Luke sat up a little bit straighter and turned to face her again. Hazel looked up and immediately saw the boy she’d seen from across the ice-cream shop, her very own Prince Charming. The way he’d smiled at her without even knowing who she was, so ready to give her a chance, drawing no lines between stranger and friend.
She couldn’t tell him the truth. But she couldn’t lie, either.
Scrambling to her feet, Hazel wiped the sides of her pants, knowing that she’d have to walk away and suddenly consumed by thoughts of crumbs and damp splotches.
“I’m sorry,” she said, staring hard at the grass. “I can’t.”
“You can’t?” Luke asked, standing up on his knees. “What do you mean you can’t? I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m just telling you I love you.”
He reached for her hand and Hazel pulled it away. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Tears were pooling in the corners of her eyes.
“What is your problem?” he asked again. Something sharp slid into his voice, and she knew without looking that his eyes had narrowed. “What are you so afraid of? I know you love me. Why is it so hard for you to say it? Why is it so impossible for you to let people in?”
Hazel’s cheeks were damp and her lungs felt like they were being clenched in a vise. She wanted to be anywhere else. It felt like he was tearing her apart, reaching in and exposing all of the darkness inside of her, like a roll of film left out in the sun. She took a deep breath and looked down at him, her eyes hard and cold.
“Luke,” she said, her voice strong. “The summer’s over. You said so yourself. Everybody’s leaving. I’m leaving. What’s the point?”
Luke pulled himself slowly to his feet and reached for her hands again. She couldn’t keep looking at him. He was too wounded, too raw.
“The point?” he asked, disappointment dragging in his voice. “Sometimes there is no point. Not everything’s about getting somewhere, Hazel. Not everything has to be a race. The point is that I love you. Isn’t that enough?”
A lump the size of a tennis ball had formed in Hazel’s throat and she knew she had to leave. It was more than enough. Everything she wanted was standing in front of her, her Prince Charming, begging her to let him in.
But she couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling free from his grasp. “I’m sorry.”
As she walked toward the road she felt his eyes as he watched her go, like magnets drawing her back to his side. Her head was pounding and her heart hurt.
It took everything she had not to turn around.
25
Hazel didn’t know how long she’d been walking when a familiar truck slowed to a stop beside her. It was Maura and Craig. They’d had their fill of the crowds in town and were leaving early to beat the traffic when they spotted Hazel on the side of the road. Hazel got in and tried to be polite, keeping up with small talk about the plans for Rosanna’s party that weekend, but really all she wanted to do was curl up in the corner and cry.
By the time she got back to the guesthouse, her eyes were near bursting from holding back tears. Hopefully, Jaime would still be out with Reid. Hazel wanted to know what happened, but she wasn’t sure she had the energy to pretend nothing was wrong.
She brushed her teeth, glancing quickly at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was longer than it had ever been, and the dyed blond ends had almost completely grown out, leaving her with her natural auburn color. Her eyes were bloodshot and hollow. Luke’s voice echoed in her mind. He didn’t know the whole story, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been right. It was hard for her to let people in. But was it her fault? Nobody had ever really tried before. She’d spent eighteen years doing all she could not to get attached to anything, or anyone. What good was letting somebody in when they were only going to leave you?
Hazel splashed cold water on her face and made her way down the hall. She was opening the door when she heard the sound of ragged breathing coming from inside the room. She hurried to wipe her eyes and pull herself together.
But Jaime wasn’t in any position to notice much of anything. She was hunched against the window, her knees curled up beneath her as she stared outside. She wasn’t crying, but it was clear that she had been. Her face was blotchy and red, her dark eyes raw at the edges.
“Jaime?” Hazel asked quietly as she shut the door behind her.
Jaime didn’t move, and for a second Hazel wondered if maybe she was sleeping. Her eyes were open, but they were so blank and still that it didn’t seem possible that she was awake. She looked just… numb.
