Chapter 19

Hazel Sinclair

"I will talk to Christian. He won't do anything stupid." Jayden's words may sound comforting but my mind wouldn't have it.

I was seriously raging in fury. I was mad. Mad at what? Mad at who?

I was mad at Jayden.

"To hell with your nice attitude right now! Stop comforting me, it doesn't help!" I shouted at Jayden, who just shrugged and continued.

"This kind of reaction doesn't matter right now, Hazel. At least, be a little understanding." He scowled.

I didn't reply but kept walking back and forth in order to calm my nerves.

The clock ticked by, and we were silent. One of my cats meowed and jumped to sit right beside Jayden and I was immediately reminded of this morning. How the two boys were cuddling with the cats and each other. How I felt warm just at the sight of it.

I grabbed my phone quickly and opened the photos to look at the one specific picture from today. Jayden and Christian were cuddling together and the three cats were also cuddling against the two boys.

The internal debate started in my mind and I threw the phone quickly. "Fucking hell!"

Jayden had caught the phone and he looked startled. His eyes went wide when he saw me breathing hard in fury.

Why did he have to be such a non-understanding person!

"It's all because of me. I shouldn't have started things with you two." I mumbled in anger.

Jayden just scoffed and checked the picture on my phone.

"Maybe if I hadn't kissed you that night after the beach day, it wouldn't have happened." I murmured again, loud enough for him to hear.

He looked up at me with a whirlwind of emotions on his face. I couldn't point out one.

What was I trying to do? What was I trying to start? Why was a saying those things when I didn't mean them? Was I doing this to provoke him? To have him seething with anger? To show some raging emotion? To be so under the control of his emotions to end things with me?

Yes. That's what I thought I wanted. To provoke him enough to have him seething with anger, ending things with me at the moment.

What things? My inner self scoffed very rudely.

"Or maybe if I hadn't born, I wouldn't have to endure all this." Unwanted tears escaped my eyes, falling on to the carpeted floor as I was walking back and forth. "If I had succeeded in killing myself. But who am I kidding?" I scoffed. "I was born with the worst fate. I can't even kill myself without making a mistake. I should have tried the sharpest knife. Or a blow torch to burn my mind off. Or even a-"

I was grabbed harshly in a tight grip, with a hand clamping both of my cheeks in a manner to shut me up, making my lips turn into an ugly duck face. I heard short and ragged breathing beside my left ear, making the goosebumps rise on my neck.

"If you continue with your words, Hazel, I swear I'll..." His husky yet smooth velvety voice stopped suddenly when I kicked on his shin with my foot.

"You don't even know anything, stop!" I said through the ugly duck-shaped lips of mine. His grip loosened as I felt a warm teardrop on the side of my forehead. Confused, I furrowed my brows. I wasn't the one to cry easily. Is he...?

And soon, I was embraced in a warm bear hug with a sobbing Jayden. My hands were limp at my side as I was shocked beyond imagination. I never heard him cry. It was awkward at first but soon I understood what to do in a situation like this. But when I was about to comfort him, he pulled away and turn around, wiping his tears.

"J- Jayden?" I put a comforting hand on his shoulder as he turned back around to face me.

"I'm sorry, Hazel. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for breaking you two up, for fucking up your relationship and for ruining everything between us three. I'm such a dimwit I didn't understand the consequences of falling in love with you." His eyes were red, but he spoke in such a manner that it was difficult for me to act according to the situation. "I'm sorry for forcing myself into your life even though I knew you hated people of my kind with a passion. I'm a retarded person for even thinking that I could fix you, that I could change you. I didn't intend for this much to happen and I understand if you hate me right now."

I shook my head repeatedly and eagerly. "No! No! You didn't ruin anything, Jayden. It was actually all my fault. I brought you into this. Hell, I brought both of you into my wrecking life and see where it left us."

"Your life was perfectly normal to me, Hazel. Don't talk about killing yourself. Please. It hurts me to hear you say that." He showed pure vulnerability on his face.

I looked sharp and square into his eyes and spoke. "Normal? Ha! You didn't have to deal with three deaths of your loved ones at a time, Jayden! I grew up hating my parents for leaving me to live with my grandmother and when she died, all I had was nothing because I never considered my parents mine. They were always reminding me about how different girls cope up with depression! They called me a depressed child, Jayden. They took me to therapies, to anger management, to doctors! But I refuse to be that depressed and lonesome girl who hates life!"

By the time I finished, I realized I was yelling and there were tears streaming down my face.

I looked up from where I was standing enclosed in Jayden's embrace, and met his eyes once again.

"You don't have to be that person, Hazel. You have so many choices here! You don't understand, do you? You have us to rely on, hell, you have me..." He whispered. "Even I had to deal with shit like that. The woman I call mom, is not my real mother. Elena and I don't share the same blood. I was the adopted child and I didn't even know about it until last year and that from a different source."

My eyes widened. How come I never thought about that?

That's because I always took him to be the nicest guy, the kindest person just because he showed me that side of his. I never prodded on his own problems not because I had many of my own, but because he never showed it. I had never seen him or even heard him cry, why? Because he is always smiling or being nice. Was this a façade of him? Was he also lying about his true emotions? Did he curse his life just like I did?

One of his tears fell on my cheek as he began speaking again. "I have seen my real parents die in front of me. They were murdered. But I didn't do anything, instead, I felt happy for them." Another tear fell on my face. "They were in debt and because of that, they were so unhappy. They wanted peace in their life. They got what they wished for, but the peace was given in the form of death. I had a younger brother, who was dead on the spot because when they- when they shot my parents, he was in my mother's hands. He fell and that impact broke his..."

He took a deep breath. Deeper than my self-hatred. I could feel his chest constricting in pain as he sobbed.

"How old were you?" I whispered because I was sure that if I spoke, my voice wouldn't be present.

"I was eleven. My baby brother was three years old." He wiped his tears with one of his hands. He sniffed. "Mom took me in for the reason she only knows. And when I was fifteen, she got married, but her husband died after four years. And just after his death, we had Elena. So, you see, Elena is like my own sister."

"I'm so sorry for acting like the only one whose life is shit," I spoke in horror and my eyes went wide. "I'm so sorry, I'll just disappear from your life."

His grip on me tightened even more. "You won't do such a thing. I saw you for the first time when I was sixteen. And I had been attracted to you somehow. Now that you're here, hell would freeze before I let you go. Which is never."

His eyes were glinting and flashing with so much emotion, I was only left staring. I was gazing into his eyes and the thoughts were going on in my mind at the same moment.

He had been through so much in his young life, just like I had. But look at me and look at him. We had many major differences, our attitude surpassing them all. I was an asshole, a jerk, a self-hating person. But for him, he was a kind, passionate, and beautiful person inside and out.

It's about time I try to change. For the good. Because being mean and rude wasn't working out. It was only making my life worse than worst. It was leaving me hurt and suicidal. And one thing was for sure, that I didn't want to turn into depression, especially when I had no one except for Jayden and maybe Christian. I hated being the depressed one, simply because when I was not depressed, I was treated as one. At a young age, all I wanted to be loved by my parents along with grandmother. But all I got was I ignorance from my parents.

"I don't want to turn into depression again, Jayden. Please, save me. Help me out of it." I mumbled while tears rolled down my eyes repeatedly.

He mumbled something like 'I will protect you' but then, it could be my ears deceiving me. He looked down at me and pecked my lips slowly. "Don't worry, Hazel. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

The right words. Those words made me feel whole again. Like it was okay. Like everything was turning from icy cold to soft and warm. Like I was finally having blood circulation instead of being dead on the inside like I used to be.

The words felt home. He felt home.

***