#openhazelstarters

Hazel was sitting up in her hospital bed. Her bruises hurt and stung but her heart hurt even more. She might be away from her mom and dad and in a hospital but she didn’t feel any less unsafe.

The nurses had taken care of her but they wouldn’t speak to her. They didn’t comfort her. She felt so alone. She missed her mom and dad and she didn’t know why, since they were why she was here.

Hazel slowly unfolded and stretched out her wings to look at them, letting out a whimper as her right wing her dad had tugged throbbed in pain. A few feathers fell away. Her pretty white wings she normally took pride in had bald patches in some places. Her feathers had started falling out in places since her mom and dad had begun hitting her more and more often.

Are my wings really why my mom and dad don’t love me? Hazel wondered. Are my wings stopping my wish from coming true? She loved her wings. She had always loved her wings, thinking her wings made her look like a little angel. But if she didn’t have her wings, would she be loved? Or if she hadn’t stopped growing up, would her mom and dad love her? 

She thought of how she’d heard the doctor say how her birth date meant she was twelve but she was still nine. She’d been so confused hearing that. She was supposed to be twelve? She wasn’t allowed to go to school and never had her birthday celebrated so Hazel hadn’t even really known how old she was supposed to be. She didn’t even know what day her birthday was - her mom and dad got angry if she tried to ask. She’d tried to ask the doctor, but he’d ignored her.

Did her mom and dad really not love her because of her wings and how she’d stopped growing up? Or am I just unlovable? Tears started to fall down her cheeks. She raised her hand and first moved some of her long messy tangled hair out of her face and then rubbed at her eyes and whimpered as the rubbing hurt her eye bruise.

A nurse suddenly came in and hope flared for a moment. Maybe she’s come to comfort me, to hug me… But the nurse would not look at her. “A man has come to see you,” she said coldy. A man? Hazel felt confused. Her dad? Fear and hope filled her because she missed him but feared him. She just didn’t want to be hurt anymore. She grabbed the pillow and clutched it to her chest, leaving her wings open because they hurt too much to fold. As she waited for the man to come, she held it even tighter and a few more feathers fell away…

I can’t go back. I can’t ever go back. Hazel thought. Tears stung in her eyes. She had snuck out at night and run away, to hurt to fly but she could run and she had run and run and run.

Her wish to be loved would never ever come true now. And that hurt even more than her wing and bruises. She started to cry as she looked up at the starry night sky, wondering why her shooting star wish hadn’t come true. The wind blew some of her feathers into the air and she caught one, thinking about how when she’d woken up that day with her wings she had been sure her mom and dad would see them and love her, sure they had been a gift to make her wish come true. But they hadn’t been a gift. Nothing could make her loveable. Nothing.

If I went to Heaven and came back as an angel, that must mean God is giving me another chance at my wish!

Hazel thought with her white wings unfurled as she stood in the soft sand of Arcadia Bay’s beach, looking up at all the sparkling stars in the night sky and listening to the waves and watching the light from the light house make the ocean sparkle. 

She had woken up in the morning in her soft purple nightgown in a pretty flowerbed under Arcadia Bay trees. She had woken up with wings.

She had been so shocked and amazed. Wings she had wings! She had angel wings! How could that be? And how had she gotten out here in this flowerbed she had wondered. The last place she could remember being was in her bedroom.

But then memories had trickled in. Memories of being hurt really badly, memories of pain and everything going dark.

She had slowly put things together as she had flown to the beach (flying had been so amazing and so wonderful!) If she had angel wings, that must mean she was an angel. Angels are from heaven. Which meant she must have been so hurt she went to Heaven and then came back as an angel.

She was certain as she stared at the stars now that she was being given another chance at her wish.

Tears filled her eyes though as she thought of her mommy and daddy and how they had hurt her last night. She could not go back. But if she had been sent back as Angel that must mean God thought she could be loved somewhere.

But where?

She stared out at Arcadia Bay’s beautiful ocean. Since it was night time moonlight lit up the water and made it look so beautiful and shimmery and made the sand glitter prettily. She could see the stars reflected in the water and she looked from the water up into the starry night sky.

Tears started to pool in her eyes.

“Why wouldn’t you make my wish come true stars? I made it on a shooting star. Shooting star wishes are supposed to come true, so why didn’t you make my wish come true?” She asked as the tears began to slide down her cheeks. 

Why wouldn’t my mom and dad love me? Was my wish to be loved an impossible wish for the stars to make true because I’m just unlovable? Or do the stars just not want to help me?

Can I do this? Should I do this?

Her mom and dad had told her many times she was not allowed to tell anyone how they hit her. She was not allowed to tell, she even had to wear sweaters like the purple one she was wearing now to hide her bruises because not only could she not tell she could not show.

If she told and showed they would be so mad. They would want to hurt her more.

I should… I should go back home…

But Hazel couldn’t bring herself to turn away. She didn’t want to be hurt anymore. She wanted to be loved. She wanted her wish to come true. Maybe the police could help stop her parents from hurting her. Maybe they could even help her figure out how to make them love her or maybe convince them they should love her and be good parents. Maybe.

