Once, I found her old freshman-year journals hidden behind a row of paperbacks. Names of girls. Names of boys. Cruel little sentences in her round handwriting, the kind of words you write only because you cannot speak them aloud.
I put the journal back exactly where it had been.
That spring, prom invitations began arriving in other girls’ mailboxes. I saw the photos their mothers posted online, daughters in pale dresses holding flowers.
I knocked on Hazel’s door.
“Sweetheart. Prom is in three weeks.”
“I’m not going, Mom.”
“Mason wanted you to go.”
She stayed silent for a long while. Then the bed creaked, footsteps crossed the room, and the door opened one narrow inch.
“Mason wanted a lot of things.”
“He wanted you in a dress, dancing and laughing,” I said. “He told me that.”
“Mom.”
“Just try on one. One dress. If you hate it, we leave and never mention it again. Deal?”
