Before Hadley (20 page)

“So you’re not okay?”

I shrugged. “Cass says he’s the reason I have trouble letting people in. Do you think I have trouble letting people in?”

His face revealed what his words weren’t likely to admit. “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like you’re closed off to the possibility of a future with me. It’s like, you like hanging out now, but now is now, and later…who knows?”

“I do like hanging out with you. But I think maybe I have trouble seeing a future with anyone because of what happened with this guy.”

“That bad?”

“He destroyed me. He made me believe nothing’s what it seems.”

“This is exactly what it seems.” Jake leaned in and kissed me, like really kissed me, wiping Conner’s face from my brain. When he pulled back, he looked directly into my eyes. “I can wait. Go exorcize this dick from your brain and then we can pick up where we left off.”

My forehead creased. “You’re joking.”

He shook his head and sat up. “Nope. I only want two of us in this room when I sleep with my girl. If that means you need this guy out of your head, then get him out of your head. Or, if you want, me and my boys can make sure he’s not only out of your head but also out of your life.”

I laughed, a warmth spreading over me. Jake made me happy. He was someone I could see in my future. But first I needed to do something about my past.

Conner

Now what?

I stared down at my phone. I’d wanted this, but now what? My fingers went to work.
Meet me.

I barely blinked before Hadley replied.
Fifteen minutes. Quad.

An anxious shudder rocked through my body. She agreed to meet me which meant she planned to listen to me. Or if she was the same Feisty I’d known, she planned to put me in my place.

I grabbed my white T-shirt from the floor beside the air mattress I’d been sleeping on in Vik’s dorm room. The girl was hysterical, and as promised, gaped at me when I came back from the shower. I made sure to leave water droplets on my chest just to give her a show. Why not? I’d been showering with dudes for three years. Having a little female attention didn’t hurt my ego. And even if it wasn’t the female I wanted looking at me, it was a female nonetheless who’d taken me in after knowing my situation.

I threw on my T-shirt and some loose gray sweat pants and slipped quietly out of Vik’s room. The cool night air greeted me as I stepped outside, heading uphill toward the quad. I knew it would be deserted since it was nearing midnight, so the thought of Hadley walking alone  unnerved me.

I wondered if her boyfriend knew she was meeting me. The whole idea of her even having a boyfriend turned my veins to ice. I wasn’t stupid enough to think she hadn’t been with other guys since I’d been gone. She was hot and guys were bound to come sniffing around. It wasn’t like I gave her a reason to wait for me. Especially since she hadn’t read my letters. If she had, maybe I could’ve prevented it. Man. I’d spent so many hours with a pencil and paper spilling my guts to her. More and more of me exposed in each one. If only she’d read them. If only she hadn’t given up on me. If only she hadn’t given up on us.

I stepped onto the quad. The surrounding buildings cast dark shadows onto the grassy area. I walked out into the center, knowing it was the best place to wait since I’d see her approach from any direction. Three years was a long time. There so many things I wanted to say—wanted to explain to her. But there were also things I wanted to know about her.

I didn’t have to wait long. Hadley emerged from the darkness, her small frame concealed by a hoodie and jeans. She walked slowly toward me, each tentative step drawing us closer and closer together. Exactly how it should’ve been. She stopped once she stood in front of me in the center of the square, her eyes locking on mine and her arms crossed, an impenetrable shield from the monster she thought me to be. “So?”

Having her in front of me brought back all the same feelings. The ones I felt when we first met. The attraction. The fascination. The happiness. “Hi.” I almost smiled.

“You didn’t text me three times and interrupt my night just to say hello. So speak.”

I stared at her. This girl I thought about every day I was behind bars. The one who inhabited my greatest memories and filled my dreams. The one I envisioned when my right hand was my only form of pleasure. She looked older. And tired. And so incredibly unhappy to see me. I hated the disgust in her eyes—the disgust at my presence. “Why don’t we grab a bench,” I asked.

Her head whirled around, her eyes settling on one to our right. Without a word, she walked toward it. I hastened my steps, trying to keep up. She sat down and I followed, my leg brushing hers as I settled onto the bench. Her entire body jerked away, as if repulsed by my touch.

I wouldn’t lie. It sucked.

“Speak.”

I winced at the harshness in her voice. At the thought that I’d caused it. “What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever was so important that you ruined my night.”

My body tensed. What had I ruined? Was she with her boyfriend? What were they doing that she was so pissed I interrupted it? I wouldn’t let my mind wander there. Not now. Not when I was there and determined to win her back. I averted my gaze, my eyes staring out at the empty quad. “I’m sorry I ruined your night.”

She huffed out a breath. “You ruined a lot more than just my night.”

I nodded. “I deserve that.”

“Deserve
that
? You deserve a lot more than that.”

I nodded, though I wished somehow the debt I paid society over the past three years had been enough for her.

“I think I loved you.” 

Her words sucked the air from my lungs as my eyes shot to her. She wasn’t looking at me. It didn’t matter, though. It was the first time she’d said it. The first time I knew for sure that what I’d felt for her hadn’t been one-sided. It had been as real for her as it had been for me. “I didn’t know that,” I said.

She shrugged. “Would it have mattered?”

I shook my head. “Probably not.”

“Why?” Her eyes finally cut to mine. “Why’d you do it?”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

She scoffed. “We all have choices. You just chose wrong.”

“You don’t understand. That was my life. Moving place to place looking for the next big score. I didn’t ask to be part of it. I was made to be part of it. I was made to do things people like you just couldn’t understand.”

