8. Violet
EIGHT
VIOLET
Violet: What did you tell her?
Olive: That you haven’t budged. I know things are screwed up right now, but you can’t spend the holiday alone.
Violet: I’ll be fine.
Olive: I won’t allow it.
Violet: Who are you? The Christmas police?
Olive: No, but maybe I should be if it means you’ll spend it with your favorite sister.
Violet: I’d never ignore you on your most favorite day of the year, Olive Garden.
Olive: Deep down, I know that, but you can’t ignore our parents forever, Vi.
Classes are demanding as ever with finals and holiday break around the corner. Olive has messaged me countless times asking what my plans are for break, but I’ve been telling her that I don’t know, and it’s the truth. My brain swings between exams, working at the daycare, and Colson. I haven’t had the energy to figure out the dysfunctional shit that’s going on with my parents. Not when I’m trying to keep my grades above average, so I have a better chance at securing a solid teaching position after graduation.
While I may understand it a teensy more than I did back at Thanksgiving, I’m still not equipped to handle my dad’s cheating full on or the obtuse understanding my mom has regarding it. Not when my heart is in shambles. Not when my boyfriend just lost his mom and is spiraling so far that he broke up with me and walked out. He also isn’t answering anyone’s phone calls.
It’s been days since the Second Chances fundraiser. Some moments it feels like it was yesterday. I barely knew Janie, only what Colson shared and the glimpses I saw when I stayed with him in Harrison Heights, but I’m grieving her death for her son’s sake, flipping back and forth between sadness and desperation. Denial and acceptance.
I’m so unbelievably broken-hearted for Colson, but I’m also scaling a mountain of my own.
I’ve called his cell every morning, and it’s the last thing I do before I close my eyes at the end of the day. My phone stopped giving me the option to leave a voicemail two nights ago. The automated voice that tells me his inbox is full is like a fist around my heart, squeezing tight enough to convince me not to call again.
I shouldn’t, considering we’re no longer a couple, but I can’t help myself.
It only makes it seem as if what we had was nothing. In some moments, I want to hate him for it, but I realize that’s the selfish, desperate part of me talking. I know I’m only feeling this way for one reason, though I’m not sure I have the right to with what he’s going through. His grief blows mine out of the water.
I pull my jacket tighter around my torso and wait for Sebastian near the Mathematics and Statistics building. We’ve been in lectures all day but happen to have the same forty-five minute break in the afternoon. He agreed to meet up with me and brief me on what went down when he saw Colson this morning.
I know he’s hiding away at the house in Harrison Heights because Sebastian crossed the river in search of the one place he was pretty sure he’d be the other day.
My friend pushes out of the building with his backpack hanging off one shoulder and held close to his chest. There’s a piece of paper in his mouth that he shoves inside of it once he gets a zipper open. He spots me and smiles. I give him the best one I can muster back.
He jogs down the set of steps and pulls me into a hug. They’re no longer as quick as they used to be. Like when we were at Fletcher’s party and he pulled back quickly with a lovable smile spread across his handsome face and a teasing tone in his voice.
He watched me falter at the hospital then break down when Colson left. He and Everleigh have talked more sense into me these last few days than ever. It’s reassuring to have them there, especially when there was a lot more distance between us all at the start of the semester.
“It’s like a fucking freezer out here,” he complains, referring to the way the cold has snuck up on us. “Have you been waiting long?”
I shiver against Georgia’s cooler winter temps. “No, actually. I had to walk over from the Education building and just got here.”
He pulls away and leans down into my line of sight to get a better look at my face. “You doing okay today?”
I lift my hand, motioning so-so as I step back, then start in the direction of the coffee spot on campus we agreed on earlier this morning. “Yes and no.”
The quad is just as busy as it is any other morning. At this time of year, students chat amongst themselves while lingering by park benches rather than the grassy areas. We skirt around an artistic bunch who have their easels out and paints scattered across the large wooden slats of the bench like it's a worktable. A guy’s shout ricochets off the thick tree trunks, pulling my gaze up from the pavement as we walk.
“You want to elaborate on that?”
I shrug a shoulder, trying to make it seem like it isn’t all that big of a deal, but we both know better. “I miss him, Sebastian. So much that it feels like it’s slowly killing me.”
