Perfect for Me by Claudia Burgoa

Chapter Thirty-Four

Hazel

“Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.” ― Pablo Neruda

“I make mistakes.”He clears his throat. “Often.”

Stretching my neck and standing on my tiptoes, I kiss his jaw. “And you own up to them gracefully when I point them out, Mr. Everhart. But what does that have to do with our conversation?”

“Well, you might help me decide if I made a mistake or not,” he says, fighting with the pins holding my hair up until it finally falls on my shoulders.

“You asked me once if I saw us having more than weekend trips and impromptu escapades.”

I hold my breath, staring at him. My heart stops, and all my senses focus on Scott as I wait for his next words.

“I let my fear lead my decisions. The demons of my past have always reminded me that there’s Elliot. That one day, he’d come back, and you’d choose him over me.”

“That’s insane. Why would you think that?”

He lowers his chin, looking at the floor as he rubs the back of his neck. “That time when we were in Brazil visiting your parents, you spent hours with him on the phone. I was there, next to you, and you chose him. When your mother died, I was next to you. You called him.”

“Brazil happened so long ago,” I protest.

Willow and I went to reach out to our parents. Within the first ten minutes, they disappeared on us again. After a few days, Dad came back, explaining that our mother was mentally unstable. That he had left his life and young daughters to help his wife.

“If you recall, I spent a long time with you,” I refresh his memory. “We talked about future projects and vacations.”

We planned, even when he likes spontaneous trips. He kept my mind busy, and once I felt strong enough, I called Elliot.

“When your mom died?”

“I spent the night with you,” I refute.

“You called him.” His tone strangled, his eyes widening, those thick brows furrowed.

“So?”

“I thought if I finally offered you more, Elliot would appear one day, and you’d leave me for him.” His voice is a mixture of rage and despair. It’s that tone that’s always present when he’s hurt, but anchors himself to anger. “Your heart belonged to him for so long that…”

“Those times when you and your brothers laugh because of something that happened years ago?” I use a low voice.

He narrows his gaze, listening.

“When you share an inside joke that only the four of you get, and I laugh because…well, it sounds like it’s supposed to be funny.” I half shrug. “Honestly, I’m just laughing, but I don’t get the inside joke because I wasn’t there.”

“It’s the same. Elliot was there. He’d understand those emotions more than anyone, even Willow,” I explain, sighing. “He held my hand all those times I saw my parents leaving. Elliot was by my side the day Willow packed up and left to find her dream in New York. You can sympathize with my stories, but he lived them. That’s why I called.”

“Then I was wrong?” Scott asks.

“About?”

“It doesn’t matter because Elliot is back. If I ask you right now to choose between the two of us, what would you say?”

I shake my head, releasing an uncontrollable laugh. The hysteria behind it is the culmination of everything that’s happened over the past several weeks. Every day that has passed since I arrived in San Francisco feels like a year, a long dreadful year.

“What is there to choose, Scott?”

I wave my hand before he speaks. “Better yet, what are you offering? You’re buying a house, moving into my new offices. You’re planning on relocating a company that has been in Manhattan for over sixty years. Yet you haven’t told me why you’re doing it.”

“Because I want to get back together with you,” he speaks, marching closer to me. “I want to recover what we had.”

“What did we have?” I move toward the window, keeping a safe distance from him.

My heart pounds hard against my chest as anger and confusion fuse into one emotion I can’t name, but it’s cutting off my air supply. All these words seem on point, but too little and too late. I want to grab them all and cherish them, or shred them altogether.

“Before you asked me where I saw the two of us going? We had an untitled relationship. There were no tags, but we enjoyed being with each other,” he says.

“Nobody knew about it because just the thought of telling anyone freaked you out,” I remind him of what we had. “Everything happened outside Manhattan. You’d rather drive to Jersey for a quickie than go to my apartment.”

“That was exciting. I thought you were the one who wanted no one to see us. With the whole, ‘I’d hate it if anyone makes voodoo dolls for snatching the last Everhart’ thing,” he counters. “And please, don’t forget what you said at the beginning of this. ‘I love second chance stories. The hero always comes back to the heroine with a big gesture. Both realize that they’re a match made in heaven.’”

“The Keys…” I sigh.

