I Did Not Kill Hazel Grant

PROLOGUE

I did not kill Hazel Grant, but I'm glad she's dead...

A corpse is a poetic mystery once you think about it. The stuttered eyelids, pale lips and skin, the lack of breath and movement is a silent canvas waiting to be painted on.

Others might disagree with this, but I see it for what it truly is. Perhaps, I do not feel this way for all corpses. Perhaps, I feel this way for this particular one. Hazel Grant - daughter, lover, friend. Hazel Grant - beauty, dreamer, dead. That's how she will be remembered - hopefully.

For now, no one has come to realization that Hazel would be determined missing in a matter of hours and dead in a matter of days. No one, but me.

Telling them what I knew would be best, but I have a twisted mind. One that would prefer to relish in a cat and mouse chase until Hazel is found.

I want to see how long this game would last. I want to see if I will eventually crack and be truthful. I want to see who would cry, mourn and be devastated for her. After all, Hazel was a princess born without a crown. Her throne could stay unoccupied for a little while. Until then, her corpse was my little secret and for a long time, I intend to keep it that way.

CHAPTER 1

HAZEL

I was named after the colour of my eyes. Slightly brown, but not brown enough, slightly green, but not green enough. The day I was born was an auspicious day, my mother would say. It hadn't snowed in Monterey for almost ten Decembers. She'd placed a mistletoe just outside the front porch, hoping for young lovers to see it and do the needful. Instead, the mistletoe was covered with little freckles of white magic dust- snow. I knew it was an exaggeration, but according to her, she immediately went into labour after that. This December was special. Ten hours in and out came me - her beautiful hazel eyed baby.

I knew I was destined for greatness. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't letting my mother's words get to me. It was just something I felt. Something I knew. Not just me. Everyone knew I was different.

First off, I was an only child. This wasn't because my mother didn't want more, it was because she couldn't have more. The day of my birth had ruptured something inside of her that couldn't be fixed - the doctors said.

On the bright side, I could get all the love and attention any child could possibly ask for- my mother said.

The neighbours all wanted a glimpse of the beautiful, blonde haired, Hazel eyed baby who lived next door. They would smooch me when my mum wasn't looking, smile awkwardly and make insane baby noises just for me to react, smile, acknowledge them.

Yes- even as a child people wanted me to acknowledge them, to confirm their existence, to let me love them and I milked it as best as I could.

They would ask my mother why I looked so different from her, but all she would say was my father was responsible.

I had a father. He just did not have a daughter.

At the age of five, I quickly understood that parents were not always two in number. My mother had been married to my father for a total of six years before he walked out of the front door and never came back. I was three at the time.

The memory of him slamming the kitchen counter, raising his voice carelessly and shrugging my mother off when she was obviously begging for him to stay is imprinted in my mind.

As I grew older, I took to asking the basic questions any fatherless child would ask. I would watch my classmates get picked up and whisked into the arms of a fatherly figure after school. I was confused when two parents would attend parent’s day. It would only be a matter of time for me to ask, “Do I have a dad?”

Although, I was quickly met with brash answers and a complete shrug off from my mum at every moment.

In the years that followed, my once hopeful, bright, happy go lucky mother had become a shell of herself.

She became dark, cynical, bitter and filled with hate. Hatred for men, hated for life, hatred for me.

She made this clear every day when she sought to drown her disappointments in a bottle of rum, whiskey or at this point anything that could get her to pass out on the couch at 9am every morning.

At first, I wanted to care. I wanted to help her. I tried to help her. She quit her job when I turned sixteen and she told me I could take care of the house. I worked two jobs to keep things steady at home. Thank goodness, my dad left the house for us. All we had was a roof over our heads and with my jobs, we had dinner every night.

When my mother got drunk, her inner b*tch took over. She would haul insults at me. She'd call me words like "wh*r*", "sl*t", "freeloader". She would remind me of how I ruined her life. How I was the reason why my father walked out on us. According to her, he wasn't ready to be a father, but she got pregnant with me by accident and chose to keep me against his will. Five years in, he couldn't handle the pressure of having a family and walked out.

She reminded me that I was who I was because of her. She reminded me that she had lost her beauty, her life, her womb because of me. She told me that if I keep letting my beauty get to my head, it would ruin me.

She wished I had never been born. I was a curse and she hated me. I had taken everything from her and frankly, I believed every word. It was why I chose to make my own life, my own plans.

If my mother wanted me gone, I would give her that. I would work my way up to college, walk out of that door like my father did and never look back.

Little did I know that wishes come true and although my wish to disappear one day came to be, the circumstances surrounding it was nothing like a fairytale.

THOMAS

Hazel was dead. Not lost. Not missing. Dead. I found out the same way everyone did. It was the first thing I read the minute my alarm went off at exactly 6:30am on Monday morning. It was the only thing on the news and radio for a week since her body was found.

It was the headline in the paper that was tossed on the street when I went running that same day. She wasn't coming back. She was gone. Monterey would not be the same.

Prior to that, she had been missing. Disappeared into thin air and I was under the impression that she had skipped town or something grotesque like that.

The truth was I couldn't decipher if I was in denial, shock or sheer numbness from this news. I couldn't decipher just yet if I was to be happy that karma was real or if I needed to crouch in a corner and hate myself for what I did to her the last time we saw each other.

Everyone knew Hazel was dead now, but no one knew just yet that I was the reason why.

Hazel Gra