No Hard Feelings

eleven

E L E V E N

THIS IS WHAT Hadley told Dexter when she broke up with him—

"I'm tired of fighting, Dex. I'm tired of us."

She lied.

A month before their breakup, Dexter brought him to his favorite place in town.

Hadley had been hesitant at first, but she went anyway, letting him guide her downtown where her parents would often warn her not to wander into. She wandered anyway, because she was with Dexter, and she never really did learn how to refuse him when he was being stubborn.

He was cute when he was stubborn.

It was something that annoyed her to no end.

She tried to stand her ground, like she always did, but her efforts proved to be futile. Dexter had simply given her this stupid, stupid smile and stupid, stupid puppy-dog eyes, and Hadley was reeled immediately into his antics, making choices she'd swear to him she would regret but never did.

Dexter's one of those choices.

When she agrees to spend the day with him. When she lets him take her hand. When she kisses him back in the shadows by that old tree in front of her house, hidden where her parents or Taylor couldn't see them should they choose to look out the window.

Every time she agrees to go with him, she agrees to all of him.

He was a choice she kept making, time and time and time again, from that first day in the library when he made her laugh just by being himself to agreeing to this idea of his for them to go downtown completely unsupervised.

"Don't worry," he told her when he sensed her worry, one hand reaching for the pendant he kept on a black leather band slung around his beck. "My mom says this is an amulet of protection."

They were sitting on a bus, the two of them sitting next to each other, and Hadley hadn't told her parents where she was going. Her nerves were all over the place and even Dexter's presence didn't help much to ease them away.

Then he was removing pulling the necklace over his head, surprising her by holding it out to her. She only stared at it, frozen, looking at the crescent-shaped metal dangling on the leather band. Eventually, Dexter let out a breath and shifted so that he could put it on her like he's awarding her with a medal.

"It will be fine," he told her. "I've been there a thousand times and nothing's ever happened to me."

That was easy for him to say, of course. Dexter was invincible. There were times when it hurt just to look at him, at his smile, confident and assured, like he knew things would always fall into place without a doubt.

Hadley wasn't like that. Hadley always worried that things would fall apart any second, like everything would fall out of place just because that was how life worked out for her. She needed to be careful, always careful, because her life is filled with pitfall traps, all laid out ahead of her, just waiting for her to make one careless step.

This was why she could never really relax around Dexter.

Dexter was sure-footed where Hadley was clumsy, and if they were in one of those ancient dungeons on that game he and Adrian would sometimes play in their living room, then Dexter would have come out unscathed while Hadley would have lost all her five hearts merely halfway through the mission.

Being with Dexter was fun. Being with Dexter was an adventure. Being with Dexter was one of the best things that ever happened to her.

But being with Dexter was a risk.