“I know, Vi. It fucking sucks. I hate seeing him like this and knowing that he has pulled away so much in such a short amount of time. It’s like he’s back to the same angry kid he was when we were teenagers.”
As I listen to him, my gaze catches on a familiar head of blonde hair swishing in the breeze farther up the quad. I settle on the broad shoulders of Fletcher and Nelson on either side of the girl whose hair has a mind of its own. Even from behind, it’s not hard to point out two of the most popular football players at Chatham U. Since Sylvia has been spending a lot of time with them, I’ve noticed them around more than usual.
I squint, bothered that, even from afar, she looks as if she’s pushing herself too hard. Like she’s not sleeping enough and running her body into the ground. And not from studying, no, but from partying and keeping up with the football team. And then I see another familiar face.
“Is that Tristan?” I ask Sebastian, interrupting our conversation about Colson.
“Huh?”
I point to where Sylvia and the guys stand on a grassy patch underneath a tree. One of the guys launches a football above his head, sending it into the perfect spiral before it falls back into his hands. “Over there. Sylvia is with them.”
“Oh, yeah. Look at that,” he remarks, taking in the scene around them before verifying what my eyes see. “Yeah, I guess that is him. He’s always been big on hanging out with the football guys. You know that.”
“Yeah, but since when are those guys Fletcher and Nelson?”
Sebastian scratches the back of his neck as a student whizzes past on a skateboard. “Honestly, Everleigh breaking up with him is kinda hitting him hard. Whenever I try to get the guys together as of late, he’s too busy or doesn’t answer my texts. Webber can even tell you he’s being kind of douchey.”
“She had every right to end things with him,” I mutter under my breath.
Sebastian’s hand smooths over my elbow. “Vi, you don’t need to convince me how messed up he treated her. Only a dumbass would look at her and turn the other direction. I don’t know what's been going through his head lately but if that’s what he wants to do with his time…if that’s what they ,” he reiterates, including Sylvia, “want to do, then we have to let them. Sometimes you have to let go even when you don’t want to.”
I take one last look at them and realize that I don’t have it in me to deal with that, anyhow. Sebastian is right. They should do whatever makes them happy, and I’m going to do the same, which is why I turn back to him and ask, “Tell me how he was when you saw him this morning?”
“Mostly the same as every other morning I’ve been there,” he offers, but I hear the reluctance in his tone.
“Did he say anything?”
“You know the deal. I show up and we sit in silence. I think that’s what he needs most right now. We can’t relate to him, and he knows that, so naturally, he doesn’t want to listen to a word anyone says.”
“Did he…” The question is on the tip of my tongue, and I know I shouldn’t ask, but my heart can’t help itself. “Did he mention me?”
“I wish I had a better answer for you,” Sebastian says. “Give him time, and he’ll come around. His head is too fogged up to see how much he’s fucking up. You’re going to be the first person he wants when he’s ready to let someone in.”
Two weeks ago, I would’ve believed that, and as much as I know deep down that Colson and I share this unexplainable connection, the heartbreak I’m facing tells me differently. My biggest fear is that my time with him has already come to an end, that he won’t come to his senses, and if I chase after him, he’ll continue to push me out of the way until I have nothing left in me.
No energy to keep fighting.
I don’t relay my thoughts to Sebastian.
We follow the trail to the campus’s most loved coffee spot and change to a lighter subject. All the while I wish I were with Colson. I wish Janie was still alive. And most importantly, I wish my heart didn’t feel as though it was going through a meat grinder on the slowest setting possible.
“Screw this.”
I can’t take it anymore and slam my textbook closed. Focusing on my study notes for my upcoming exam on early childhood teaching methods is impossible. As soon as the information hits my brain, it floats away as if I never read it. Nothing is sticking, and it’s all because my mind is focused on one thing.
Seeing Colson.
Getting updates from Sebastian isn’t enough, and I know it’d be best if I stay away, but it has been days, and I won’t do it any longer.
I can’t.
I tug on a pair of black leggings and a loose shirt before slipping my jacket on. I pull my hair back in a ponytail, and I don’t even care about the pimple that’s on my chin or the smeared mascara under my lashes. I rush down the hallway, glad not to run into anyone until I make it to the kitchen for a bottle of water and spot Everleigh. She’s been home a lot more since she broke up with Tristan, and honestly, I’m still getting used to it.
