Page 12 of The Heiress

The wine fog was thick.In fact, Hazel looked more liketwoHazel’s. “I haven’t had much alcohol in over a week and it’s showing,” I groaned, mostly because we were drinking red and more than likely I’d have a killer headache in the morning. The current fog I quite liked, however. The numbness meant I wasn’t thinking overly hard about loss and betrayal.

“I feel like you’re upset about something,” Hazel slurred. We were sitting on the floor leaning against the couches instead of sitting on the couches. I’m not really sure how or why we ended up on the floor.

I stared her down. “Beyond the obvious?” I really thought I’d get more mileage out of the grieving process. I’d hoped people would assume my distance and weirdness were simply sadness for a lot longer.

But then again, this was my best friend and if anyone were going to pick up on the subtleties, it would be her.

“Well yeah. You’re sad but you’re also…mad. Fuck, I sound like a Dr. Suess book now.” Then she scowled at her wine.

I’d debated and debated who, if anyone, I would tell about my mother’s beyond the grave confession. The warning she included mixed with Hazel’s information was the only reason I felt it needed to be kept a secret. If my mom’s fears were accurate then letting this secret out into the world, even a little bit, could mean trouble.

But if I kept it to myself then I might explode.

“I am mad. I’m also mad that you know I’m mad.”

Hazel giggled this time. “I love wine weekends! It’s the only time you babble and all those thoughts you keep bottled up tight come tumbling out!”

“Am I babbling?”

She leaned forward on the coffee table and grinned. “You’re about to. Andof courseI can tell when you’re secretly mad. It’s my job. Now tell me why you’re mad and who I’m going to thump.”

Tell? Don’t tell? Tell? The debate raged in my brain, but the words tumbled out anyway. “The day of the funeral I found out I was adopted.”

She blinked. “I’m sorry, what now?”

I took a deep breath and plunged forward. “My mom left a note for me, in case anything happened to her, she wanted me to know I was adopted.”

Hazel blinked some more. “Why would they keep that a secret from you?”

I shrugged. It was probably the biggest piece I couldn’t understand. “I guess I’ll never know.”

“That’s bullshit.”

We spent a solid ten minutes coming up with new and fun ways to express our rage. Then Hazel emptied the last of the wine into our glasses and whispered, “This is how all great fairy tales begin though. Maybe you’re about to find out you’re secretly a princess. Heir to a kingdom. Or about to embark on a great adventure that you, and only you, the chosen one, are allowed to take. We should get you a crown and sword, just in case.”

The wine made us both silly and there was a lot of laughing as we drunkenly got ready for bed, especially when Hazel rummaged through my room and found an old tiara in the closet.

“Let’s get a look at you. Yes. You are definitely long-lost princess material.” Then she became totally serious. “I know there have been a lot of endings for you lately, but I promise this is just the beginning of your story. New and great things are around the next corner. Especially tomorrow when that sexy hunk of man comes back. Do you think I can convince him to work shirtless?”

I pushed her into the hallway. “Go to bed. Take a glass of water with you.”

But as I drifted to sleep I didn’t dream of adventures. Instead, I thought about how close Hazel might be to the truth…and that it might be a dangerous thing to discover.

4

You know what sucks? Anxiety. I woke up at two in the morning with a racing heart, sweating from head to toe, and shaking from the stupid nightmare my brain conjured up. The details don’t matter, but the dream ended with everyone taking off theirfaces(disgusting) and revealing monsters underneath.

I didn’t need an advanced degree in psychology to interpret that one.

And since I was awake and had enough adrenaline pumping through my system to get me through a marathon, my very helpful brain decided to give into the anxiety and begin a page-by-page recounting of Hazel’s Roark Report.

My brain was trying to be helpful. It found a puzzle it couldn’t solve, so obviously the best possible thing it could do to help me out would be to work overtime until it sorted through all that data to find answers.

Spoiler alert, brain: there are no answers.

But no matter how many times I said that—I even said it out loud—my mind wouldn’t stop running through the information.

So I gave in, but only after glaring at the bottle of prescription anti-anxiety meds on my nightstand. They were clearly not doing their job.

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