No Hard Feelings

six

S I X

WHEN HADLEY AGREED to being Dexter's friend after they'd broken up, she really believed that her feelings for him would ebb away.

In fact, for the first few months after their breakup, it seemed to her as if her feelings for Dexter had already evaporated, replaced by a different kind of love. She came to learn to treasure him as a friend, and she was content with that.

It wasn't easy at first, of course. There were times when Hadley would sit and think about what they could have had if she hadn't decided to throw them away, but that feeling eventually faded when she realized she made the right choice to break it off and keep him from getting too close to her.

They were best friends, and that was that.

But then Tara came along.

Tara was Dexter's first real girlfriend after Hadley. He met her four months after their breakup when he ended up getting detention for falling asleep in class. She was there for being late, and, because it's Dexter, by the time they were leaving, they'd already made plans to have dinner Friday night.

There had been a few other girls before Tara, and Hadley had never felt any sour feelings toward them, and she didn't expect Tara to be any different from any of them, but somehow she stuck around and pretty soon, Dexter started spending less and less time with her and the others.

Hadley refused to believe she was affected by his absence. She wanted to think that she was only feeling that way because she'd grown used to spending nearly every day with him.

Then one day he dropped by at her house with some takeout from Coffee Overdose and they'd sat in their porch swing. There was a twinkle to his eyes that she hasn't seen in a long time and when he began to talk about Tara, you could just tell by the way his lips were pulled into a fond smile that he really believed their date earlier that evening had been perfect.

"She does this thing with her nose," he said, "when she's confused, and it looks absolutely adorable and I'm sitting there thinking: fuck, I really, really want to kiss her. Or hug her. Or even just look at her."

Hadley could read the whole dictionary and still not find the right words to describe the happiness on his face.

"I don't know," he said, still smiling, "I just feel like this thing between us is... just right. Like she could really be the one."

And Hadley felt some part inside her collapse--a part she never even knew existed until then, but it did, and now that it's broken down, she suddenly feels like she can't breathe.

"That's good," she forced herself to say, eyes downcast because she didn't know if she can look at his smile any longer than she'd already had, and so he continued to talk about this girl who isn't her, telling her all these little quirks and little things and Hadley's just sitting there, nodding her head, mumbling "Mm--hmm," her cup of hot chocolate growing colder and colder in her hands.

And then she was blinking back tears, so she let her hair fall between them to hide her eyes from him while he continued to tell her all about Tara, listing down things that made him think she's perfect.

She was the opposite of Hadley.

So what else was Hadley supposed to think, if he thinks this girl who's completely, utterly different from her is perfect for him?

It hurt.

It hurt and it surprised her because all this time, she thought she was over Dexter. All this time, she thought she was perfectly fine with being nothing more than his best friend. All this time, she thought she was finally, finally safe from him.