𝐂𝐎𝐖𝐁𝐎𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐌𝐄 || 𝐫. 𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

HADLEY AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING FROM A NIGHTMARE. She ran a hand through her hair as she lay back down and stared at the ceiling. She had them not regularly but fairly often, and it was almost always about the same thing. Her mother.

Lilly Alden hadd been a town celebrity. She was the sweetest person ever, and sunshine seemed to follow her wherever she went. She always stopped to help people with their groceries, and she always volunteered and did anything she could to help out. It was like she was an angel disguised as a person.

But being an angel can't always save you. She was volunteering for a week in Austin at some shelter, and on her way home, she stopped by a gas station. She was shot in an armed robbery, and she never came home. The last time that Hadley got to see her was the night before she left. They had gotten into a fight because twelve-year-old Hadley wanted to go to a sleepover, but her mom would not let her because there would be no one to drive her home. She screamed at her and slammed the door.

She thought about that moment a lot, wondering if somehow, she could have changed things by not being so selfish. It made no sense because what she said did not correlate to whether her mother's car needed gas, but she still pondered on it a lot.

And to that day, Hadley was still out of her mind scared of guns.

The only person that knew of her slightly-irrational fear was Kyle, and he swore not to tell anyone. They very rarely spoke about it, sometimes when they were both really drunk or feeling down. It kind of put a downer on the mood. Jacob, Hadley's dad, took a huge hit and took up drinking. He was doing better recently, but it was still pretty bad.

The Alden girl forced herself to get out of bed and put some clothes on. She threw on her cafe T-shirt and some jean shorts before doing her makeup and heading to work. Dodge was already there when she walked in since the restaurant would open in about ten minutes.

"That was an impressive jump last night," he told her, being the first one to speak. She was glad that it was him because she was not totally sure what to say to a competitor. She wanted to be nice, but she did not want him to think that she was keeping her enemies closer.