Chapter 35 Patience and courage #2
It sounds like a resignation of the worst kind, like he has already given up.
“So if you really want to know what happened that night, yes. When I saw your car, I panicked. For a moment, I let myself imagine that you might be Purple. And in that second, all I wanted was to run away. How could you, someone so vibrant and so relentlessly full of optimism, love me? You crave conversation and I have no words to give. You weren’t someone with whom I could start something.
You already knew me. The real me. The one who hides every deficiency behind an asshole face. ”
He pauses while I press every part of myself together, determined not to shatter—not only for us, but for him.
“You asked what our lives might have looked like. And I can’t answer that.
Even with Purple, the woman who sometimes felt almost imaginary, the furthest I could ever let myself imagine was the date itself.
I couldn’t picture beyond it. I couldn’t conceive of a woman who might look at my mutism and choose to stay anyway. ”
“So while I came to you for love, even without remembering it, you kept me out of guilt,” I whisper, as the reality crashes down upon me.
How can Rowan believe that someone might love him for exactly who he is, when he has spent his whole life believing that he isn’t enough?
He sees his mutism as a deficiency, a thing that disqualifies him before he’s even begun.
My Pop used to say, “You have to love yourself first, before you can love anyone else.”
I had always believed him, but right now, I want Rowan to prove this wrong.
But he says nothing more, and I watch helplessly as the bond I had believed was the strongest thing I’d ever known cracks right in front of me.
“So what was the plan? You got Pop’s dessert. You sent me to the café. You were of course hoping my memories would come back. What was supposed to happen next?”
There’s pure devastation written on his face.
“The last months were the best of my life, Violet. But I cannot silence the voice that tells me, over and over, that I don’t deserve you.
Not only for what I did, but for who I am.
You deserve someone who matches your optimism, not someone who pulls you into his fears.
Someone as spontaneous and open as you are, not someone who second-guesses every single thing he does. ”
“So you’re deciding for me again. What I need. What I deserve. What I’m allowed to want.”
“I’m not deciding for you. I’m asking you not to judge me only as the man you’ve known inside these walls.
Now that you have your memories back, look at every version of me you’ve ever known.
” His hands pause like the next words cost him something.
“I’m not na?ve enough to believe that once you do, you won’t arrive at the same conclusion I already have. ”
After weeks of living inside something that felt like the most beautiful love story ever written, I cannot believe we are standing here watching it come apart.
He turns and leaves, doing exactly what he said, giving me the space to think and to decide.
Rowan Teager, who can fill a silence more completely than anyone I have ever known, still cannot bring himself to believe that I could choose him.
Once Rowan leaves, I don’t see him for the rest of the day.
I know he’s somewhere in the house—his gym, maybe, or his bedroom—but the distance between us feels larger than walls and closed doors. I have never felt more alone here. Not even on the first day I arrived, with no memory of who I was.
It’s close to dinner when my phone lights up.
Rowan: Would you have dinner with me?
I know the invitation has nothing to do with him wanting company. He wants to make sure I eat, and my hopelessly hopeful heart takes this as an opportunity for Rowan to see that our feelings and our story are worth more than his fear.
Violet: Yeah, sure.
A second later, he walks in, carrying a tray with two plates.
He must have been right outside the door when he sent the text. Without once meeting my eyes, he slides a plate in front of me and takes the far end of the couch.
Echo, who had been curled warmly against my side, stirs and then slowly moves until he’s pressed against Rowan instead.
My throat closes and Rowan goes completely still at the contact.
I’m sure he hadn’t expected it either. I watch the rigidity move through his shoulders, and not for the first time, I wonder how extraordinary Echo is.
He knows that tonight it is Rowan who needs him more than I do, and somehow, without a word from either of us, he has already made that call.
Rowan doesn’t speak. He doesn’t look at me. He simply holds his fork and waits. For a moment I wonder how long he would sit like that if I didn’t move or do anything. But I have never been vindictive. So I lift my plate.
