A perfect night would be going to that concert with people that were close to her heart, watching Harry up close and personal, feel his presence, be in the same room with the person she admired her entire teenage years.
A perfect night would be making that leap to the stage and took a selfie as he sings her favorite song and keeps that memory for the rest of her life to tell it to her children and grandchildren about what a perfect night it was.
But sometimes, all we get is the substitute of perfect, something we absolutely need without even realizing it until much later. Most of the time, that ‘something’ is better, and all those imperfections were what it took for that something ‘better’ to take place.
Lee’s dimple was the star that lit up her dark sky. She kept poking her finger on it after 3 beers and he was too sweet to be annoyed by it. After the fourth beer, Lee insisted they go back to the hotel before one of them was too drunk to walk, by one of them he meant Hazel.
Her phone had been ringing since 12 AM. Max, Theo, her mom. The concert must be over and she was back feeling depressed looking at all the miscalls. She texted Max to tell him she was heading back to the hotel. She ignored Theo’s text altogether and only replied to her mom ‘I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.’
She took Lee’s half-empty can and gulp the rest of the beer in one go. There was something satisfying about it that made her feel less annoyed by the fact she was going back home without experiencing the concert.
“Hey, slow down … I don’t want to have to carry you up to our room,” Lee took the can off her hand. “You finished it?” he laughed lightly.
She covers her face with both hands and regretted her action, “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Jan was half asleep on Kyle’s shoulder in the MRT, it’s been a long night and they were ready to hit the pillow and go to sleep, or at least that’s what they said. The walk to the hotel was quiet and Hazel was not walking straight anymore. Lee asked Kyle to carry the huge teddy bear for him so Hazel could ride on his back all the way to the hotel.
She could barely open her eyes in the elevator going up to their room. They parted ways with Jan and Kyle on the 4th floor where their room was. Just when she thought the night was almost over, she found Theo sitting in front of her room.
“Mickey … where have you been? Why didn’t you answer my calls?” he stood to greet them.
“What are you doing here?” she was surprised by the hostility in her voice, she thought she was over it.
Theo tucked his hands in his pockets, “My room is down the hall … I was looking for you, can we talk?”
Lee took his key card, opened the door, and looked at Hazel.
“Are you drunk?” Theo noticed she wasn’t herself.
And a little nauseated but she didn’t tell him that, her eyelids never felt heavier, “Uhm … hmm …”
Theo looked at Lee as if to confront him about why she was drunk.
“I had a few beers … you’re not my brother, don’t be weird about it … what do you want?” she snarled.
“I’ll leave the door open for you,” Lee said and went into the room and propped the door with the metal latch so it didn’t close shut.
“I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about tonight … I feel really bad about it, are you still mad at me?”
She furrowed her brows, “Can we not talk about this now, Theo? I was actually having a nice night, you don’t have to remind me about it.”
“I’m sorry, I just … don’t want you to stay mad at me, I swear I put the envelope in Peyton’s bag before we left, I don’t know what happened to it, I can’t explain it and it’s just … I know how much you wanted to go, and I …”
He was talking really fast and it was too much for her, “Stop … stop … the last thing I want to do right now is talk about it, okay, I just want to go to sleep … sleep it off … maybe I’ll feel better about it in the morning, ’cause …” she stuttered, the emotions suddenly came back to her, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’ll make it up to you, I promise … I wished you had taken my ticket and went in, why didn’t you take it?”
She laughed sarcastically, “And went with Mia and your girlfriend? Really? That would make it all better, wouldn’t it?”
Theo had a curious look on his face, “What do you mean?”
“Nothing …”
Everything came back to her at that moment. The reality that the concert was over and she wasn’t in there to see it, because the only choice she had was to leave or to go in with Theo’s girlfriend. Tears started to push their way out again and made her feel stupid. She folded her arms in front of her trying to stay as strong as she could not to fall apart in front of him.
