CHAPTER ONE
T HREE YEARS. THAT’S HOW LONG I’d been hopelessly in love with Hadley Monroe. How long I’d tried to get her attention. Tried to get her to notice me. Me. Not my reputation, not my name or who my friends think I am. But me. The real me. The me only a few people in my life have actually seen. Not the façade I wear. Now here it was, almost half-way through our senior year of college at Westin University, and Hadley still looked right through me.
It was time to change all that.
Hadley Monroe was the girl of my dreams. As a little boy, when I imagined what my future wife would be like, someone I could grow old with, it was someone exactly like her I pictured Back when my mom would tell me to stop picking on girls, because one day I’d like them.
Every time I saw Hadley, I found something new to like about her. Her crooked smile, never without that cherry red lipstick. Her piercing blue eyes, so bright they looked like stars. Eyes that contrasted perfectly with her jet black hair that was so shiny and smooth and smelled like strawberries. She was selfless and kind, ambitious and hard-working, and the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in real life.
I’d wanted to tell her all of that a thousand times, but fear always held me back.
Really, I only had myself to blame. With a girl like Hadley, you only got one shot to prove yourself, and I wanted mine to be perfect.
She deserved perfect.
But for three years, it just didn’t happen. Something always stood in my way.
The clock in the entryway of the library chimed, letting me know it was about to close. I shoved my textbooks into my backpack and zipped up my jacket. It was fuckin’ freezing already, and it was barely October. Days like these always reminded me that choosing a college in the Midwest instead of somewhere like Florida was a dumbass move.
“Yo!” Ty called, coming over, clasping my hand and pulling me in for a bro hug.
“Hey, dude, what’s up?”
“Man, it’s cold as a witch’s titty out there.” He rubbed his hands together, his blue eyes already watering from the cold. “Gonna need some libations to get rid of this chill tonight. Maybe find some hottie and use our body heat to keep each other warm. I’m headed up to the Sig house. You in?”
“Nah, dude. I’ve got a paper due in the morning, and I’m not even half through it yet.” I didn’t, but I also didn’t want to admit that I was done with random hookups. Guys like Ty wouldn’t understand that I wanted one girl and one girl only.
“Sucks. Next time then.” He frowned, but immediately forgot me as he spied Lisa Murphy leaving the stacks, running after her instead.
I hiked my backpack on my shoulder and slid in my earphones, blasting Fall Out Boy as I trudged across campus, my mind still focused on Hadley and how to finally admit everything.
For the last few years, I had been too chicken shit to put myself out there and tell her how I really felt. How vibrant and unbelievably beautiful I thought she was. How she pushed me to work harder when I saw her studying in the library until it closed on a Friday night. Everything about her screamed at me to fight for my chance to be with her. But it seemed every semester something seemed to get in the way.
I’d met Hadley our freshman year through mutual friends. We ran in the same circles, and while I thought she was beyond gorgeous, I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. Not with scores of chicks practically falling all over my dick. I had no need to pursue anyone. But the more I got to know Hadley, the more I wanted her, not those other faceless girls who meant nothing to me.
When we came back sophomore year, I was all set to lay out how I felt, and then she met that asshole Brent. I had no idea what she saw in that douche, and it took her all effin’ year to see through his shit. He’d cheated on her, with a girl in her sorority no less, and ripped her heart to shreds.
Which made me want to rip his face
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