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.
But there she sits with tears in her eyes while Dexter's hold the stars.
Stupid, she thought, and only when she climbed into bed two hours later did she let herself cry.
She didn't think she was ever going to cry over a guy again, so she'd always been careful about letting people into her life. She didn't even think she cared about Josh enough for her to cry, but she did anyway.
When she found that girl's photo on his phone and, subsequently, the messages they'd been sending each other for two months now, it felt like the world had folded in on itself, trapping her in with no way for her to escape.
She never saw it coming, never quite expected to come across it when she first mapped out their story, and while she never had thoughts of them ever being a life-long thing, she'd be lying if she said she hasn't grown somewhat attached to him in the time they'd been together.
One can't just spend eight months with a person and not get used to them, and though Hadley had initially agreed to go out with Josh solely because she thought that was the only way for her to finally get rid of her feelings for Dexter, she later found herself truly enjoying their time together.
He made her feel safe, maybe not in the ways people usually seek for, but in the ways that actually mattered to her, and god knows how willing she is to forget about what he'd done if it means she can keep holding onto that feeling of security.
So she's back with him, and Friday night she waits for him to pick her up from the shop.
"You really don't have to wait with me," she tells Dexter for the third time now, but he seems adamant on staying.
He hops onto the counter with the ease of someone who's done it way too many times before. "I don't mind."
The shop's been closed for almost half an hour now. Hadley's parents already left, but she doesn't want Josh to go through the trouble of driving all the way to her house to pick her up so she stayed back. Unsurprisingly, Dexter volunteered to wait with her.
She heaves herself up the counter so that they're sitting next to each other in the dim light of the closed shop. "How do you like working here so far?"
"Well," he says, drumming his fingers against the edge of the table, "I'm absolutely enjoying the free candy. And the eye-candy," he adds, sending a suggestive wink Hadley's way.
Hadley suppresses a laugh and nudges him with her elbow. "Should've expected you'd say something like that."
He nudges her back. "You're a sweet, sweet sight to behold, Had. You might even be my favorite flavor."
"You sit on a throne of lies," she says. "You obviously have a taste for sweet, unsuspecting tourists with a penchant for my dad's truffles."
"Your dad's truffles?" Dexter points out, a horrified lilt to his voice. "That sounds so... wrong."
Hadley groans, bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "You're right. Last time I'm ever saying that again."
"I think we can both agree to never use that phrase again. Unless maybe if you're talking to your mom. Hey! Maybe I should go and ask her if she loves your dad's truffles tomorrow--"
"Dexter, I swear to god I will officially disown you if you so much as try," she warns, but he simply flashes her a grin.
"You? Disown me?" He slides his hand across her back to wrap his arm around her waist, tucking her to him in a manner that's grown familiar to both of them in the course of their friendship. "Please."
"I only kept you around because I worry you'd feel lost without me," she tells him teasingly. "But you have that Andy girl now, so..."
"Andy? I was just being nice."
Hadley rolls her eyes before narrowing them at him. There's a small smile on his face, and though she doesn't say anything, he eventually gives in and releases a sheepish laugh.
"Fine," he says. "I may or may not think that she's really, really cute."
"Oh, there's no doubt about it," she says. "It was practically written all over your face."
"Now, there's no need to be jealous." He pulls back a little to turn to her, a smirk taking over the boyish smile he had a while ago. "I mean, I know you're deathly afraid of losing me, but--"
"Oh, boy."
"--you really are my favorite flavor--"
"I'm sure."
"--so there's no need for you to worry about that."
"Gee," she says. "Thank you."
Dexter's eyes crinkle at the corners when he grins. "You're most welcome."
Hadley really, really likes that crinkle, and it's all she can do to stop herself from reaching over to smooth it out with her fingertips. She settles for taking the sight in and packing it away in the suitcase of memories she'll be taking with her to college, where Dexter will no longer be in such close proximity to her--and where, she's hoping, she can finally find the space she needs to get him out of her system.
For now, she shakes her head at looks away. "You're impossible."
"Irresistible?"
"Impossible."
"Yeah, I'm going to pretend you said irresistible."
"Dexter, I do not find you irresistible."
His eyes glint with amusement. "And you said I sit on a throne of lies."
She opens her mouth to reply, but she sees a car come into view as outside before she can get a word out. She immediately hops off the counter, Dexter's hand dropping back to his side as she does.
"That's Josh."
His eyes flicker to the car parked right outside. Hadley watches him carefully as the smile on his lips disappear. He doesn't frown or anything, just keeps his face blank before getting off the counter with his head duck low.
"I guess that's my cue to leave."
"We can drop you off a few blocks down," Hadley offers, but Dexter refuses with a good-natured smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
Hadley bites the inside of her cheeks but doesn't say anything. She gives Josh a signal that seems to say one minute, and she and Dexter hurriedly make sure everything's in place before closing the shop down.
When they come outside and find Josh leaning against his car, Dexter gives him a small nod and Hadley a quick hug before hastily rushing off. "I'll see you tomorrow at the beach."
"Be careful on your way home."
He smiles and gives her a small salute before turning back and walking away.
Hadley watches his retreating back for a moment, wondering if this is how it'll be between them whenever it comes to Josh from this point on. Then again, they only have until summer to deal with this, then they're leaving for college and be miles away from each other.
She forces a smile on her face and turns to Josh. "Hey."