My stomach drops because I know precisely when I said it. We had taken the week off and traveled to Florida to spend the anniversary of his parents’ death away from New York. It’s never a good day, but when he’s away from home, the pain is more bearable for him. It was after Luna called telling me that Harrison was having a bad day. He had seen his ex-girlfriend outside the 9/11 memorial. Along with her was Harrison’s former best friend and the guy she cheated on him with.

“I said Harrison is the exception to a second chance story,” I try to recall almost the same words, but it’s been so long I can’t bring them exactly the way they were. “Harrison and Ileana will never experience it. But those stories are the best.”

“Like yours, with Elliot.”

“That’s why you were drunk and insisted we leave?”

“Yes, I thought after that day, maybe you would look for him.”

“I thought you wanted to be away from Harrison.” I swallow the tears forming down my throat. “Due to the fragility of the situation, I found the best ways to hide us.”

“Harrison and Luna had joined us several times, but I know that I let you think that way.”

I scrunch my nose and ask some of the questions I’ve accumulated since we started. “Would you have chosen your family before me?”

He tilts his head, grimacing at me. “Why do I have to choose?”

“Why did you break up with your high school sweetheart?” I throw out the rhetorical question.

“She was a heartless bitch who wanted me to send Hunter to a mental institution,” he responds, hunching and shaking his head.

I touch my chest gasping. Anger spirals from the pit of my stomach. I’d known she didn’t want to deal with Hunter’s anxiety and agoraphobia, but I hadn’t known about her wishing to institutionalize him.

“He was a twelve-year-old boy who lost his parents and needed love,” I counter, wanting to find that woman, and ...what could I do to her?

“Her plans never included living with my mentally challenged brother—that’s what she called him.” His gaze holds mine for a moment before it moves away toward the sound system. Turning around, he changes the playlist and lowers the volume.

“Hunt needed time to grieve and his family’s love. I tried to reason with her, but she asked me to choose.”

Scott spins around. In three long steps, he’s right in front of me. “What would you have done if Hunter was still living in his room?”

“Bring Willow to him?” I smile.

I’d known for so long that those two would be perfect together. Just like the day I interviewed Luna for a job and when I saw her background check. I knew that she and Harrison were meant for each other.

He brings his index finger to my face, tracing my cheek with the back of it. Then my nose, my lips, and finally, he leans forward to place a chaste kiss on my tingling mouth.

“You would’ve helped him get better. The same way you helped Elliot with his family.”

Drawing his brows closer, he exhales. “The day I learned that all those years working so hard had been to support another family, I fell even more in love with you.”

“In love?” I inhale sharply. My eyes open wide at the words he professed.

“Since you walked in behind your grandfather, who needed me to help you with your summer assignment.” He cups my face. “You wore a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and your beautiful, wide eyes looked at me hopeful yet frightened. Once he left, you said, ‘I don’t have summer homework. Grandpa gave me a job, but I’ve never worked in an office.’”

“‘Have you ever worked?’ I asked you. You nodded, telling me all about the diner—from the owners to the moment they hired you, and everything you did there. That enthusiasm you had going was contagious. Every day you came to my office to learn something new, you brought me treats. Then you learned about Mom’s cookies and baked them for me. I looked forward to seeing you every day. When school started, I expected to see you on the weekends. I was falling so hard, so fast, but you were eighteen. I was twenty-seven. It seemed a little fucked up right then to say anything. I thought my feelings would go away…but they only intensified.”

“Is that why you gave me those special projects with all those notes to call you after I’ve ended each step?”

He tilts his head lightly, mouthing a, “Yes.” Everything makes sense. Willow was right. Scott drops everything for me.

“I waited for the right moment…” He pauses, turning his head toward one of the bookcases and smiling at the picture of our family. “My goal was to talk to you after you graduated. But…I found out about Elliot. I gave you time, you divorced, and then, Willow happened. She needed you. You and Hunter needed me. I waited more, but when we got together, I saw his shadow right behind us. Elliot held your heart. Will you ever claim it back?”

He shortened Willow’s story into two words. But it was so much more complicated. The day my sister knocked on the door asking for help was a game changer. I struggled with my depression, and she was sucking the little energy I had in me. I don’t blame her. She was sick and needed her person—me.

Thank God Scott was there for me. Flying with me to school to make sure I wouldn’t skip, and picking me up when I wanted to stay behind and forget I had a Willow. One night he was at my door, his face etched with worry and his arms opened. Willow had tried to commit suicide. He never left my side. When we arrived at the hospital, he remained close enough, watching me. I wanted to kiss him that day, but I fought it.

