HAZEL FINE SINGS ALONG (WATTYS 2022 Winner!)

Chapter 40: Missing

The next morning, Hazel hid in the back seat of Nick's car once they got closer to the hotel, not wanting to repeat yesterday's frenzy with the press.

They'd had a nice dinner full of tension and things unsaid, then gone to their separate bedrooms. Hazel had trouble sleeping because of the day of napping, but eventually she'd drifted off, letting the sunlight wake her in the morning.

She felt at peace with her decision. Tomorrow, the show would be over. Win or lose, she was going to have to move on from this idyll. Even though it had been full of conflict and strife, it had been a respite from her real life. She wasn't sure what that was going to look like now, but she didn't have that long to figure it out.

Nick turned off the car engine and she sat up. They were in the parking garage, a concrete structure at the back of the hotel with slats of sunlight running through it.

"Thanks for this," Hazel said. "For yesterday. For everything."

Nick turned in his seat. "Of course."

"I'm sorry it's all such a mess."

"That's both our faults."

"I'm sorry just the same."

"Me too."

Hazel got out of the car before she said anything else. She didn't want to cry in front of Nick, and she felt like she was too close to that for safety.

The garage smelled of gasoline and exhaust and it made Hazel feel claustrophobic. She walked away quickly.

"Hazel?" Nick called after her.

"I'll see you later, Nick." She didn't turn around, just rushed through the bowels of the hotel until she got to the elevator.

When the doors closed, she leaned back against the wall, feeling relief as it raised her out of the earth and toward sunlight. She'd feel better when she was in her room. Things would feel normal, then. Whatever normal meant.

But when got to her floor and left the elevator, her key in hand, there was a surprise waiting for her: her parents.

Hazel stopped the moment she recognized them. Her mother and father were standing outside her door, pacing anxiously.

Hazel felt frozen, trapped, and all she wanted to do was flee. But she couldn't do that.

It was ... time to face the music.

She walked down the hall with as much dignity as she could while wearing yesterday's running clothes, having clearly not spent the night in her hotel room.

"Hazel!"

"Mother."

Her mother's mouth turned down. "You know I hate it when you call me that."

Her mother had let her hair go grey since the last time Hazel had seen her and she was wearing it in a bob. But she was also wearing a version of the same slacks and blazer Hazel had seen her in all her life. Paired with a jewel toned silk shirt it was her "look" and it didn't matter if they were in the heat of Texas or a cold New York winter. She only dressed up, never down, and Hazel had never seen her in shorts or jeans.

Hazel ignored her and turned to her father. He'd gone more casual, though his salt and pepper hair was in the same short, fifties-style haircut he'd worn it in all his life. He was in a pair of dark chinos and a kelly-green polo shirt with a golf logo on it. "Father."

"Hazel, please," her mother said.

That was all it took for years of rage to come flooding back. "Please what? What are you even doing here?"

"We've come to support you," her father said.

"Support me? Right. Now that I've got a fifty percent chance of winning the grand prize and getting a record deal? You're not my managers anymore. You're not getting your cut."

Her mother raised her hands to her chest. "How could you think that about us?"

"Hmmm. Let me count the ways." Hazel saw Bella poke her head out of her room over their shoulder, but she didn't care. She ticked the list off on her fingers. "You took half of my money. You introduced me to the worst manager in the world. And when it all fell apart you didn't even pay for my lawyer."

Her father coughed nervously. "That's water under the bridge."

"Under whose bridge?"

"It's in the past, Hazel. We need to deal with your present."

"I'm dealing."

He gestured to the hall around them as more heads popped out of doors. "It doesn't appear as if you are."

Hazel gritted her teeth, embarrassed that this was playing out in public. "Well, that's not your concern anymore."

"It's our family," her mother said.

Hazel wanted to let out one of those hysterical dramatic laughs that the woman who used to play her mother on TV would issue whenever things were going wrong, but she held it in. "We haven't been a family for a very long time."

"She told people you were dead." Bella said.

Her mother paled. "Is that true, Hazel?"

Hazel shot Bella a look. Bella shrugged and mouthed "You did."

"So, what if it is?"

"How could you do that?"

"Because it was easier than explaining the truth."

"That's exactly what's wrong with you, young lady," her father said. "You never want to face the truth."

Hazel hated it the most when her father was insightful. "At least I've had to pay for my mistakes. I live with the consequences. You and mom get away scot free."

Hazel was almost shouting now, her words biting and angry.

Her father shrunk under them. "That's enough, Hazel."

"Is it? Is it?"

Her father took her mother's elbow. "We're going to go check into our room and let you have a chance to calm down."

Hazel bit back that there wasn't enough time in the world for that to happen. She just wanted her parents to go, and if this is what it took, then so be it.

They walked past her, and she swiped key card and stepped into her room.

Before the door was closed, tears started to fall.

"You okay, Hazel?" Zoey and Brooke were sitting on one of the beds with guilty expressions on their faces.

Hazel wiped her tears away. "What's going on?"

"Um, well," Zoey said. "Remember how you asked us to watch Checkers?"

Hazel's eyes darted around the room. Checker's makeshift cage was there but it was empty. "Where is he? Is he okay?"

"We don't know. He's missing."