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I race down the stairs two at a time, thethump, thumpof my feet against the wood echoing in my large, silent house.
I practically leap to the door, my fingers wrapping around the knob as I jerk it open.
And come face to face with Hazel.
My eyes widen, and my shoes squeak against the floor as I stop myself from knocking her down.
I swallow down my gasp, staring into her wide eyes, the way her chest heaves, how her skin is a little pale and a little flushed at the same time, and how she grips the doorframe, as if she’s using it to hold her up. She clutches her casted arm to her chest, while she supports herself on one foot, the other one hanging slightly in the air.
“What’re you doing here?” I snap, then wince. I didn’t mean for it to come across like I don’t fucking want her here. It’s more of the question of how the fuck she got here, when she should be resting. “How the hell did you get here?” She better not have fucking driven herself or I’ll kill her. Then bring her back to life, and kill her again.
She flinches back at my words. Her hand goes to her chest, and she rubs away the ache that I can’t see, but I swear I can feel it as if it’s my own pain.
Her brows lower, and a touch of sorrow enters her eyes. “Never mind. Forget I was here.”
She winces as she turns around, limping awkwardly. My hand whips out, and I grab onto her uninjured wrist, my fingers bruising against her skin. I lift her off her feet, clunky and uncoordinated, as I bring her inside. The moment both of her feet are in my house, my free hand goes to the door, and I throw it closed, flicking the lock into place.
“What’re you doing?” she gasps.
My fingers instantly loosen around her when I know how much pain she’s been in, and I spin her around, pressing toward her until her back is flush against the door.
“What I meant is, how the fuck did you get here? Did you drive yourself?” I rasp, my fingers tingling once they inch up her shirt, the pads pressing against her bare sides.
“I drove,” she gasps, and then narrows her eyes, like she’s remembering why she really came here. She shoves at me with her good arm, and my hands fall to my sides. She yanks her shirt down, nothing more than a plain gray shirt, and puts up a wall in front of me that I instantly want to break down. “I just had to see for myself that you were still alive. Surely you wouldn’t stay away from me this whole time, right? I mean, shit, it’s been long enough that even Levi and Atticus have come over to see me at this point. But you? You can’t even find a second out of your precious life to come and see me.Me.”
Her voice cracks in the end, and as if we’re one, the same crack splits down my heart.
My brows furrow, and my insides ping between angry and fucking ashamed. This is why I stay away from her. All I cause is pain.
I second-guess everything, and it leaves me feeling like a fucking idiot.
I want her. I don’t want her. I hate her. I have some emotion that I fucking refuse to name. There are so many damn things going through my head, and all I can do to center myself is plant my palms on my door on each side of her head, caging her in.
“You shouldn’t be driving, Hazel. You shouldn’t be out of fucking bed,” I breathe in her face, thinking of what Malik said, that she’s broken down my walls.
Has she?
Am I here, with her?
“How could you not come see me? Not even once? I sneak out of my house with crutches that are too tall and hobble my ass into my car on pain meds, driving all the way here when I shouldn’t be driving, just to make sure you’re alive. I do all of this, but you can’t even come see me? Not even one time?” The pain in her voice is so raw, so fucking brutal, that I grind my teeth to dust.
I have seen her… she just never saw me.
“I’ve stuck with you since the moment you arrived at the hospital,” I growl.
She shoves against me, but I refuse to budge. “And then you left me,” she shouts at me, right in my face.
My hand leaves the door, and I curl my fingers around her jaw, sliding down until they wrap around her neck. “Ineverleft.”
Her eyes widen, and then narrow. “Yes, you did. Everyone was at the hospital. But you weren’t. Where were you? Why did you never come see me again after I woke up that day?”
“I was there,” I seethe.
“Where?” she whispers. “Do you hate me that much that you couldn’t even come talk to me?”
I was there, watching her from afar. I was just too much of a pussy to talk to her. I felt unworthy.
“I couldn’t see you, Hazel,” I murmur.