Hazel took some more big deep breaths and telling herself to be as brave as Hermione Granger she walked up the steps and pushed the door of the police station open.

Hazel was locked in her dreams, locked in her nightmares reliving terrible memories. She was back at home with her mommy and daddy in the living room, her mommy and daddy screaming at her and then suddenly her mommy was hitting her and then her daddy was hitting her and she was crying and sobbing…

Hazel was suddenly not in her living room anymore being hit but alone in her bedroom in the window seat, staring at the stars. “Why haven’t you come true wish?” She asked the stars, tears in her eyes. “I made my wish on a wishing star so long ago and it still hasn’t come true. Did I make an impossible wish? Will my wish to be loved never come true?” She began crying, knowing it never would. She had made a impossible wish. There was no hope…

And then suddenly Hazel had her wings, she was in her bedroom standing in front of her parents, hopefully showing her white wings to them, hoping maybe they would think she looked like an angel and maybe make her wish come true at last… but they started shouting at her, calling her a freak, her daddy grabbed her wing and tugged it and it hurt and she cried out and her mommy shouted that her daughter was a freak. They started hurting her more as she wailed and cried and sobbed.

Hazel screamed as the womangrabbed her. The angel teddy bear fell from her hands and onto the floor. She cried out in pain as the woman shoved her down against the table. The woman then started shouting at her for taking the angel bear.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She cried. “I just wanted to hold it!” She hadn’t thought taking the little angel bear stuffed animal would be so bad. She had went into a room and found it on a bed.  She had just wanted to cuddle it. She didn’t know what to do now, she could only think of apologizing like she would have done with her daddy and mommy when they were mad at her. But saying I was sorry never helped or stopped them from hurting me. And they sent me away to this place because I couldn’t do anything right and they didn’t love me anymore.

“Sorry is not good enough!” The woman told her angrily. “Do you know what we do to people who take things that don’t belong to them here? They’re punished.” Hazel trembled and started to cry. She had been punished before. She didn’t want to be punished again. She looked at the angel teddy bear on the floor. She wished she could hold it when she was being punished. She wished she could ask but she knew better. She was in trouble for taking it. Of course they wouldn’t let her hold it. Still, her eyes were glued to the bear.

She hated this place. She hated how they made her take a pill everyday that made her sleepy and unable to use magic. The pill always made her fall asleep and when she woke up she felt strange and unfocused. She had been punished the first day when she had refused to take the pill. A man had hit her with his belt and then held her down while a woman forced her to swallow the pill.

She was just a kid so she didn’t know how to use her magic really but she had known how to do a few spells her grandmother had taught her that were fun and silly – like making feathers float or using magic to guide little animals like birds to her hand. She wished she could use magic to do that. Maybe she could open a window and make a bird be her friend and not feel so alone in here. But with how they gave her pills everyday she might never be able to use magic again. She wished her grandmother hadn’t died. She had been nice to her. She had loved her. She had been the only one to love her. She never would have let her be sent here. Her parents hadn’t loved her and sent her to this scary place where the people taking care of them were mean and the other witches strange and scary.

Since she had been punished she had taken the pill every time without fuss. She did as she was told. She shut her tear filled eyes, trying to get ready for the pain. She deserved it for being bad. Once it was over she’d get the medicine to go to sleep… She kind of liked the medicine in a way. She was given it a lot (like sometimes when she started crying because she was sad someone would come and give her a pill to shut her up as they said) and it took the sadness of missing her mommy and daddy and being unloved away and let her get lost in dreams. When she was sleeping she could dream and when she dreamed she was free…

Hazel snuggled herself up against the bars of her cage. Her wings were a little cramped, but was used to it by now. The cage had a soft pink blanket on the bottom, so she had something soft to sit on. In her arms cradled to her chest she held her little angel winged bear she had named Angel. Angel had been given to her by one of the lab people here. She didn’t know his name – she didn’t get told their names. But the man was kind to her. He had given her this bear and allowed her to keep it, even in her cage. Angel made her feel less alone in her cage.

Go to sleep. She told herself. There was no point staying awake. She wanted to sleep. If she slept she could dream. Dreaming was being free. When she dreamed she was not in a cage. When she dreamed she was not being given needles or hit or hurt. When she dreamed she was flying free in the sky with the birds. She was free and happy. Dreaming had become almost addicting to her because of how it made her feel.

She shut her eyes. Held Angel a little tighter. Moved her wings a tiny bit, trying to get as comfortable as she could. Soon she found herself drifting off to sleep and into the land of dreams. In her dream she was in the sky in the clouds. She held her bear Angel in her hands. “Where should we go Angel?” She asked her bear and Angel told her they should go fly to the rainbow that was now in the sky. The rainbow was so beautiful and Hazel flew toward it, reaching out to touch the pretty rainbow. There are so many beautiful colors in the rainbow. She thought. It feels peaceful and safe.

Outside her dream in her cage a tiny smile appeared on her face.