“Are you going to run?” Mia asked the question Hazel knew was going through everyone’s mind.
“I will not pull a Natalie.” Hazel smirked and looked at her oldest friend, who stuck her tongue out at her.
“If you do, Haze, the keys are in my Jeep.” Mia gave her a hug. It was the same line she gave Natalie a few months before. Natalie had taken the out, but Hazel couldn’t imagine leaving Ruston behind. It would be like leaving a piece of herself behind.
“I don’t need them, but thanks,” she whispered.
Then she hugged each one as they left to get up to sit by their significant others since she was the first in their group to get married. Natalie would be next, as Sam had asked her in a very public way. Watching them go, she loved that they were her friends, even though a year before, she would never have thought it possible that any of them would be close.
Closing her eyes, she tried to relax. Just breathe. Someone would tell her when it was time to go. Spinning her engagement ring on her finger, she relaxed.
“You look beautiful, Hazel.” Her grandma’s voice made her open her eyes.
“Thank you, I feel beautiful,” she admitted.
She had invited the woman but had been sure she wouldn’t come. It had been weeks since they had talked, and that hadn’t gone well.
“Nice weather for a wedding,” her grandmother said. Always the weather.
“It’ll do. I would marry him in any weather.” She smiled because it was true. Rain couldn’t dampen this day.
“So, you love him?”
“Yes, I do, and he’s good with John Henry. He’s good for me.”
“I am happy for you,” the woman said, but she didn’t seem happy. In fact, she seemed like she was anything but happy.
“I’m happy for me too.” Hazel ignored her mood and asked the one question she needed an answer to. “Did you stop loving me after the accident?”
“Of course not.” She took a step away from her granddaughter as she answered.
“It felt like you did, both of you.” Hazel didn’t move, didn’t dare.
“We did no such thing,” she argued.
“Did you want me dead too?” She asked, knowing she didn’t really want an answer, but she needed to know before she walked down the aisle to her new life. One final answer.
“It would have been easier, Hazel. You have no idea how hard it was to look at you. You were the same as Hanna.”
“It was hard for you? I lost my best friends. All of them. And I lost my grandparents all in one day. I was lost for years. I almost didn’t survive it.” Had her grandma seen how destructive she had been, or hadn’t she even cared at that point?
“You were a constant reminder that they were gone.” Her grandmother’s words hurt her.
“Don’t you think I saw that? I see her face every day. But you know what? It’s my face too. I’ve had to learn to live without them. I didn’t for years; I just let the pain consume me. I’m finally letting go of that pain because I can’t live with it anymore. I don’t want pain to be the only thing I feel.” Hazel forced herself not to cry, not moments before she got married.
“I’m glad that you can do that, Hazel,” her grandmother said bitterly.
“Do you love me anymore?” Hazel asked again, not letting the woman go without answering the question.
“No, I had to let go of that when I lost them. I couldn’t handle losing you too, so I let you all go when I put them in the ground,” her grandmother admitted.
“Did you at least love my son?” she demanded of the woman who spent as much time with him as she had since his birth.
“He’s busy,” was all she said.
“Do you even want to be here? Watching me,Hazel, get married? Watching me,Hazel, be happy?” She emphasized her name each time she said it, making sure the other woman knew who she was talking to. Not a ghost of her sister.
“I’ve not been looking forward to the day.”