Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
MESS
HAZEL
Iwake up in a cold sweat, just like I do every day, and it’s honestly getting old.
I’ve got no one—no group chat blowing up, no best friend to talk to about it.
No one prepares you for the heartbreak that comes with losing everyone you’ve ever cared about.
I look around the tiny studio, and it hits me that this is all I’ve got going for me now.
I’m waiting for the okay from Alex for me to go into Cameron and Ley’s place to maybe get some closure, or even get some answers of any kind.
As if the universe answers, my phone begins to ring.
I swipe to open it and answer with an upbeat, “Hi!”
“Hey, sweet girl. Their place is cleared for you to go into. You can stop by the department to pick up the keys for their place. It’s ready whenever you are.”
A forced smile stretches across my face, my hand fiddling with the necklace that Leyla got me for my twenty-first birthday. “I’ll stop by later today and pick those up. Thanks, Alex.”
“Anytime, sweet girl. Are you doing okay after the funeral?”
I literally don’t even want to talk to her anymore; I truly just don’t have it in me. I force out my words and a fake smile. “Yeah, I’m all good. Talk to you later.”
It’s May so it’s finally warming up just a little bit, but no one prepared me for how much it rains—I definitely don’t remember it being this rainy when I was growing up here. I pull out my phone and send a text to Zack.
Hazel: Hey. Got the okay from Alex. Can go into Leyla’s place.
Hazel: Can you meet me there? I don’t want to go alone.
I stare at the screen for a second before locking my phone and setting it face down on the counter like it’s something dangerous. Like maybe if I don’t look at it, none of this is real.
At this point, I don’t even know what I’m hoping for anymore. Closure? Some kind of weird peace? A ghost of who we used to be waiting in that apartment to say goodbye? The past is coming to hunt me down and make sure I don’t know peace.
God, I don’t know.
I pull on a sweatshirt that still smells like the back of Leyla’s car—faint floral-scented air freshener and pear blossom body spray.
My throat tightens before I can stop it.
It’s like every smell, song, place, every thing wants to remind me she’s not here.
A part of my entire being, somehow gone in the blink of an eye. I don’t know how to move past this.
I sit at the edge of my bed, and the tears come before I can even pretend to stop them.
I cry quietly, the kind of cry that doesn’t make noise, doesn’t demand attention—the kind you do when no one’s coming to ask if you’re okay.
Because you already know the answer.
You already know no one can fix it.
Because there is no one left to fix this.
I cry for her. For the way she laughed with her whole face.
For the way she made everything feel like an inside joke.
For the way she believed in me when I didn’t even know how to want anything.
I cry for the girl who finally found her true love, even though I couldn’t be the one to give it to her.
She deserved better, and I can’t help but blame myself for the fact that Leyla is no longer here.
I wipe my face, sitting for a second longer and just breathing. In. Out. In again.
Then I tell myself—like I always do—that’s enough. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep falling apart every time she crosses my mind. I won’t.
I get up and go to the bathroom. Cold water. Pat my face. Tie my hair up. Stare at my own reflection until I almost recognize myself again.
She’s gone.
And I’m still here.
I bottle it up. Just like always. I’m gonna make this okay again, I’m gonna be the one who fixes all of this. My phone buzzes with a response from Zack.
Zack: On my way.
Zack: I went back home, I’ll be there tomorrow. Meet you at their place at 4?
Hazel: Yeah. That works.
Part of me wants to know every single thing about this mysterious man, but I also want to know why I have this incessant need to know everything about him. I wish I wasn’t such a damn mess where I never feel like I’m good enough, or smart enough, to try to figure out if they’re dead.
Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m saying at this point. I just know that Zack said he’s on his way, and now I have to make the trek to my maybe-not-dead-best-friend’s house to collect her things.
What the fuck.
That night went by in a blur. I did what I could, but it felt as though I was merely a passenger going through the motions of this life. I picked up the keys to the house, then just slept. For the first time in months, I finally slept. It still doesn’t feel real. What is even happening anymore?
Later that day, I hop in my shitty Civic and drive all the way to Main, passing LeBauer Park as I go. I pull into the back parking lot of the apartment building, and I’m struck silent by the mountain of a man who’s standing against a bike.
Hopping out of my car, I plaster on my happy-go-lucky smile and hold up the keys. “You wanna do the honors?”
Zack’s cold eyes stare back at me. “Let’s just…get this over with.”
I nod and follow behind Zack like a lost little puppy as we climb the stairs to their place.
A crime scene sticker sits on the door, and Zack wastes no time to cut it open with a pocket knife he basically pulled from thin air.
I’m hit with an influx of pain as the door opens and memories from only a few months before their death hit me like a brick.
The place is spotless—you can tell it’s been properly cleaned—and a small keening noise escapes my throat as the emotions begin to well up.
“You don’t think it’s like—haunted or something now, do you?” My voice comes out more confident than I’m feeling, and somehow it feels like Zack sees right through me.
“No, sweetheart. It’s not haunted. Ghosts and shit aren’t real.” He lets out a scoff as he walks into the room, and I stand there dumbfounded, because he would have no way to know the dagger he just threw at me unintentionally.
“Oh, yeah. Yep. Right, right, right.” I play it off, my lower lip trembling slightly as I look around.
“We’re born, we live, we suffer in this endless supply of bullshit, then we die.
There’s nowhere afterwards. Just the ground for us to be consumed by the bugs.
” The condescending tone of his words hit me in a way that should hurt me, but for some reason, it only makes me angry.
Fucking sweetheart? This asshole doesn’t even know me.
I feel my blood pressure rising and I feel my cheeks heating, the red spreading up my neck.
How is it possible that this man makes me feel like raging, yet also I want to fuck him six ways to Sunday. NO. Hazel calm down.
“Is that what you really think? Honestly, you mean to tell me that we spend all this time on Earth, with all these beautiful things around us, and you don’t think there’s anything after death?” My brow raises inquisitively, my arms cross as he continues to make his way around the room.
“Yep. It’s literally—” Zack stops abruptly as he bumps into a table and a false drawer opens underneath it. This is literally some shit out of a mystery movie. He looks at me for the first time with something other than the confidence he’s so proud of exuding.
“You go see what it is.” My voice wavers softly, a chill running through my body. Something doesn’t seem right. I’m scared, and it almost looks like in his own way, Zack might be, too.
In an instant, though, he looks at me then at the drawer which has magically opened before us.
His shoulders straighten, and suddenly he’s back to being the tough guy he was moments ago.
I watch as he looks around the drawer, probably looking for any booby-traps or something.
He gently opens the drawer and pulls out two journals and a pile of letters.
One labeled: To Zack. The other labeled: To Hazel.
His eyes shoot to mine as he holds them.
“They’re journals. Made out to us.” Zack’s voice is cold and unassuming, his southern twang coming out just a little more than usual.