Hazel sat at the end of Jaime’s bed, her fingers anxiously gripping the edges of Jaime’s grandmother’s faded patchwork quilt. The fabric was worn and the stuffing so sparse that it felt as light as a sheet, but it was somehow just enough weight to feel substantial.
“What happened?” Hazel asked, inching closer to Jaime on the bed. Jaime shrunk toward the window, as if there was a line, a limit to how close she could stand to be to another person. And Hazel had crossed that line.
Hazel leaned back and folded her legs on the bed, her bare feet dangling off the edge of the mattress. “Jaime,” she said again. “You have to tell me what’s going on. I’m not moving until you say something.”
“There’s nothing to say,” Jaime whispered. Her voice was quiet and empty, and Hazel felt a chill rippling the little hairs on the back of her neck, as if a window had suddenly been opened. “It’s over,” she said. “I told him. It’s done.”
Hazel felt her throat constricting as she again tried to move closer. She didn’t care if Jaime plastered herself against the glass of the window; she was going to be next to her. She had no idea what to say, or what to ask, but she knew that she could be there. That she needed to be there.
“What did he say?” Hazel asked. Jaime flinched, like the question hurt, and Hazel wished she hadn’t asked it.
“What didn’t he say?” Jaime sighed, finally blinking and settling back against the wall. “He was just angry at first. Mad that I didn’t say anything sooner. I could tell just by the look in his eyes that he was terrified. All he kept wanting to know was who else I’d told, who knew, would his parents find out…”
Jaime shrugged and tried to laugh, but it wasn’t long before what began as a loud, harsh chuckle was chopped up into little, shaky sobs.
“It’s just so stupid,” she cried, pounding the bony points of her kneecaps with tiny, clenched fists. “I have no idea what I’m even doing anymore. We were just sitting in the car, and he was talking and talking, about how young we are, about how this would change everything, about how we have our whole lives ahead of us. It was like I was trapped in some after-school special. And I was just staring out the windshield and thinking, how did I get here? This wasn’t supposed to be my life.”
Jaime grabbed both sides of her head with her hands, and all of a sudden her eyes were wild and blinking ferociously. She looked like she was being chased by something horrible, and had suddenly realized that there was nowhere left to hide.
Hazel couldn’t take it anymore. She wrapped her arms around Jaime’s torso, catching a combination of shoulder and elbow and squeezing tight. She couldn’t believe how stiff Jaime felt, her limbs hard and taut, as if every muscle in her body was clenched and clinging to the nearest bone.
“You’re going to be okay,” Hazel said. She could barely hear herself over Jaime’s rough breathing, her muffled sobs into Hazel’s neck. But she hoped she sounded like she believed what she was saying. She had no idea if she actually did.
“Everything is going to be okay,” Hazel said again. Jaime pulled back and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands. “Maybe he just needs some time. It’s a lot to take in, you know, and maybe he’ll—”
“I don’t think I can do it,” Jaime interrupted. She was looking right at Hazel, her brown eyes darting back and forth over Hazel’s face. As if the answer was there, somewhere. As if all she had to do was look close enough, or long enough, and she’d
know what to do.
Hazel could feel all of the muscles in her body go slack. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Of course you can. Maybe it won’t turn out like we’d hoped, maybe Reid won’t be around, but…”
Jaime looked at Hazel like she was foreign, or disabled. A combination of sympathy, frustration, and disdain. “You don’t understand,” Jaime spoke slowly. “I know that I could do it. I just don’t know if I want to.”
Hazel reached out and gave Jaime’s shoulder a strong squeeze. “Of course you want to,” Hazel said. “This is your baby. Your baby. You’re a family, now. Remember?”
Jaime rocked back and forth against the wall as she spoke, her chin bumping against her knees. She looked determined, or like she was trying to look determined. But Hazel could see something in her eyes and she knew. Jaime had already made her decision.
“I’m giving it up for adoption,” she said, her voice cold and far away. “I have to.”
There was a ringing in Hazel’s ears and she thought for a moment that if she squeezed her head between her hands it might stop.
This is it, she thought. This is how it begins.
