Page 87 of The Heat of Us

I’d been on borrowed time with my grandma and father in more ways than one. How long did I have here?

The episode finished and Hazel switched off the TV. Her head tilted to one side, her long hair falling over her shoulder as she looked at me curiously.

Here it comes.

What’s wrong?

Why are you so quiet?

“I think you’re working too hard.”

I blinked, completely caught off guard. “I have to make sure I have enough to cover the fees for Willowbrook,” I explained. My brain was too fried to come up with a lie so the truth would have to do.

“It must’ve been hard to make that decision.” Hazel’s palm covered my fingers. “But for whatever it’s worth, I think you did the right thing. For both of you.”

I stared at the back of her hand. Smooth and golden against my pale skin.

“I took care of her for years,” I found myself saying. “I knew the nature of the disease meant it would progress beyond what I was capable of eventually. But it didn’t stop me from feeling like I’d failed somehow.”

A heavy sorrow came over Hazel. The weight of it seemed to crush her.

I didn’t think. I just let my arm slip around her middle and hoisted her into my lap.

Her hand slid across the span of my shoulders. Her cheek against my temple.

“I know what it’s like,” she whispered, fingers playing with the hair at the nape of my neck. “To hope against hope. If only wanting someone to be well was enough to make it so.”

Here she was. I had gotten a tiny glimpse of the fractured omega on my first night here.

I didn’t think I was meant to see her again.

“Hazel.” My troubles seemed inconsequential all of a sudden.

“Sorry, I can’t really talk about it.” Her expression was drawn, words forced out painfully. Her guard had gone up somewhat again. “You still get her as her sometimes. And you know she wants you to keep doing what you’re doing.” Her finger lightly stroked my cheek. “There’s no penance to be paid, Aleks.”

She was trying to soothe me when all I needed was for her to be ok.

“Are you alright?” I asked, my voice coming out thick.

“Don’t worry about me.”

It was all I wanted to do.

“You feel like you’re paying a penance too, don’t you?”

She grew rigid in my arms.

“Why do you think you’re different?”

Hazel squeezed her eyes tight. When she opened it again her walls were back up entirely. “I just am,” she said, sounding detached.

“Ok.”

She looked surprised. “Ok?”

My fingers found the curvature of her spine. A zip, holding all the shards of her inside. “I think you’re wrong though. One day you’ll tell me. And then I’ll know for sure that you’re wrong.”

Hazel didn’t answer but I didn’t need one. I continued to hold her and hoped that maybe, maybe, there was a part of her that needed me here too.

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