Hazel walked through the street, her skin freezing and now wet from the falling rain as she made her way towards the cafe. It was 7 am, she spent the entire night in the abandoned hotel, wide awake and listening. Yet, despite her hopes, nobody else came.
She felt as though she had been stood up by somebody she cared about.
Hell, if Ryan had told her to genuinely piss off, it wouldn't have hurt as much... well, actually, that was debatable.
But now, with a horribly heavy head, itchy throat, runny nose, and to top it all off, bloody hands and arms, she shuffled through the rain looking more like a murder victim than a girl.
It was dark and gloomy just like always and there in the distance was the ever warm glow of The Cafe, welcoming her while oddly making her brain scream in pain. Everything was blurry, whether it was a problem with her head or brought on by the overwhelming pain she felt, she didn't know. She didn't know anything, she didn't know whether she cared or what she was even doing.
She arrived, pushing the door open clumsily and immediately went to the counter where she slumped into the surface, her breaths shallow and quick.
Things passed too quickly, like she blanked out and suddenly she was somewhere else entirely. It was as if she was caught in a fever dream or playing a broken vinyl, listening as the tracks jumped from one song to another, hopping backwards and forwards.
"Hazel," Stewart breathed out, having just stepped out as she fell forwards. "Jesus... Are you alright? You look exhausted. Roderick and Archie have been out looking for you."
"I'm so sorry, Stewart," she said, tears in her eyes while her hands burned and he took her in rapidly, noticing her bloody hands and her once cream coloured jumper turned red. "I didn't mean to yell and snap at you-"
"Oh my god," he didn't waste any time in approaching. "What happened!?"
"I think..." She wheezed, her chest feeling tight and her breath struggling to escape her, "I think I made a mistake."
Stewart rushed her to the table, standing beside her to look her over.
Bags beneath her eyes, chapped lips, paled skin and heavy eyelids. Her wet hair was matted and she was freezing. Dry blood clung to her palms and ran down her arms, bleeding into her clothes like she escaped a horror movie, and as he saw her hands a little closer this time, he felt the familiar sting of seeing something he imagined would hurt. Glass in skin, burrowing deeper the longer she left it, far worse than last time.
"What were you doing? How'd you end up like this?" He panicked, making her sink in her seat as she fumbled with her dead phone.
"I didn't go home," she admitted, coughing into her elbow in the hopes of washing away the crack in her voice, "you know that hotel-"
"-Don't tell me you stayed at that hotel..."
She fell silent, doing as she was told.
"Hazel!" He stood up, exasperated. "That's dangerous! Why would you do that!?"
"Well," she sighed, sinking into the wood of the table, her arms swinging by her sides numbly and unable to keep her head up. "I was looking for stuff... but.. y'know..." She looked at her phone, her words drifting from her mind as she became distracted and instead she realised she still needed to tell him the worst part and make a request she would probably regret. Probably. "Could you maybe call Roderick for me...?"
"Roderick?" He repeated, already pulling his phone out to do just that.
"...I really don't want Archie seeing me like this... He'll worry."
He paused, glancing over her again as he really acknowledged the signs on her face and in her sickness. Her words were slurring.
"Hazel..." He turned to her, his stomach dropping when he saw the blood still dripping down from her fingertips. "You need to go to the hospital."
"But-"
"Hazel. I'm calling Roderick and I'm telling him to take you to the hospital. Stay there, don't move. I'll call an ambulance if I have to."
She didn't speak, she didn't move. She simply laid her head down on the table and felt her mind sway from side to side in the woozy state she couldn't wash away no matter how hard she tried. She didn't know how long she was like this, resting her head on the cold table, feeling her skin get colder and her chest heave wheezy breaths. It was only when the door to the cafe opened and shut that she was able to remember where she was, making her hands hurt more as she shivered from the cold that trailed in.
"...Tweetie...?"
"Oh, Fox. Could you make sure she doesn't move for me?"
"Sure... Is she alright?"
"I don't know. Somebody's coming to take her to the hospital now."
"Hospital?"
"Hi Foxie," Hazel lifted her head, meeting eyes that oozed nothing but concern. "What're you doing here?"
"Tweetie," he sat down across from her, immediately taking her hands into his own to look at the most obvious damage her reckless night had caused. "What happened?"
"I was dumb again," she shrugged her shoulders, sinking down to rest her chin on the table and look at him with drooping eyes. "God, I'm such an idiot..."
"No you're not," Fox said calmly, hoping to soothe her as he watched her closely. "You just need to take better care of yourself."
"Wrong," she said in shallow breaths, "Everyone thinks I'm dumb. I hear it all the time. People always look at me like I'm some two-headed monster. At school, on the internet, everywhere, even walking down the street..." She thought back, reminded of every article, newspaper and gossip which had stated that she wasn't smart enough for the case. They weren't wrong. She should have solved it by now. Why was it taking her so long? Why was she disappointing an entire city? Why was she ill now of all times when she should have been working?
She was running out of time...
"You're the smartest person I know. Why listen to people who don't know you...?"
"Because that's how dumb I am," her voice was void of emotion, it was so soft he wouldn't be able to hear it if it wasn't for the fact that the cafe was so quiet. "I'm so dumb, I listen. I mean, you've got to be dumb to get yourself stuck in a life like this. So stupid..."
He hushed himself, turning to glance at Stewart who, just as Fox did, felt his stomach knot.
"...How come you're alone?" She moved the topic along, not wanting to sit in the silence longer than she had to.
"I have practice. I was going to school."
"On a weekend?"
"There's a game soon, the coach wants us to practice when we can."
"You'll get ill though," she pouted into the table, "Make sure you get warm drinks and don't push yourself too hard. It's unfair to make you train in the rain, it'd be better if you didn't have to..."
He decided not to mention the hypocrisy of telling him to take care of himself when she was in a state like this.
"You should look after yourself too-"
"No." She cut him off, meeting his eyes for the first time in a while. They looked empty, almost dead. "Don't worry about me."
"...Tweetie, I want to worry about you."
"Well don't. I don't deserve it, I haven't earned it."
"You don't get to decide that. You don't even need to earn it, whoever told you that care is something to be earned was wrong."
She frowned, her lips pursing and her eyes dropping to the table while her head shook gently, stopping all too suddenly when the smallest movement got her head spinning.
He was desperate to drill the words into her head, he had seen it too many times already, he had seen how she brushed people's concern for her off and each time it happened he wanted to shake her shoulders and tell her 'I'm going to care no matter what'.
Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't have gotten the chance as a police car stopped outside of the cafe and a man jumped out, rushing through the rain and towards the cafe. Immediately, Stewart perked up.
"Roderick," Stewart called out as soon as the door opened.
Hazel lifted herself, darting her head around to meet the man's gaze. Meanwhile, Fox sat and watched, wondering what the relationship was between them for her to perk up like she did.
"Hi, Roddie."
"Don't 'hi Roddie' me." He shook his head, approaching her quickly.
"Bye Roddie."
"That's not any better."
"See ya later, Roddie."
"C'mon," he huffed, turning to Stewart. "Thanks, Stewart, I'll let you know if she's alright."
She pushed herself up from her seat, her fingers grasping the edge of the table as she felt everything around her move too fast and the sights around her became blurry. The dark, rain covered window turned into just a blurry block of dark blue, the tables blurry shapes of brown, and Fox became a blurred frown.
"Thanks Roderick-"
Hazel, as well as she tried to keep herself balanced when she got up, may have gotten up too quickly. The world spun, and then, hearing a chair scrape against the wood of the floor, she fell.
Then the blurs faded to nothing at all.