“People like me? People you used and stole from?”

I dragged my hands down my face, frustrated she didn’t get it. She didn’t understand. “I swear to you, I didn’t use you.”

She balked.

“And I never stole anything from you.”

Her mouth opened into a giant O. “Are you serious right now? Because had you not gotten caught, you had every intention of stealing from me.”

I exhaled my frustration. “I wish you read my letters. It was easier to explain when you weren’t sitting inches away from me looking so beautiful and smelling the way you always did.” She opened her mouth to respond. But I continued. “I remember just burying my nose in your hair when I had you in my arms so I could smell you. So I could take your scent back home with me. Take it back to the lifeless trailer where I lived. And I could sleep well knowing you were safe from my world while you were tucked away in that big house of yours.”

She sat quietly for a long time. I’d given her something to think about. Or at least a reminder of how much I cared about her. “Well, I didn’t read your letters. And now I’m here. But I’m not inches away. I’m freaking miles away. You’re a stranger to me.”

“I loved you, too, Hadley. I still love you.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “Don’t. Not after everything that happened. Everything you did.”

“God dammit, woman,” I growled. “Don’t tell me what I can say. Or feel. Or think. I. Still. Love. You.”

She shook her head, unable to believe my words. Unable to believe the truth. I wondered if those were tears glistening in her eyes or just a reflection of the moonlight. “You don’t even know me anymore.”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

Her eyes narrowed. Her forehead scrunched. “What do you want from me, Cay—Conner?
God dammit
,” she cursed herself for forgetting my name. But why would she remember? That’s how she knew me. That’s the guy who pushed his way into her life. The guy she fought like hell to keep out, caving only after he showed a true glimpse of who he desperately wanted to be.

“I told you.” I jumped to my feet, unable to be that close to her without touching her.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, convenient. You’ve got nowhere else to go, so you look for the one sucker who’d fall for your lies. Telling me you love me was a nice touch, by the way. But I’m not that girl anymore. I’m not that sucker.”

A stab of pain pierced my chest at her hardened tone. At the way she put herself down. At the way she viewed me. “You were never a sucker, Hadley. Stop saying that.”

“Did you see me that night when we first met and think,
her
? She looks like someone I can get close to. Someone I can fool.”

You’d have thought sirens blasted the silence the way my ears rang. “Stop it.”

She jumped to her feet, moving toward me with angry steps. “No, you stop it. Stop contacting me. Stop showing up at my place. Stop trying to play me. Wasn’t once enough?”

I grabbed hold of her shoulders, unable to stay away any longer. “Stop saying that. Stop believing that. I never wanted to hurt you. I only wanted to know you. And hold you. And fucking love you.”

We stared each other down, our chests heaving. I was so close to her, it would’ve taken nothing to lean down and kiss her. It’s what I wanted—what I’d thought about—more than anything else over the last three years. But given the harsh look in her big blue eyes, it would’ve been a huge mistake.

She jerked her shoulders back, pulling free from my grasp. “Then why? Why blow it? Why throw it away for something I could’ve gotten for you if you just asked me? If you just told me what was going on. If you just told me the truth.”

My head dropped forward, realizing in that moment—just like I’d known three years before—she would’ve had my back. She would’ve helped me if she’d known what I had to do. What I’d been up against. But I hadn’t told her. And now I had to deal with the repercussions. The aftermath of me not being honest with her. Not trusting her to stand by me. “I’m sorry. I should’ve trusted you enough to tell you. Believe me. I wanted to. I
so
fucking wanted to. But I weighed my options. Lose you or do what I had to do and hopefully hold on to you.”

She stared at me, her face blank and her eyes depthless holes. “Well, you lost me anyway.”

I stared back. “I’ll be damned if I make that mistake again.”

Her hands shot out to her sides. “Can’t you see? It’s too late.”

“It’s never too late.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you get it? I’ll never trust you again.”

Her words seized my heart, squeezing it so hard I’d have sworn it ceased my pulse. It was the moment. The moment I realized what I’d been too afraid to even consider.

She might never forgive me.

And that fucking sucked.

We stood with our eyes locked. Silence filled the space around us. With each passing second, I was losing her all over again. That was never supposed to happen. I knew that. She needed to know it, too. “I’m thinking of enrolling here.”

Her eyebrows shot up, probably at both my news and the subject change. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I have over fifty credits. I did some work while I was away.”

She buried her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, her sneakers kicking away at the grass beneath her feet. “That’s good.”

“You think this campus is big enough for the both of us?” I smiled, trying to give off the impression that I was all right with the outcome of our conversation. I wasn’t. I was nowhere
near
all right with it. I couldn’t even begin to envision my life with her at a distance when all I’d done over the past three years was envision her in it.

She shrugged. “I’m graduating in May, so it’s only for a short time.”

I ignored the possibility that time was running out. “You still doing art?”

She shook her head. “Not so much.”

My head withdrew. “Why not?”

“There aren’t many jobs in the field.”

Needing to be closer, I stepped forward. “That’s a shame.”

Hadley slowly stepped back, obviously wanting to distance herself from me.

“You’re really talented,” I said.

Her lips twisted as her shoulders shrugged. “Goodnight, Conner.” She turned and started back in the direction of her place.

Shit
.

“I wanna see you in the morning.”

She stopped, glancing over her shoulder. “I knew a guy once who promised to kiss me in the morning.”

I smiled. She hadn’t forgotten my words. “Smart guy.”

She shook her head. “Not really. He didn’t end up with the girl.”