After the Earthquake

Part 5

A few days later, they all began work on the house. They had been giving the materials to construct it, but were told that they had to do the work themselves. Any infrastructural faults were deemed the responsibility of the builders, so they had to make sure to do it correctly. The foundations had already been laid by the council, as they were classified as something too dangerous for an amateur.

Sierra pointed towards the pile of bricks and asked, "Should we make a line? Two of us can stay here to cement and place the bricks, and two more can pass the bricks over."

Hazel nodded enthusiastically. "Sounds like a plan! I'll go with Dean, and you-"

Sierra cut her off and murmured, "Actually, I thought it would be better if you pair up with Jordan. Dean and I can place the bricks just fine." She looked at Dean, who smiled and headed over to join her.

Hazel and Jordan cast each other a look, and once they were over by the brick pile Hazel whispered, "They look awfully close, don't they?"

Jordan shrugged and replied, "We don't want to push anyone. I hope they're getting along well, but who knows how long it will be before Dean manages to scare her off."

"Hey!" Hazel immediately jumped to her brother's defence. "He may be an idiot, but he deserves to be happy too."

"Come on, Hazel. You know I love Dean, but he'll never know what it's like to have true responsibility. I just hope Sierra knows what she's getting into." He looked over at Hazel innocently, and almost ran after taking one look at her. She practically had smoke coming out of her ears and a scowl had completely overtaken her face. He suddenly regretted saying such things when she had a brick in her hand.

With a large amount of force, Hazel thrust the next brick into his hand. He was relieved that she had decided not to take out her anger on him, but he reminded himself to be careful the next time he said something about Dean.

Hazel felt furious. How could Jordan say such an insensitive thing about Dean? Sure, he was irritating and everything that a brother normally is, but he had his own life to live too. She was determined not to speak to Jordan for the rest of the day. He had seriously offended her on her brother's behalf, and it took all of the strength she possessed to not throw the brick she had in her hand at him.

The only thing which allowed Hazel's fury to cease for a moment was to look at how well Dean and Sierra were getting along. She was extremely happy that Dean had found other people to spend time with outside of the house, and she was a romantic at heart. She loved to see people so happy.

At the end of the working day, the first wall of the house was partially finished, and Hazel sighed as she looked at it, feeling mightily proud of her work. As they all left the property to go home, Sierra waved goodbye at the three as they parted ways, but Dean quickly offered to walk her home. "Oh, I'll come too!" Hazel chimed in. She would not usually intrude on her brother's alone time with Sierra, but she didn't think she could stand being alone with Jordan at the moment. "Sorry," she whispered in Dean's ear.

After the two had seen Sierra go into her house and lock the door, Dean turned to Hazel. "Alright, what is it? You've been icing Jordan out all day. Did you two have a fight? You're supposed to be getting married, so you shouldn't be arguing like this."

Hazel muttered, "It's nothing." She was extremely eager to change the subject, and she asked, "So, when are you going to ask her out on a date?"

"Don't you try and change the subject! Come on, tell me. What is it?" Dean's curious gaze pierced Hazel's soul, and she knew she couldn't avoid the topic any longer.

In the spur of the moment, Hazel blurted out, "He just told me that he wants to change the house."

"What do you mean by that?"

"He said he wants to completely strip it and change it, and maybe add an extension. He said he wants to make it our own and cut our parents and our past out of it." Guilt overcame her as she realised what she was saying. It was a complete and utter lie, but she knew that she couldn't actually tell Dean what Jordan had said. It would break his heart, and might even discourage him from being around Sierra.

"Oh. That's not good." Dean's frown said it all – he was angry at Jordan as well. "I'll tell him that he can't just change that. Our house has a lot of history, and I'm not ready to throw that all away."

Nervously, Hazel just found herself nodding along to what he was saying, and then she suddenly remembered that she had made it up. She quickly stopped Dean. "No!" Dean looked at her as though she had grown elf ears. Hazel thought more closely about her words before continuing. "Well, actually, I think you should just leave it. I put him in his place at the time and I just don't want to talk about this again. It'll just upset me. Please?"

Dean looked rather taken aback, but he nodded and smiled at Hazel. "Of course, whatever you want. He's your fiancé after all."

Eventually, they made it back to the house, and after a long day, Hazel was about ready to roll into bed. However, as soon as she made a connection to her Wi-Fi, her phone's notifications exploded. She grabbed her phone after the first onslaught, and she noticed that all of the notifications were from her webcomic app.

Upon opening it, she found that the start to her comic had received over one thousand likes already, and it was rising! Eagerly, she looked at the comments, but as she did her heart dropped. One read: 'There's really no potential here. I've given a like because the art is beautiful, but the story is far too cliché.' Another comment appeared: 'I can't subscribe because I cannot find myself wanting to read the next part. Please improve, because the art has real potential!'

Hazel threw her head in her hands as she looked at the subscriber count. Only fifteen people so far had subscribed to her comic. She had thought that it would be easy to gain subscriber if her art was up to the professional standard they were looking for, but apparently that wasn't enough. She needed to work on her storytelling. How was she supposed to do that?

Her phone continued to buzz with likes, but more and more negative comments were coming in. Many were not as kind to her as those original ones, and she found herself turning her phone off completely, which was unusual for her. She placed it in the nearest drawer to her, and tried to ignore the gripping feeling coming at her. A voice in her head told her that she would never be good enough, but she shrugged it off. Another launched an attack, telling her that they were just trying to be nice by complimenting her art. This time, she could not defend herself, and found herself reasoning that this must be the reason they were saying the art was so good. She would have more subscribers if this was true.

With negativity swamping her mind, she headed upstairs, brushed her teeth and flopped into her bed face-first. Despite her body being physically weary from today's work, she still found herself taking a long time to fall asleep. Eventually, her thoughts succumbed to the will of her body and she found herself drifting into darkness.