Chapter 23 Logan #2
“Exactly,” she says, regarding me. “For me, New York City just existed in movies. We only lived three hours away, but it might as well have been thirty. My dad set money aside for the trip. We were going to go to Central Park, get Frrrozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity 3, go see the Empire State Building. You know, New York-y things.”
I nod, watching as the last trace of her smile fades away completely.
“Then my dad bet the money on a game,” she says after a few moments. “And that was that.”
I shake my head.
Hazel swallows thickly. “I learned never to get my hopes up for things again. You don’t get disappointed that way.
I’ve lost everything I’ve ever loved.” She blinks up at me.
“I know this is too much. I’m too much. Logan, if at any point you want to walk away, you can. I promise I would understand.”
I wrap my arm around her and stay right where I am, showing her I’m not moving from this spot. “Never once have you been too much for me, Hazel,” I tell her, the words coming easily. “Don’t think you’re getting rid of me that easily.”
“Good, because I don’t want to lose you, too,” she says.
I’ve lost everything I’ve ever loved. My brain trips. Did she imply that she loves me?
Because I also feel it.
“Bad things happen, but that doesn’t mean that’s how it’ll always be,” I say, the instinct to cheer her up kicking in.
“Right.” She shakes her head like she’s snapping out of the memory. “All that to say, it’s pretty cool to be in a theater now.”
“I’d love for you to come to opening night,” I offer.
A small smile grows on Hazel’s lips. “I’ll be there. Is it a play or a musical?”
“Musical. Windfall’s about an estranged family that inherits a lakeside resort that used to be the go-to destination in its heyday. Now it’s falling apart, and they have to decide whether to work together to sell the place or bring it back to life,” I explain.
Hazel straightens a little. “Wait. The show is called Windfall?”
“To the family, this was like winning the jack… pot…” I trail off. How had I not made that connection before?
“Is it life imitating art or the other way around?”
“We’ll never know.”
Hazel kicks her leg out and leans back on her palms. “We used to watch the sunset like this at my grandparents’ house. My grandpa built a special sunset-watching spot on the roof deck.”
“The perks of building your own home.”
“I had always wanted to make that my sunrise-watching spot,” she says wistfully. “But this isn’t too bad, either.”
Hazel really is in an impossible situation. All her life, she’s fixed things for her family because she’s never had anyone to fix things for her.
“It’s not your responsibility to anticipate everything that can go wrong,” I say. “Or for your bullshit detector to be one hundred percent accurate.”
“It’s usually pretty accurate,” she says.
I so desperately want to do more to help. To say something positive to try to make her pain go away completely.
But just like Hazel doesn’t have to fix her family’s problems, I don’t need to fix this.
“I’m here for you,” I say. “I’ll be right here with you. I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”
I hold my breath, feeling my heart beating in my ears. I think maybe I’ve failed or let her down. I could’ve found more useful words to make her feel better. Was not doing so the wrong approach? What I said probably wasn’t helpful. Maybe I did need to show her the silver lining.
Hazel looks up at me with an expression I haven’t yet seen from her. I can’t decipher it or tell if I’ve messed this up for good.
But then she moves closer to me. She wraps her arm around my waist, smushing her cheek against my chest and pulling me in for a hug.
“Thank you,” she says emotionally. She half groans, half grumbles into my shirt. “My detector tells me you’re not bullshitting me.”
I rest my cheek on her head. “Not even a little.”
“It’s all just stuck”—I feel her move her hand over her chest, the pressure of her knuckles against my stomach—“here. I don’t know what to do with it or how to get it out.”
I hold her a little tighter. “Then we need to get you unstuck. I may have an idea.”
“There’s a lot of wood in here,” a voice says below us. We startle, but neither of us falls off the roof, which feels like a minor miracle. An-Ming has been so quiet I nearly forgot about her.
We meet her down at the bottom of the lodge’s stairs. “Can we add some metal weights under that bed?” she asks. “That will help with productivity and moving this project along. Is opening night on an auspicious day, do you know?”
“I… don’t,” I say.
“Okay. Is that something you have control over?”
“Unfortunately not.”
An-Ming tilts her head. “The positioning of the stage is not ideal,” she adds. “But I suppose there’s nothing to be done about that, either.” She waves toward backstage. “It’s too cluttered back there. Tidy spaces allow energy to flow through better.”
“I’ll organize it,” I say.
“Oh, and fire!” she says.
“Pretty sure you can’t say that in a theater,” Hazel deadpans.
“Actually, it’s Macb—” I snap my mouth shut. “Never mind.”
An-Ming looks back at her phone. “The fire element is severely lacking. We need to bump up the visibility and passion in the space. Can you get more lamps back there? Too many dark corners.” She scrolls more. “Also, you have no water. Is that something you can work on?”
“Like water bottles?” I ask. “We have some in the—”
An-Ming gives a firm shake of her head. “Not water bottles. Flowing and moving water,” she clarifies. “A small fountain or water feature?”
In a theater? “That’s not…” I trail off. “Oh! I do have a tank for my goldfish.”
She perks up at this and types into her phone. “Goldfish? Even better.” Hazel and I exchange glances, pleased with ourselves, as though we’ve passed some sort of test.
I have no idea where I’ll put something like that, and there’s no way the theater’s letting me bring in fish. But at this point, getting in trouble for sneaking in marine life is the least of my worries.