"I love you god knows I do but I can't do this. I can't. I put up with the phone calls, the text messages, social media, random chicks, not coming home, and everything else. Let alone a baby you conceived by some random chick. I'd be a fool to marry...
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Chapter 66: What Have I Done Hazel
"I don't get high, but sometimes I wish I did. That way, when I messed up in life I would have an excuse. But right now there's no rehab for stupidity" [Chris Rock]
"I fucked up I fucked up" Hazel cried into her hands as she rocked back and forth in despair and this time she had no one to blame but herself. She had willingly put herself in this situation and it backfired right in her face. It turned out nothing like she had planned. April didn't run to her to cry on her shoulder. April didn't call her to vent. If anything April left her in the dark. April didn't need her like she thought she would. April required no rescuing from her and no helping hand. Hazel was so busy being jealous, in her feelings, being bitter, and keeping shit bottled in that it just cost her the most precious and important thing in her life...her family. Hazel had just lost it all. They had literally taken her from off the streets and raised her and treated her as is she belonged with them from the start. She was their child and they were her sisters. Everyone in the hood and beyond recognized Hazel as April and Alaina's sister and Ian and Ananda's daughter. Ian and Ananda wouldn't have it any other way.
Hazel could remember the nights where her biological parents left her home alone in their dank drab two bedroom apartment where her only friends were the mice that traveled back and forth in and out of their apartment as if they owned it. She never understood why they even stopped by it wasn't like it was food in the house. There wasn't even anything to snack on. She could remember the roaches that lined the kitchen sink as if it was a pool party but as soon as the lights were turned on and that's if the lights were on they scattered as if the cops had been called to cut their party short.
She could remember the restless nights she spent wondering when her parents would finally walk through the front door and just for the moment she wouldn't be so lonely even if they didn't pay her any attention. Hazel could remember that the best place in their apartment was inside of her head because she could makeup millions of stories of a place where she could call home, family that loved her and friends that adored her. She could remember wearing the same beat up hand me down outfits for days at a time as if she was in a real life cartoon and it was her only outfit. She could remember each hole, each stain, each hanging piece of thread, and the smell, the stench of her body that penetrated through every piece of fiber that was still holding on. She tried her best to keep up with her hygiene but with the lack of supplies and guidance on how to clean herself properly she fell a little short in that department.
Hazel could remember the way her stomach ached, the sound of the rumble it made when it was empty, and the way it ate at her back trying to feed off the little bit of fat that she had left. She could remember asking and begging for food. Shit crying for food only to be handed scraps of food that her parents had ate off of and didn't want anymore. The shoes on her feet that barely had a sole, fit too small, and how her big toe hung out of the beat up and battered opening. She could remember how her peanut butter complexion looked dull, dingy, and damn right dirty or how her long natural kinky curly hair looked just the same as it fell at her cheeks because it wasn't taken care of but was longer than it appeared but no one would ever know. Drugs and the night life had always been more important to Hazel's parents than she was. She understood that from an early age.