She felt her knees buckling and before she knew what was happening she was sliding down the side of the bed to the floor, landing with her legs folded in against her chest.
“Hazel?” Jaime asked. “Are you okay?”
The room spun as Hazel shook her head furiously. This couldn’t be happening. It was all her fault. She had been given a second chance, and she’d lost it. She’d been sent back in the past to make things right, to make Jaime see that she should stay on the island and keep her baby. And it hadn’t worked. Things were just as wrong as they’d been before.
“No,” Hazel heard herself repeating, like a prayer. “No. No. No. No.”
“Hazel!” Jaime was leaning over the bed, her face just inches from Hazel’s. “What is wrong with you?”
It took a few moments for the words to arrange themselves in Hazel’s brain, and when they did, she was able to focus her eyes on Jaime. She spun around and grabbed Jaime by the shoulders.
“You can’t do this,” she whispered, her voice raspy and harsh. “You just can’t.”
Jaime rolled her eyes, wrapping a loose thread from the quilt around the tip of her finger. “What are my options?” she asked. “I can’t raise a baby by myself. It wouldn’t be fair. I don’t even know who I am yet.”
Hazel tossed her hands in the air. “What do you mean you don’t know who you are? Of course you do. You’re Jaime. You’re the strongest person I know,” Hazel assured her. “You can do anything.”
Jaime looked back at Hazel with sad eyes. “That’s just it,” she said softly. “I can do anything, and I’ve hardly been off this island. I’ve never even been on an airplane. I’m not ready, Hazel. You know I’m not ready.”
Jaime’s forehead wrinkled as she wrapped the string tighter and tighter around her finger. It looked like it was starting to hurt. “Reid was right,” she whispered, so softly that if Hazel hadn’t been watching Jaime’s lips she may have missed it altogether. “We’re both too young. I have to think about what’s best for me. For my future.”
Jaime took a deep breath and looked Hazel square in the eyes. “I’m taking the scholarship to Peru,” she said.
Hazel felt her eyebrows lift up high in the middle of her forehead.
“Peru?” she repeated. Her head was spinning and she felt like maybe she was stuck in somebody else’s bad dream. She snapped her eyes open and shut just to make sure. “You’re going to give up your baby so you can go to Peru?” she asked, once she’d confirmed that she was, in fact, awake and living this moment. “To dig up some bones, or—or shark’s teeth or something?”
Jaime’s finger was fading from bright red to stark white, and she finally released the thread, staring at the crisscrossed pattern of lines carved just above her knuckle.
“It’s not just Peru,” Jaime said, her voice getting stronger. She looked back at Hazel. “It’s everything. I want my life back. I don’t want this to be the last time I can do what I want to do, and not have to worry about somebody else. I want to explore. I want to be normal. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Why do you care so much what I do? This is my life we’re talking about. Not yours!”
Hazel felt like she’d been slapped in the face, and she looked back to the floor. She slowly pulled herself to her feet, the pounding in her ears so loud she was sure Jaime could hear it. She walked slowly toward the door, then turned on her heels and pointed one long finger across the room.
“You have no idea what you’re saying,” she hissed. “I don’t understand? I understand perfectly. Do you understand what kind of a life your baby will have after you give it up? Do you have any idea what it’s like to grow up without parents? To never know who or where you came from? To be completely on your own?”
Everything around her was pulsing, cold, and strange. The room felt completely different than the one she’d spent the last two months living in. It felt like a cell.
“You’ve always had this island, your grandmother, Rosanna. You can’t possibly understand what that’s like,” she said. “But I do. I lied before, when I said my parents were traveling. I don’t have any parents. I grew up in foster care. I’ve moved more times than I can remember. Is that what you want for your baby?”
She stared down at Jaime, who was hugging the bony points of her knees and staring at the wall. “Is it?” Hazel demanded. “Is that what you want to happen to the baby you give up? While you’re out exploring? While you’re living your life and being normal?”
Hazel was screaming now but she didn’t care. She waited for Jaime to say something. Anything. To take it all back. To cry. To blink.
