All day, he'd been unable to think clearly about anything at all. It was as though a cloud had settled over him, so thick that he couldn't make sense of anything, not even himself. 
It was only when he was in his bedroom, already sitting at his desk and working on an essay he'd started over the weekend, that they arrived, shoving the door open and spilling into his room; Noel and Evan sprawling themselves on his bed and Isaac leaning on the edge of his desk.
"What's the matter?" He asked, flicking Hadley in the centre of his forehead.
"It doesn't matter," he shot, returning his gaze to his laptop and resuming his typing. "It's not important."
"What's wrong, Had?" Noel asked, propping himself up on his elbows.
"Nothing is wrong," he snapped, steadily avoiding Isaac's watchful gaze.
"Something is wrong," Isaac pressed insistently, leaning back slightly. "Something about that statue has you all pissed off."
"The angel wing statue?" Evan prompted, lying on her back and staring at his white ceiling, her hair sprawled around her head. She was tracing the straight bridge of her nose with her pinky finger, then moving over her sharp mouth, then down across her smooth chin. 
"It's not angel wing," Hadley glowered, trying to focus on the essay he was trying to finish. He couldn't make sense of anything he was trying to say. He couldn't remember what point he had been trying to make.  "It's white. You all know it's white, right?"
"Your mom said it was angel wing," Isaac remarked casually, glancing towards the others. "Why would she say it was angel wing if it was white?"
"Because she's delusional," he scowled, glaring and clenching his jaw. His stomach and chest felt tight. There was a restless feeling in his legs; his right was bouncing uncontrollably. "It's white."
Isaac glanced towards Noel and Evan again, half-smiling, and shrugged his shoulders. "What difference does it make what colour is? What difference does it make if it's angel wing?"
"Yeah," Noel said. "What's wrong with angel wing?"
"I didn't think there was anything wrong with angel—"
"It's not fucking angel wing!" Hadley cried. 
The vague amusement on Isaac's face disappeared. His eyes were fixed on Hadley in a way that made his insides turn. There was a deep, penetrating heat in his belly. "Hadley, what is the matter? It's a nice statue. It's angel wing. So what?"
The silence that followed was so sudden that it slashed through the room like a knife, cutting everything in half, making everything jagged. He burned and still, he felt entirely empty. Still, he had been reduced to an open mouth, waiting to be fed. That was all he was; filled with hollow space and hot blood. A purely physical sensation with nothing behind it but a brief burst of irritation, entirely void of any deeper feeling.
"Hadley," Evan began softly and he heard her sitting up on the bed, but he would not look at her. "Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm alright," he answered, his voice hard and stiff. He lowered his gaze to his laptop keyboard, his hands resting uselessly in his lap. There was an itching hesitance, a heat that burned the nape of his neck. He knew what she was going to ask and he wished that she would just stay quiet.
"Is it because of Elodie?" She asked gently.
It made him want to squirm, it gave him a funny pain in his chest that made him feel like she was trying to dig her finger in an open wound.
"No," he told her, sitting still in his desk chair. "It isn't about Elodie."
Isaac's pale eyes hadn't turned away for even a moment. There was a thoughtful tension in his face; slightly pursed lips, slightly furrowed brows, his body entirely still and his hands clasped between his thighs. "Are you sure? Because since you broke up, you've not mentioned her at all."
"There's nothing to say," he muttered, shaking his head.
"You were together for a year," Isaac replied sharply, almost coldly. "There must be something to say. You don't spend a year of your life with someone and have nothing to say for it. You must feel something."
"I don't," he said.
Isaac withdrew and his frown deepened. "You must."
Hadley met his gaze and shook his head. When he spoke, he spoke quietly. "I don't."
That ugly thing had been exposed, like a bandage unravelled too soon, and they sat in the silence that he had forced them into, unable to cover the wound again.
note
thank u for reading :') I hope u enjoyed this introduction to Hadley's friends and would love to hear any thoughts!! sorry for the previous promise of Spencer, he will 100% be back in the next chapter which I am hoping to post soon
this 온라인카지노게임 has been such a help with encouraging me to start writing again so I'm hoping that will translate to other works of mine soon. again, I would love to hear any thoughts that you have on this chapter and I hope to see you again next time <3
also I kind of feel like this one is maybe a little repetitive in its language so if anyone else feels that way pls lmk and I will edit!! thank u again :')
originally published
9th march 2025