First Chances (16 page)

“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 pointedly 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.”

Riley’s expression turned sheepish, and his gaze fell on Hadie and me. “So, what about you two? Are you guys official?”

Silence fell around us as I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned to Hadie. She seemed embarrassed by the attention that was on us, and gave me a shy smile.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, running a hand through my hair nonchalantly. “I was thinking about it since we kiss a lot, and I don’t usually like kissing random girls.”

Hadie’s eyes grew wide and she smacked me across the arm, making all of us burst into laughter. “I am not a random girl!”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, bringing my mouth close to hers. “Then what are you? Because I don’t kiss girls who aren’t my girlfriend.”

She stared at me in surprise and then frowned, seeming lost in her own thoughts for a moment. Finally, she tilted her head to the side as she chewed on her bottom lip. “Well, maybe I could be.”

Even though I knew what she was referring to, I raised a brow in question anyway. It was fun teasing her and seeing her smile.

“Your girlfriend, I mean,” she said, blushing like crazy.

“Hmm.” I glanced up at the ceiling, pretending to think about it for a second. “Well, I guess I can send you an application. You can expect my response in 8-10 business days.”

“Eddie!” she cried in outrage, swatting at me again as my friends starting laughing.

Grinning, I snatched up her hand, pulling her close to me. “You better watch that hand, Hadie Swinton. You don’t want to know what I’ll do to you.”

She fell silent, and her face was tinged with pink. Something about the way she looked made me pull her closer to me. Having her pressed against me filled my chest with an overwhelming sensation for this girl, for the way she made me feel.

“Dude, tone down the PDA,” Riley interjected. “We’re trying to eat here.”

I picked up a piece of baked potato off my plate and threw it at Riley, who dodged it with a laugh. Stacey punched him in the arm instead, and he looked at her like a puppy that had been scolded.

Not caring what anyone thought, I reached over and planted a kiss on Hadie’s forehead before wrapping an arm around her small shoulders. Hadie glanced up at me, her face warm and glowing. Then all of a sudden, she frowned. “What happened to your face?”

“Huh?” I asked, thrown off by her question.

“Your face,” she said, squinting at me. “It looks swollen.”

Oh, crap. I’d almost forgotten about Three and his show of stupidity. I’d been too nervous about the date that I’d become oblivious to the pain in my face from being knocked to the ground.

A hush fell around the table as my friends caught on to Hadie’s question. Way to make it even more weird, guys.

“Nothing, I just fell,” I lied quickly, immediately hating myself.

I’d told myself I’d always be honest with Hadie, but this was something I had to lie about. She didn’t need a reminder of Three on our date. Honestly, I’d prefer it if he never flashed across her mind ever again.

“Do you want some ice for that?” she asked, still frowning at me.

“Nah, I’m a man. I can handle it,” I said with a wink, trying to push the bad feeling away, which made her giggle.

“So what are we gonna call you guys now that you’re official?” Riley asked out of nowhere, clearly trying to change the subject. “Brad and Angelina are Brangelina; Ashton and Luca are Ashca.” He trailed off, looking around at everyone for some input.

Even though I was grateful he was trying to steer the conversation away from my swollen face, I was also thrown off by the new topic he’d brought up. Besides, I’d never heard of anyone refer to Ashton and Luca as Ashca until this very second.

“Ashca?” Ashton demanded, staring at him in disbelief. “That’s what you’re calling us? Ashca?!”

“It sounds better than Lucton,” Riley said, giving her an innocent grin before turning back to Hadie and me. “Eddie and Hadie. What name can we make from that?”

“Well, you can’t really,” Elly said simply. “When you put their names together, you get either Eddie or Hadie.”

“What?” Riley’s brow furrowed in confusion at her words. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, seriously,” Elly said, looking around the table as she chewed on a piece of chicken marsala. “You guys try combining their names.”

There were several long seconds of silence as my friends’ faces scrunched up in concentration.

“I never realized that before!” Stacey finally cried, staring at us with wide eyes. “That’s crazy.”

I had never realized that either, but it wasn’t like I sat around trying to fuse Hadie and my names together.

“Dude, that blows,” Riley said, seeming disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to coin a name for us.

Frankly, I was relieved he couldn’t think of something stupid to call us.

“Well, I think it’s sweet,” Ashton declared, shooting him a glare.

“Me too,” Elly said, with a dreamy smile. “Like they were meant to be.”

“You could just use their full first names,” Luca suggested, giving me a teasing look. He knew how I felt about my first name. “Right, Eddison?”

My mom was the only one who ever called me Eddison, and I’d gone by Eddie since I was a kid. Hadie also had an interesting first name, which she probably didn’t think I knew.

“And Hadassah,” I said slowly, as Hadie groaned from beside me.

Clearly, she wasn’t a fan of her first name either, and maybe that was why everyone knew her as Hadie. I, for one, thought Hadassah was pretty cool.

“Eddison and Hadassah?” Riley asked, his eyes growing as he stared between the both of us. “Holy shit, what are you gonna name your kids?”

“Renesmee?” Elly suggested with a chuckle.

I didn’t know what the hell a Renesmee was, but it made Hadie laugh, so I figured it was some girl thing that I just didn’t get.

“How did you know my first name was Hadassah?” Hadie asked in a low tone, nudging me with an elbow.

“I have my ways,” I said, trying to sound mysterious.

Actually, it wasn’t a big mystery at all. Since my uncle was the principal at my high school, I’d spent countless hours as a student aide helping him organize student files. There were first names and middle names a lot of kids probably didn’t want anyone to know. Trust me, Hadassah wasn’t bad compared to Wilfred or Bertha.

“Hmm,” she said, her eyes bright as she squeezed my hand.

My heart skipped a little and tripped over itself.

“Alright, I don’t have a lot to work with here,” Riley was saying, his forehead creased with a heavy line as he pushed his fork around his plate. “Heddison?”

Luca shook his head ever so slightly. “Really? You want to nickname them Heddison? That’s the worst fucking name I’ve ever heard.”

The girls laughed at that, but I had to agree. Heddison was about the worst damn name he could come up with.

Riley shrugged, throwing his hands up in the air. “Well, it’s that or Eddassah. It’s not like I had anything manageable to start with.” He said this so seriously that you could believe for a second that this was his job.

“Eddassah?” Stacey said, wrinkling up her face in thought. “Sounds weird.”

“We’ll take it,” I said quickly, wanting this shameful concoction of names to come to an end. “Eddassah is good.” Even though Eddassah was terrible.

“Yes, it’s
good
,” Hadie said very unconvincingly, making a face which made us all crack up.

Eddassah was terrible, but it was ours. We were Eddassah, and I had never thought it would be possible—that a connection would be made between Hadie and me. It didn’t matter how crappy our names sounded together, I was going to take it.

As I turned my head to survey my friends once again, I caught Ashton’s eye. She flashed me a big thumbs up, and I was glad she was here. I was glad all my friends were here, so they could be a part of this moment in my life.

Most importantly, I was glad Hadie was here, because she was that moment.