ᴛʜᴇʏ Sᴀʏ Sʜᴇ'ꜱ Fʀᴏᴍ ᴄᴏʀᴏɴᴀ ! 【Ryan Atwood】

2

THE NEXT DAY was a lengthy one; each hour felt endless.

Hazel awoke to Summer standing over her. The teen's body and mind failed to coordinate because her muscles still felt weak. She could barely open her eyes."What time is it?"

"10 AM, Haze, we're behind schedule!"

"You didn't tell me there was an agenda," the Michaels girl groaned, before shoving her face back into one of Summer's many pillows.

"Yeah, so you'd have less time to try and talk yourself out of it. Now get dressed, we're hitting the mall."

This caught the girl's attention, as she sat up almost immediately in the bed, her usual mane safely secured with a scarf. "What for?"

Hazel knew what for, though she wanted to give Summer a chance to explain herself.

The Roberts girl was seated at her pink vanity, still in her pajama shorts, but with a different shirt on as she brushed her brunette locks meticulously. "What else, Haze? I need shoes and a new dress. It's black-tie only and my L.B.D. has gone from little, black dress to a little bit drab. It's so last season!"

"Mmhmm."

Summer met her friend's stern expression in the reflection of the mirror. She pouted before giving in. "And, for you to pick up a few things as well."

The curly-haired teen scoffed as she swirled her legs to hang off the side of the bed. "Unless we're heading to Walmart then I'm pretty sure everything will be out of my price range." Summer turned around to face her friend, opening her mouth to speak, before being cut off. "We've talked about this plenty of times before. I don't want you to buy things for me. It's weird."

"How is it weird?"

"I don't know, Sum. It just is."

The Roberts girl placed her hairbrush down and sat back on the mattress, scooting closer to her friend. "Your birthday's not that far away, just think of it as an early present. No biggie."

"$700 worth of stuff isn't no biggie!"

"Hazel, please just let me do something nice! You've been slaving away at that...hot dog joint all summer. It's like I've barely seen you! But you're here now and I wanna do something nice for my friend because she deserves it!"

The Michaels girl felt her heart swell at Summer's words. It really had been a difficult summer, with the girl's father losing his job at the factory he dedicated ten years of his life to after immigrating from Puerto Rico. His salary had never been remarkably high, but it was enough to keep the three of them with a roof over their heads, along with her mom's income of course. The African-American woman was an artist who mostly worked from home, crafting jewelry to sell to boutiques in the area.

Now that her father was unemployed and still interviewing for other positions, Hazel felt that it was necessary to find her own employment. She wanted so badly to help out around the house and with bills, but her mother insisted she only work part-time and use the money for her own expenses. Though, the money remained largely untouched, stashed away in a savings account in case of emergency.

The girl never wanted her parents to worry about her. Summer knew parts of this story, but not enough to comprehend why her friend was so harsh on herself. The girl felt as if she needed to be, especially for the upcoming school year where she planned to get near-perfect grades to maintain her scholarship at Harbor and receive one for college.