My heart sped into my throat and I tried to swallow it down. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Hazel.”
“No more, Etta.”
“Oh no!” she said, raising up off the couch. “I’m not going to let you screw this up! Just because your mom was a screwup does not mean you are going to be! You are a completely different person, Hazel.”
Tears began to slip down my cheeks. “Enough, Etta.”
“Hazel, you will be a different kind of mom. Trust me.”
“How can that be?’ I asked, falling to my knees, my face buried in my hands. “Look at where I come from,” I sobbed. “Look at the stock. I can’t do that to my kid. I can’t put her through that.”
Etta stomped over to me and picked up my head, my cheeks in her hands. “You are not your mom, Hazel.”
“I am,” I battled.
“You aren’t!” she insisted.
“Etta, I can’t do this alone, and I don’t know him well enough.”
“You do, Hazel. You know him. I-I think you love him.”
My stomach plummeted to my feet, refusing to acknowledge what I suspected as well. “I can’t do this.”
“You can,” she comforted.
I shook my head. “I know what I saw in that video,” I told her.
Her hands fell at her side. “You are determined to ruin things, aren’t you?”
“Enough, Etta.”
“No!” she countered. “Enough from you, Hazel.” She walked toward the door, yanked her keys from the bar top, and headed for the door. “I’m going to class. Call me when you get your head out of your ass!” she yelled, slamming my door.
I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head. My phone kept going off but I left it on the coffee table where it was. I passed the time praying, something I hadn’t done in a long time, eventually calming down enough to fall asleep.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Someone pounded on my door. I woke, my chest feeling heavy.
“Hazel!” Atticus’s voice echoed through the door. Adrenaline pumped through my body at an alarming rate. “Hazel, it’s me. Please open up.”
“Go away, Atticus.”
“What the hell is going on?” he asked, his tone desperate.
I ignored the impulse to run and open the door for him. I stood up instead and practically crawled to the door. I placed the palms of my hands on its face. “I texted you last night,” I said through the door.
“Hazel, open up, babe.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks. “I was coming to see you and, uh, my phone went off. It was a message from you, a video, actually.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Oh, I know that. Someone, probably Delilah’s assistant, sent it from your phone. I expected sabotage from her, but what I didn’t expect was what was on that video.”
He got really quiet. “What was on it?” he asked.
“It was you. Delilah was on your lap.” I hesitated at the next bit. “Your hands were on her legs.”
“Hazel, you’ve got to believe me, it wasn’t me,” he insisted. “Please, open the door.”
“See, the thing is, I think it was you. It was your jacket, your tattoos on your hands.”
“Hazel,” he pleaded, “I swear to God, Hazel. That was not me.”
“The eyes don’t deceive, Atticus.”
“I don’t have a fucking video on my phone. They must have deleted it. Can you send it to me?”
“Ask Delilah for it. I’m sure she has the original.”
“Hazel,” he begged, making my heart hurt. “I swear, Hazel.” I didn’t answer him. I heard what sounded like his back sliding down my front door then a sharp bang at what I thought was his head hitting the surface. “I can’t believe this shit,” I heard.
I sat on my ankles and cried into my hands.
“Hazel, are you still there?”
“Y-yes,” I answered.
“I’m going to find out what the fuck happened, and I’m going to prove to you I didn’t do this.” He sucked in a breath. “I’m deflated, disheartened.”
“Why?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Because you don’t trust me.”
“How does it feel?” I asked.
I heard him stand up and walk away.
“Goodbye, Atticus Kelly.”
December Third
I didn’t hear from Atticus for four days, not even a text, not that I had a lot of time to think about it, because December third was my senior exhibit, my final project, my final grade. I’d spent months working hard, practically bleeding onto my canvases, and the third was the day of my gallery. I tried on about a million outfits but my small belly was throwing me off. I ended up wearing something so funky it felt borderline psychotic. I was so tired of second-guessing myself, tired of feeling insecure, tired of being tired.
“Miss Stone?” Professor Danes asked.
“Yes, sir?”
“Can you walk us through?” he asked.
“Oh! Of course,” I said, shaking off my thoughts. “I thought we could start at this end. Each piece progresses. The theme is madness.”
“As in demented?” Professor Danes asked.
Atticus came into my line of sight then. Our eyes caught. My stomach plummeted.
“As in fanatical love,” I answered. It was a theme I’d chosen long before I’d ever met Atticus. It was surreal.
Atticus stood a few feet back from the judging professors so he wouldn’t disturb us, but his presence sent me to a place I wasn’t prepared to be.
I fumbled over my practiced presentation. “I, um, I’m—”
“It’s okay, Hazel,” my theory professor, Dr. Lombard, appeased. “Just speak from your heart.” He gestured to my first piece. “Who is this?” he asked.
I swallowed and then, as if a damn opened, it all came pouring out. “I am her, but she is all of us,” I began.
