Chapter 37
Luke
I tried folding my clothes as efficiently as possible, but my carry-on refused to cooperate. I hadn’t bought anything. How was it possible that nothing fit anymore?
My stuff was scattered around the room, a reflection of the whirlwind week behind us.
In contrast, Hazel’s cute yellow suitcase and passport were neatly placed by the door.
A few bathroom items and my shirt she’d slept in were still in the bedroom.
Maybe I should just give it to her. Would that be weird?
I heard steps in the hallway. A determined pace. I didn’t have to look to know it was her.
“Hey, bee,” I called out, joking. “Is it just me, or does your organized packing make me look like a total—?”
But the words died in my throat as soon as I turned. She wasn’t smiling. Her lips were pressed into a tight line, her jaw clenched, shoulders drawn up like she was holding back a wave. A storm cloud above her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my voice dropping.
She didn’t answer right away. Her chest lifted sharply with a breath she hadn’t meant to take. It felt like Hazel was standing in front of me, but she wasn’t there. Not really. Not the way I knew her.
“You told me your company covered the trip. My ticket, the accommodation, the flight, restaurants. Is it true?”
I froze. My mouth opened, but the words tangled before they could make it out. I knew she’d find out eventually, but not tonight. Not like this. Not when we were supposed to hold onto what little time we had left.
“You want to pay me in Monopoly money?” I tried to joke, my voice thin with guilt and nerves. I gave her a crooked smile, hoping for a flicker of forgiveness.
But her face didn’t soften. It stayed cold. Unmoving. And then suddenly it shifted from frustrated to angry, and I knew I’d just made everything worse. I’d never seen her angry. She was always so calm. Soft. Patient. Even when others didn’t deserve it.
“Hazel, I can explain.” I stepped forward, but she backed away. She clearly didn’t want to be near me. I needed to give her space until I explained.
“You lied to me, Luke,” her voice cracked, and it broke me a little. “You said you never lie.”
“I said rarely.” As soon as I said it, I regretted the words.
“Oh, you got me on a technicality, big boy,” she laughed bitterly in my face, though her stance indicated she was trying to protect herself at any cost. Because of me. I made her feel this way.
“Hazel, back home, when I saw you every day, you...” I paused, doubting whether I should say what I was about to say. “You were tired and exhausted. You deserved a break, and I had the chance to do it.”
Most people loved being seen, being appreciated for their quiet sacrifices, knowing they deserved the recognition. But not Hazel. She gave without expecting anything in return. I just wanted to give her a moment to breathe.
“I didn’t ask you to do it.”
“Well, of course. You’re not capable of asking anything,” I yelled out. “You wait until you’re breaking or someone hurts you.”
She winced at my accusations, and pain stabbed in my chest. I had just become one of the people who hurt her. But it was just a matter of time, wasn’t it?
“Is this like a game to you? You pay for trips so that girls would sleep with you?”
“No, Hazel, no. It was never...” I sighed, exhausted. I felt disgusted with myself because that’s exactly how it might seem to her. “It wasn’t my intention to... I never thought we—”
“Yes, aside from all the flirting you’ve done as long as I’ve known you, your reputation of sleeping around, and you specifically telling me you’d kiss me one day.” I did say that. But I didn’t think it would actually happen.
“I don’t need you to save me,” she snapped, her lip quivering, eyes watery.
“Hazel, listen to me,” I said, softening my tone and stepping closer, my hands extended like I was approaching a wounded animal.
“I’m sorry I lied. I really am, but you take care of everyone, everyone, but yourself.
Your fucking ex stalks you, you’re killing yourself at work.
You need to be able to put yourself first when it’s needed, to ask for things, for help. For anything.”
“Who’d be talking? You run from girl to girl, needing nothing but their bodies. How are you better than me?”
She was hurt, not by what I said, but because it came from me. She trusted me, and I used it. I could see it in her eyes and her bleeding heart all over the floor, seeping into the cracks of this room.
“I’m not better, Hazel. I’m not, but I need you to hear this.” She swallowed and lowered her eyes, not able to look at me. “Jackson, your dad, your mom—”
“My mom?!” Her face twisted in pain. “My sick mom? You have the decency to accuse my sick, dead mom?!”
