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Chapter Eight

"Excuse me, where are you going?"

Hazel stormed into the hallway, her sandals slapping the floor. Her bag was over her shoulder and her hand on the doorknob when her mother caught up to her. "Stop right there!"

Her shoulders tensed and she turned, her dress whirling around her knees, to meet her mother's gaze straight-on. She'd tried to sneak past her five minutes ago, hoping to avoid an argument just like this one. Apparently she had no such luck. Hazel flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. "What?"

Melanie drew breath. "How dare you just walk out in the middle of a conversation?"

"That wasn't a conversation. It was an argument," Hazel said stiffly.

"All I'm saying is that I don't see how you're going to keep up a store that barely makes any money, along with your studies..."

"My writing studies, you mean?" Hazel interrupted in a cold voice. "Or did you want to try convincing me to enrol in that engineering degree again?"

Her mother glared at her. "Engineering is a perfectly good career, Hazel, I don't see why–"

"Because you've never wanted me to do writing!" Hazel burst out. "Ever! You've never even read anything I've written, never asked to see any of it! Granddad was the only one who ever really believed in my dream–"

"Your grandfather," her mother cut in, taking a step towards her, her face white with anger, "had a great many hopeless dreams of his own, young lady and that bookstore is one of them. It's time you sold it and banked the money, instead of wasting your own trying to keep his dream alive! You'll end up just like Lewis, trying for the rest of your life to keep something going that shouldn't. That bookstore barely made any money when he was still here. He is gone, Hazel, and you–"

"I am an adult, Mum," Hazel cried. "An adult. I'm eighteen! It's my life and I am sick of you trying to run it for me. I need to make my own decision and my own mistakes and I am sorry if that's not how you'd like me to be, but that's how I am. That's who I am. I'm sick of you treating me like I am some extension of you, like your right arm or something, instead of your daughter, an entirely different person." She stopped for a moment, breathing hard. She barely noticed the stricken look on her mother's face as she continued, in a low voice, "I spent three months after Lewis died looking after you, making sure you were okay. I don't regret it. I would do it again. But I am eighteen and this is the way I want to remember my grandfather."

They stood there for a second in silence, before Hazel said, flatly, "I am holding an open day for the bookstore in November. I don't care if you don't approve. I am still going to do it. I am sick of people telling me what to do and how to do it. So I am sorry, but back the hell off!"

For a brief moment suspended in time, Hazel felt something akin to deep satisfaction run through her veins – then she took in her mother's slack hands, the white, tormented face and dishevelled hair and felt the blood rise to her cheeks. Afraid of what she might say or do, Hazel blinked back the tears beginning to line her own eyes and yanked open the front door, running out into the bright sunshine to her car.

~

The overcast sky outside rumbled, threatening a storm – a great contrast to that morning's sunny climate. Hazel drew the outline of an 'E' on the cardboard in front of her, barely concentrating. All she could see was that white face and all she could hear was her own voice – "Back the hell off!" – and all she could see was that white face and hear her own voice and...

"Hazel."

She blinked and the bookstore zoomed back into her vision. "Yeah?"

Theo was frowning at her. "Are you okay?"