Hazel held her breath, staring at me. I was twisting the knife. Making her hurt. And it wasn’t the kind of pain that she liked.
“You’re lying,” she stammered.
“She might never get the courage to follow through with anything, but Christine is not your friend.”
Hazel’s eyes were wide, blinking rapidly. “She wouldn’t do something like that. We’re friends. She saved me from Oliver.”
I lowered my voice: “Oliver is probably in on it.”
Her gaze flickered around the room, as if she could find the answers around us, something to prove me wrong. But when she looked back at me, there was a doubt in her eyes, a bottomless pit of sadness, because in her heart, she knew I was right. That she had known it in her heart too. Christine was too good to be true.
“This is fucked up,” Hazel said. She stepped back. “You’re lying to me. You’re saying that to hurt me, right? What? Do you think you’re going to toughen me up by isolating me from my friends? Maybe this is what you were assigned to do all along. To isolate me. Like you and that scar-face did before.”
Her cheeks were tinted red, anger making her skin flush, and had we been under any other circumstances, I would have admired the passion that fueled her. But all I felt was guilt. This was my fault.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Hazel said. “Training. Fucking. You. All of it. This is over.”
My heart thudded in my chest. “What do you mean?”
“We’re done, Grant,” she sighed. “I don’t know what we were, but I’m tired of it. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Neither of us could answer what that meant. Being forced to live together had muddled the boundaries of where forced proximity ended and the actual friendship began. We were roommates. Trainer and pupil. Lovers. We shared everything here.
“You want to move out?” I asked. She didn’t say anything, but stared at the wall past me, not wanting to meet my gaze. “What about the shelter?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“I’ll never hurt you. I’ll never kiss you again.” Why did it hurt to give up kissing her, rather than the sadistic pain that I thrived off of? The idea of losing her lips was agony. Threatening to break me. “But I want to help with the shelter.”
“You don’t even care, do you?” she asked, shaking her head. “You care more about the shelter than you care about me.” I stared at her, not sure how she came up with that. Wasn’t the shelter what she wanted? “You’re willing to do anything for the shelter. But when it comes to me? You don’t care about how I feel about Heather and Zaid. You don’t care about how much I need Christine. I need something to be good for once. You and me, Grant. I neededusto be good. But I mean nothing to you.”
“That’s not true.”
“But it is, isn’t it?” Tears welled in her eyes, breaking on her cheeks with each movement. “You never accepted me. The real me, flaws and all.” She forced a laugh. “I should’ve trusted Christine! Killer or not, she said you couldn’t be trusted. She may want me to die, but she still looked out for me. Told me that it was stupid to trust my abductor.”
I forced myself to feel anger. It was easier that way. “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said, raising my voice.
Hazel matched my tone. “Tell me something real for once. Something you actually care about.” She raised her arms. “What? Is it the gym? Is it knowing that you’re powerful enough to kill people? Is it that you can control every single bit of my life—”
“I love you, Hazel,” I yelled. Her jaw trembled and I froze in place. The words had flown out of my mouth, shocking both of us, but as I stared at her, I knew it was right. I loved her. But it wasn’t that simple. Love never was. “I should have never agreed to help you in the first place.” I knew those words would hurt, but it was true. Because she was better off without me. She needed to be alone. That was the only way she could be free. “It was a mistake to fall in love with you.”
What did it mean to love someone? To fall for Hazel? How did that change what it meant to protect her? It shouldn’t have changed anything, but it did. Loving Hazel made it so that all I wanted was to make her happy. But happiness wasn’t always safe.
Had I been detached, I would have made better decisions regarding her safety. But I couldn’t go back now.
She screamed, then raised her fists. “Which is it? Do you love me, or should you never have helped me? Because when you love someone, Grant, when you really love someone, you do whatever you can to help that person. Whether you want to or not.” She crossed her arms. “You want to use that wordnow, Grant? Now? At a time like this?” Sweat gathered under her arms, wetting the bandeau. “You manipulative asshole.”
“I want to help you.”
“Go fuck yourself. I don’t need your help. Go ahead and pretend. Keep lying to yourself. You don’t love me.” She jerked her chin in the air. “You want to pretend like you’re this selfless hero. But you’re not. All you ever wanted was to hurt me.” She turned towards the door. “Physical sadist? More like a fucking asshole.”
Hazel left, slamming the door to her bedroom. A few seconds later, rock music was blaring through her speakers, and I could hear her scream over the music. Through the walls. At me.
How could I help her now?
