First Chances Page 4

  All of a sudden, Chance started whining and pulling on his leash as though he had spotted something familiar. I looked out across the street and froze.

  It was Lincoln’s old house, but that wasn’t what had made me freeze.

  A familiar figure was standing at the mailbox, staring at us. It was like seeing Lincoln aged by twenty-five years or so. It was Lincoln’s dad.

  From what I’d heard last, Lincoln’s dad was going to sell the house, but then what was he still doing here?

  “Hadie?” he called out to me.

  Chance let out another whine, louder this time, and began dragging me across the street towards Mr. Bracks. When we reached him, Chance continued to whine and wag at him like crazy, while Halo politely sniffed at the stranger’s feet.

  “Hey, there,” Mr. Bracks said, leaning down to pat both dogs before straightening up to give me a weak smile. “Hello, Hadie.”

  Chance was still hyped up and was now trying to pull me up the driveway, so I held on as tight as I could, at the same time wondering what to say to Lincoln’s dad. Running into him had caught me off guard. The wounds from losing Lincoln had barely healed, and it was hard to be confronted with someone so familiar to him.

  “Hi, Mr. Bracks,” I said, not sure where to look and glad that I had the dogs to focus on.

  “It’s nice to see you again,” he said, studying me with sad blue eyes that were so like Lincoln’s.

  “I-uh,” I struggled to find something to say. Even when Lincoln had been alive, I had never gotten close to his family, mainly because his mother and sister were the devil reincarnated. “Do you still live here?”

  He nodded, appearing relieved. Maybe because I hadn’t bolted at the same time as him. “Yes, I decided to stay.”

  “And Mrs. Bracks?” I asked, hoping she hadn’t decided to stay with her husband.

  Mr. Bracks’ face pinched up. “My wife and Becky will be staying in New York.”

  “Oh,” was all I could think to say.

  I could read between the lines. It was obvious Mr. and Mrs. Bracks had separated. I honestly didn’t know much about Mr. Bracks. He had always remained in the sidelines, letting his dominating wife control Lincoln in his dying days, but he didn’t seem like a bad guy. Unlike Mrs. Bracks who had hated me no obvious reason and prevented me from seeing Lincoln on his deathbed.

  “Anyway, it was nice to see you again, Hadie,” he said, sadness returning to his face. “Come by and visit sometime.”

  “Sure,” I said with a forced smile, although I doubted I would ever visit him. There were too many memories of Lincoln in that house I didn’t want to be around.

  Crossing the road, I began jogging back in the direction of my street, haunted by the ghost of a boy I was trying to leave behind. Seeing Lincoln’s dad had worsened my day and made me think of him when I should’ve been focusing on something else.

  I made it back to my house in record time, running straight to my room and pulling open the drawer to my bedside table. With shaky hands, I took out the one thing I had told myself I had to let go of.

  The letter Lincoln had written me before he’d died.

  With hungry eyes, I read over the two pages, cherishing each word as though it was new to me, despite having memorized everything about.

  Hadie,

  You promised me you wouldn’t cry, but I know you will. Do you know how I know? I know because you are the kindest, caring, most considerate person I have ever known.

  I was so lost, so confused, so done with the world until I met you. Nothing mattered to me until the day you walked into my life and showed me that there was still beauty left on the Earth. That there was still something to look forward to even if I didn’t have much time left.

  How can I condense the last few weeks into one page? How can I put into words the time that we spent together? The stolen looks, the way your hand feels in mine, the way you smile, and the way you love me. You have made me the happiest man alive during my last moments in this world.

  Our love is short, it is fleeting, but it is real.

  Our time together falls through my fingers like sand. I try to grasp at it, but eventually it will leave me.

  I will have to leave you, Hadie. One day, very soon, I will no longer get to hear you rambling or feel your lips against mine. I don’t know when that day will come, but I know it will be soon.

  When that day comes, I don’t want you to close yourself off. I want you to grow from the memories we shared. I want you to remember me and smile.

