by Amie Knight
She stood next to the bed, jerking her sleeves down and straightening her hoodie.
“What happened to your arm?” I was twelve. I didn’t know what I had seen. What those long cuts on her arm meant. And I damn sure didn’t know I shouldn’t ask about them.
She pulled down hard on the wrist of one of her sleeves and looked at the floor, but it was too late, I’d already seen the tears shimmering in her eyes. It was dark, but I could swear her legs were trembling. “What are you talking about?”
I stared at her, not understanding. Not liking this version of Hazel at all. She looked scared and meek, and it surprised me because Hazel was always bold, if not a little melancholy. But she never felt weak, until that moment.
“Your arm, Hazel. How did it get those scratches?”
She shook her head, a tear breaking free from the corner of her eye, and turned, jetting for the bathroom that was connected to my bedroom. She closed the door quickly behind her and I stood there even more dumbfounded than before. Walking to the door quickly, I jiggled the knob, already expecting for it to be locked. Still, my stomach sank.
“Go away, Oliver.” Her voice sounded shredded, broken, ruined. There were thousands of emotions that my young boy brain couldn’t begin to comprehend in her tearful voice.
All I understood in that moment was that she was upset and I needed to fix it. I pressed my lips to where the door met the frame. “I’m sorry. Whatever I did. Whatever I said. I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
I heard a small thump and what sounded like something sliding along the other side of the door. “It’s fine. Just go away.”
I didn’t think it was fine at all. Jesus. She sounded like she was sobbing. What the heck was I supposed to do? She was in my room in my bathroom crying on the other side of the door and all because I asked her what happened to her arm.
She sounded to me like she was sitting on the bathroom floor right on the other side of the door, so I slid down and sat on my side, feeling like the biggest asshole ever.
“God, I’m so sorry, Hazel. Please forgive me.”
I could hear a small hiccup through the door. “It’s okay, Ollie. Just go to bed.”
I picked at the lint on the carpet around me. “I can’t just go to bed. I made you cry.”
A long sniff sounded through the door. “I’m not crying. And it’s not your fault. Just go away.”
I ran my hands through my hair. It was a nervous habit I’d had my whole life. I couldn’t just go away. She was in my bathroom. And it wasn’t in my DNA to do that. It wasn’t who I was. Scarlett and I had amazing parents. The kind of parents who taught you how to care for people and to value the people you love. My mother would have never left me sitting on that bathroom floor alone in Hazel’s condition. I had a feeling Hazel didn’t have that same kind of mother. My chest hurt at the thought that she would ever be alone in a time like this one.
I thought of what my mother would do. She wouldn’t pester me or hound me or make me come out. She’d let me have time. But she wouldn’t leave me alone.
So, I sat there waiting, wringing my damn hands and trying not to panic. I felt like I had broken Hazel. Ten minutes later and I knew I had to do something. I stood up, pacing, thinking. I just couldn’t sit there and do nothing. It was driving me crazy. I finally walked over to my desk and grabbed two pencils and a piece of paper.
I sat back down next to the door and after struggling for almost a full minute, I finally managed to squeeze one of the pencils underneath the door to Hazel.
I didn’t know what I was going to write on that paper. I wanted to see her face and make sure she was okay and wasn’t crying anymore. I wanted to hear her voice, but I figured this piece of paper and pencils were going to have to be it instead. I didn’t want to pressure her.
Before I knew what I was doing, I drew out a tic-tac-toe board. My dad and I always did them in restaurants while my mom and sister talked each other’s ears off waiting for our food.
After drawing an 0 in one of the empty spots, I slid the paper under the door and waited. It felt like an eternity but was probably closer to just a minute when I heard her lift the paper from the floor and the quiet scribble of the pencil on the paper. I breathed out a long sigh of relief. Hopefully she wasn’t writing go away on the piece of paper.
The white sheet appeared back on my side of the door a second later with an X in an empty spot.
