Angel Wing

FEBRUARY 

"YOU SHOULD'VE STAYED," Isaac remarked from the passenger seat, staring out of the window, only occasionally glancing towards him. Since he'd first fastened his seatbelt, he hadn't stopped moving around and the constant shuffling in the corner of Hadley's eye, disturbing his usually lonely space, was beginning to bother him. "Ines Crawford and some of her friends came to the restaurant after you left."

"So?" He asked, staring out of the windscreen. The sky was a chalky white, drained of colour, and grey clouds were looming in the distance.

"She was asking about you," Isaac murmured gingerly. He ran a hand over his short light curls and gave Hadley a sideways glance, his pale green eyes glimmering. They weren't like Spencer's. Spencer's eyes were darker, bolder, quicker.

"The last thing I need right now is a girlfriend," he muttered. His knuckles were turning the same colour as the sky. He noticed Isaac looking at his hands and relaxed his grip on the steering wheel.

"Yeah, but it's Ines Crawford," Noel chimed from the back, a nervous laugh caught in his voice. "Have you seen her?"

"I've known her since middle school," Hadley replied lightly. "I've seen her."

The boys fell silent. Isaac, biting the sideways edge of his thumb, nodded at nothing in particular and turned to stare out of the window while Noel lowered his head and looked at his hands.

Evan, who was sitting beside him, shrugged her shoulders, brushing a slender hand through her ink-coloured hair. "Maybe it's for the best to leave that one alone," she tried, and, though he wasn't looking at her, he knew she was scrunching her nose. She was trying to keep her voice breezy. "She used to go out with Spencer, right? So it'd probably be more of an alliance than a relationship."

When Hadley didn't respond, offering no word or expression or gesture, Isaac cleared his throat, shrugged his shoulders and glanced towards him, letting his gaze linger. "You should've stayed out," he said, brushing past their discussion and studying Hadley's profile. "The others said the same."

"I had a headache," he murmured, stopping at the traffic lights and gazing out of the window. "I slept like shit the night before and then Elodie came over for a surprise visit in the morning, and it threw me all out of balance."

There was a shift in the air that he could feel like a hand on the back of his neck. He could feel Evan and Noel sharing a glance behind him; could feel Isaac's eyes darting towards them. For a thoughtful moment, nobody said anything and Hadley savoured the brief silence. It was the first time he'd mentioned her name to them in weeks.

"Um," Evan began cautiously, steadily, as if afraid that she might frighten him or startle him; the way someone tiptoes so that a nearby bird doesn't fly away. "Elodie came over on Saturday?"

Since it had happened, since they had expressed their initial grievances and offered their support for any potential sorrow he might feel, they had all been tiptoeing around his breakup and he was convinced it was because they had no idea how to approach him. He supposed that they had been hoping that he would feel like opening up to them, that he would feel like rambling about how angry she had made him or how deeply she had wounded him or even that he might offer some hollow lies about how he never loved her in the first place and was already completely over it, but he hadn't said anything and they didn't know how to respond to his silence.

They couldn't decipher whether he was hurting or disinterested, if he was shielding some kind of burning rage or consuming dejection behind those increasingly blank expressions, that cool gaze, that newfound insouciance. They didn't know what to offer him and he knew that they discussed it behind his back, that they whispered to each other and called each other on the phone to figure out if he was having some kind of private nervous breakdown. They found his composure suspicious but, afraid of disturbing it, they didn't say anything about Elodie and they said very little about Spencer, only ever mentioning his name in their braver moments.

That was until last Wednesday. After last Wednesday, something had shifted. It was like they had drawn closer to the edge of a cliff, like they had worried beforehand that he might do something dangerous but now they were actually watching him about to jump off. In their minds, punching Spencer meant that something inside him had snapped, that there was some repressed anger rising to the surface that they had to take care of before it swallowed him like a surging wave.

Since it had happened, they spent the first few days approaching him like he was some kind of wild animal, like he was a rabid dog that they were afraid might bare its teeth but as the days went by and his nonchalance remained the same, they began to relax again, they began to wonder if maybe they could mention her name without something terrible happening, without some ugly thing being exposed and making everything uncomfortable.

"Yeah," he shrugged as the lights changed. "She came over on Saturday morning to ask me something about Spencer. Only for twenty minutes or something, I think."

The air still had that same tense feeling, like a held breath desperate to be released.

Isaac watched him for a long, shrewd second and dared to speak. "Yeah? What did she have to say about Spencer?"

"She thought he was acting weird around her and wanted to know if I'd had something to do with it," he explained, cursing to himself about some asshole on the road who didn't know how to drive.

"Why would that have something to do with you?" Isaac frowned, shuffling around in his seat again, his gaze never breaking.

"Because I ran into him on Friday night," he replied, trying to stifle a yawn. "Not like anything happened. We talked for five minutes and he gave me a ride home. I've not seen him since then."