I described each piece with more passion than I thought I held, explained ideas I was aware of when I painted but decided against revealing. They were too vulnerable, too tender, too delicate, but that day I exposed myself, opened up my chest and out spilled every hurt, every agony, every emotional laceration that ever existed. And with each painting you saw the progression of healing, the dogged determination to be revived, all fueled by the deepest love that at the time I threw it on canvas was nothing but an intellection. That is, until my last painting. The one I started painting when I met Atticus.
“Ah, now this,” Professor Lombard exclaimed. “This was your last?” he asked.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
The third professor, Dr. Torres, slapped his hands to his chest. “¡Qué linda! Hazel, this is your masterpiece.”
“Dr. Danes,” Dr. Lombard said, “did she work on this in your class?”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “It was one of her quickest. I’ve never seen her work so diligently.”
“This is the piece that healed you, Hazel,” Dr. Lombard mentioned. This caught me by surprise. “Whatever motivated this piece healed you,” he said.
All the breath in my chest rushed out at once. “No, sir,” I implored. “It’s still a work in progress.”
Dr. Danes shook his head back and forth. “No, Miss Stone, it is not.”
My eyes started to burn and I sucked in a breath to compose myself.
All three men looked at one another. “I think we can all agree, gentlemen, that this is probably one of the best pieces to come out of this school in many years?” Dr. Danes asked. They nodded in agreement and Dr. Danes turned toward me. “Congratulations, Miss Stone. You’ve more than passed. In fact, I’m going to take this piece in for consideration at the DMA.”
“Oh my God,” I said, my hands starting to shake.
Each shook my hand and Dr. Danes hugged me. “You’re going to do wonderful things, Miss Stone.”
They left me standing there and exited th
e university gallery, leaving me alone with Atticus. I looked at him as he meandered around another student’s sculpture, his hands clasped behind his back, his shoulders leaning forward a bit. His body language looked humbled, which saddened me.
“You came,” I said, fighting tears.
“I had to see for myself,” he said.
I swept my hands out and presented my pieces as if they weren’t hundreds of hours of my time and blood and sweat and tears.
“Hazel,” he pledged like a vow.
“Please not here,” I said. “Not after one of the best moments of my life.”
“When?” he asked.
“Let’s get something to eat,” I offered.
The invitation shocked him. I could see it in his face. “Anywhere you want to go,” he said. I walked forward through the doors and he kept close to me. “You’re stunning, Hazel.”
“Beautiful words from a beautiful mouth,” I countered.
“They aren’t words, Hazel. They’re the gospel truth.”
It’d begun to rain and there was an all-night diner that housed a lot of local students across the street so I sprinted toward it. Inside, we took off our coats and hung them on the rack near the door. The inside of the diner was all dark wood, easily a hundred years old, and cozy. I chose a booth in the back corner and slid in. Atticus sat beside me. We watched the rain trickle down the cloudy glass windows.
“I saw the video,” he said.
My eyes found his. “Did you now?”
His hand found the back of his neck. “It looks incriminating, I’ll admit.” I laughed. “But it wasn’t me, Hazel.”
“Okay,” I bit.
“I swear, Hazel. It— you were right that she, uh, Delilah, has some sort of strange fascination with me. I kind of don’t know why, and I hate it but whatever.”
“Oh, you can admit that now, can you? I told you and you didn’t believe me.”
“No, it’s not that I didn’t believe you. I was only trying to break the thing down, find out exactly what happened.”
“The second I told you her intentions, you should have believed me.” I shook my head and stared out the window.
“I’m sorry. Really.”
I shrugged my shoulder.
“It was River in that video.”
I looked at him. “You must think I’m a gosh-damn fool.”
He shook his head slowly. “I definitely don’t think that.”
He took out his phone and showed me a picture of River’s hands. I looked closely. They did resemble Atticus’s.
“And the jacket?”
“This feels so fucking stupid to explain, but I let him borrow it when he went out to his car for that damn missing pedal and I guess he never took it off. I think Delilah took advantage of the situation.” I sighed. “If you look closer in the video you can also see River’s boots, the ones he always wears.”
I took out my phone and played the video again, this time focusing on the shoes and hands. I laid the phone down. “Okay,” I breathed, “I believe you.”
He scooted over in the booth and I watched as he slowly laid his arm across my shoulders. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you said she was up to no good.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you said it wasn’t you in the video.”
He kissed my temple. “I’ll be glad when she’s gone,” he spoke into my hair.
“She’s still going to be working at The Sink?”
“Yeah, Hazel. The label doesn’t want to break their contract any more than we do.”
“That sucks, “ I mentioned absently. “Who is her producer now? Let me guess,” I joked, “River?”
Atticus shifted so he could get a better look at me. “I’m still her producer, Hazel.”
My mouth dropped open. “You aren’t serious.”
“Hazel, the contract specifically states my name. I can’t back out. The Sink would lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’d be liable, probably sued.” I grabbed my bag and started to exit the booth. “Hazel!” he shouted, chasing after me. “Hazel, stop!”
I broke through the diner doors into the pouring rain. Briefly, I raised my face and palms toward the sky. “Help me,” I whispered into the wind.