  I have always wondered what comes after life and death. Will I still remember you? Will I still know you? Will I cease to exist? I’m not sure what comes next, Hadie. The only thing I am sure of is uncertainty.

  Don’t see our time together as something to mourn. See it as a way to live. Cherish every second you have. Hold the ones you love close to you. Sing, even when you don’t know the words to the song. Smile when the sun shines on your face. Dance in the rain. Stare in wonder at the ripples that disturb the surface of our lake.

  Life is made up of ripples. We are two ripples that collided and now we are fading away, going our separate ways.

  If I am ever given a chance to hold onto something, I will always hold onto my memories of you.

  Learn from what we had, Hades. Live from what we had.

  Always,

  Lincoln

  Almost choking on my hot tears, I managed to put the letter back in the drawer, wondering why I put myself through the torture. I knew what his letter did to me, yet I went back to it over and over again like an addict unable to quit a bad habit.

  With a heavy heart, I retreated into the shower to wash away the sadness that refused to fade. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed in there trying to drown out my thoughts—in the end it didn’t help. Reality always came back like a rush of cold air.

  When I got out of the shower, I stood in front of the mirror for a long time drying my hair and staring at the broken girl in the mirror. My skin was pale and there were ugly, dark bags under my eyes. I looked like absolute shit.

  Just as I got done in the bathroom, I heard my dad call out. “Henderson, dinner’s ready!”

  He liked to joke around about my unusual name, Hadassah, and the endless list of ‘H’ names he came up with never grew old.

  “Coming!” I called out, guessing my parents had gotten home from work while I was in the shower.

  As I was about to leave my room, the message tone of my phone went off. Reaching over to grab it from the bedside table, I saw that it was Three.

  Do u wanna do something tonight?

  Three was exactly the distraction I needed after the rough day I’d had. I quickly typed back a response.

  Sure.

  See u in 10.

  In ten? That meant he was already in the area. He probably knew I wouldn’t turn him down. I never did. These days, I preferred the comfort of a stranger over my friends. Still, Three didn’t feel like a stranger anymore. In the past couple of weeks he had become a friend.

  I couldn’t really explain what it was that we had between us, but he had come into my life at a time when I was struggling to grasp onto anything that would get me through the pain. The pain of loss was searing; it was poisonous and it had consumed me.

  Eddie had helped. I could never make it up to him for everything he had done. But the problem was Eddie wanted me to be the girl he knew me as. I couldn’t do that anymore. To go back to being who I was, meant being the pathetic wallflower that everyone walked over. A wimpy girl who had been cheated on. A broken girl who wallowed in grief and self-pity.

  Being with Three was like being a different person. I could be anyone I wanted to be. I could reinvent myself. I could try to forget.

  Quickly changing into skinny black jeans and a red, figure hugging tank top, I grabbed a cute brown leather jacket with a hoodie to keep warm. To complete the look I pulled on black boots and applied some make up.

  The girl who stared back at me in the mir
ror looked nothing like the girl I had known all my life. I was a stranger to myself, and I liked it that way. Moments ago, I had looked shit; now I looked like hot shit.

  When I went downstairs, the delicious smell of pasta greeted me, along with an excited Halo and Chance.

  As well as being completely weird, my mother was also an amazing cook. She was the secretary at the law firm in town that Dad was a partner at, but she never neglected her housewife duties.

  I looked almost exactly like her with the same petite build, brown hair, and pointed face, except I had the same shade of brown eyes as my dad and similar smiles.

  “Harmonia!” Dad said with a bright smile from where he sat at the kitchen table. “So nice of you to leave your cave of doom and gloom and join us.”

  Anyone who didn’t know my dad would think he was being serious from the solemn look on his face, but he was about as serious as a grape—however non-serious grapes were.

  “She’s a teenager. They like to stay cooped up in their rooms. Let her do teenager things,” Mom said as she scooped bowtie pasta and marinara sauce onto the three plates on the table.