"He gave you a ride home?" Evan asked, her eyebrows knitting as she glanced towards Noel, who was sitting contemplatively beside her. "Why would he do that?"

"It was freezing outside," he told her vacantly, "and I think he thought I was going to give myself pneumonia if I stayed there."

"Why were you sitting there in the first place?" Isaac pressed, his forehead wrinkling and his focus darting between the driver's seat and the backseat.

"It doesn't matter," he replied as he pulled into his driveway. "I was just thinking, that's all."

"About what?" Noel inquired, leaning forward and peering round at Hadley curiously, his dark eyes slightly narrowed.

"About nothing," he said because he couldn't think of anything else to say to them and did not feel like trying to make himself understood.

Without giving anyone the chance to ask anything else, he unbuckled his seatbelt, climbed out of the car and closed the door behind him, heading up to the front porch. He waited for them inside, waiting for Evan to slip in last before he closed the front door behind her.

She waited there, her softened blue eyes dancing towards him without ever quite meeting his eye. She ran her hand through her short wavy hair again and turned away.

"Hadley, honey!" His mom called from the living room. "Is that you!"

Isaac, who had been murmuring to Noel, stepped into the living room and flashed a bright smile, relaxing his shoulders, "And company."

Without waiting for an invitation, he took a seat on the sofa and Noel ambled in after him, throwing himself down in the space beside Isaac while his mom beamed and greeted them in her warm, elegant way.

In the dim hallway, Hadley could feel Evan's eyes on him, but when he turned to look at her, she was already slipping past him and sauntering into the living room. She stood politely behind the sofa and offered a small smile, "Hi, Mrs Elliot."

"Sit down, Evan, honey," she replied, patting the space beside her and Evan sat down while Hadley took his usual place, leaning against the cabinet at the back of the room and watching that awful creature next to the TV.

His mom was waiting, a smile threatening to slip from her, while she tried to contain herself, pausing her typing while she waited for them to notice her new love, her new baby.

Whistling, Isaac nodded towards the statue or ornament or whatever it was, and said, "Nice decor. When did you guys get that?"

"It's new," she gushed with a smile so proud and eyes so bright that Hadley felt his stomach turning and had to momentarily look away from the vulgar scene that he could feel about to unfold. "Adam and I are absolutely in love with it. Don't you think it's gorgeous?"

Noel hummed and shared a look with Isaac. "Oh, yeah. Real modern, real sleek. It looks pretty expensive."

"Yeah," Evan agreed, giving her another polite smile. "The white really stands out."

"Oh, no," she began, full of glee. "It's not white."

Hadley braced his stomach like he was preparing to get punched.

"It's angel wing."

"Angel wing?" Isaac echoed, raising his eyebrows and resting his right ankle on his left knee, placing one arm along the back of the sofa. "What's angel wing?"

"Like white but better," she grinned, tucking loose strands of silky chestnut hair behind her ears. "You know, trendier and sleeker and fresher. Not just white— angel wing."

Cocking a brow, Noel glanced slowly towards him and hr met those dark eyes for a second, shook his head and turned away.

"It's a lot better than regular white," she insisted with a firm nod and a knowing glint in her eyes. "I mean, it makes a world of difference. It elevates the space in a way that regular white could never achieve."

"It is white," Hadley interjected flatly, impatience tying a knot in his stomach. There was a tightening feeling in his chest, a straining feeling.

All four of them turned towards him. He stared at her, their eyes meeting, and watched how her expression changed, her taut mouth and warning eyes. He refused to turn away from her, ignoring Evan's deep frown at the edge of his vision, and waited for her to say something.

Relenting, she turned away, plastered another smile on her face and shrugged her shoulders flippantly. "It's alright," she assured his friends, refusing to return his gaze again. "It's just how he is."

"What's the matter with angel wing?" Evan asked, looking between Cecilia and Hadley. "I think it's nice."

His mother sighed and shook her head. "He doesn't understand the adoption of our new artistic style," she and Hadley replied in unison, her cold, disapproving eyes darting towards him and her brow beginning to furrow as he mimicked her.

"It's a nice sculpture," Noel consoled, eyeing him warily.

"Very you," Isaac agreed in that effortlessly shallow way he had.

That thrilled her. She pressed her hands to her heart. "Do you really think so?" She asked, her brow furrowed softly. "Hadley has been nothing but negative since he first laid his eyes on it."

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here," he snapped, glaring at the back of her head.

"It's very stylish," Evan offered, pretending he hasn't spoken.

"I knew you'd all understand," she beamed. "Thank god that the three of you have some good sense."

"I'm going upstairs," Hadley announced, pushing himself away from the cabinet and disappearing into the hallway without waiting. He kicked his shoes off at the bottom of the stairs and began to climb with his backpack, listening to his friends and his mom murmur to each other in the living room, and trying to settle that nagging, gnawing feeling that was coming over him.

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