I started walking toward the university’s parking lots in search of my car.
“Hazel,” Atticus begged, catching up with me. He walked sideways beside me as I trudged ahead.
“Atticus, I think it’d be best if we just called this shit what it was and go our separate ways.”
He bit out an unbelieving laugh. “There is no fucking way I’m doing that.”
I stopped short and he followed suit. “Why?” I asked.
“Because I’m falling in love with you, Hazel, and you’re carrying our daughter.”
Tears fell and mixed with the rain. “And yet you’ll still work with her?”
“I don’t have a choice, Hazel!”
“You do!”
“I don’t, though! I signed a contract. I had a lawyer look at it two days ago and there is no way out of it without it costing me a fortune, not to mention what breaking it would mean for my career. That kind of news travels. I can’t support a family on what I make now, but if I can get through this contract, who knows the possibilities? I don’t have a choice, Hazel.” I kept walking. “You have to see this from my angle,” he said.
I reached my car. “That’s the thing, Atticus. I know you can’t break your contract but looking at it from your angle means a world of hurt for me. Imagining you working closely with her every day would kill me. You’d come to my house every night, kiss my lips, hold my hand, and all the while I’d know you sat all day beside her, her working her magic, and not knowing for sure if it was affecting you until it was too late, until I was already in love with you, stuck with a newborn and totally alone. I can’t—won’t—do that.”
“I can’t believe this,” Atticus said, his hair plastered to his neck, rain dripping down his face and nose. “What do I have to do to prove to you that you’re it for me, Hazel Stone? You’re the gosh-damn one! The world can throw a thousand Delilahs in front of you and I’ll stomp every fucking one of them to get to you.” He leaned over me, his eyes searching mine. They lit with an understanding I didn’t anticipate. “But you don’t care, do you? You want an out. You’re scared and you want an out.” He shook his head. “I can’t fucking believe I didn’t see it before.” He stepped back. “Fine, you want out?” He lifted his hands in surrender. “You got it.”
He turned and walked away. Words rested on the tip of my tongue, a desperate “wait,” a panicked “hold on,” but they didn’t or couldn’t come, and I felt ill to my stomach when he turned the corner of the giant stone building that housed the university art gallery. He was out of sight but not, could never be, out of my mind.
Why am I like this, Atticus?
December Tenth
Graduation day. I hadn’t any intentions of attending, but Dr. Danes requested I be there so he could introduce me to his Dallas Museum of Art rep friend and I felt like if I didn’t show I’d be committing career suicide. I’d been trying for days to look for a day job but pickings were slim, and the only places hiring were food service related. I wasn’t above it, but I needed something with a bit more stability and better hours. I was getting tired more easily and fell asleep at the foot of my canvas more than once.
Before our blowout, Etta and I had mailed invites to my graduation, including some to all of Atticus’s family. For some reason, despite that day in the rain, I was hoping he would show. He was all I thought about. I wanted him. I wasn’t afraid to admit he was right about my being afraid. Etta was right as well. I just didn’t know how to find a place between hating his working with Delilah and knowing he was contractually obligated to do so. I reasoned out while lying in my bed for days on end, that if he would just show graduation day, I could apologize, regain time lost, because the world had stopped spinning without him. I needed him to
pick me up and start the rotation again.
I wanted to find my okay place, and I didn’t think I could find it without his help. My imagination was my own worst enemy. I always did that to myself. I sabotaged myself, created problems for myself. It was as if I invited pain, and I didn’t know why I did it. As much as I was loath to concede to it, I believed it all stemmed from my mother. She was a terrible mom. There was no other way to put it. One day, without warning, she left me on my Grams’s doorstep, which devastated me. Although my Gram was great and she loved me so well, there was no getting over sitting on the porch for hours on end waiting for my mom to come home, wondering what I did to make her leave.
Which is why it was so hard for me to be in the situation I was in. As much I wanted to hope I could create the stability a little kid needed, I was afraid I couldn’t do it alone. My mom couldn’t. What made me think I could? I didn’t know Atticus long enough to make the leap. Notice I said long enough. I believed then I knew him well enough, just not long enough. I thought there was a difference. I couldn’t imagine falling in love with my baby only to realize she deserved more than I could give to her because I couldn’t give her a dad. I grew up without a dad. It messes with you. You constantly wonder whether you’re worth anything. You constantly seek out people who can give you what he was supposed to give you, but they’ll never be able to fulfill that for you because they aren’t your dad. It’s a vicious cycle. You keep repeating the same mistakes over and over hoping for different results, yet you’re not shocked when you get more of the same.
I hopped in the shower and cried into the downpour.
“How do I know what to do?” I asked out loud, sobbing. “God, please, tell me what I’m supposed to do.” I leaned over to grab my shampoo bottle and felt something in my stomach. My hand flew to my belly. “Oh my God,” I whispered when I felt tiny little kicks against my skin. “Oh my God,” I said over and over.
Without thinking about it, I jumped out of the shower and ran for my phone. My hands hovered over a text to Atticus.