  “Not in this house!” Dad slammed his fist down on the table in an overdramatic manner. “Do you know what teenagers do these days, Susannah? They get 16 & Pregnant!”

  Mom barely flinched as she put the pot of pasta on the counter and picked up the salad bowl. “Peter, she’s seventeen. I think we’ve cleared that hurdle.”

  “Then I think you failed to notice her outfit,” Dad pointed out. “We simple folk don’t usually get this dressed up for family dinner.”

  Mom’s eyes fell on me and then grew as she finally took in what I was wearing. I was normally a sweater and baggy jeans kind of a girl; I was sure my wardrobe change-up was hard for them to swallow. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “Yeah, uh, just out with a friend,” I said.

  I could tell from the exchanged look between my parents that my lack of detail hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  “Is this friend a dangerous bad boy with a motorcycle who probably owns a secret gun collection and robs jewelry stores on the weekend?” Dad enquired a matter-of-factly.

  Before I could open my mouth to respond, the sound of a motorcycle approaching cut me off.

  “Hmm,” Mom said, setting the salad bowl down on the table with too much force. “I’m assuming you won’t be joining us for dinner.”

  I shook my head and made for the front door, feeling uncomfortable. My parents were pretty easy going when it came to parenting, but I knew they could see the shift in my attitude and didn’t like it. I couldn’t blame them. No parent wanted their academic, straight-laced child to become trouble.

  When I pulled open the door, Three was leaning casually against the railing of our front porch. His dark hair was spiked up as usual and the faint scar on his cheek stood out against his tan skin. I’d asked him about it once, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it so I’d never brought it up again.

  “Hey,” he said, his eyes wandering over me, “you look nice.”

  “Um, thanks,” I responded, my tone shy.

  I wasn’t sure if he was being polite or if that was what he really thought.

  “Don’t look too much,” Dad’s voice said from behind me.

  I almost jumped out of my skin, and felt a flush creep on my neck. I had a feeling my dad was about to majorly embarrass me.

  “Hey, Mr. Swinton,” Three said with a nod, appearing completely unaffected.

  “Hello, Three,” Dad said, his tone stern. “Keep the compliments to a minimum and your hands to yourself.”

  “Dad!” I cried, turning around and shooting him a glare, before grabbing Three’s arm and dragging him down the front steps.

  “Nice to see you, Mr. Swinton!” Three called out cheerfully.

  “Sorry about that,” I said as we neared Three’s bike. “He can get a little protective, but I swear he’s harmless.”

  “It’s nice that he cares about you,” Three said, his tone turning solemn for a second.

  There was something about him, something that he never spoke about, but I could tell it was from having a rough life. For a second, I considered asking him about it, but quickly pushed the thought away.

  My relationship with Three wasn’t about in-depth conversation and difficult questions. It was about having fun and letting go. We didn’t need to dwell on all that serious stuff.

  “Yes, it is,” I said simply.

  If he wanted to elaborate on his words, he was more than welcome to, but I knew he wouldn’t. That wasn’t how our arrangement worked.

  “So, the usual spot?” he asked.

  I nodded without hesitation, loving that he never tried to deviate from the routine we had going.

  “Then get on,” he said, climbing onto his motorcycle.

  Without hesitation, I climbed on after him, feeling somewhat like a motorcycle-embarking pro. Two weeks ago, I’d almost fallen off the other side because I was gravitationally challenged. Luckily, I had quickly learned how to balance myself better after that initial disaster.

  A thrill shot through me as his motorcycle roared to life and he sped off down the street. At first I closed my eyes, but after a while I opened them so I could see the world soar past me in a rush of colors.

  Being around Three didn’t exactly make me feel safe and I liked that feeling.

  Very soon, we were driving down a familiar road that was covered by thick woods on both sides. Three pulled the bike over on the side of the road, knowing the spot we frequented even in the darkness.

