Chapter 35 Patience and courage
PATIENCE AND COURAGE
VIOLET
What kind of goodbye do you never want to say again?
SilenceInMidnight: The ones that come without warning.
“Violet.”
“Vi.”
I hear my name from somewhere far away, muffled and distant. Hands close around my shoulders, and with a jerk, pull me back to now. I don’t know how long I’ve been crying, but long enough that my face is wet and my sleeves are soaked where I’ve pressed them against my cheeks.
And now my sobs are nothing but hiccups.
Someone makes slow, gentle circles across my back.
When I finally look up, it’s Elodie. Her face is soft with worry and her touch is warm, reminding me of the day of Pop’s funeral. The same hollow ache returns in my chest as Elodie stands behind me with her hand on my back exactly like she did that day.
My gaze travels from her to Daisy and Willow. My three best friends, who stayed with me for ten days after my grandfather passed. They slept on my floor, made food and tea and sat in the silence with me when words were too heavy to hold.
They aren’t just friends. They’re the family I chose and the family that chose me back.
“Violet, is everything okay?”
I shake my head as I struggle to find the words.
“Let’s get out of here.” Willow is already reaching for our coats.
Elodie and Daisy guide me outside. Through the blur of it, I catch a glimpse of Willow behind us, speaking to Jim, who is still standing beside the table looking shocked.
Soon, I’m in the backseat of Elodie’s car, squeezed between her and Daisy. Elodie’s hand folds around mine while Daisy’s arm wraps around my shoulder, and for a long moment nobody says anything, until finally Daisy breaks the silence.
“Violet, what happened?”
There’s so much I want to say. I want to apologize for forgetting how much they mean to me. I want to say sorry for acting like a stranger around them while they looked at me with so much love. I want to thank them for still being here with me.
But all of that can wait.
Right now, something else is more important. The night that I thought was the most important night of my life… never happened. Not the way I thought.
The passenger door opens and Willow lowers herself in, a water bottle in hand that before she passes it to me. “You okay?”
I shrug.
“How can we help?” Daisy’s hand tightens around my shoulder.
“I need to go home, Daze.” My voice comes out barely above a whisper.
I don’t know if it’s the nickname or the way I say it, but there’s an immediate shift in my friends’ expressions. They glance at each other before Elodie finally asks, “Which home, Vi?”
I close my eyes.
Home has always been Pop’s cottage, my safe and happy place. But somewhere in the past few months, when I had forgotten everything, Rowan became synonymous with the word home.
He told me once that home is not a place but a feeling.
And now I need to know if I had misunderstood this feeling.
“Rowan,” I whisper.
Elodie squeezes my hand once before slipping out of the backseat and taking her place behind the wheel. My friends ask no further questions; as always, they understand what I need without me having to say a word.
Every time I close my eyes, the same images cycle through in an endless loop.
The restaurant. The empty chair across from me. Rowan’s text glowing on my screen.
The parking lot. Rowan in his car, staring down at his phone.
Then the picture of my grandmother’s ring on Rowan’s phone. He is Night.
And finally, me on the highway. He would have realized I was Purple after hearing about my crash.
When Elodie finally pulls up outside Rowan’s home, all three of them turn to look at me at once.
“Do you want us to stay?” Willow asks.
But my eyes are already fixed on Rowan standing on the porch. I shake my head. There’s no reason for them to stay. I’m not here to leave—that’s not what I want.
When you love someone, you don’t just love their strengths; you embrace their fears too. And Rowan’s biggest insecurity is people.
After living beside him and getting to know him so closely, I can only imagine what that moment must have felt like for him when he spotted my car in the parking lot. I can picture his panic so clearly it almost aches.
His reluctance of us having sex makes total sense now. Rowan would never make love to me with this lie standing between us. The only way forward for us is working through that night. Through the truth he kept from me—not out of cruelty, but out of love.
I understand why he did it. But it doesn’t erase the fact that he made a choice without me. That he decided alone what I could and couldn’t handle.
Then, there are questions I need answers to.
What would have happened if I had told him that car was mine? Would he have left me without any explanation? Would he have made an excuse, buying time to make sense of what he’d just learned?