Theo put his hands on her cheeks, “Please don’t cry … I hate seeing you cry, especially not because of me.”
What he said just fueled something in her. She scoffed, wiped the tears from her cheeks, “You have no idea how many times you’ve made me cry.” She was too drunk to control what came out of her mouth.
He looked at her in the eyes, “What? What are you saying?”
She looked into his dreamy green eyes, if he wasn’t Theo, she would be furious at him for what happened that night. She realized she said too much, she kept silent.
“Hazel … did you send me that letter?”
That question snapped her into a moment of sobriety, her eyes widened, “What letter?”
His hands were still on her cheeks, their faces were close to each other, “You know what I’m talking about.”
She pulled herself away from him, “I don’t know what you’re talking about … it’s late, we should go to bed.”
He grabbed her hand, “Can we talk about it? The letter … I mean … I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while, I know you wrote it, I saw the pad in your bedroom … and I don’t want to be that guy you described in your letter, that’s not fair.”
She was surprised with what he said, she wanted to deny it but it was too late, she was caught, “How is it not fair?” she was curious.
He paused for a moment, there was doubt in his eyes, he was struggling to say something, “I didn’t know you felt that way about me … ” he didn’t know how to explain it.
She shrugged, “What difference does it make? You’ve never seen me as anything other than Max’s little sister … you’ve never been without a girlfriend since 8th grade, and I’ll always be that girl on the bleachers cheering for you.” She chuckled and rubbed her face with one hand, she knew if she wasn’t drinking she would never have the guts to say any of those things.
“That’s not true,” Theo said. “You’re not that girl on the bleachers anymore, are you? Yeah, you’ll always be Max’s little sister, and you should know how precious that is for me, and if I knew how you felt … I would’ve done something about it.”
She raised her brows and challenged him with a look, “Like what?”
He searched into her eyes for the answer, everything that happened had brought them to that moment of revelation. It was a moment that changed the nature of their relationship, nothing was ever going to be the same after that conversation. The one thing that will determine which way it was going was Theo’s next move.
He pulled her hand that he was still holding and landed a kiss on her lips.
Her eyes widened, but she couldn’t react, her mind was too fogged to think clearly what exactly they were doing.
“What the hell?” Max’s voice came from behind them. He just got out of the elevator.
Hazel broke away from the kiss, their eyes stared into each other trying to grasp everything all at once.
Theo covered his face with both hands, he knew he was screwed.
“What the hell were you doing?” Max came running toward them.
“I have to go to sleep … I’m sorry,” Hazel retracted from the scene to go into her room.
“Can we talk again later?” Theo spoke softly, he wasn’t done with her yet, there’s so much to talk about.
But she had a scared look in her eyes as she descended into her room.
“Are you okay? Where were you?” Max held her shoulder, he looked worried.
“I’m fine … I just got back from the night park … I’m going to bed now,” she wanted to disappear, what happened was inappropriate and wrong.
“Okay … I’ll see you in the morning,” Max said. He waited for Hazel to close her door and turned to Theo.
He slapped his arm, “What the fuck? What did you do that for? Why did you kiss my sister?”
Theo rubbed his forehead, he didn’t have a good explanation for it, “I’m sorry, man, it was … ”
“Fucked up! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I know … can we not talk about this now? Look, Peyton kicked me out of our room, she’s still angry with me for not going in with her to the concert … can I sleep in your room?”
Max furrowed his brows, “She kicked you out and you kissed my sister?”
“No … no … that absolutely had nothing to do with it … I just …” he looked at Max’s face, he wanted to tell him the truth but it was too hard. He knew how Max would feel about it and he didn’t want to argue about it, “Can I sleep in your room? And can we not talk about this now?”
Max thought about it for a moment, somehow he knew about it for some time, he was denying it because Theo was with Peyton. But when he yelled at Peyton before the concert was enough to convince him that what he feared was true. “Yeah … sure, man, let’s go.”