  To anyone else, it looked like an unimportant place to spend our time, but to me it meant the world. This was a place special to Lincoln and me—the first place we had had sex, the first place he had taught me to let go of all the bullshit. He had made me stand on the edge of the clearing and declare to the world that I wasn’t going to give into its games.

  That was why I liked coming back here—because I felt a sense of empowerment being reminded of that night with Lincoln. The night Eddie had discovered Three and me on the side of the road had been at this exact spot. But neither Eddie nor Three knew what this place meant to me, and they didn’t need to.

  ‘C’mon,” Three said, pulling a bottle of Fireball out of the storage compartment and heading into the darkness of the trees.

  Hurrying after him, I wrapped my arms around myself tighter, trying to fight the cold. I wasn’t sure why Three did this with me—spent cold nights doing nothing but drinking, but I knew he was blowing off his friends for me. They would always call, wondering what he was doing, and he would make up an excuse as to why he couldn’t hang out with them.

  We didn’t hold hands as we walked through the silent trees, which was fine with me. Instead, I walked a few steps behind him, watching his lean muscular figure as it guided me down to a clearing. Lincoln and I had never come here, but Three and I hung out here because we could light a fire to stay warm.

  Three handed me the bottle of Fireball and immediately got to work making a fire. He’d left a canister of gasoline here, and there was plenty of dry wood to set alight. He pulled out a silver lighter from his pocket and used it to light the wood.

  I sat down on the ground not too far from the woodpile and watched him, taking a generous sip from the bottle that made my insides burn. Maybe it was stupid of me to come out here by myself with a guy I hadn’t known for very long, but whatever, I was taking chances and doing things differently.

  Once the fire was going, Three sat down beside me, and took the Fireball from me. He pulled from it, watching me with gleaming eyes.

  “Sooo, Hadie, what do you want to do tonight?” he asked, giving me a suggestive smile.

  My neck flushed hot, which had nothing to do with the heat from the fire and everything to do with the way he was looking me over like he had something highly inappropriate on his mind.

  Okay, let’s pause for a minute. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what a guy like Three expected, but
I wasn’t willing to give it up to him yet. Maybe not ever.

  “What we do every night,” I said, my voice quiet as I leaned over to place a soft kiss on his lips.

  Three grabbed the back of my head with his hand and deepened the kiss, crushing his mouth against mine as my mind wandered to a different boy with periwinkle blue eyes. It wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying the kiss; Three was a great kisser. It was just that my heart wasn’t in it.

  I pulled away, breaking the kiss as Three let out a groan. “How long are you gonna tease me for, Hadie?”

  Lowering my gaze, I tried to figure out what to say. “I-uh, I just, I’m not ready yet.”

  Three let out a deep breath and I looked up to see him take a gulp of the Fireball. He put the bottle aside and gave me a serious look. Oh, crap. I wasn’t ready for a serious conversation. I just wanted to get drunk and have a good time with him.

  “Hadie, if you weren’t Estella’s best friend, I wouldn’t be treating you with the respect I am now. Usually, I like to get right to the fucking.”

  I stared down at the ground, feeling uncomfortable. Three was so blunt about his feelings that sometimes I was completely tongue tied around him. Like now.

  “I know,” I spluttered. “I just can’t yet.”

  Three was very close to Stelle, which was the only reason I think he put up with me. And maybe because I was different to the girls he was used to.

  “It’s not a big deal,” he said, handing me the Fireball. “Let’s just enjoy ourselves. Last time you started telling me about your asshole ex, Bennett.”

  With a small smile, I took the bottle from him and took a swig, and just like that, we fell easily back into our usual routine. No pressure, no expectations.

  Chapter Six

  Eddie

  “Hi, honey, are you off to practice?”

  My mom was standing at the kitchen counter chopping up an onion, while Hailie sat at the kitchen table doing her homework. Since my mom had the night off work, I could finally go to Luca’s for practice. It was exactly what I needed since I had so much Hadie stuff on my mind.