This was a shitstorm from start to finish. I always spoke plainly and to the point, but I had trouble articulating my thoughts. Emotions were fighting with logic.
“No! What I meant is you deserve so much more than life has given you.”
“From who? You?” Yes. No. But I stayed silent. “Exactly!”
Pain, pain, pain. That’s all I felt. This was exactly what I always tried to avoid.
“What does it matter if you think I deserve something? Does it mean I get to have it in life?”
It should. At least for her.
How was it possible that I had met this timid, funny girl, decided I shouldn’t bother getting to know her, then brought her here and shattered something in her that would break her a little bit more than life already had?
I softened. Emotions clouded my judgment.
“Hazel, I can’t even describe how much I hate that people in your life abandoned you when you needed them the most. When you were drowning in hurt. You show up for everyone. And yet... You treat yourself like you’re the exception to all that compassion. To all that love.”
Her gaze snapped up. A wicked, fake smile appeared on her face. It physically hurt me to watch her change.
“Oh, you want to talk hypocrisy? What about your ‘I hate love’ crap? I see how you are with Ava and Alex, Ethan. With Norah, for God’s sake. What you’ve done for them. You love them separately, and as couples, you help them get engaged. And you give me the bullshit that you have nothing to offer?”
I had said that as well. I never let women inside my soul.
Instead, I told them they could expect nothing from me.
No future, no relationship. Because I didn’t believe in it, I had no good role models growing up.
We could all buy into the happily ever after bullshit, but if you wait long enough, it’s going to come crashing down.
At least, that’s what I thought for as long as I could remember.
But as soon as she mentioned Ava and Alex, I had to admit I never saw them breaking up in the future.
As different as can be, they were perfect for each other because they loved each other despite the differences, despite the fights.
They knew it was the endgame for them. Alex once described it to me as “the knowledge that there’s nothing they could fight about that would be more important than them loving each other”.
And I saw it in his eyes, it had nothing to do with rose-tinted glasses.
It was the truth distilled to its very essence. Undeniable.
“It’s different,” I justified myself like a coward.
“Honesty is the best policy?” she mocked me with my own words. “You can’t even be honest with yourself. You refuse to offer anything because you’re scared. Scared to be like your parents.”
Each word was a knife to my heart. It was what Ethan said. What they all thought. And it took two weeks for Hazel to figure me out, too. Maybe it was true. It didn’t mean I was ready to admit it. Not to others, not to myself.
“I’m happy as I am,” I lied. Again.
“No, I’m happy as I am,” she yelled back at me, her finger pointing at her chest, but her eyes poking holes in mine.
“Are you really?” How could she say that?
Her life was a mess. She was scared, mostly alone.
No family nearby, Mady always out of town.
As far as I knew, she didn’t spend much time with her coworkers, let alone ask them for any kind of help.
Water her plants, maybe. Every ask, every offer of help, felt like a battle with her.
Like vulnerability was too expensive for her.
“There’s a reason why people hide their pain.
Isn’t there, Luke?” The way she said my name.
.. My breath caught, and I froze. It wasn’t just a question.
It was a mirror. And suddenly, I wasn’t standing in front of her anymore, but myself, exposed.
Not just seen, but understood in a way that made my chest tighten.
Because she wasn’t guessing. She knew.
She knew how I deflected with charm, with noise, with anything but vulnerability myself.
She saw the walls I built and recognized them like they were her own.
And the terrifying part wasn’t that she was right.
It was how effortlessly she’d known it all along and decided to treat it with understanding. With the kindness she possessed.
“How can you ever know what someone’s struggling with? I never pretend to know better.”
“What about your father?” The words slipped out before I could stop them. I had no right to say these things, but I had to get it out of me. I was shredding her to pieces.
“What about him?” she asked, caught off guard.
“He offered you a job you’d love, and you turned it down. Why?” It felt like spitting in her face. It was true, but that didn’t change the fact that it wasn’t my place, and I hated myself for it.
I wish I had her kindness. Her strength. I wish I were more like her. Instead, I was attacking the very things that made her who she was. I was indeed a hypocrite.
“How is that relevant? How do you know all that?”
“You’re hiding,” I said.
Her voice hardened. “How do you know all that?”
I paused before closing my eyes. “I saw the message.”