Chapter 22 #3
Apollo held tight to my hand and placed his other hand on top.
I felt the warmth of his skin against mine as he gripped me like he was afraid I’d disappear.
“She was depressed. When I was twelve, my mom had another baby. A little girl. The doctors told her she wouldn’t be able to have more kids after me, but then just after my eleventh birthday, she found out she was pregnant. ”
Pain and sadness washed over him, and my heart broke for what his family must have endured.
Whatever suspicions I had, whatever darkness I sensed in his questions, this pain was real.
Raw. The kind that never fully healed. His anguished voice continued, “Just before she turned two, she disappeared. We searched for months, but my mom couldn’t handle losing her daughter and took her own life. ”
“Oh, that’s awful.” The words came out choked. Genuine horror flooded through me. “Do you know what happened?”
“We believe someone kidnapped her. We’ve had some leads over the years, but nothing’s panned out.”
“So you think she’s still alive?”
Apollo’s story was heart-wrenching. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child, and even worse, never know what really happened.
Never getting that closure so you could grieve properly.
To be stuck in that limbo between hope and despair.
Between believing they were alive and accepting they were gone.
“I do.” His smile was so warm and comforting. The tension I’d been feeling at his questions melted away, replaced by genuine sympathy. By the desire to help him find peace. “Her name was Colette,” he said.
“That’s a beautiful name.”
“I called her Lettie,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine.
The world stopped.
Everything inside me went cold. Then hot. Then cold again. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it might crack bone. The vial around my neck suddenly felt like it was burning through my skin. My hand. He was still holding my hand. Watching me. Waiting for my reaction.
The coincidence hit me like a physical blow. His sister. His baby sister who’d been taken from him. And he’d called her Lettie. The same name I’d chosen for myself years ago. The same name that had become so much a part of me that Violet felt like a stranger’s skin.
“Oh.” I tried to pull my hand away, but he held it tightly. Too tightly. My throat constricted. “I’m so sorry. Hearing my name must be painful for you.”
The words came out automatically, but they were genuine.
This man had lost everything. His sister.
His mother. Decades of not knowing. And every time someone called me by the name I’d claimed, it must have reopened a wound that never fully healed.
The weight of that realization settled over me like a shroud.
I wanted to offer him something that would ease his suffering, but what could I possibly say?
That I understood loss? That I knew what it meant to be untethered from your past?
It wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough for a grief this profound.
“Violet—” he started, only to be cut off when Brock returned to the table.
“Hey, Lo, I need to steal my girl, man.”
Relief flooded through me. Apollo released my hand and sat back in his chair. “No problem,” he replied. “We’ll talk again soon.”
“I’d like that. I’d love to hear more about your sister.” The words were genuine. Part of me did want to know. Needed to know. This man carried a wound that had never healed, and if talking about her helped ease even a fraction of that pain, I’d listen. I’d bear witness to his grief.
When Apollo talked about his sister, his entire demeanor shifted. Softened. He became vulnerable in a way that made my chest ache. The loss was written all over his face. Decades of not knowing, of wondering, of searching for someone who’d been stolen from him as a child.
“I’d also like you to meet my dad.”
“I would love to,” I told him, and I meant it. If meeting his father could give Apollo some small comfort, some sense of connection, then I’d do it. The least I could offer was my presence, my willingness to listen.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said, backing his chair away from the table.
“Oh, okay.”
Brock took my hand and helped me from my seat. Cerberus followed as we walked down the hall to the stairs leading to the second floor. My legs felt shaky, my mind spinning with the weight of what Apollo carried. The enormity of his loss.
“Apollo told you about his sister?”
“Yes.” I squeezed his hand, grateful for the distraction, for Brock’s presence pulling me away from the heaviness of that conversation. “You should have said something. I’ve been telling everyone to call me Lettie, and it’s probably tearing him apart every time he hears it.”
“Why? Her name was Colette.”
I stopped in the middle of the hall and looked at this man I was falling for. Too quickly falling for. This man who didn’t understand the cruelty of coincidence. The way a simple nickname could reopen old wounds.
“He called her Lettie.”