The Art of Finding Jasmine Rose Peters

31

'Some things are just out of your control; you just have to believe it.'

~JRP

"Is it true?" Lyra asked her.

Hayden hadn't been allowed to say anything as Calvin explained to their friends that she was lying to them. He told them her original name and why she changed it -- to fit in with them. To make herself seem like a different person.

She desperately wanted to explain herself. It wasn't like that. They had to hear her out.

"I was going to—" Hayden started but was cut off by Lyra's hard-as-steel voice.

"Is it true?" She repeated herself. All the hustle and bustle of the shop seemed to quiet down as the question reached her ears. Time had stopped and was waiting to hear her answer, to hear what she wanted to say. "Yes or no?"

"Yes," the one-syllable word escaped her mouth softly. Hayden let out a soft cry. "But you have to hear me out, please."

"I see," she said, then stood up.

"Please don't leave! I can explain, I swear." Hayden reached out and wiped her tears furiously.

Lyra shook her head, slowly, almost painfully. "It's a little too late for that." She left, concealing her emotions behind her straight face.

Hayden was aware of the looks that came her way when she let out a painful loud sob. How could they be so mean? Staring at her while the life she had worked so hard to build was falling apart in front of her. She didn't deserve any of it. She didn't deserve anything that she had gotten since she was a little girl. She had never done anything, yet everything seemed to happen to her. Why? Why her? What did she ever do wrong?

"Stop." Hayden raised her head to find Wren standing up. "Wait for me."

Hayden looked at her. "Don't tell me you're leaving too."

"I can't face you right now." Giving her a pained look, she left the shop and Lyra left to continue her duties, while visibly staying away from that table.

"Wait for me," Mason said.

Hayden expected Mason to defend her in some way. He had stood up for her. Maybe he would again. But he didn't. Instead, he silently followed his partner, and they left the shop. She didn't beg them to stay, anymore.

"You too?" she asked quietly, her gaze landing on Calvin, who was ready to leave. He nodded stiffly. Standing up when her voice makes him rigid. "What you did was an invasion of my privacy." Her words were soft, but cut deep. He sat down.

"Is that what you're going to name it now?" His words made her swiftly raise her head to meet his steely gaze.

"It's not what I'm naming it, because it's true," she argued. "I was going to tell you, but you didn't have to force it out of me or say it in front of everyone."

"By everyone, do you mean your friends? The ones that have always been there for you?" He continued when she lowered her head and didn't speak, "When?"

"What?"

"When were you planning on telling me?" he repeated.

She kept quiet, fumbling in her mind. When was she going to tell him? After high school? Before college? After she leaves for college, in an e-mail where he wouldn't be able to judge her?

"That's what I thought."

He had gotten ready to leave again when her words forced him back down. "I- I didn't think you would be interested in that."

"Don't even try to lie to me. After everything we've been through together, I'm sure you know that I want to know everything there is about you."

"But I didn't see it that way."

A humorless laugh escaped his throat and hit her face like the wind on a chilly January morning. "Of course you didn't. Why do you think I went out of my way to help you out? I cared about you, Hayden. I fucking tried everything to make you become a better person. I wanted to know everything about you so that I could try to get you to be the best version of yourself!"

The silence that followed his outburst was deafening. She could hear the fast beats of her heart, the scattered thoughts of her mind, feel the numbness of her bottom lip because of chewing it so much, and her shallow breathing.

Calvin liked her?

"We can fix it," her lowered voice sent daggers that pierced through the elephant in the room.

He rubbed his face. "Not everything can be fixed." And for the third time, he stood up and faced the direction of the door.

"How did you find out?"

He didn't sit down. "Dr. Francis slipped." With that, he left the booth. Her reddened eyes following him till the wind blew the door shut, and he disappeared.She looked for her pills in her bag and poured some in her mouth.

It was a mistake. She had taken too much. Her heart stopped beating, her breaths could no longer be heard, her mind was silent and her teeth let go of her lip, only for her to descend into a bottomless pit of darkness.

They left her. All of them.