We eat in silence. He is wound so tightly beside me, reminding me of the man I used to watch at his family gatherings. God, I had completely forgotten how uncomfortable Rowan used to be around people, and now, because of me, he’s wearing that same unease inside his own home.
Today, I’m completely unwelcome in the place that has calmed my heart for months.
I set my empty plate onto the table and turn to face him. Waiting for Rowan to speak first will lead nowhere—I know this much. But the moment I shift toward him, he stands immediately. He picks up his plate, then bends to collect mine.
We don’t even look like two people in the middle of a disagreement. We look like strangers who have been placed in the same room and are both counting down until they don’t have to be anymore.
He’s about to leave, and I know this may be my only chance to say it.
“I know what you’re doing. You’re showing me the version of you who keeps himself away from everyone. But I wish you’d trust me and believe in our love more than your fears. I wish you could imagine, just for a second, how beautiful and complete our life can be with everything we already have.”
Rowan stiffens and, finally, his gaze meets mine. So many emotions move across his face at once—determination to give me what he thinks is best, fear of what will be left in the aftermath, and affection. So much affection.
“If you’re keeping yourself away from me because you think that’s what’s best for me, then know this, I’m not giving up on us. I know that’s what’s best for the both of us. You can fight against our love all you want, Rowan, but I’m fighting for it.”
My throat burns when I see a thin sheen covering his eyes. But Rowan doesn’t let those tears fall, not in front of me. He keeps staring at me, pleading with me without words to drop my stubbornness. But when I give no indication that I will, he walks away.
Echo rises when Rowan disappears through the door. With his eyes shut, he turns his head toward me, then toward the door. Then back to me again.
Oh, my poor sweet boy.
I go to him and crouch down, run my fingers through his fur, pale and almost white, beautiful but also a reminder of everything he has endured and continues to endure every single day.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “We both know he needs you tonight. Go to him, baby.”
And this dog, who understands far more than he should, rubs his nose against my palm before padding out of the room.
My heart breaks a little. I already know what I have to do, even if every part of me resists it.
I return to my room and sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the painting on the wall, exactly as I did on my very first night here.
That night, it had been nothing more than color and shape, but now I know exactly what it is.
Cherry Lake at sunset, the light caught in that particular gold that only lasts for a few minutes before it’s gone.
My eyes sting. I press them closed, holding the tears back.
All my life, I have wanted one thing—to belong to someone without the constant fear that they will eventually leave.
My heart had been left behind too many times, and yet somehow, stubbornly, it remained open.
In the past weeks, it finally felt like it had found what it had always been searching for.
But everything broke tonight.
Looking at these walls that I have come to love, I know I don’t belong here. Not tonight. Not while Rowan is somewhere down the hall, burning beneath the weight of his fear and guilt.
He once said soulmates don’t come around every day. And he has to especially believe it now, that what we have is not a love to be discarded.
Before that, he will have to believe he’s worthy of it. I can help him see it, walk that path of self-love with him, but he has to take the first step. Choose us over his fears.
I know exactly where I have to go. Somewhere he would know I haven’t given up on us. And whenever he’s ready to face his fears, I’ll be right there beside him.
I pick up my phone and walk out.
At the bottom of the porch steps, I stop and turn back. The fairy lights are on, tracing the edges of the roof in the early dark. I close my eyes.
Thank you, I say silently—to the house that held me when I was at my most vulnerable, to every room that gave me back pieces of myself I’d lost.
Thank you for keeping me safe. I hope I come back.
And then I leave.
I ring the doorbell and shift my weight from one foot to the other.
The idea made perfect sense when I left Rowan’s house. Standing here now, on his parents’ porch in the dark, I’m not so sure. When everything between Rowan and me is fractured, am I even supposed to be here?
The door opens before I can talk myself out of it.
“V-violet.” Zane fills the frame, and his gaze moves past me. “Is R-rowan not w-with you?” When I shake my head, he looks at me for a long beat. “C-come in.”
“Who is it, babe?” Vienna appears a moment later, and unlike her husband, there’s surprise on her face. “Violet? Is everything okay?”
I shake my head. I can’t lie to her.