Page 81 of Witchy Woman

We’rein the house about three seconds before Hazel rounds on me.

“She doesn’t deserve you risking your soul!” she says, wind whipping around her auburn hair.

“What does she deserve? Since apparently you’re the be-all and end-all of what people deserve. What do any of us deserve?” I snap. “Did Dad deserve what he got? Did we deserve the childhood we had? Did Mom?”

Bellemews from the top of the stairs but doesn’t come down. Smart cat.

“You deserve to live, Laura. I’ve spent my entire life trying to give you the opportunity to live.”

I laugh. It’s a humorless, angry thing. “So it’s not about you wanting to keep me safe. It’s about you wanting to feel like you haven’t wasted your life. Congratulations, sis! You did.”

“I never gave a fuck about me, don’t you get it? I spent my entire life fighting with Mom for you. Not for me—foryou. To give you some sense of normalcy. A real life with friends and happiness.”

“I didn’t want normalcy!” I practically spit fire. “I wanted attention. I wanted someone in this house to actually pay attention to me. Mom never spoke to me. She spent all her energy fighting you and then I got nothing. She may have never shown you love and compassion, you may have spent every day fighting with her. But there were times she wouldn’t even look at me for an entire week. You got something from her, Hazel, and I got nothing.”

Tears spring to her eyes but I plow on. The urge to hurt her, to swipe at her, is gone. But I need her to understand. I have to show Hazel the parts of me even I haven’t yet faced. I have to show her who I am.

“Stop pretending you and Mom didn’t fuck me up just as much as Mom and I fucked you up. All I ever wanted was to be loved and seen, and instead I got the Pink Puke Mobile. Whoop-de-fucking-doo for me. Do you know what happened when you left, Hazel? She stopped. She stopped making dinner. She stopped doing laundry, she stopped going to the store. She just stopped. Not before stealing my keys, forcing me to drop out of college, and turning me into her own personal pet hermit, of course. But she stopped. Lucky me, now I know how to make dinner and wash a shirt, but it’s no thanks to you. It’s no thanks to either of you.”

The silence pours into the house like fog on a hazy night. The truth of how we both felt—how we still feel—seeping into our skin.

“No wonder you hated me so much when I left,” Hazel whispers. “I had no idea. I had no idea I ruined your life.”

“And I ruined yours. You forced yourself into a box so you could give me what you always wanted. And it took you leaving for me to realize how much you were doing to keep our lives moving forward.”

Tears flow freely down her cheeks now, hiccups lifting her chest. “We were just children.”

“We were just children.”

Hazel takes my hands. “She doesn’t deserve us.”

“No,” I say. “No, she doesn’t. But once the anger passes, we’re going to regret not trying.”

Finally Hazel and I see each other as who we are, and what we feel. We’re no longer trying to fit the person in front of us into the mold we expect them to be in. We’re on the same page.

Finally.

Chapter 37

Liar

My heart is raw.

Hazel and I spent two hours crying together on the couch. Reassuring each other that no matter what, we love each other, and our bond is stronger than the bullshit we were put through.

But it’s hard.

It’s so hard to face this and know that I’m risking my life tomorrow. It’s hard not to run to Ash and let him soothe all of the pain inside.

So I don’t fight it.

I stumble into the Pink Puke Mobile with all the grace of a baby deer walking for the first time and drive to him. Some part of me knows he knows I’m coming.

It’s why I don’t bother texting or calling.

It’s why I know he’s standing in the doorway even before I pull fully into his driveway.

I get out and run to him.