I was even more relieved and put an O in my spot, sliding it back under the door. And that’s how we spent the remainder of the night. On two opposite sides of the door, playing a game of tic-tac-toe. I didn’t know what had set Hazel off so badly. But I knew it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that she had someone right then. And I was plenty happy to be that someone.
I was running like the fucking wind, the sun bright in my eyes and my brow heavy with sweat. But I was almost there, the end zone and the ball was just right—fuck me. The football soared right through my hands and hit the number eleven on my chest before dropping to the fucking ground. And that might have been okay if it hadn’t been the fourth ball I’d dropped at practice today.
“Knox!” Coach yelled across the field and the whole fucking team looked over at me. “Get your fucking head in the game!” Being a wide receiver for a competitive college team was no joke.
I knew what was going on, but I knew from experience that Coach didn’t want to hear about my girl problems. I’d been playing for the Mustangs for four years. No, football always came before girls. Hell, in the South football came before everything and Coach Potter of the Mint Valley University Mustangs didn’t give a flying fuck about my girl problems.
I walked to the sideline and our quarterback, Knolls, gave me a hard knock on the helmet. “What the fuck is going on, man?”
I took off my helmet and shook my head. “Just bullshit.”
He looked as annoyed as I fucking felt. Just call me fucking butter fingers.
Coach gave me a disgusted look. “Let’s call it a fucking night. Looks like we aren’t getting any good plays out of Knox anyway.”
Jesus fuck, it was no fun being the reason Coach called it a night even if we were ten minutes over usual practice.
The walk to the locker room was quiet, solemn even. I wasn’t the only one who’d had a shit night. The whole team just wasn’t gelling tonight as a cohesive unit and we had our first game of the season in less than two weeks. But that hadn’t been why I’d been off. That all came down to Hazel. I hadn’t heard from her in two days. She hadn’t been on Hadrian’s Wall either. Or she’d blocked my ass. Who the hell knew? The last time I’d spoken to her was when she and Scarlett had brought Scarlett’s car. And the last time Gray Wolfe had spoken to her had been that day as well. Our last conversation had been about the color green. I couldn’t imagine why or how that would cause her to not speak to me, well, Gray, again.
I’d tried texting her as Gray Wolfe but not as Oliver. Maybe I’d have to resort to that soon if I didn’t hear from her. Or maybe I’d ask Lettie if she’d spoken to her. I’d have to have a good reason, though, because Scarlett was nosey. Fuck, but I’d gotten myself into the biggest clusterfuck ever.
After a shower I drove home in my own car, which had just needed a new battery. No surprise there since it was an old piece of shit I’d had since high school. But I was waiting until I was out of college with a real job in sports medicine to get a new one.
When I pulled up at the apartment, I realized it was my fucking lucky day. It may have been dark, but that didn’t stop me from seeing a sight for sore eyes. I was grinning like a damn crazy person as I parked next to Hazel’s old Cadillac. My shit practice and all the dropped passes flew right out of my mind when I saw that car.
I raced up the steps to our apartment on the second floor and let myself in, not expecting for them to be right there in the living room. But there they sat, cuddled up on the couch under a blanket in the dark watching an old horror movie. Hazel loved old shit. Old car
s, old video games, random old board games she’d find at the thrift store, so the fact they were watching an old Alfred Hitchcock movie was no surprise.
It wasn’t uncommon for Hazel to be here when I got home, so I tried to play it cool even though I wanted to ask her why the hell she wasn’t talking to Gray.
I set my keys down and took my tennis shoes off at the door, and Scarlett looked over at me while Hazel kept her eyes trained on the TV.
“I left a plate of lasagna and bread in the oven for you, Olls. Salad in the fridge.”
Mmmm. That’s what I smelled. My mouth watered as I walked to the kitchen got my plate out of the oven and some salad from the fridge to add to the side.
I grabbed a glass of water and my plate and went to sit down with my girls. I was being cool. This was something I would do any night. I mean, Hazel wasn’t ghosting Winnie. She was ghosting Gray.
Sitting down next to Hazel, I mumbled, “Hey, brat.”
