Page 74 of Rise
“See you in the morning?” she called out, though the words came out too fast, too desperate, like throwing a rope across a widening gap.
He paused at the edge of the drive, shoulders stiff beneath the worn fabric of his flannel. For a heartbeat, she thought he might turn— might say something that would undo the slow unravel— but he didn’t. He simply lifted his chin in the barest of nods, a gesture so slight it could’ve been missed in the dark.
Then he kept walking, his back a wall she couldn’t scale.
The sound of the truck door opening and closing echoed through the quiet, followed by the low rumble of the engine coming to life. His headlights swept across the yard, casting long shadows across the lawn, over the porch, over her.
Hazel didn’t breathe until the taillights disappeared down the street.
And when they did, when the silence folded back in around her like a vice, it hit her all at once.
She’d done it. She’d scared him off. Pushed too hard. Read too much into something fragile and soft, something still forming.
God, what was I thinking?
A strange pressure built in her chest, hot and unrelenting, and she pressed a hand to it like that might keep everything inside from spilling out. She could feel it in her throat, the swell of something thick and rising— panic, shame, the awful need tofix itsomehow. Her breath hitched. Beneath her skin, every nerve seemed to vibrate. She swallowed once, hard, but the nausea didn’t ease. It sat there low and mean, twisting.
This was why she didn’tdothis— why she avoided the deep, all-encompassing connection that came with knowing people and beingknown.Because when she messed up, or when they left, she remained with only this pulling darkness that threatened to rebreak every jagged, barely-healed piece inside of her.
Without thinking, Hazel fumbled for her phone, tucked away within the pocket of her leggings. With clumsy hands and frantic movements, she unlocked it and opened her messages. The screen glowed far too brightly in the dark, illuminating the tremble in her fingers as she typed.
I think I just royally shit the bed with Beck.
She stared at the screen for half a second, just long enough to panic, just long enough to wonder if she should delete it.
But then it was too late, and the message was gone, sent, delivered.
Her breath caught in her throat all over again. That sick, sinking feeling tightened like a fist around her ribs. What if Iris didn’t answer? What if she was busy, or worse, thought Hazel was being dramatic? What if she was tired of the mess? What if she just didn’t care at all?
It was moments like these that Hazel wished she could do the normal, adult thing— reach out to her mother, press a contact within her phone, and be greeted on the other end with a calm, caring voice, one that wanted nothing more than to soothe her worries into something gentle and soft and manageable. But she couldn’t, she had never oncebeen able to. The only voice like that, for her, was one she’d never be able to hear again.
She pressed her palm to her forehead, tried to breathe through the aftershocks of rejection and the lingering strain of grief, but everything felt too tight— her chest, her throat, the porch around her, the world.
And then her phone buzzed.
Malcolm and I will be there in 20 minutes. Take deep breaths, touch some grass. Trust me, it helps.
A tear slipped down Hazel’s cheek before she could stop it.
Not because of Beck, not entirely.
But because she wasn’t alone. Because someone had answered.
She rose in a slow, hesitant movement, the blanket falling from her shoulders, and padded barefoot across the porch. The newly built steps were cool against her skin as she descended, one hand trailing along the railing Beck had installed with such quiet care.
She stepped down onto the lawn, the grass dewy and cool beneath her toes.
And then she did what Iris told her to do.
She lowered to the ground, cross-legged, and touched the earth, trembling fingers curling into the grass.
And she breathed.
She sat there in the dark for a while, toes curled against the damp blades, breath rising in fogged spirals from her lips. The coolness of the earth grounded her, a small tether to something solid while the rest of her spun. Her heart still hadn’t settled. Her chest still ached with that hollow pressure of something lost, or almost had. She didn’t know which hurt more.
And then there were headlights, slow and sweeping across the yard. Gravel crackled and tires rolled to a stop.
Hazel blinked against the sudden brightness, rising from the grass. She stepped back towards the porch as the passenger door of the car opened and Iris’s voice rang out, immediate and unbothered, like Hazel hadn’t just sent a panic-text 15 minutes ago.
