Page 53 of The Prospect

“You don’t need to beat anyone up,” she tells me in all-seriousness, yet there’s a glimmer of playfulness in her tone. “Promise me that if I tell you, you won’t go and do anything irrational. Promise me, Green?”

“I promise,” I tell her, even though it’s not the truth. The truth is, I can’t make any promises. If someone has hurt her, I don’t care who they are, I’ll sort them out. No one hurts my girl and gets away with it—no one. “Now, for a final time, tell me what happened, Hazel. It’s killing me seeing you like this.”

Hazel’s sigh is prolonged as she rubs along her eyes and slumps her shoulders. “Do you, uh—remember that boy I told you I liked?”

I grind my molars to stop myself from rolling my eyes. Don’t ask me what Hazel sees in Maxwell Thomas, the idiot who she has a “supposed” crush on also just so happens to be the same guy who tormented her in the back of the class on her very first day of school.

Hazel tells me not to hold grudges and that people can change, but the reality is, once you’re in my bad books you’re there for life. And Maxwell Thomas? Well, I know for certain his shitty egotistical attitude hasn’t changed one bit. Time or not.

“Yes. What about him?” I roll my tongue along the backside of my clenched teeth. “What did he do?”

“Well…” Hazel wipes her nose once more, using her palms to help her sit up straight. “I finally built up the courage to tell him that I liked him, and…”

“And?” I probe instantly, hating the way that this is being tortuously dragged out.

“I can’t.” She’s overcome with emotion once more. “I’m too embarrassed, Greenie. It’s too embarrassing. I’m sorry.” She attempts to hide her face in her hands, but I stop her.

“Hazel,” I say her name like it’s the only name I’ve ever known. “You can talk to me, okay? You know I’d never judge you. You know that, right? You’re my best friend.”

She nods in agreement, but it’s no use, she’s still struggling to calm herself down. “He just made me feel so…crappy aboutmyself and like something was wrong with me. I just…” It’s heart wrenching to watch her hardly spit the words out. “Don’t want you to think the same thing.”

“That’s enough.” I clutch ahold of both her hands and bring them toward my chest. “Do you not realize how much you mean to me, Hazel? How nothing you could say would ever change the way I care for you? Now, you better tell me what he said, or else I’m going to find Maxwell Thomas, myself, and force it out of him. Three…two…one?—”

“When I told him that I liked him he said that he didn’t like me back because I had ‘no experience.’ There, Green. Are you happy?”

My eyes narrow. Happy? No. I’m not happy. I’m fucking fuming. “‘No experience’?” I repeat the foreign words back to her. “You’re both twelve years old, for Christ's sake. What kind of experience is he looking for?”

Hazel pulls one of her hands out of my grasp and uses it to peel away some hair that has since stuck to her cheek. “Someone told him that I’d never been kissed before, Green, and that apparently turned him off.”

A breeze passes over us and thank God it does, my blood is boiling. It’s like I’ve transformed into a kettle, whistling away on the stovetop, without anyone around to take me off.

I already hated Maxwell Thomas, but now he’s got another thing coming. There’s so much fury that I want to unleash right about now, but I know I can’t. I know I need to focus. Hazel is my priority. Hazel is the reason why I need to calm down.

“Listen, Hazel.” My voice is equally as direct as it is affirming. “Maxwell Thomas is a tosser. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. You’re better off without him,” I tell her with as much assurance as I can, hopeful she’ll believe me.

She doesn’t.

“I guess.” She shrugs, staring off into the distance.

“You guess?” I practically whip my head over my shoulder. “What do you mean, you guess, Hazel? Would you seriously have wanted to be with him? Had your first kiss with him? He’s an arse.”

“I’d rather an arse than no one!” she argues.

“Don’t say that.” I shake my head. “You know you don’t mean that.”

“But I do.” She narrows in her stare at me, eyes so full of hurt that it looks like she’s physically in pain. “I’m the only person in my year that hasn’t had their first kiss yet, Green. So, can I even blame him for not wanting me?”

“Things happen for people at different times,” I protest. “I was practically your age when I first had my first kiss and guess what? I wish I had waited, because after it happened, I realized just how little it meant.”

Hazel’s hardly listening at this point, instead, she’s just mumbling nonsense under her breath. Things like, “no one wants me,” and “I’m going to be kissless for the rest of my life.” But what makes me lose all sense of rationality is when she mutters, “I’m nothing special…”

Now, before I can even process another thought, let alone what I’m about to do next, both of my hands intertwine within Hazel’s hair, as I gently grasp onto her face and pull her lips into mine.

For a moment, she’s frozen—unsure—confused. But as I slowly part her mouth with my own, all at once we begin to move in sync.

The kiss is short, sweet, but it’s long enough for me to dissect that Hazel tastes like cherries, and that her skin feels like silk as I brush my thumbs along her face.

Never in a million years did I think Hazel and I would kiss. We’ve always been strictly friends, regardless of what everyone around us likes to allude to, but now that we havekissed, I don’t regret it in the slightest. My only hope is that when Hazel looks back at this moment, she remembers the next few words that escape my mouth, for it is the most honest truth I’ve ever spoken in my life.

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