46

46
Guilt was eating me up. If only I had just let Hazel be and not insisted, she'd have been fine. We could've been doing something fun, or she could've been cooking happily or anything else but struggling for her life. 

A nurse came out of the emergency room. “Will Hazel be fine?” I asked the nurse, holding onto her arm. 

“Hazel? She’s conscious now. You’ll be able to see her soon.” She smiled and patted my hand before taking her leave. 

“Wow. Thank goodness!” I sighed, relieved that she was alive. I had been pacing around the hallway of the hospital with no news of her for a few hours now, so this was good testimony. 

I resumed pacing around the room till I received attention from any other Nurse or a worker, permitting me to see her again. 

After a while, I was finally called by Doctor Steve to his office. 

“Good afternoon, Tristan.” He greeted me, indicating that I had a seat which I obediently did. 

“Good afternoon. What's wrong with Hazel?” I asked, feeling my heart beat faster at the possibility of hearing bad news. 

“We can't be certain yet.” He sighed, turning to the woman standing beside him of whose presence I only noticed. “This is Katie, she's a high-degree therapist. From what you discussed about what happened to Hazel, it seems to be more of a mental-related issue, so I called her over. She also suspects Hazel's condition is related to a mental disorder, but she'll have to speak with Hazel first and examine her, then we can know what to dive into for treatment.”

“Why isn't that happening already? I hope her life isn't at risk?” My eyebrows curled upwards in worry. 

“I have to speak with her first. We’ll need you to be with her, if she'll be more comfortable to speak with you by her side.” Katie spoke for the first time.  

“Sure! Let's go to her now!”

We left for the room Hazel was in. She had a glass of water glued to her lips on our entrance. 

“Tristan!” She exclaimed, a smile crawling up to her lips. 

“Oh my gosh.” I hurried to sit beside her, pulling her into a tight hug. “You scared the hell out of me.” I pulled away, cupping her face. “Are you fine now? Are you okay? I’m so sorry for insisting and pushing you too much till it resulted in this. I don’t know what I'd have done if my curiousness led to something else and I lost you. What if we weren't able to restore—”

“Tristan,” she chuckled, holding my hands from her face. “It’s okay. It's not your fault.”

“Mrs. Hendrix, if you don’t mind, I’m Katie, a therapist and I’d like to ask a few questions regarding what happened.” 

“I know what’s wrong with me.”

“You do?” Katie and I asked in unison. 

“Yes. I was diagnosed with PTSD a long time ago, but I thought it had completely gone. The last time I had such an attack was about 4 or 5 years ago. I’ve been loving my life normally and have been avoiding anything from triggering it.” Her forehead creased in worry. 

“Wow. That makes it easier to handle.” Doctor Steve said.

“Yes.” Katie nodded, grabbing a notebook and pen. “What triggered a reaction this time?”

“That’s why I claimed it's my fault.” I sighed.

“No, Tristan, it’s not,” She tightened her grip on my hands, guilt flooding her beautiful hazel eyes, “I’ve been feeling really strange for the last few days and have been experiencing multiple symptoms; the signs were familiar and I knew I was going to have an attack sooner or later, whether or not I spoke to you, so don't blame yourself. The pressure of hiding these things from you has had me disturbed and resulted in these signs. I think it'll be best to let you know everything I think you need to know to get it off my mind. I just…” I wiped a tear that rolled down her grimaced face, “I just can’t control these flashbacks. It felt like I was reliving the memory, like I was back at the same spot.” 

The way her eyebrows curled made it evident that she was tense. I wrapped my arms around her to prevent her from experiencing another attack. “It’s okay.”

“Now I don't think it is.” She sobbed. “How can I be experiencing this again? I thought I had fought it alone. I stopped myself from self-harm, mostly suicide, I stopped myself from the depression, fear, anger, emotional imbalance, insecurities, and everything else that followed. How can this be back again? I fought it on my own. Why again?” my wet shirt made it known that she was crying. 

“That’s the problem.” Katie finally spoke, keeping the notebook and pen she was holding by her side. I only realized she had been writing down what Hazel was saying. “The problem is that you tried to get rid of it alone. With me here, you’ll be fine.” 

Hazel didn’t bother to raise her head to Katie, still sobbing. “I want to let you know everything, I promise. I don't want to bear this burden alone.” My heart leaped in joy that she finally trusted me enough to tell me the truth. 

“You will, but with my help. I’m a high-degree therapist and will do everything I can to make sure your mental health is back to perfection, and anything you need to let your husband know will be said, but with my help, so you don’t experience anything as dangerous as this anymore. Is that alright with you?” 

Hazel nodded in approval. 

My phone rang from my trouser pocket. As much as I didn’t want to stop having Hazel in my embrace, I had to answer the call. My eyebrows quirked after noticing it was Nikita. Did she need money again and had offended Dad or Mom?

“Hey sis,” I said into the phone after answering the call. 