“The thought of you leaving me the way he did, frightened me so much that I tried to please you, do things the way I assumed you wanted them. Hiding our relationship, just keeping it light,” I confess, my voice is almost lost. “I didn’t want to open my heart to anyone, but I opened it to you.”

“I didn’t want to hide us—or to keep it light,” he growls, walking around the living room. Then stopping in front of me. “Did I make a mistake?”

These words are beautiful and confusing. I want him to leave and take all his stories, our past, and his regrets with him. His mistakes are mine too. I have no idea what to say or do now. All the oxygen in the room has been replaced with an infinite amount of dread and confusion.

My heart is being pulled apart.

“Should I have acted years ago and hope he’d never come back?”

Closing my eyes, I shut down everything, and think just about Elliot. My heart reacted to him the moment I saw him. My body remembers him. My heart loves him. Opening my eyes, I see Scott. The mere thought of having to choose constricts my chest and tightens my stomach into a big knot.

The one truth is that I have feelings for both of them. I just don’t know who I love, and who I’m in love with.

“There’s no way to know if what you did was smart or not. Today, I have questions and doubts. Elliot wants us to start again. This time he’ll be mindful of my heart. We were both kids when everything happened. We both made mistakes.”

“You’re giving him a chance,” he states.

My heart beats fast and loud with his questions and the implication of what could happen.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t have a plan?” His voice sounds as lost as his eyes.

“No. If you ask me to choose today, I can’t. You hurt me too. I told you up front that I wanted more, and you said...”

“I said that you and I couldn’t be more. That with time, you’d understand me,” he answers, his voice is flat. “‘I’m happy the way things are between us. Honestly, I can’t see this going any further—’”

“Not with me,” I finish the sentence.

“That’s not what I meant to say,” he growls, shoving a hand through his hair. “I should’ve finished the phrase. Tell you that ‘not as long as you’re still in love with Elliot.’”

“But I wasn’t,” I spit the three words, angry at his assumptions. “You decided that I was and never asked me about it.”

“Because I was afraid of the answer.”

“Well, I heard, ‘you’re not enough, Hazel.’” I suck my bottom lip. “And you did it again when the chance of moving to San Francisco landed on my desk. What did you say?”

“That New York was home, but if you had to look for something different, I wouldn’t stop you.”

“Maybe I wanted you to stop me or give me alternatives. Not for you to tell me good luck, bon voyage. I wanted you to choose me,” I say, rubbing my arms. My pulse speeds up from a combination of anger and frustration. “To be enough for you. To be the most important person in your world.”

“I’ve always chosen you above everyone.” His voice resonates through the walls. “You’re more than enough. You’re everything to me. I am here.”

He shoves back his hair. “I’m uprooting my life for you. Because I fucking love you, Hazel. I’m in love with you.”

I fucking love you.

My heart squeezes a little, yet it’s full of life. My cheeks heat as I repeat those words in my head. He loves me.

“I fucked up, Hazel. But never, never doubt my feelings for you. I’m in love with your heart, your beauty, your struggles, the silent sadness, your dreams. Your wounded heart, your love for sunsets. The need to watch the sunrise even on Sunday mornings. I love your enthusiasm when I propose to have the adventure of a lifetime on the weekends. You let your guard down and feel safe with me.”

His eyes are pleading with me to say something, but I am catching his words. They are like fluttering butterflies that one can see only once in a lifetime.

“I love the way you care for everyone around you while pretending you’re just micromanaging them.”

“Shh.” I press my index finger lightly to his lips. “That’s a secret.”

He kisses my finger. “What do I do now?”

“About?” I stare at him, not understanding his question.

“Remember you said that one day I’d fall in love, and she’d become my oxygen, and my skin will only feel alive with her touch?”

I suck on my lip as I nod. I take on his words, his face, and his desperation. My stomach sinks as I detect the tone of a wounded man asking for help, for someone to reach for him and save him from the agony. That person is usually me, but tonight, I might not be of much help.

“That’s you. That woman is you. I’d do anything and everything for you; for just one touch, for an infinite number of kisses and love.”

“Why wouldn’t you say this months ago?”

“Because my fear got in the way. What if Elliot had come into the picture later? He still owns a part of you.” His voice is loud. He walks toward the dining room, away from me.

