Hazel gazed at herself in the mirror on Sunday morning, the bright white gems in her necklace making her much more sophisticated and chic than she actually was. She slipped three diamond—okay, cubic zirconium—studs in the holes in her ears, each a different size.
She liked dressing up. She liked shoes. She liked wearing her fun, flirty fit-and-flare dresses to church. The one she wore today was black and white leaf patterns that blended and blurred as the skirt extended to her knee. She’d paired it with the simple diamond-like jewelry and a simple pair of bright yellow heels.
She hardly ever got to wear heels on her first dates, because she stood five-foot-nine without them. But to church, she always wore heels. She hadn’t had a relationship get to sitting-by-each-other-at-church since P
