Nothing was wrong. Except for the fact Hazel wasn’t actually home. She was on the side of an empty street by an empty park in the middle of the night … with Theo. When she insisted she couldn’t leave the house to come with him to Mischa’s party. He hung up the phone and threw it on the passenger’s seat.
He stepped on the gas even deeper and it was not because he wanted to get to her faster.
What’s worse, when he arrived, they were both drunk. Theo was sitting back in the driver’s seat with Hazel on the passenger seat. Their feet were up on the dashboard and he could hear their laughter from where he parked.
Hazel was in her pajama pants, her face was flushed like a ripe tomato. Theo’s eyes were barely opened, his speech was slurred. They both had beer cans on their hands and when he looked at the back seat there were unopened six packs along with the open ones.
“Wow you guys really had your own party,” he commented.
“Lee! Oh my God you’re here! I didn’t see you come,” she jolted from her seat and got up in a hurry to hug him.
She got up too fast and staggered to the side, she laughed and finally wrapped both her arms around his neck. Theo peeked, the street lights were too bright for his eyesight.
“I wouldn’t expect you to see Godzilla coming with the looks of your waste,” he said sarcastically. He pulled back a little to see her face, she was pretty much out of it. “You’re hammered, how long have you been in here?”
She rested her head on the curve of his neck, “I don’t know … a long time, Theo’s too drunk to drive us back home, I’m so sorry to interrupt your party … how was it?”
“Hey man, thanks for coming … you’re my knight and shining armor,” Theo mumbled.
“It was … not as much fun as this obviously,” Lee was getting more annoyed by the minute.
Hazel whispered in his ear, “He just broke up with Peyton at the Prom.”
She thought that information would make the situation more acceptable for Lee, what it did was made it even more unbearable. The minute he broke up with his girlfriend, he came looking for Hazel and took her out to get drunk, and she went along with him.
Something was burning in the pit of his stomach. “Alright, how are we going to do this? Are we leaving your car here, Theo?”
Theo grunted, he forced himself to sit up, “Yeah … I’ll just put the hood up and lock it up, I’ll get it in the morning … no problem.” At least he was coherent enough to figure that out.
They all got into Lee’s car and drove back to Hazel’s house. Lee was quiet, the only sound in the car was Theo’s drunk blabber which was mostly about Peyton. He had to carry him to the house when they arrived and threw him on the sofa.
They got there in time because the phone rang right after they stepped into the front door. Hazel’s mom was checking on her and she was able to sobered up for the two minute call.
“I’m just gonna go now, Hazel,” Lee excused himself.
“What? No … why?” her heart sank, she knew she had made a terrible decision that led to the situation. She looked at him with hopeful eyes that he would ignore the stupid night entirely.
She stood by the phone and was struck for the first time that night at how dashing Lee was in his outfit. He was clean, sober and handsome. “Please stay … I thought we were going to watch a movie and make some popcorn?”
He shrugged, and pointed to Theo who was half asleep on the couch.
“Just let him sleep, he’s pretty much out … but I’m not … I’ve been looking forward to this all night … and you’re leaving tomorrow, I won’t be seeing you for a month,” she whined.
Lee cocked his head to one side and looked at his drunk best friend, “Exactly … yet you ditched me to get drunk with him … I have to go, Hazel, I have an early flight tomorrow,” he used the same excuse to get away from her too.
Hazel ran after him out the door, “Wait … Lee, are you angry with me? I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was coming, I swear. He came unannounced and said he wanted to get some beers.”
He let out a long sigh, “You said you can’t leave the house? I was all alone at that party, I really wanted you to come.” He wasn’t alone, but it felt like it. It all came down to Theo, he was an unwelcome surprise and it totally blew him off. He just didn’t want to stay there anymore.
“I’m sorry, can’t we just stick to our plan and watch a movie or something? Or we can watch a BTS concert or play games?” she held on to his arm half pulling him to come back in.
That night just turned a different direction for him. He didn’t want to sit and watch a movie with Theo sleeping on the couch. He didn’t want to think about what they had been doing before he came. He didn’t want to think about leaving Hazel for a month to a newly single Theo. It was all too much to process.
“I’m sorry, Hazel … I don’t feel like it anymore,” he told her the truth. “It just feels like when it comes to Theo … he always wins.”
Hazel’s jaw dropped, she never expected him to say something like that. But she analyzed his question in her mind if there was any truth in it. What made him say such a thing? “You know that’s not true,” she blurted out.
“No? Why else would he be crashing on your sofa right now? Do you know how much I really wanted to spend tonight with you? Only to find you were getting drunk with him? I’m just here to clean up the mess … how convenient. I guess it’s more fun to spend the night with him than going to a party to celebrate my win with me?”
“It wasn’t a party to celebrate your win, it was just an excuse Mischa made to get you to come to her birthday, obviously you knew that? You know I would be there if it was for you … I just didn’t want to go to her party,” she defended herself.
“So you lied then? You didn’t really have to stay home? You just didn’t want to come with me even after I begged you to come? Wow, that’s so much better … you know if it was reversed, I wouldn’t think twice about it, Hazel, I’d go anywhere you asked me to.”
“What is that suppose to mean? I’d go anywhere for you too … you can’t question that just because …”
“But not tonight, right? Not when I really wanted to spend it with you because I’ll be leaving in the morning, …” he turned away, “I don’t want to fight about this, Hazel, I think it’s best that I just go home … you’re drunk, you’ll be asleep halfway through a movie and it’s just not … I’m going home.”
He didn’t wait for her to answer, he just walked away and got into his car without even saying anything else. She was left at her porch feeling torn apart for causing him to feel the way he felt that night.
She looked over her shoulder and remembered Theo was inside. Her mom’s ‘no boys’ rule was violated on the first night. She understood how Lee must have felt looking at the situation, she didn’t blame him. She thought she would leave him to sleep on it for the night and he’ll be back to his usual sweet self in the morning. She never had an argument before with him.
She locked all her doors and put a blanket over Theo. She went up to her room to get an early sleep so she could wake up to see Lee off before he goes to the airport. But the moment she laid her head on her pillow, her eyes were wide open. She couldn’t stop thinking about what happened that night, what Theo said, what Lee said and what constantly occupied her mind about the both of them.