Rolling her eyes, she gave me a half smile. “How was practice?”
I shrugged, shoveling big bites of delicious lasagna that my sister made into my mouth. I knew that was half the reason Hazel came over during the week. Scarlett could cook. “It was okay.”
I didn’t want to talk about my dropped balls or shitty practice. Especially since she was the reason.
“How was work today? Everything good at Level Up?”
“Same shit, new day,” she answered, eyes on the TV.
There was a bunch of birds attacking people on the screen and I couldn’t believe these two were watching this shit still. From the five minutes I’d seen of it, I could already tell it was bad. So bad.
A buzzing sound startled me until Hazel started moving around and reaching under the blanket and into her hoodie. She pulled out her phone, looked at it for a second, and then started typing.
“Who is that?” Scarlett asked, only half paying attention.
But I was damn sure paying attention. Because clearly she had her phone and apparently she was answering texts, so why wasn’t she responding to fucking Gray?
“No one,” Hazel answered non-committedly and that caught Scarlett’s interest.
“No one? Huh?” Scarlett asked, turning toward Hazel on the couch now and raising her eyebrows. “Is it the sexy guy who got your number the other day at work?”
What the fuck? Mid swallow that delicious lasagna all of a sudden felt like a rock going down my throat. I started to choke, which triggered a series of events I couldn’t have foreseen.
It started with me trying to cough up a lasagna noodle and my body lurching just enough that it sent the last couple of bites of my lasagna right onto the front of Hazel’s sweatshirt.
Scarlett jumped behind Hazel and pounded on my back while I tried to reach for the glass of water only to grab it and get it about halfway to my mouth before Scarlett hit my back again and it went flying right out of my hand and onto Hazel’s lap.
I stared at her lap and the mess on her shirt while Scarlett gave me one last smack to the back that finally sent my food down. The whole thing would have embarrassed the fuck out of me if I wasn’t too busy obsessing about what guy went into her store and asked for her number. Was she talking to him? Was she seeing him? Was this new guy in and Gray and I were out?
“Holy shit,” Hazel said, looking around like she couldn’t believe what the hell had just happened. I could hardly believe it myself. Did Hazel have a boyfriend? She didn’t do boyfriends. She did random hookups. What if I’d missed my chance by being a fucking wuss and trying to trick her instead of just telling her how I felt?
Hazel looked down at her filthy shirt and wet pants. “Are you okay, Winnie?”
I blinked a few times, trying to regain a little composure. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.” I looked around for a towel or something, realizing it was too big of a mess for that. “Come on, I’ll get you one of my sweatshirts and some shorts.” It wasn’t the first time Hazel had borrowed clothes from me and it wouldn’t be the last.
“Don’t think I’m done interrogating you about hot dude, Hazel. You’re not getting off that easy.” Scarlett had a thoughtful look, and then an evil one before giving us a sinister laugh. “Or are you?”
Hazel just rolled her eyes and followed me into my room where I rooted through my drawers and found her a hoody and athletic shorts. It reminded me of a night years ago that I remembered like it was yesterday. A night burned into the back of my mind for forever probably.
I handed the clothes over to her, but when she tried to grab the bundle, I held them tight in my hand until she looked up at me, confused. “We’re good, right?” I shouldn’t have asked that. She didn’t know Gray and I were one and the same, but I couldn’t help it. I needed the reassurance. I couldn’t lose her. Ever.
Her face softened and she smiled up at me. “It’s okay, Winnie. Of course we’re okay. It’s just a little marinara sauce and some water.” She stepped past me and into the bathroom to change clothes and I went back into the living room to clean up the mess I made.
Once I was done, I stood in the kitchen and fired off another text to Hazel, hoping she would answer this time.
Me: Did I do something wrong?
I turned my phone to silent and went and sat in my spot on the couch, attempting to watch the crazy ass movie.
When Hazel returned, she sat back down between Scarlett and me and I moved over closer to her until we were thigh to thigh. It didn’t take me but two seconds to notice how good she looked in my clothes. “Share your covers,” I demanded.
