Chapter 11 #3
His expression was different now— not closed, not cruel, but distant. Careful. Like the porch boards had become a tightrope and one wrong step might splinter everything. Like he wasn’t willing to cross this distance she’d begun tiptoeing towards.
“I—“ he cleared his throat, his hand slipping from her leg. She felt the absence of it, of him, like cold air. “It’s late. And you’ve been drinking, Hazel. We shouldn’t.”
Hazel sat back, slow. Her face flushed hot with something deeper than embarrassment— a slow, crawling burn of shame. She tried to laugh, but it caught in her throat and came out hollow, breathless.
“Oh,” she whispered, her eyes beginning to burn. “God, I’m sorry. That was— that was so stupid. I didn’t mean to make things weird.”
“It’s not that,” Beck said, shaking his head. But even as he said the words, even as he tried to reassure her, he rose to his feet. He withdrew. “You didn’t.”
His words were clumsy, evasive. He rubbed his hands down his jeans like he didn’t know what else to do with them.
And from there, he simply went silent, no further whispers offered to her, to calm her frayed nerves.
The wine glass in his hand met the top of the porch railing with a soft clink— a sound that felt too loud, too final.
Hazel wrapped the blanket tighter around herself.
Her fingers curled at the edges, knuckles pale with tension.
Her body still leaned toward where he’d been sitting, like it hadn’t caught up to the rejection.
The air there still held his warmth, but it was fading, leaving her with nothing but the cold, hard truth of the moment— that she’d been about to kiss him, and he’d stopped her.
“I really am sorry, Beck,” she whispered, her eyes trained to the broad line of his shoulders. She hated how small it sounded, like she was apologizing for wanting more.
He lingered for a moment, his weight shifting, his expression unreadable.
Then, slow, like the choice cost him, he stepped back toward her.
She didn’t move, barely breathed, as his hand lifted.
His fingers caught on a loose strand of her dark hair, tucking it behind her ear with a care that made her stomach pull tight.
The backs of his knuckles grazed her cheekbone, lingering just long enough for her to feel the calloused heat of them.
Her eyes flickered against the touch, falling shut for just a beat.
“It’s okay, Hazel. Really.” His voice was low and warm in the cool night air, like he meant it— not as a dismissal, but as a promise that she hadn’t ruined something beyond repair.
Before she could find words, he stepped away again, the distance returning like a tide she couldn’t fight.
“Thank you again for dinner,” he said, and the formality in it stung, a closing line, a door swinging shut.
Hazel nodded, swallowing hard past the ache rising in her throat.
The wine sat heavy in her gut, curdled now with the lingering humiliation.
He moved down the porch steps, the thud of his boots on the new wood echoing like a countdown.
She stayed where he’d been a moment ago, frozen.
Her hand still curled around the stem of her glass, her other around the blanket like armour, the ghost of his touch still warm against her cheek.
“See you in the morning?” she called out, though the words came out too fast, too desperate, like throwing a rope across a widening gap.
He paused at the edge of the drive, shoulders stiff beneath the worn fabric of his flannel.
For a heartbeat, she thought he might turn— might say something that would undo the slow unravel— but he didn’t.
He simply lifted his chin in the barest of nods, a gesture so slight it could’ve been missed in the dark.
Then he kept walking, his back a wall she couldn’t scale.
The sound of the truck door opening and closing echoed through the quiet, followed by the low rumble of the engine coming to life. His headlights swept across the yard, casting long shadows across the lawn, over the porch, over her.
Hazel didn’t breathe until the taillights disappeared down the street.
And when they did, when the silence folded back in around her like a vice, it hit her all at once.
She’d done it. She’d scared him off. Pushed too hard. Read too much into something fragile and soft, something still forming.
God, what was I thinking?
A strange pressure built in her chest, hot and unrelenting, and she pressed a hand to it like that might keep everything inside from spilling out.
She could feel it in her throat, the swell of something thick and rising— panic, shame, the awful need to fix it somehow.
Her breath hitched. Beneath her skin, every nerve seemed to vibrate.
She swallowed once, hard, but the nausea didn’t ease. It sat there low and mean, twisting.
This was why she didn’t do this— why she avoided the deep, all-encompassing connection that came with knowing people and being known.
Because when she messed up, or when they left, she remained with only this pulling darkness that threatened to rebreak every jagged, barely-healed piece inside of her.
Without thinking, Hazel fumbled for her phone, tucked away within the pocket of her leggings. With clumsy hands and frantic movements, she unlocked it and opened her messages. The screen glowed far too brightly in the dark, illuminating the tremble in her fingers as she typed.
I think I just royally shit the bed with Beck.
She stared at the screen for half a second, just long enough to panic, just long enough to wonder if she should delete it.
But then it was too late, and the message was gone, sent, delivered.
Her breath caught in her throat all over again. That sick, sinking feeling tightened like a fist around her ribs. What if Iris didn’t answer? What if she was busy, or worse, thought Hazel was being dramatic? What if she was tired of the mess? What if she just didn’t care at all?
It was moments like these that Hazel wished she could do the normal, adult thing— reach out to her mother, press a contact within her phone, and be greeted on the other end with a calm, caring voice, one that wanted nothing more than to soothe her worries into something gentle and soft and manageable.
But she couldn’t, she had never once been able to.
The only voice like that, for her, was one she’d never be able to hear again.
She pressed her palm to her forehead, tried to breathe through the aftershocks of rejection and the lingering strain of grief, but everything felt too tight— her chest, her throat, the porch around her, the world.
And then her phone buzzed.
Malcolm and I will be there in 20 minutes. Take deep breaths, touch some grass. Trust me, it helps.
