. I looked to Conner standing there all smug and confident. “Was that necessary?”

  He smiled. “Just wanted to be sure we all knew where I stood.”

  I shook my head, unequipped to deal with him at that point. I slid into Jake’s car without bothering to look back.

  Jake sped out of the parking lot using his left hand while clenching and unclenching his right hand in his lap.

  Idiot.

  “You didn’t have to hit him.”

  “So this is my fault?” His eyes jumped between the road and me.

  I shook my head. “No, but he wasn’t going to fight you.”

  “Can’t you see? That’s exactly what he was doing.”

  I closed my eyes, wishing I didn’t feel so angry at both of them. Wishing I didn’t have to deal with my past and present in one night. Wishing my life was easy. “What do you want from me?”

  “Make a decision. Choose one of us and be done with it.”

  I contemplated Jake’s words as we drove in silence back to my place. Contemplated the whole ridiculous scene. Contemplated the way Conner wanted to provoke him. I couldn’t have them both in my life, regardless of the capacity. Jake saw Conner for what he’d done to me. And Conner saw Jake as the guy in his way. Currently, I saw both of them as two guys who let their frustration with me turn them into complete fools.

  Jake parked in front of my building, not even bothering to get out to walk me to my door. I turned to him. “You were one of the best things that happened to me since getting here.”

  He scoffed, the coldness I’d witnessed in the parking lot rearing its ugly head. “That’s your decision? Seriously?”

  “If you’re giving me an ultimatum—”

  “Something needs to push you to make a choice.”

  I stared at him, baffled by his rationale. “So you thought punching a guy who had no intention of punching you back would make my mind up for me?”

  “No.” He grinned. “But it felt damn good.”

  I sat there at a loss for words. At least the right words. It wasn’t funny. Nothing about the situation was funny. I had two completely different guys fighting for me. Most girls would’ve loved to be in my place.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this, Hadley.”

  I nodded. “Right now, I think it does.”

  “So there’s nothing I can say to change your mind?” It was then, with his blue eyes on me and his heart on his sleeve, I saw that regardless of how emotionally unavailable I’d been throughout our relationship, Jake had been fully committed to me.

  My lips twisted regrettably as I shook my head slowly. “At least now you’ll have your pick of the puck bunnies.” I lifted a shoulder, a weak consolation.

  “Yeah. Too bad the one girl I want, doesn’t want me.”

  “Don’t take it personally. That girl has no idea what she wants.”

  He scoffed, a hint of a smile on his lips.

  I pushed open the door and stepped out into the brisk night. Leaves wafted around my feet as I looked back into the car. “Goodnight, Jake.”

  “Goodnight, Hadley.”

  I closed the car door and made my way inside my building. I couldn’t shake the bloody image of Conner from my mind as I walked inside my empty room. I switched on the light and spotted an envelope peeking out from under my bed, remembering my haste to hide the letters when Jake showed up. I gathered the letters from under my bed, and then crawled onto it.

  Why hadn’t Conner swung back? Why had he let Jake hit him? Did he think it would prove something? Because it only made me angry. And confused. And…I pushed Jake away because of it.

  That bastard.

  My phone vibrated beside me. I grabbed it, my eyes flaring at the message. Is he gone yet?

  My thumbs pounded away at the screen. Is that why you let him hit you?

  Absolutely.

  I sucked in a sharp breath. I’d played right into his plan. I’d done exactly what he wanted me to do by cutting Jake loose. I was still the same sucker. The one who fell for every-freaking-thing the guy did to me. I dropped my head, subsequently dropping the box of letters to the floor. Envelopes fluttered everywhere.

  “God dammit!”

  I dropped to my knees, gathering them once again. This time I haphazardly shoved them back in the box until sobs tore through me and I could no longer see through my tears. I’d worked too hard to put it all behind me. And to think I almost gave in after reading the letters. Now I’d been played by him again. And for the second time, I hadn’t realized it until it was too late.

  I felt myself spiraling. Spiraling into an abyss. One that wouldn’t release me with both my head and heart intact. I lay down on my floor and closed my eyes, praying sleep would pull me under so I didn’t need to feel anymore.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Hadley

  Lorelei barged into our room a week later. “That’s it.”

  I didn’t bother pulling my attention away from the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling above my bed. The same ones I’d been staring at for God knows how long.

  “Get up. We’re going out.”

  “Out? It’s after eleven.”

  “Exactly.” She walked over to her closet and shuffled through her clothes. “The good stuff never happens until after midnight.”

  “I’m not really in the mood.”

  She ripped a tight green top from a hanger and tossed it on my bed. “I’m sick of watching you walk around here like a zombie.” She moved to my dresser and pulled a pair of torn skinny jeans from my bottom drawer.

  “Maybe I like zombies.”

  She tossed the jeans right at my head, so I had no choice but to grab them. “Sure, and like zombies, you haven’t showered in days.”

  I thought about it for a minute. She was right.

  “When my beautiful, confident roommate starts letting herself go, I need to step in.”

  “How do you plan on doing that?”

  “By getting you showered. Then getting you drunk.”

  * * *

  Lorelei had been right. Good things did happen after midnight. Beer pong. Cups. Quarters. And apparently I was the master. And stinking drunk for the fifth night in a row. And while I didn’t normally hang out with Lorelei outside our room, the girl could drink, draw a whole lot of attention from hot guys, and keep me distracted.

  The houses we’d been partying at had been a revolving door of frat guys, jocks, local rockers; you name the type, they’d been through. Thankfully, I hadn’t seen or heard from Jake or Conner since the night of the fight. I hadn’t really expected to hear from Jake after we parted ways. But Conner…I wondered if his disappearance was part of hi
s plan—another one of his strategies.

  I’d forgotten how nice it felt to get lost in a crowd. But being the reigning beer pong queen, I was drawing more attention than I was used to.

  “Throw it back to us,” Lorelei shouted over the music to our opponents, two frat guys who’d waited in line for half an hour to play against us. Now that they’d gotten their chance, we were two cups away from beating their asses.

  They tossed the ping pong ball across the table. Lorelei grabbed it. She aimed it at the cup at the point of the triangle in front of them and lobbed it right in. One of the guys retrieved the ball and downed the beer. The other tossed his ball into the corner cup closest to me. I picked out the ball and threw back the beer like the champ I’d become. It had been going down like water—I had the slurred voice and squinty eyes to prove it. I aimed my ball at the back center cup, the only one of ours left with beer in it. With as much precision as I could muster at one in the morning, I released the ball. It sailed through the air and hit off the rim of one of the other cups, bouncing high into the air and landing back down, somehow managing to bounce into the last filled cup.

  Our opponents cursed while Lorelei and I screamed, grabbing each other into a hug like we’d won the state championship in an actual sport.

  “Why haven’t we ever hung out like this before?” I asked, feeling drunk and wistful.

  She pulled back, looking me right in the eyes. “Oh, Hadley.” She didn’t even try to disguise her sympathy. “You’re a great roommate, but you make it so damn hard to get close to you.”

  I felt my face fall.

  “Freshman year I tried to include you in everything I did. Don’t you remember?”

  I shrugged. Most of the year had been a blur.

  “You always just kept to yourself.”

  “It wasn’t you. I’d just been through a tough time.”

  She nodded. “I figured that. But I also figured you’d eventually talk to me about it or get over it on your own.”

  “I didn’t.”

  She shook her head. “But this week’s been a start.”

  I smiled. “Better late than never.”

  She laughed.