But one question presses heavier than the rest.
Who would we have become if my memories hadn’t been lost? Would I still be arriving at his home after a coffee date with my friends? Or would we have remained exactly what we almost were? Two people who found each other in the dark of the internet and never quite made it into the light.
A love that almost happened. A story that ended before it had a chance to begin.
I don’t know. I guess I never will know.
But I hope—with everything that’s stubborn and relentless inside me—that Rowan would have chosen me anyway. That even through the panic and fear, he would have recognized what we were and held on.
So here I am, waiting for Rowan to claim all of me. Not just Purple, the woman he fell for in the quiet safety of anonymity, but Violet. The real, occasionally too-much version of me that exists outside the screen.
I cannot wait to be his shield in the world, to stand beside him in every crowded room, every loud gathering, every place that has ever made him want to disappear.
But first, he has to make the choice that matters most. Not in public, not for anyone else’s benefit. But in private, in the truth of what we are to each other.
Once Elodie’s car disappears around the corner, I make my way up the porch steps. Rowan watches me the entire time, as though he’s trying to make sense of my mood. And standing here, looking back at him, I realize he planned this morning. All of it.
Pop’s dessert. The café. The careful choreography, leading me back through the places and the feelings, one gentle step at a time. He wants my memory to return. He also knows that we cannot move forward while that night still stands between us like a closed door.
“Hi,” he signs.
I give him a small nod and walk inside without stopping, moving through the familiar warmth of the house until I reach the solarium. When I turn around, he’s hesitating in the doorway.
I have never been very good at holding back emotions, and today I don’t see the need. So I meet his eyes and let the words come.
“You never came inside.”
He freezes. The statement, even anticipated, has managed to surprise him.
Since I’ve been in his home, Rowan has been dependable, calm, and everything I need him to be.
But this look on his face reminds me so much of the man I’d seen at every gathering at his cousins’ houses.
It’s the same panic I saw when I first made eye contact with him outside that restaurant.
And that terrifies me, and at the same time, breaks my heart a little.
This Rowan is not my Night. He’s wearing the mask he puts on for everyone else, and today he’s included me in that list.
I wait for him to say something, anything. But I’m met with silence.
“You recognized my car, didn’t you?” I press gently. “There was a moment outside that restaurant where you thought I might be Purple.”
I need him to start talking, to start explaining, to start fighting for us.
He does none of that.
“Don’t I deserve the truth?” My voice stays calm, even though nothing else about me is. “An explanation, at least, for why I was left waiting alone on a night that was supposed to be ours? What our lives might have looked like if you had come inside?”
I hate the anguish written across his face. I hate that I’m the one putting it there. But I know we have to walk through every uncomfortable, painful step of this or we will never find our way back to each other.
The silence stretches and it frightens me.
Why isn’t he saying anything?
Then, finally, his hands move.
“I lied, Violet. I lied to you about that night. I took advantage of your lost memories. And that’s not the worst I’ve done. Your accident never would have happened if I had walked into that restaurant. If I hadn’t been a coward.”
My breath catches. I had expected guilt for the lie, for leaving me waiting, but never for the accident.
“You don’t know that,” I say slowly. “I could have still ended up on that highway after our date.”
He looks at me for a long, weighted moment, with a pained expression. Then he holds up a single finger and leaves the room. My heart is in my throat by the time he returns.
Rowan sets a leather bag between us, and the air leaves my lungs.
My bag. The one I’d packed with such dreamy optimism for that night. It’s been cleaned, spotless, not a mark of the gruesome accident that it had been a part of, which means at some point, Rowan opened it and saw what was inside.
“You had planned on staying.” His fingers pause.
“With Night.” He signs it like Night is someone else and not him.
“Didn’t you?” He doesn’t wait for my answer.
“I had a hotel room booked in Spring Falls. I had wanted the same thing—more time with Purple. So no, Violet. I cannot agree that if I’d walked into the restaurant, the night still would have ended the same way. ”
I have nothing to say to that. He’s right, but the knowing doesn’t help at all.
For every logical word his hands form, something inside me splinters a little more. This conversation, as honest as it is, does not sound like two people finding their way back to each other.