His insecurities are like sharp nails scratching my insides, becoming my own.

“He’ll always own a small piece of my heart,” I retort, matching his loud voice, upset with both him and Elliot.

Most of all, I’m angry with myself for being in the middle of something I never wanted. For having the love I wished I had and not knowing what to do with it.

“I want a big family, a dog…trips, smiles, and a house that smells like chocolate chip cookies,” he says. “Because of you. Only with you, Hazel. And what do I do with all that? You made me want it, and now we can’t have it.” He pauses, exhaling. “Or can we?”

“I can’t answer that. My heart is inside a mixer being pushed around the bowl with your emotions and Elliot’s.” I pull my shoulder back and lift my chin. “You’ll have to live with that for now. You and Elliot will wait until the hurricane stops, and I can pick up the pieces of what’s left and analyze what’s inside my heart.”

“Well, you have my heart.” He exhales, his shoulders sag. “I have hope that one day you’ll hand me yours.”

“Me too,” I answer weakly. “Once upon a time, I imagined us growing old and having children and grandchildren. I saw us driving up to Vermont with our kids and the dog for a weekend away from the madness.”

“What do you imagine now?” He brings me back from mulling over what happened only a few months ago.

“Getting in bed and never coming out because I don’t want to deal with this reality. I’m a people pleaser, just like you. Try to please two men I care for at the same time is impossible.”

“To plead my case, I will remind you he doesn’t know you the way I do.”

“Now you’re an expert on all things Hazel?” I arch an eyebrow, crossing my arms.

“He has no idea that while you’re dressed in some designer suit at work, you’d rather be wearing a pair of distressed jeans and an old shirt. Without shoes. He doesn’t know you’d rather cuddle under the blankets with a book and my arms around you than being at a gala. Yet you looked like you enjoyed yourself and met tons of people who will be happy to accept an invitation or will donate to whatever you organize for a good cause. That you have a big heart but pretend to hate the world. That you spend most of your Sunday mornings at the shelter listening to teenagers who need someone to show them they aren’t alone—or at the soup kitchen serving meals until dinnertime.

“You accommodate everyone to get a little love back. That your biggest fear is to be alone, but you like to have some alone time. If he knew that, he wouldn’t have treated you the way he did. Only I know how to please you.”

Scott taps his head and his heart. “It’s not only about your body.”

“I’m here because I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Hazel Beesley. If you want us to move across the country, then we will. There’s a house under your name with seven bedrooms, a big backyard, and a beautiful view not too far from here. Today I made an offer to my brothers to buy my parents’ penthouse in case you decide we should live in New York. And your grandfather is searching for a brownstone in Brooklyn, just in case you prefer to live in a house. But those are extras. I just want us to be together.”

He takes a deep breath. “Your heart next to mine.”

A part of me wants to beg him to shut up. The other part wishes to hear more, so much more and to say yes to him. I stop, remembering that Scott doesn’t buy just because. He analyzes, chooses, compares. Then he comes to me for advice.

“How long have you been researching houses in San Francisco?”

“Since the day you announced your big move,” he whispers hoarsely, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “You didn’t think I would follow?”

“Scott,” I whisper his name. How did we get here? My heart thumping against my chest. This is so messed up, and I have to fix it—for me. “The last person I ever want to hurt in this world is you. But—”

“You’re confused,” he finishes for me. “You’re also upset, tired, and in the mood to eat a tub of raw cookie dough.”

“Something like that.” Marching close to him, I place my hands on his cheeks and pull him to me to touch his lips with mine. “You’re the best guy ever. Any woman would be lucky to have you and that big heart of yours. And I’m pretty sure that saying this will sound stupid and hurt a lot.”

“Please, Hazel. Don’t do this.”

“I have to, Scotty. Please, give me time.”

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Time, that’s all you need?”

I hold myself as the pain in his eyes is a blow to my chest. The full force of his emotions hurts more than anything I’ve experienced.

“We’re not over?” His voice cracks a little.

“Yes. Feeling so strong about you and Elliot is wrong. How can I love two people? Do I even love either one of you? I have to give him a chance. I owe it to him.”

His head snaps, and his eyes burn with rage.

“You don’t owe that fucker anything, Hazel.” His face turns red, but his voice is flat. “After everything you did for him, the least he could’ve done is dragged his ass to New York and beg for your forgiveness.”

With those words, he leaves my apartment.