First Chances (4 page)

Chapter Five

Hadie

My legs were on fire, but I continued to push past my limits as I jogged through the wealthy neighborhood of Jackson Heights.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

I let the physical pain take over the emotional one.

That was one thing I hadn’t allowed to change in my life—running. The freedom I felt from it, letting life pass me by in a blur was unrivalled. It was one of the only times my head was clear from thoughts.

My dogs, Halo and Chance kept pace alongside me, though I could see Chance was done for the day. With his short stature and stubby legs, he wasn’t much of a marathon runner, although he did love afternoon runs with me. He was a brown dog with a Corgi and Staffordshire terrier mix in him; one of the few memories of Lincoln I had left.

Lincoln had adopted Chance just before his death to rebel against his mother, and naturally I had taken him after Lincoln’s death. Halo was my weird looking dog, with a long body and a small head. I had only had him since last summer, but he was my buddy, always ready to please.

I was starting to feel a little dizzy, so I slowed down as I tried to catch my breath. My chest was burning and I was definitely feeling lightheaded. Maybe I hadn’t eaten enough today.

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 mirror 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.”