Her eyebrows stretch up her forehead as she pops a chip into her mouth. She has a clipped stack of papers on the counter next to her and her favorite editing pen with a frilly feather on the end of it. “Where are you going dressed like an assassin in the night?”
I glance down at my attire, noticing that I am, indeed, dressed in all black. Whatever. It doesn’t make a difference. My pulse beats wildly regardless of the color of my clothes.
Clearing my throat and trying to sound as confident as possible, I announce, “I’m going to see him.”
Concern flashes over her features. “This late? And are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Good idea or not, I need to see him, Ev.”
She wipes the chip crumbs off on her leg. “I thought space was good right now.”
I throw my arms up in the air out of exasperation. “He doesn’t have anybody, Everleigh! Everyone is leaving him alone. Respecting his want for space when he needs someone there the most. And I know I originally agreed with that, but I was okay with it for, like, an hour. Not days.”
“I hear you, and I say, if it feels right then go make sure he knows you’re there for him, but also…be careful.”
“Colson would never hurt me,” I assure her.
“That’s not why I said it.” She moves toward the foyer and digs a can of Mace out of her bag before slapping it into my palm. “You’re going to Harrison Heights at nearly ten o’clock at night. You don’t know what you'll bump into there.”
I nod and take it, grateful she’s not trying to convince me to stay. “Thank you. For the Mace and being there for me when you’d probably rather be editing whatever manuscript you’re working on now.”
“That’s what friends are for, Violet. Besides, I needed a little bit of a break. Let me know how it goes?”
“I will,” I promise, then I’m out our apartment door, riding the elevator down and hopping into my car. I use my memory to navigate over the river and onto his mom’s street. It takes me three times, but I finally get it and pull up to the curb with a heaving chest.
The house is darker than what I’m used to, which isn’t much since I’ve only been here one other time. I came all this way, and it’d feel wrong to give up without at least going in to see if he’s home. Besides, where else would he be?
I try his cell again before I get out of the car, hoping he’ll answer and make this a lot easier. He doesn’t, so I slip out and sprint to the front door. I realize I haven’t thought my plan through when I twist the doorknob and find it locked.
I look back out at the street and take in the streetlights barely brightening the night.
Why did I think I could just walk right in?
Because I’m too in my head, that’s why.
I just assumed that since his mom had the door unlocked in the past that he’d leave it the same way.
I think for a moment and find myself skipping down the front stoop to walk around the house. I try the back door—no luck—then resort to checking the windows with determination. The ones within reach, that is. The living room window is first but also locked. Then another window around the side. It doesn’t budge. I move around the corner of the house to try the next. For a second it seems like it’s going to budge but then catches on something. Probably rust. My best guess is that these windows haven’t been open since the house was built.
There’s only one left, but I already know my fate. I’m not getting into this house. Not tonight. I won’t be seeing Colson or have the chance to offer him my shoulder to cry on if he so chooses.
Toeing a big, heavy rock closer to the house so I can test the last latch, I try my best to get it to move, curling my fingers under the short ledge. Right when I think it might give, dead leaves crunch behind me. My heart beats up my throat, and I pull my hands away from the house to reach for the Mace that I stupidly left in the car.
A deep voice skips up my back and fills my ears. “What the hell are you doing?”
I end up putting too much weight on one side of my body when I turn to look over my shoulder and find Colson. My ankle rolls over the side of the rock, and I fall. Right into a flowerbed of dirt and stone. My elbow smacks into something hard, another rock perhaps, and pain blossoms around my ankle.
“Goddamnit, Violet,” Colson growls, as if it’s my fault he snuck up on me.
I’m a bucket of emotions that spills the second I tip over. I groan and try to right myself, but it almost feels like my arm is stuck under the weight of my body, and while I’m concerned about my throbbing ankle, I’m more focused on Colson crouching next to me, his frustration with me evident.
My eyes fill with big sloppy tears. I can’t get the words out that I’m okay. That my emotions have nothing to do with my fall and everything to do with seeing him. I try to mumble out a pathetic apology. Over what? Me trying to break into his mom’s house? The fact that he caught me?
He tucks his hands under my armpits and hoists me to my feet. “I can't believe you. You’re lucky I saw you before I went inside. Can you stand?”