“Hey bro.” I heard the sound of a zipper. 

“What’s up?” 

“Just decided to call, then I thought… I'd be returning home tomorrow. Would it be okay if I arrive at your house instead of Mom and Dad’s?” 

“Uh…” I cast a questioning glance at Hazel. Her face scrunched up to a frown but she shrugged in acceptance, “sure. You can.” I rose up from the bed. 

“Great! I know you had to ask your wife for permission.” I could tell she rolled her eyes. 

“Of course.” I chuckled. “Speaking of my wife…” I trailed off, leaving the room. 

“What’s it with her? She’s married to someone else?” 

“Are you crazy?” 

“I’m just kidding. That woman wouldn’t go anywhere, at least not for now.”

“Will you ever stop rambling nonsense? If you’re coming to my house, you've gotta be extra careful now.”

“Why?”

“You have to be nice to Hazel.”

“Ew?”

“Nikita,” I groaned. “She isn’t doing so well mentally and I wouldn't want you to create more problems for her health. You’ve got to be nice to her, else you'll be out of our house in a few seconds.”

“Yeah, whatever. Bye. I have to resume packing.” She ended the call without awaiting my response. Rude!

 

~ HAZEL ~

“Oh, Tristan, c'mon!” I groaned, following behind him as he wore his singlet over his head. 

“Nope.” He replied, not sparing me a glance and started brushing his hair. 

“Are you kidding me?” I frowned, stumping in front of him. “Why can't I go to work but you can? We both work our asses off and it wouldn't be fair if you can go but not me. I promise I won’t overwork.” 

“Hazel dear, it’s not just about overworking. I don't want you to stress yourself out. Do you know how much I was scared to death? What if you go to work and you start having symptoms again?” He furrowed his forehead, trying his best to sound convincing. 

“I’m not falling for this. Nothing's going to happen to me, I promise. I haven’t had even the slightest symptom in five or four years until a few days ago then the attack. I can't just go around feeling mentally disordered and all.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Plus, I'll go whether or not you want me to. You can't control my movement.” I folded my arms across my chest with a pout. 

“I know I can’t. Can't you just rest for today? You can resume work tomorrow.” 

“No! Do you know how hard it is for Sherri and Mrs. Anderson to maintain the restaurant, bakery, and hotel without me?”

He stared at me shortly before muttering, “fine.” He sighed, lowering his head to plant a kiss on my lips. “Give me a call if you start feeling strange again, okay? We’ll speak with Katie to begin whatever treatment is best for you.”

“Though that's not so necessary, I’ll agree. I love you.” 

“I love you too.”

I sprinted out of his sight to get dressed. 

Tristan offered to drive me to the restaurant. He teased me for a while before I got out of the car and left for the kitchen where Mrs. Anderson, Sherri, and a few workers were busy doing one thing or the other. 

“Wow. You’re finally back! I can’t believe I haven't seen you in almost two days.” Sherri beamed, pulling me into a hug. 

“It’s great you're here. The workload has been way more crazy for only the two of us. We’ve begun training the cooks, but your magic is still missing and hence rendering the training irrelevant.” 

“Aw. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t control it.” 

“I hope you’re fine now? I figured out you were at the hospital?” Sherri questioned. 

“Yes, and I'm fine now. Thank you!”

The day went by pretty slowly. There were even more customers which meant more work for us. The training of the cooks was better and they were learning pretty fast on the correct measurement to perfection. 

I had to deal with a few issues at the hotel and had to rearrange the budget for the month on these three sections.

When the day was over and the workload reduced, we decided to have dinner together from one of the best meals on the menu, chatting about the day's work and other fun discussions. 

“If you continue eating like that, you'll be way fatter before you remarry,” Mrs. Anderson teased Sherri. 

“I don’t mind at all.” She laughed, gulping down half of the content in the glass of grape juice. “I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast.”

“Me neither. I hope there's nothing else to do. I'm too tired and need to return home on time.” 

“Ouu, someone can't wait to meet her prince charming again.” Sherri waggled her eyebrows, nudging me with her elbow. 

I rolled my eyes at her, feeling my cheeks turn crimson. 

About halfway through my meal, a worker interrupted us with a bow of her head. 

“I’m sorry to disturb you Mrs. Hendrix, but someone is here to see you. I tried to let her know you were on your break and we'll close for the day, but she acted really violently and said she was going to destroy things if she didn't see you. I called the security on her, but she claims to be a friend.”

“A friend?” I raised an eyebrow. 

“Yes ma’am.”

“Okay? I’ll be there soon.”

“Great!”

After gulping a glass of water in one drought, I followed her to meet the so-called friend. 

We stopped walking and my eyes locked with Indy’s anger-filled sky blue eyes. “You! Did you ask them to be this rude to me?” She barked, storming towards me. “You definitely didn't listen to me last time because I was nice. Now I’m gonna be crazy about what I want.”