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“No, I don’t. He’s my responsibility. Nothing is more important than him.” Her voice was louder than it had been, and she was almost yelling at Natalie.
“Of course not, Hazel. That’s not what I meant.” Natalie moved toward her friend again, but again, Hazel backed away, her back sliding along the harsh brick wall to get away from her.
“I’m going to quit book club soon. She’s complaining a lot about me being gone. She has to watch him all day when I’m in the fields. She doesn’t want to watch him all night. I need to be there for my son.” Hazel was trying not to cry as she spoke.
“You can bring him. You know you can. Nobody will say anything.” The others would gladly have the boy at book club.
“Nobody else has a kid they would bring, and he’s almost four. We cannot talk about murder in front of him. By winter, I’ll stop, maybe sooner. Maybe I won’t come next time,” Hazel admitted.
“Hazel, you can’t quit. You’re important to the group.” Natalie started to worry about her oldest friend. That more than the accident was affecting her, that living with the grandparents who raised her might be a bigger issue.
“No, Natalie, you won’t notice me when I’m gone. You never did before.” Her voice sounded small, even to Natalie.
“Yes, we will. We all love you.”
Hazel let the comment slide, turned, and started for her car, then stopped. “Good luck with Mr. Sullivan. Without him, I wouldn’t have graduated. I missed a lot of school, and he made sure my diploma was signed. He’s a good guy, and you deserve a good guy.”
Natalie watched her get into her little yellow car and drive away. Every time she talked to Hazel alone, it got worse and worse. Maybe because each time they talked, she got a little better, but Hazel didn’t. Hazel maybe got a little worse.
Should she head back to Ruth’s to talk to the group about Hazel wanting to quit? No, they could talk about that when everyone was sober. Maybe she would call a meeting about it. She knew that they would do everything they could to keep Hazel in the group. And maybe it would be better if she wasn’t a part of it.
Getting into her car, she looked at the time: just past 8:00 p.m. The short drive home didn’t give her enough time to figure anything out about Hazel or even Sam. Parking in the driveway, she realized that her dad had not returned home yet. The house was quiet and didn’t feel like home like it always used to.
Going to her room, she started to unpack her bag, then thought better of it. Leaving it all packed, she grabbed her small bag of toiletries and an outfit for work in the morning, wrote a note to her dad, and headed out the back door. Running through the grassy back yard, she tried the back door to Sam’s house. The door was unlocked, so she slipped inside, hoping he wouldn’t get mad at her for breaking into his house.
Walking into the living room, she saw him on the couch watching TV, but he was sleeping. Quietly, she slipped past him and put her stuff in the bedroom, then went back to the living room. He was sitting up with his feet on the coffee table, head back on the back cushions, still sleeping.
Smiling, she left him and went to his bedroom, slipping out of her clothes. She took out her cell phone and called him.
“Hello,” he answered, sounding groggy.
“Are you sleeping?” she smiled as she asked.
“No, just watching TV,” he lied.
“Can I come over?” she asked as she slid out of her panties.
“Sure.”
“I’ll be over in a minute.” She shut off her phone.
Putting the phone on the side table, she climbed onto the bed and waited, trying not to laugh out loud as she heard him run down the hallway toward the bedroom. Probably to change clothes.
He appeared in the doorway and abruptly stopped when he saw her. A smile overtook his face as he looked over her naked body in his bed.
“You lied to me. You were sleeping.” She watched him take off his shirt on his way to the bed.
“You said you weren’t here.” He slid his shorts and underwear off and climbed into bed beside her.
“OK, I lied too,” she said before his mouth claimed hers.
CHAPTER20
It had taken a week.Just one short week. By Saturday afternoon, two weeks after her aborted wedding, she was completely bored with life. The first few days of the week had been full—getting back to work and putting her life back in order—but then it quickly slid into boring.
She realized that before the wedding, every moment was spent planning. It had taken her a year to plan the thing, and every small detail had been organized to death. It had been a year of all-out focus on that one day. It had been beautiful, and everything had worked out as planned, except her actually getting married.
Before the year of wedding planning, she had been focused on school. Studying and writing papers occupied her time. Though the work had always been easy, she had always given 110% to everything after the accident. Papers were longer than they needed to be. Assignments were completed as soon as possible, and sometimes she did them twice. Books were read twice so she would know the information.
