Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating(13)

“What kind of weird?”

I look up at her. I like to keep my cards pretty close to my chest, but from the expression on Hazel’s face, I can tell I look like I’ve been punched. “I think she just sent me a text that was meant for … someone else.”

Her brown eyes pop wide open and she uses a blue-green finger to pull a strand of hair from where it’s stuck to the purple paint on her cheek. “Like, another guy?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t want to go out on a mental ledge right now, but … sort of.”

“I’m gonna guess it wasn’t, like, a ‘Can I borrow a cup of sugar?’ type of text.”

“No.”

She goes quiet, then makes a little choking noise in the back of her throat. When I look up at her, it’s almost like she’s in pain.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

Hazel nods. “I’m swallowing down my terrible words.”

I don’t even have to ask. “What, that she was destined to screw up because her name is Tabitha?”

She points an accusing finger at me. “I didn’t say it. You said it!”

Despite the hysterical thrum of my pulse in my ears, I smile. “You can’t hide a single thought you have.”

There’s still no reply, and my thoughts grow darker with every passing second. Was her text meant for someone else? Is there any other explanation for her silence now? The thought makes me want to vomit all over Hazel’s chaotic living room floor.

Hazel drops the clay into a bowl and uses a wet wipe to clean her hands. I half wonder how I look right now: bewildered, with a giant green handprint on my face.

“How long have you been together?” Hazel asks.

A tiny montage of our relationship plays in front of me: meeting Tabby at a Mariners game in Seattle, realizing we were both from Portland, having dinner and taking her home with me. Making love that first night and having a feeling about her, like she could be it for me. Introducing her to my family and then, unfortunately, helping her pack up her apartment, and all the promises that her move to L.A. wouldn’t change us. “Two years.”

She winces. “That is the worst amount of time when you’re our age. Two of your hot years, gone. Invested.” I’m barely listening but she doesn’t even notice. Apparently when the Hazel train gets going, it doesn’t stop until it’s gone completely off the tracks. “And if you’ve been living together or engaged? Forget about it. By then your lives are all crisscrossed and overlapping and like, what are you supposed to do? Do you get married? I mean, generally speaking, but obviously not in your situation. You know … if she’s cheating on you.” She covers her mouth with her hands and mumbles from behind them, “Sorry. It’s a curse.”

In my lap, my phone lights up with a text.



I groan, rubbing my face. This reply makes me feel infinitely worse. I mean, she’s lying. Right? That’s what’s happening right now? One exclamation point means enthusiasm. Four means panic. There’s a car inside my veins, driving too fast, no brakes.

“This is not good,” I mutter.

I feel more than hear Hazel crawl over toward me and when I uncover my eyes, she’s so close, sitting cross-legged beside me and staring at the mess of clay on the floor. I don’t know why I do it—I barely know her—but I wordlessly hand her my phone. It’s like I need someone else to see it and tell me I’m misreading everything.

It’s Hazel’s turn to groan. “I’m sorry, Josh.”

I take the phone back and toss it behind us onto her couch. “It’s okay. I mean, I could be wrong.”

“Right. Sure. You probably are,” she agrees, half-heartedly.

I let out a slow, controlled breath. “I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“You could call her now, if you need to. I would be going insane. I can leave the room and give you some privacy.”

Shaking my head, I tell her, “I need to sleep on this. I need to figure out what I want to ask her.”

She goes still beside me, lost in thought. Traffic passes by, unhurriedly, on the street outside. Hazel’s fridge gives off a metallic rattle, almost like a shiver, every ten seconds or so. I stare at her every-colored toenails and notice a tiny tattoo of a flower on the side of her left foot.

“Do you have a comfort movie?” she asks.

I blink up, not sure I’ve understood. “A what?”

“For me, it’s Aliens.” Hazel looks at me. “Not the first one, Alien, but the second, with Vasquez, and Hicks, and Hudson. Sigourney Weaver is so badass. She’s a warrior, and a quasi–foster mother, and a soldier, and a sexy beast. I would do her so fast. It’s the first movie I saw where a woman demonstrates how easily we can do it all.”

I let her odd brown eyes steady me; it’s almost like I’m being hypnotized. “That sounds pretty great.”

“I still can’t believe Bill Paxton died,” she says quietly.

I think Tabitha and I are done. I’m not even sure what to feel; it’s a weird no-man’s-land between sad and numb and relieved. “Yeah.”

Her eyes soften and I’m finally able to give the name a color: whiskey.

Very gently, she asks, “Wanna watch Aliens?”