“This experience is going to make me stronger.”
Hazel shakes her head. “Don’t fortune cookie me. I don’t want to hear pithy, positive statements.”
“Depends on whose fortune it is. If it’s yours, there’s nothing pithy about it. If it’s mine, I’d cut myself off midsentence.”
“Talk to me,” she says gently. She takes the broom from me and lays it on the stage.
I release a breath and shake my head curtly. “I don’t want to complain. Maxwell said lucky people see the positive in bad things that happen. That’s what I’m doing. Hell, it’s what I do!”
“He also said lucky people don’t linger on those bad things.”
“I’m fine—”
“So don’t linger.” Hazel takes my face between her hands. “But can you at least acknowledge? You don’t have to pretend you’re okay.”
“Honesty is one of my favorite traits about you, Hazel. I like that you don’t sugarcoat things, but it’s not as easy for me as it is for you to just say how I really feel.” I mirror her usual crossed-arm stance. “I don’t want to bring you down, and I don’t want to feel bad.” There’s a finality in my tone, but Hazel pushes past it.
“Down? That’s where I’ve been. Come hang out,” she says, sliding her hands across my chest, breaking my arms apart, and grabbing my hands. “If you did, what would you feel bad about?”
My core is tight as I say, “This is all just part of the process.”
“What would you feel bad about?” she repeats.
Hazel’s not giving up on this. She’s not giving up on me. I takein a full breath. If Hazel can acknowledge her birthday for me, I can do this for her.
“I feel bad about every single thing that’s gone wrong on this show,” I finally admit. “And people quitting out of nowhere. That’s been rough. Having two weeks until opening night and not having my shit together.” I hold up my cast. “Falling down the damn stairs. That hurt like hell.”
She winces. “Yeah.”
“I feel bad that your brother’s in the hospital, probably because I told someone to break a leg. And when I fed Goldie and Kurt this morning, the entire bottle top popped off and all their Vitamin C–enriched flakes fell into the water. Into their home. I feel bad about that.”
My heart pounds against my rib cage, but at this point, I can’t tell if it’s the stress or adrenaline or Hazel doing this to me. I’m being negative, and Hazel’s not running away. She’s in this with me. I’ve never had anything like it before.
Now I’m pissed off, thinking about Hazel’s situation with her dad and the house. She doesn’t deserve to be treated the way she has. “It’s not fucking okay,” I say, gritting my teeth.
Hazel looks up at me, blinking. “What isn’t?”
“How it all falls to you. You can’t carry everyone’s burdens. It’s. Not. Okay.” Deep inside my chest, I feel frustration. It’s grating at my insides. I think it has been for a long time.
In response to that, Hazel gives me a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“I even feel bad that I hyped up a milkshake you never got to try,” I continue. “I feel bad that our night at the firehouse got cut short and that you had to spend hours in the hospital.”
“I needed to make sure you were okay,” Hazel says, her voice softer. She gives my unbroken hand a light shake, my arm moving with the gesture. It makes me realize how rigidly I’m standing and how every muscle in my body is tight.
I take in a long breath and hold back the air, the discomfort, the shame. I haven’t been this worked up about anything in a very long time.
“For the past few weeks, there’s been nothing but problem after problem. Because of me. I hate that feeling,” I say, sitting on the edge of the stage.
“Or because of me,” Hazel says, looking down. She sits beside me. “Remember that’s my luck you have.”
“No. Now it’s mine. You didn’t do this. I don’t want you to feel any blame.” Admitting that I’m not okay still hasn’t scared Hazel off. It emboldens me. “When my parents got divorced, my mom changed. She became so… positive. After my dad’s affair, I think she wanted to put on a good face for me and my sisters. She wanted to pretend everything was fine, but I heard her crying in her room every night after he left. In the morning, you would never know it.”
I pause, waiting to see if this is too much for Hazel. She’s alert, though, and waiting to see what I’ll say next, so I continue.
“After the accident, I wanted to talk to people about it. My ex-girlfriend, my mom, hell, even my dad. Any time I tried, I would just be told how lucky I was or scolded for how negative I was being about something that turned out okay. I couldn’t help but think that if I had just gone into someone else’s yard at a different time of day… what could’ve happened?”
“It sounds like you needed to process it,” Hazel says.