I apply pressure on the ankle that rolled. It responds with an inflamed sensation that circles my joint. I hobble my weight over to my uninjured foot. “It hurts a bit.”
“Fuck.” He blows out a breath then says, “Okay, just lean on me. We’ll go slow and in through the back.”
I find a comfortable way to hold my foot up and do as he says. He turns into a human crutch as I limp beside him.
“Why are you here, anyway? I thought I made myself clear when I didn’t respond to your calls.”
Screw making things clear.
It was unfair for him to walk out on me with little explanation. To strip away my own voice when it came to us.
I wince when I shift my foot higher so it doesn’t snag on the concrete at the back patio. “I wanted to see you.”
What he doesn’t know is that I needed to.
“I haven’t answered your calls for a reason, Violet.” His voice is cold and lacking all the affection I’m used to. I decide I’ll do whatever I can to hear it again.
“If you would have answered your phone, I wouldn’t have felt the need to?—”
“Felt the need to what? Break into my house? You’re lucky the people in this neighborhood don’t give a shit about breaking and entering.”
He pulls keys out of his pocket and unlocks the back door. “Put your weight on the doorknob if you need to, then use the counter. I’ll pull a chair over for you to sit on long enough to check out your foot.”
The house is as dark as it seems from the outside until Colson flicks on the kitchen light and closes the door behind him. It’s a lot cleaner than last time, the countertops cleared off. There aren’t loads of dishes in the sink, either. I sit down when he drags a chair over and motions for me to sit.
“You gave me no other choice,” I tell him, swallowing my nerves. “You just…left.”
He yanks open the freezer door, shuffles a few things around, then pulls out a bag of mixed vegetables that are old enough for the label to be worn off. He kneels down in front of me and gently lifts my leg. I grimace when he twists my shoe off. His strong fingers curl around my foot, elation zooming through me at the contact. It’s barely anything, and his least favorite body part, but it doesn’t slow the butterflies that sweep low in my belly or take away from me wishing it were more.
He gently rotates my foot without looking up at me, checking the damage. “It’s not bruised, but a little swollen. Should be fine. Take the vegetables. You can ice it in your car.”
Is he serious?
I’m so taken aback, my scoff gets stuck somewhere in my body. “Ice it in my car?”
He stands tall and swipes his thumb over his nose. “That’s what I said.”
Tears threaten all over again. My words come out in a pitiful whisper. “Why are you being like this?”
“You know why.”
“Because your mom is gone? Because you don’t know how to deal with it? Let me be here for you, Colson. That’s all I’m asking.”
He scrubs his hands over his face, twists so his back is facing me, then spins around so fast that I don’t see it coming. His abrasiveness. “I don’t want your help, Violet. I don’t want Sebastian’s. Get it through your thick heads. I want to be left alone!”
I press the cold bag to my ankle. Every word he says cuts into me like a razorblade, and I just know they’ll scar long after this conversation is over.
Because I’m so damn exhausted from the last few days of worrying about him while multitasking with studying for finals, I finally snap. It doesn’t matter how nice I am, how kind my words are or how compassionate my actions, he isn’t hearing what I’m saying. And I’m done— done —with him treating me like what we have is nothing.
Like I’m easily disposable.
He’s kidding himself. Delusional if he thinks I’m going to give up on him as easily as he’s giving up on me.
I clutch the chilled bag of food, caring less about the mild twinge in my ankle, and throw it at his stupid chest. It thuds against him then smacks to the floor. I can tell he’s close to the end of his rope. That if I act out more, it might have him tossing me over his shoulder so he can haul me out to my car himself. Well, I’m at the end of my rope, too, utterly fed up with him and the days he let go by without responding to me.
His gaze drops to the makeshift ice pack on the floor. He picks the bag up and tosses it on the counter. It skids to a stop against the wall. “You don’t want to ice your ankle, suit yourself.”
“You’re a coward,” I insult, hating the way it sounds on my lips and makes my stomach curl in on itself.
His brows push down, and without warning, he steps closer. I’m still sitting in the chair he brought over, but I don’t care how tall he is or how close he stands. He’s not the man I thought he was if he can’t even try to fight.