She gave me a closed-lip smile and pulled the covers over on my lap, too.
I tried to keep my eyes on the movie, I really did, but Hazel’s beauty had always drawn me like a moth to a flame. I was stupid for her. The woman never even tried. She didn’t have to. No makeup, no jewelry, no fanfare. She was just her and it was more than enough.
Twenty minutes later, I watched as Hazel pulled out her phone again, reading for a second before typing a reply. As she was placing it in her pocket, I felt the buzz of my own phone that was sitting on the couch next to me. I couldn’t look at it, which killed me because I knew she’d finally responded.
The movie ended and Hazel told us good night and headed for the door.
“Wait, before you go, tell me about hot dude from the store!” Scarlett shouted across the room.
“Oh my God, crazy lady. That wasn’t hot dude from the store. I gave him my number, but I haven’t even heard from him. That was Pops letting me know he was home from Amor’s and that he was going to bed. You’re completely insane.” Hazel opened the front door and gave me one more wave. “Night, Winnie.” She looked over at Scarlett. “Night, asshole.”
When the door closed behind her, I picked up my phone and took a look.
Hazel: Nope. Just a few really busy days. Wanna play Hadrian’s Wall tonight?
I would have fist pumped and jumped around if Scarlett hadn’t been watching me like a hawk. Instead, I got up and went to my bedroom to throw on some joggers and to load up Hadrian’s Wall on my PC.
Hazel wasn’t talking to someone else. And she was still talking to Gray. I didn’t know what had made her shy away for a couple of days, but it didn’t matter now. She was back. I was still in the game. I was off the bench and ready to score.
Age 17
Holy shit. I looked over at Scarlett passed out on a couch in some random house out in the country and knew I was going to have to do something I really didn’t want to. And I was going to have to eat crow doing it.
“Scarlett.” I tapped the side of her face. Others might call it a slap, but I was calling it a tap. “Come on, wake the fuck up, woman.”
Her eyes fluttered open and her head rolled against the back of the couch she was sitting on. “I’m awake. I’m totalllllllly awake.” Her words were slurred and she could barely hold her head up, meaning almost not at all.
Fuck, I’d only left her alone for an hour. I’d gone to sit out by the fire with my sh
itty date for the night, Rob. I said shitty because now I couldn’t find his ass to help me get Scarlett home and he was the one who’d driven us out into the middle of nowhere bum fuck.
“It’s okay, baby,” I said, petting Scarlett’s head. “I’ll get us home. Even if it means kissing your brother’s ass.” I rolled my eyes. The things I did for my friends. I stepped outside to avoid the loud music and dialed up Ollie from my phone, still trying to understand how Scarlett had gotten so shit-faced so fast. I mean, I’d had four beers and was only tipsy, so I had no idea how many she’d had to be this drunk.
“You’ve got be joking. It’s fucking three a.m.” Oliver’s sleepy voice came over the phone.
“Good morning to you, too, Winnie.”
Scarlett gave a loud snore that made all the people partying in the room chuckle.
“What do you want, Hazel?”
Well, shit. It looked like Oliver was still mad that we hadn’t taken him out with us tonight. But I’d been going on a date. Sort of. And it felt weird to bring him along. Now I was going to pay for it.
“Well, see,” I started, scared to tell him that Rob had ditched us and that Scarlett was deliriously drunk.
“Spit it out.”
Oh, God, he was getting more irate by the minute. “Rob ditched us at the party and we need a ride home.” I spat it out so quickly, I was hoping he only understood half of it. The half where we needed a ride home to be specific. I’d wait to tell him about Scarlett until he got here. I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but I wasn’t the dullest either.
“I told you not to go out with that douche.” I could hear him moving around now, so I was guessing that meant he wasn’t going to leave our sorry asses out here in the middle of nowhere. “Where are you?”
Shit. “Oh…about that.” I looked around at all the drunk and stoned people in the room with us and decided they probably didn’t know where they were either. “I don’t know. Somewhere in the country.”