The Stories of Lyrica--

Part 1- Hazel

Part 1 

Hazel 

The scenery flashed by. A blur of greens and greys and faded blues. Hazel didn't see much of it. She sat, curled up in the passenger seat with her chin resting in the palm of her hand, her other twirling her long chestnut hair. Aunt Mae was saying something, or maybe it was the radio, but something fought for her attention against her nostalgic playlist plugged into her ear. Her palms were sweaty. The car was stuffy. But it was raining outside so she could hardly roll down the window.

And then, like that, her earbud was yanked out of her ear.

"I said listen to me!" Aunt Mae said, exasperated.  In the six years that she had been in her care, this was the most that her aunt had ever raised her voice, so Hazel sulkily glanced her way. 

"What?"

"You've hardly said a word for the last hundred miles."

She pressed her lips together. "What's there to say? You're abandoning me at some boarding school in the middle of nowhere."

Now it was Mae's turn to purse her lips. Guilt flashed in her eyes before they turned them back to the road. "You know it's not like that."

"Yes it is. I'm too much to handle so you're dumping me on someone else just like me mum."

"Ah, fuck it." She grabbed a pack of Marbelos from the center console and brought one to her lips and lit it with a shaking hand. Then it disappeared behind her hair as stuck her fingers into the stream of wet air. Cool, fresh air and water droplets billowed into the car, fumbling with her already wild waves. The humidity was turning her waves to frizz. Hazel liked to think that aunt Mae was a bobby-pin queen. Her hair was always piled up like some Somalian Queen or Greek goddess. How she managed to secure all that thick, wild hair upon her head with only a few select pins would always be a mystery to Hazel. She certainly never knew what to do with her own wild hair, more kink than waves. She mostly just let it do as it pleased. Yet now, Aunt Mae's hair more resembled her own, with messy waves tumbling down along her profile. She inhaled deeply and blew a breath of smoke out the window. The cool, damp hair stroked Hazel's skin, the familiar scent of tobacco comforting.

"Hazel." No, she never yelled. Instead, she had this certain way of pleading that had Hazel more under her spell than any yelling ever could. As if Mae were at her mercy, instead of the other way around. "It might seem like that's the case, but you know it isn't." She repeated. She took the wheel with her cigarette hand so she could reach over and clasp Hazel's with her other. "It's not about you being too much to handle. I genuinely think this could be a new start for you, girl. And it's not like you'll never see me again. I would never do that to you. I'm not your mum. You're stuck with me, for good." And there, that smile. As if she were the center of the universe.

And this is when Hazel would usually break. She would smile, and act as though everything was alright, because of the things her aunt had sacrificed for her. Because she was the one who had picked up the pieces after her mum had left.  Because she couldn't bear to see her in pain. But Hazel couldn't. Not this time. She was being abandoned. Again. The thought tore swiss-cheese sized holes in her. Hannah moved her hand away and placed the bud back in her ear.

Only to have it yanked back out again.

"Listen to me." Those chocolate eyes, framed by supernatural lashes, intense like hell's fury. "You know I love you. It's not a punishment."

Hazel opened her mouth to argue, and she was silenced with two fingers and a cigarette. "Listen. I don't blame you for your wild side, girl. Hell, I'd be the last woman to judge you." And there it was, that sly little smile like she had a secret. Hazel had the feeling that she had lots of them. What brush strokes of passion had that caramel skin seen in this lifetime? But Hazel never asked when she came creeping in at dawn. Why should she? Mae was only twelve years older than her and she hadn't signed up for this. "But you've got to find your place in all this." She gestured with her cigarette hand to indicate the wide world around her. "You can't go about doing something cuz someone's told you not to. You've got to find yourself..."

"I know who I am."

"No you don't. You're sixteen. You haven't got a fuckin clue. No one's got a fucking clue at sixteen. And especially not with your bum ass mum run off. You've never had a proper role model your whole life."

And that's where Hazel wanted to argue. That's not true. I've had you. Through everything. And now I'm about to lose you too. But she couldn't say that. The thoughts choked her. How could she speak when she couldn't even breathe? Tears gathered in her eyes.

"I'm not leaving you. I'll still be around, you know. I'll come visit. Maybe stay in the Mabletown  for a bit." Aunt Mae had an odd way of reading Hannah's mind sometimes.

"It's a six-hour drive from home," Hazel responded flatly.

"So? That's six minutes if I get to see you." She gave her a toothy grin and those big brown eyes pleaded with Hazel. She took another drag and exhaled out the window.

Hazel was quiet for a minute. "What if I hate it?"

"You won't."

"How do you know?"

Aunt Mae gave her that gorgeous smile, the one that always got them into places for free. "You know I just got this feeling."