But Jaime didn’t move. All of a sudden the walls felt like they were sliding on tracks, moving closer and threatening to sandwich Hazel like a paper doll between them. She scrambled for the doorknob and ran into the hall, her feet tripping over each other as she stumbled down the stairs and out into the night.
26
The ocean was angry and loud, which was exactly what Hazel needed. The sun had already set, and thick clouds of gnats buzzed around her head as she climbed down the wooden ladder to the beach. She stopped halfway and perched at the edge of a flat-faced rock, the slapping sounds of the surf drowning out her choppy sobs.
Part of her wanted to jump in. Let the tide take her away. She wanted to be washed free of the clamoring thoughts in her head. It was all too much. First, she’d messed things up with Luke, and then Jaime had decided not to keep the baby. She’d decided to do the one thing Hazel had been sent back in time to convince her not to do.
Hazel’s stomach turned. If it hadn’t been so empty she knew she would have been sick.
What was the point of any of this? What had she been doing here? What kind of a fairy godmother would send her back in time, just to show her everything she still couldn’t have? Wasn’t it bad enough that her life was such a disappointment the first time around? Did she really need to watch it unfold from the beginning?
Hazel bit the inside of her lip until she tasted blood. Her eyes burned. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so full of anything. Rage coursed through her veins, her hands clenched, her knuckles white and raw.
She stood at the edge of the cliff and screamed. The wind swallowed her voice, rolling it into echoing cries for the waves to churn against the shore.
She settled back on a rock and buried her head in her hands. What was she supposed to do now? She thought of Posey’s final dress hanging in her closet. She still had one wish left. But the thought of coming up with a new idea for how to use it was exhausting. She was tired of trying to fix things, when nothing she wished for made anything any better at all.
Hazel heard a rustling behind her and turned to see a little boy on the path. He was walking back from the pond, a fishing pole swinging over one shoulder. It was hard to tell how old he was, but from the way he was struggling
with the tall rod and a heavy-looking metal box, Hazel guessed around eleven or twelve.
“Are you okay?” the boy asked. His round face was twisted tight with worry. “I thought I heard somebody screaming.”
Hazel forced a smile and wiped quickly at the wet patches on her cheeks. “I’m fine,” she said. “Thanks.”
The boy shrugged, already disinterested, and turned on his heel, continuing down the path to the parking lot.
Hazel watched him go, remembering the one time Roy had taken her fishing. Even though she’d done her best not to show it, she’d been excited about the idea of catching a fish. That is, until she’d actually caught one. She still remembered the way the tug on the line had pulled her forward, and the startling sound of her own voice as she squealed for Roy to help her.
He’d been standing over her shoulders, and as soon as he’d seen the rod bowing toward the water, he’d reached out and held on to her small wrists, helping her to hold on tight. She remembered the way she’d felt, standing there with Roy’s big arms looping her shoulders. Suddenly, she wasn’t scared. For once, she had backup.
It was the closest the two of them had ever gotten to a hug.
Watching the boy disappear deeper into the woods, Hazel thought of Roy. Where was he now? What was he doing? Was he worried about her? Most likely he was too busy being furious. He probably assumed she’d given up on their arrangement, dropped out of school, and moved back to the city. She hadn’t exactly been quiet about wanting to get out of San Rafael.
She’d never given much thought to what Roy’s life might have been like, if it wasn’t for her. What if Wendy had never adopted her? Maybe she wouldn’t have had to work so much. Maybe she wouldn’t have been at the restaurant the night it burned down.
Maybe Wendy and Roy would have lived happily ever after.
On the other side of the trees, the boy started to whistle, a clear, simple tune that carried in the breeze across the cliffs. Hazel wondered what Roy had been like at that age. What did he imagine his future would be like? Surely he’d hoped for more than he’d ended up with: a lost love, and the unwanted responsibility of a daughter he’d never asked for. No wonder he had such a hard time keeping it all together.
Wishful Thinking Page 15