He doesn't return it though. Instead, he casts a worried look towards to Dexter's direction. "I take it he hates me even more now."
"He doesn't," Hadley lies, but Josh only gives him a wry smile.
"Come on, Had. The guy won't even look at me."
"Don't worry about him," she says. "Let's head out."
She's about to walk over to the passenger side when he catches her by the hand. She looks up at him, confused, and the reluctant look on his face fuels her confusion even further.
"I'm sorry," he suddenly tells her, his blue eyes drilling holes into hers. "I know I've said it before, but I feel like I can say it a million times and it'll never be enough, but I want you to know that I am sorry."
Hadley stills, not quite sure what to say to this. She can hear the guilt laced into his voice and knows he means it, but she's been careless before, and she can't afford to be like that this time, so she tells him, "I know," and offers him a smile.
Josh returns it, albeit hesitantly, and tugs her closer to wrap her in a hug.
She lets herself fall into his embrace, her hands finding their way on his chest as she feels him plant a kiss on the crown of her head, murmuring another apology into her hair. It feels familiar to be in his arms, the same arms she's been in for the past eight months now, and she stays there waiting for a feeling of warmth to wash over her.
It doesn't, but when they pull away, she finds herself standing on her tiptoes to brush her lips against his.
"I know," she repeats to him before stepping back, because she does know he's sorry, but the kiss is an apology of her own because even though she knows he means it, there's just no way she'll ever believe that he truly is sorry.
He doesn't know this though, so he gives her a grateful smile.
She smiles back.
A smile, she can return; it's everything else she's not quite sure she can reciprocate.
* * * * *
Dexter had already gone out seriously with two girls when Josh came into Hadley's life.
Before that, he's rooted for her to find someone too because she's smart and funny and kind and perfect and she smells like caramel, for fuck's sake, and that stuff's pretty damn addictive and alluring and comfortable all at the same time. She's the kind of girl you don't want to let go of because you know you won't find anyone like her again.
And maybe that's why Dexter decided to stay the day she decided to break up with him. Maybe that's why he refused to let it all go to waste--to let them go to waste--and offered to start anew as friends instead of walking away like any normal person would have done.
But here's the truth: The only reason he offered for them to become friends was so that he can eventually convince her to get back together with him.
He wanted to win her back.
And to be honest, he thought he was doing a pretty good job of it. She became easier to talk to. Less guarded. Warmer, somehow, and that was saying a lot, because back when she was his girlfriend, she never seemed to let him get close.
He thought it would eventually happen somehow, even without him making a move. He thought that in time, she'd come to see things the way he did. He didn't want to rush her; didn't want her to retreat back into the walls she put around her, so he wanted her to be the one to close the distance she herself created between them.
He thought they were steadily going that direction.
Not just because of all that blatant flirting that they always somehow ended up falling into.
No, there was also the fact that she had finally introduced him to her family when back then, she wouldn't even let him come in the shop when her parents were around. And then there was that time when she'd planted a kiss on his cheek on his birthday and he came home with this goofy smile on his face, fingers absently touching the area her lips had brushed against.
It was during that time that he could actually call her at nine in the evening and she would talk to him until three a.m., or until one of them falls asleep with the phone pressed against their ear.
"Did you know," he remembers her telling him over the phone once, "that some of the stars we see may already be long gone?"
"What?" he asked her, curled up under his sheets, listening to her voice and trying to spot the differences between her real voice and how it sounds over the static. It sounded slightly deeper, just slightly, and a little rough, but he liked it, and he liked the idea of her voice being the last thing he listens to before falling asleep.
"Light travels fast, but it still needs to travel," she said, her voice quiet and lulled and delicate, "so if a star that's a million light years away dies right now, we'll still see its light for a million years."
He's heard it somewhere before, but he asks her to tell her all about it, just so he can listen to her talk and fill his head with her voice, and he listens, really listens, as she explains all this stuff to him, both their voices growing heavy as sleep steadily draws them under its spell.
He doesn't quite remember how the conversation ended, or how it even got there in the first place. He does, however, remember thinking he couldn't love her any more than he did that night.
He loved her then, and he'd taken his world apart and made sure to insert the pieces in hers because he really, really believed that they were on their way to finding each other again.
Then two months later, he learned that she had agreed to go out with some guy whose name he can't even remember, and he'd asked her if she liked him, and all she said was, "We'll see," with this cryptic, little smile on her face.
And that's when it hit him. It hit like a punch to his stomach, knocking the air out of him so that for a second, all he can do was gasp for air. It hit him as though a fucking meteor had just crashed onto earth and obliterated everything he is and ever will be, making sure all the bits and pieces of him orbiting around Hadley turn to nothing but dust and ashes.
Hadley wasn't acting that way because they were getting back together.
It was because of the exact, goddamn opposite.
Part of Dexter wants to say thank you to that guy for finally snapping him out of his illusion. For letting him see that in the end, the only reason Hadley started to let him in was precisely because she saw him as nothing more than a friend.
He never got the chance to thank him though. Hadley never went out with that guy again, nor did she end up with any of the other guys who came right after.
Still, it was enough for him to realize he's been making a fool of himself all along. He learned to accept the cold, hard truth that he should have already accepted the moment Hadley broke up with him: They were never getting back together.
So he moved on.
It wasn't easy, not at first, but slowly--eventually, he learned to let her go.
No use holding on to nothing but dead stars.