I lift my chin against his intimidation. His jaw clenches. “You want everyone to think you’re so strong.” A choked laugh leaves me. “You stood in the alley at Lucy’s and told Sylvia you’d beg someone to end you if you ever did something as low as Nelson.”
“Don’t fucking compare me to that guy. He was a piece of shit covered in sprinkles. I’m not forcing myself on you. The exact opposite, actually.”
There’s enough space for me to stand, and I do, wishing I was this close to him for a different reason. My chest presses to his. He doesn’t back away. Neither of us stand down for the sake of the other. “Tell me how pushing me away and telling me to ice my ankle in my car makes you any better.”
“I didn’t put my hands on some woman when she didn’t want it.” The muscle in his jaw twitches. “I’d never do that, and you know it.”
He’s seething, fumes coming out of his ears at the comparison. He’s right, in a way. He’s not on the same playing field as Nelson, and I do know he’d never force himself onto anyone who didn’t want it, but I’m distraught over him not giving me the time of day.
I hate myself for resorting to hurting him with my words, but what else am I supposed to do? Get down on my knees and beg for his love? For his attention? Attempt to break into his mother’s house all over again?
“Maybe I do, but it doesn’t change that you’re still cowering. That you’re being a pussy instead of being the man I know you a?—”
He reaches for me so fast, one hand grasping the back of my head and the other grabbing my thigh on the side opposite of my hurt ankle. He wraps my leg around his waist and swings me around until I’m flat against the refrigerator door.
My heart jumps in excitement, and embarrassingly so, a rush of heat travels low in my stomach. I keep my arms by my sides, too scared to reach out because I don’t want him pulling away, as he presses his forehead against mine.
I’m gifted with the clean spicy scent that always follows him. I breathe deeply. His touch, no matter what emotion it stems from, feels like home. Like the warm baths I’ve gotten so used to these last few months, it comforts me.
His tone trembles when he speaks. I imagine his chest tightening along with the way his voice breaks. “What do you want from me?”
I swallow at the lump in my throat, incapable of words.
“What? Don’t have anything to say? You were fine running me down into the ground a second ago. Have you run out of insults, or are you just surprised that I’m finally giving you what you want? That I’m finally touching you?”
His face hovers so close to mine that all I can focus on is the weight of his body against mine. We’re chest to chest, and with a little bit of effort, we could be lip-locked and drowning out all this hurt with something sweeter.
Just as I’m about to say something, he nudges his nose against mine, his warm exhale spreading over my skin in the best possible way.
“I’m sorry,” is what leaves my mouth when I finally find the courage to talk.
He tilts his head to the side and drops his face to my shoulder. His nose climbs up my neck, running slowly across my skin until goosebumps pebble under my clothes.
“Don’t ever apologize for how you feel,” he whispers in his delicate voice I’m used to, pressing his beautiful lips to the spot below my earlobe. Tingles ignite under my flesh and move in every direction. His hand that hooks my leg to his side squeezes into my thigh.
This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I came over. My plan was to talk, not to seduce him, but I’ll take anything he’s giving. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll be real with me when it’s over.
Hell, maybe it’s already over, and I just don’t realize it yet.
I grip onto his hoodie, twisting the fabric in my palms as he continues to kiss my neck. Most are quick pecks. Others are more languid and end with his tongue sweeping over my sensitive skin.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he hums, nipping at my earlobe.
“Then don’t.” It’s difficult to focus on his honesty when all I want is to melt into him.
“I can’t focus on not hurting you when there’s so much other shit going on in my head.” His hand, the one at the back of my head, slides down my neck and goes as far as tucking into the collar of my jacket. He tugs and the top button pops free.
“One minute I want to break things,” he confesses. “The next, I want to cave to the pressure of it all, say fuck it, and down a bottle of booze so I can forget what it feels like.”
I really shouldn’t say it.
Shouldn’t give in because when I look back on it, I’ll realize how fucked up it is, but Colson and I have always had a certain way of doing things. We give ourselves up to the other when it’s needed most. And I know, without a doubt, that Colson’s favorite way to let go is when I give myself to him fully.
No different than the night we made out at Lucy’s.
Or when it happened again in this very house.
I’m at his mercy.
I’ll always be at his mercy.
“Forget all that,” I whisper to him. “I’m right here. Use me. Drink me until you’re too drunk to notice the difference.”