The Pursuit of the Unknown

THE SECRET

HAZEL POV

‘Where is she?’ Hazel asked herself, gritting her teeth in annoyance before coming across a waitress and asking her, “Excuse me, have you seen this girl anywhere, I think she came this way,” producing a picture of Rosa, “No, I haven’t seen her,” pretty much everyone she asked has denied ever seeing her. At time, Hazel was hyperventilating- she was worried beyond any amount of words can express. A little while later, her phone rung and a familiar face appeared on her screen, “Rosa, where the hell are you? Have you any idea how world I was about you?!”

“Sorry Haze, I actually left early. I felt a little sick. I couldn’t go back to find you – I was going to get even more lost. Please forgive m- “

“You should have at least told me! You don’t leave and not tell the person you came with that you are leaving, what of something happened to you? Are you crazy?”

“Hazel, I am sorry but I just got home and I am taking a shower, I promise I will make it up to you. Okay?”  at this point Hazel was fuming.

“You know what? Do whatever you want to do, I am not important enough for you to let me know  anything.” With that, she hung up and went back to the bar area. A short while later, her phone buzzes in her purse, she takes it out, “Its time” exasperated as she was, she did not want to do what she was called for. A few minutes later, she goes to the bathroom to freshen up before heading out to do her job.

Feeling filthy, she drank an entire bottle of vodka while unconsciously walking to a cemetery. “ Why?!” she screams in the middle of the night, “why did you leave us in so much debt? Mother had a mental breakdown – she is depressed, my brother is too young to do anything to help me and I have to complete college but my GPA is too low to do anything! Do you know what I have to do every night to settle the scores that you left my family to deal with? What kind of coward kills himself and leaves his family at the mercy of a gang? I hate you so much! Wherever you are, I hope you are rotting and writhing in pain” she said in tears. “Here, to the most useless man that has ever graced this planet,” she pours down the rest of the liquor in her hand, smashes the bottle on the tombstone and walks away.

 She gets to her apartment and sits in the shower for a long time, praying that the dirt she feels all over her doesn’t seep into her soul. Recounting the wonderful memories, she had with her family that was once perfect, she silently cries taking her razor blade and cutting herself slightly on her arms. Blood and water going down the drain, she loves the sight of it and enjoys the pain – ‘I want it all to end,’ she thinks to herself, she makes more incisions on her body and after a while, she steps out of the bathroom with swollen, puffy eyes and red streaks on her arms and thighs. She takes a bottle of sleeping pills and fights the urge to empty the entire bottle into her mouth, ‘who will take care of Scotty and mom if I die? Everyone has disowned my family because of my father, no one will take care of a family they consider cursed’ she puts the bottle down and rather, cries herself to sleep.

The following morning, she has a test to write but she isn’t in the right frame of mind to be academically tested and it gets hard by the day to stay motivated – to finish and get rid of this people making her life a living nightmare. Aimlessly wandering the school premises, the clatter of students, the chattering gives her a headache – she is fighting a battle within herself because death seems to the bittersweet taste she longs for but can’t embrace because she is not like her father, she has to think of her family, who provides for them if she leaves? As painful as that may be, it keeps her motivated to work harder and get a better future for her family. ‘sister I want an aero plane! Buy me an aeroplane!’ she remembers her baby brother begging her two days  ago. 

After class, she rushes to the store and gets an airplane for little Scotty. His smile makes it all worth it, she can endure any kind of suffering, as long as her baby brother doesn’t feel the absence of her parents as much as she does. After a day at school, she goes home to find Scotty waiting for her by the window, he smiles and runs to her, “Sister! Aero plane!” hugging her, he takes the airplane and runs around the yard with it. It gives her a sense of hope that her brother can be happy in the circumstances they are in. “Sister, when is dad coming home?” her heart breaks at the glimmer of hope she sees in her baby brother’s eyes – he still thinks dad is coming home.  She cant tell him that daddy is gone and is never coming back.  “Soon sweetheart, he’ll be home soon,” she says, walking to the bathroom to go and silently cry. She finds it hard to stay hopeful; difficult not to sink into a bottomless pit of despair – she wants nothing more than die right now, but she has to stay hopeful for him. 

She gets a call,” Where the hell are you, floozy?! You were supposed to be here 10 minutes ago,” the man on the line says to her, sounding as annoyed as ever, “I’ll be there in a moment,” she says, hopelessness seeping into her heart. She has to get this over with, for the sake of her family.