Seabrook, Hadley

Thank God I Shaved

I pushed away.

"Luke, we can't," I muttered. The cool breeze blew against me, causing me to shiver.

"I know," he said, his fingers running through his hair.

"I thought that you hated me," I blurted, looking at the ground.

"Well, I don't," he said, locking his fingers behind his neck.

"Evidently," I muttered.

We stood in silence for a while. It was a comfortable silence, leaving us both to our thoughts.

"This was dumb. I have to go." Luke walked away, and I watched him go. A rush of panic flew through me. What was I supposed to do? He kissed me.

What the hell did I just walk into?

~*~

I groaned when my alarm woke me up the next morning. I slapped it with my hand, causing it to fall off of the table and onto the floor. There was a cracking noise when it hit the ground.

Good. I hated that thing.

Sighing, I pushed myself up from bed and into the bathroom, laughing at my reflection. I looked like a wreck. Rolling my eyes, a ran a brush through my hair and trotted downstairs, where the sound of cooking was.

I loved that sound.

"Sarah, I want to be lazy today," I said. She laughed.

"Don't we all."

"Permission to sit on my butt all day?" I asked, bringing the coffee Sarah had given me to my mouth.

"Permission granted," she said as she flipped a pancake and put it on my plate.

"I don't know what I would do without your cooking, Aunt Sarah," I said, happily chewing my pancake.

"Think back four weeks ago, dear," she said with a laugh. I rolled my eyes.

We walked into the living room and turned on the TV, news coming up on the screen.

"No thanks," I said, biting down on a pancake. Aunt Sarah chuckled.

"Sometimes it's fun to know what's happening outside of this house, you know," she said, taking a sip of coffee.

"Yeah, and right now is not one of those times." She rolled her eyes but switched over to Netflix.

As soon as we had watched an episode of Pretty Little Liars, someone knocked on the door. Sarah pushed herself up, and I took our plates to the kitchen.

"Why, hello," Sarah said. I peered around the doorframe to see who it was.

Elliot stood at the door, and it looked as though he hadn't been sleeping. He had bags under his eyes, and his hair was messily thrown around.

I quickly snapped my head back into the kitchen. I didn't want him here. I didn't want him to talk to me about Toby or, even worse, Luke. I wanted a day with Netflix.

But since the world likes to make bad things happen, he walked into the kitchen.

"Hey, Hadley," he said, a forced smile on his face.

"Hello."

"How are you?"

"Fine. You?"

"Good."

"Doesn't look like it."

He sighed. "Do you know where Luke is?"

I widened my eyes at him.