Page 88 of Rise
“Every morning,” Hazel said, a fond smile appearing on her face. “We sell out everyday.”
Her mother laughed, a low, warm sound Hazel hadn’t heard in years. “Well, that’s a good problem to have.”
Hazel smiled and took the phone back, slipping it back into her pocket. The silence that settled between them was gentler now, as if it had been smoothed out.
Her mother tilted her head, her expression turning quietly curious once again. “And have you met anyone new?” she asked, her tone light but fond. “Any handsome men coming in for baked goods they don’t need?”
Hazel blinked, her breath catching at the unexpected turn of conversation. It was a gentle question, simple and harmless, but it landed sharp in the center of her chest.
Her mother had never asked her something like that before. Not when she was twelve, not when she was sixteen, not in any of the visits that followed. Most of those had been brief. Some good, some awful. None of them likethis.
The teasing tone, the soft smile, the warmth shining steady in her mother’s hazel eyes.
She didn’t know what to do with it.
It felt... wrong, at first. Like standing in a familiar room that had been rearranged.
Still, something inside her shifted.
She managed to find her way to a gentle laugh, quiet and startled, but real. “Maybe one or two.”
“Oh,really?”her mother’s brow lifted with surprise, the kind of familiar teasing Hazel had only ever witnessed between other mothers and daughters. Never here, never with her own. “Tell me.”
Hazel looked down at her hands. Her palms were warm now, slightly damp. Her heart had picked up speed, quick and uncertain. But when she looked back up, when shemether mother’s gaze, what she saw there rooted her. There was no sharpness, no confusion, justcare.Steady, open, and unguarded.
And so Hazel made a choice. She inhaled a slow, steadying breath, tried to calm the flutter in her chest, and let herself be part of the moment.
“There’s one,” she admitted, peering up at her mother from below the dark shield of her eyelashes.
Her mother said nothing. Just waited, her eyes soft with interest, not expectation.
“He’s... kind,” Hazel continued, after a beat. “And very quiet. He doesn’t say much, but when he does, it’s always honest. And thoughtful. He’s helped me with more than I think he realizes. And I feel like even when I don’t ask… he just knows what I need.”
Her mother tilted her head, brows knitting together with thought. “That sounds like someone you need,” she said, nodding her head. “Someone who will be good for you.”
Hazel felt it again— that ache in her chest, sharp and sudden, like something shifting inside her ribs. Like air after a long-held breath.
“Maybe,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I hope so.”
Her mother reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind Hazel’s ear. The motion was delicate, practiced. The kind of gesture that should have belonged to years they didn’t get. The kind of touch that once would’ve been second nature.
“I hope so, too,” her mother said. “Because you deserve to be seen. And cared for.”
Hazel’s eyes stung. She could only nod in response.
Outside the window, the light had changed. The trees were rimmed in silver, the sky pale and wide. A bird fluttered against a feeder hook below them in the courtyard and then disappeared into the branches.
Her mother leaned back in her chair, but her hand lingered, her fingertips still brushing Hazel’s.
“You look happy,” she said, voice hushed. “I like seeing you like this.”
Hazel’s throat tightened. She pressed her lips together, felt the weight of everything she could say, and didn’t. She forced herself to stay in the moment, not to apologize, not to reach for things that couldn’t be mended. Not to wish for another version of this life.
“I like being here,” she said. “With you.”
And she meant it.
Even with everything they’d lost. Even with everything they couldn’t get back.
