Tweetie

42

Hazel walked through the street, her skin freezing and now wet from the falling rain as she made her way towards the cafe. It was 7 am, she spent the entire night in the abandoned hotel, wide awake and listening. Yet, despite her hopes, nobody else came.

She felt as though she had been stood up by somebody she cared about.

Hell, if Ryan had told her to genuinely piss off, it wouldn't have hurt as much... well, actually, that was debatable.

But now, with a horribly heavy head, itchy throat, runny nose, and to top it all off, bloody hands and arms, she shuffled through the rain looking more like a murder victim than a girl.

It was dark and gloomy just like always and there in the distance was the ever warm glow of The Cafe, welcoming her while oddly making her brain scream in pain. Everything was blurry, whether it was a problem with her head or brought on by the overwhelming pain she felt, she didn't know. She didn't know anything, she didn't know whether she cared or what she was even doing.

She arrived, pushing the door open clumsily and immediately went to the counter where she slumped into the surface, her breaths shallow and quick.

Things passed too quickly, like she blanked out and suddenly she was somewhere else entirely. It was as if she was caught in a fever dream or playing a broken vinyl, listening as the tracks jumped from one song to another, hopping backwards and forwards.

"Hazel," Stewart breathed out, having just stepped out as she fell forwards. "Jesus... Are you alright? You look exhausted. Roderick and Archie have been out looking for you."

"I'm so sorry, Stewart," she said, tears in her eyes while her hands burned and he took her in rapidly, noticing her bloody hands and her once cream coloured jumper turned red. "I didn't mean to yell and snap at you-"

"Oh my god," he didn't waste any time in approaching. "What happened!?"

"I think..." She wheezed, her chest feeling tight and her breath struggling to escape her, "I think I made a mistake."

Stewart rushed her to the table, standing beside her to look her over.

Bags beneath her eyes, chapped lips, paled skin and heavy eyelids. Her wet hair was matted and she was freezing. Dry blood clung to her palms and ran down her arms, bleeding into her clothes like she escaped a horror movie, and as he saw her hands a little closer this time, he felt the familiar sting of seeing something he imagined would hurt. Glass in skin, burrowing deeper the longer she left it, far worse than last time.

"What were you doing? How'd you end up like this?" He panicked, making her sink in her seat as she fumbled with her dead phone.

"I didn't go home," she admitted, coughing into her elbow in the hopes of washing away the crack in her voice, "you know that hotel-"

"-Don't tell me you stayed at that hotel..."

She fell silent, doing as she was told.

"Hazel!" He stood up, exasperated. "That's dangerous! Why would you do that!?"

"Well," she sighed, sinking into the wood of the table, her arms swinging by her sides numbly and unable to keep her head up. "I was looking for stuff... but.. y'know..." She looked at her phone, her words drifting from her mind as she became distracted and instead she realised she still needed to tell him the worst part and make a request she would probably regret. Probably. "Could you maybe call Roderick for me...?"

"Roderick?" He repeated, already pulling his phone out to do just that.

"...I really don't want Archie seeing me like this... He'll worry."