A tear slipped down Hazel’s cheek before she could stop it.
Not because of Beck, not entirely.
But because she wasn’t alone. Because someone had answered.
She rose in a slow, hesitant movement, the blanket falling from her shoulders, and padded barefoot across the porch. The newly built steps were cool against her skin as she descended, one hand trailing along the railing Beck had installed with such quiet care.
She stepped down onto the lawn, the grass dewy and cool beneath her toes.
And then she did what Iris told her to do.
She lowered to the ground, cross-legged, and touched the earth, trembling fingers curling into the grass.
And she breathed.
She sat there in the dark for a while, toes curled against the damp blades, breath rising in fogged spirals from her lips.
The coolness of the earth grounded her, a small tether to something solid while the rest of her spun.
Her heart still hadn’t settled. Her chest still ached with that hollow pressure of something lost, or almost had. She didn’t know which hurt more.
And then there were headlights, slow and sweeping across the yard. Gravel crackled and tires rolled to a stop.
Hazel blinked against the sudden brightness, rising from the grass. She stepped back towards the porch as the passenger door of the car opened and Iris’s voice rang out, immediate and unbothered, like Hazel hadn’t just sent a panic-text 15 minutes ago.
“Did you actually touch the grass?” Iris called, slamming her door and jogging toward the steps. “You dork. I was joking. Kind of.”
Malcolm followed behind, one hand curled around the handle of a brown paper bag, the other lifted in a quiet wave. “She listens to you,” he murmured to Iris, his eyes wide. “That’s terrifying.”
Iris just smirked and bounded up the steps. “How drunk are we on a scale of one to existential dread?”
Hazel laughed— an unspooling sound, sudden and startled— and swiped at her cheeks, clearing the remnants of tears that hadn’t fully dried. “Somewhere between regrettable text messages and a full spiral.”
Malcolm’s brows lifted. “What’s that, like, a four?”
“Six,” Hazel admitted, then winced. “Maybe seven.”
Iris wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Let’s round it to a five and work from there.”
They ushered her inside without preamble, Iris kicking her boots off with a theatrical huff, Malcolm ducking past them toward the kitchen like he belonged there.
Which, Hazel realized, he sort of did. He moved with an ease that came from habit— setting the bag down, pulling open cupboards, finding mugs.
The kettle hissed to life behind him on the stove a moment later.
“Emergency earl grey,” he explained without looking up. “And leftover veggie samosa’s from the little Indian spot on Newton. I was going to save them for tomorrow but Iris made me bring them. Apparently carbs fix all emotional wounds.”
“They do,” Iris said cheerfully, steering Hazel toward the couch. “That, and relentless friendship.”
Hazel folded into the corner of the couch, tugging the same blanket from earlier around her legs. The fire in the hearth had died down to ash but the presence of the two of them filled the space with something steadier than warmth. Something like safety.
Iris was watching her from her perch in the armchair directly across from the couch. Not in a prying way, just a stillness, a pause. Like someone bracing to hear a hard truth.
“So,” she said, her voice all wind chime and pause. “Want to tell us what happened, or should we start guessing? I’m pretty good at interpretive charades.”
Hazel let out a breath, one that caught and shuddered on the way out. “I tried to kiss him.”
Iris’s eyes widened, startled. She nearly jolted in her seat. “Wait— kiss him? Like kiss him, kiss him?”
Hazel nodded. “On the porch. After dinner. After wine. I just— I don’t know. It felt like a moment.”
Malcolm returned then, setting down three mismatched mugs on the coffee table, taking the armchair next to Iris. He didn’t speak, but the way he looked at her was a kind of patience, full of space, of waiting.
“And?” Iris prompted, brows pulling high.
Hazel reached for her tea, letting the warmth settle the lingering chill in her palms. “He stopped me, said I’d been drinking, that it was late. He didn’t want to.”
“Did he say he didn’t want to?“ Malcolm asked, leaning forward.
She shook her head, teeth catching on her bottom lip. “No… not exactly.”
“I doubt that he didn’t want to,” Iris muttered, shaking her head. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
Hazel gave a weak shrug. “Maybe. But it still felt like rejection.”
There was a beat of silence, broken only by the soft clink of Malcolm’s spoon against ceramic. He stirred his tea for a moment, brows furrowed, eyes locked on Hazel.
“You really like him?” he asked, though it wasn’t really a question.
Hazel nodded, the movement slow. Her gaze dipped to the mug in her hands, unable to meet their eyes. “Yeah,” she admitted, the word barely more than a whisper. “I really do.”
“And you’re scared.”
She looked up, met Iris’s eyes, and didn’t look away this time. “Terrified.”
Malcolm set his mug down with care. “Hazel… it makes sense, you know. After everything. It’s hard to trust something good, especially when you haven’t had much of it.”
Her throat tightened.
“What if I already messed it up?” she asked, voice barely more than a whisper.
“You didn’t,” Iris said with a shake of her head. “Trust me. If this guy’s worth anything, he’ll know a badly timed kiss doesn’t ruin what’s real.”
Hazel gave a watery laugh. “So… you don’t think I’ve shit the bed?”
“Oh, no, you’ve absolutely shit the bed,“ Iris said, breaking into a grin. “But that’s why you have us. To change the sheets and bring snacks.”
Hazel laughed again, louder this time, the sound splitting her sadness wide open and letting something warm in. She looked between them, these two odd, brilliant people who had wandered into her life and refused to leave it.
“Thanks for coming,” she said, that same, familiar sting returning to the backs of her eyes.
Malcolm offered a crooked smile. “We always will.”
For the first time in a long time, she believed them. And it didn’t scare her.