Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
BLUE
Waking up alone isn't new to me. Neither is waking up with a banging headache and sore feet. Everyone knows I like to dance and drink when I have the night off.
Of course, there's the occasional bruise that comes from whooping it up with my girls. Those are always fun to uncover. Maybe it's a female thing—random bruises that make you wonder when the hell it happened.
Like battle wounds. The fun kind.
None of what I'm experiencing is the fun kind. My ribs, which I know without looking at, are one big bruise. Same with my face. I'm too tired to lift my hands to see if my hands are fucked too, but damn do they burn. Especially my fingertips.
My eyes feel like sandpaper when I peel them open, and my blinks are too slow to do them much good. Thankfully, the white sterile room I'm in has dimmed lights, making me wonder if it's still night. What day is it?
Then there's my throat. My eyes fill with tears as I attempt to twist my head to find a computer or phone, or something to give me some information.
What's wrong with my throat!? I scream inside my head because talking is out of the question. Not when a single pained whimper feels like knives trying to slice me open from the inside.
I've read enough books to know the annoying beeping noise is my heart rate monitor. I can confirm it is just as annoying in real life as they make it out to be in stories. Especially when panic has already set in and it's far too loud for my poor head.
Make it stop. Where are they?!
As if someone heard my plea for help, the door at the far side of the room swings open, but it’s not the men I need. I zero in on the clipboard the male nurse carries.
No longer feeling too tired to use my arms, I make grabby hands for his pen and board. He frowns, looks down, then seems to understand. Smart man. He removes some pages and hands me the rest.
He's talking and warning me not to hurt my fingers, which I'm just realizing a few of them are lightly bandaged. I don't care. All that matters is them.
I need Jared, Declan, Roman, and Felix. Please. Are they here?
Scrambling to give the nurse his clipboard back with the important request, I twinge my ribs. With labored breathing, I sink back into the scratchy sheets and hope whatever the man is saying is confirming that my guys are out there.
It's not tears that blur my vision this time, just sheer exhaustion and my body giving out on me before I'll know for sure if they found me. I don't want to rest without them.
Too much happens when I close my eyes. I fear what horrible memory or awful future I'll dream of as I slip from consciousness.
Nothing could have prepared me for the emotional ride this shitty nap is about to take me on.
I'm floating, but not in an exciting I'm flying! way. No. This is thick and strange. Like I'm being dragged through a thick puddle of mud. It's disorienting, and I should be concerned—I think. But it's almost like there's no thought or feeling in this weird dreamscape.
I just exist here, like I'm nothing. Or everything? Can everything feel like nothing?
I'm not even sure I—
Like a punch in the gut and between the eyes, I'm yanked through time and space, blue and purple whizzing past me. Dread grows and grows until I believe that's all I am, and just as everything goes dark, awareness slams into me. Thrusting me into a situation I never thought I'd experience again.
What once felt disorienting fades to this. A version of Erica Bennett that makes me cry.
"I-I'm V-Violet," the young blonde girl whispers. The tears filling her already bloodshot eyes make sense, considering I just overheard the woman behind her explain that Violet's dad passed away recently.
I wait, holding my breath and feeling my lungs tighten with barely suppressed curse words. This fucking bitch. Linda's upper lip curls in disgust. Disgust for her fucking daughter!
I knew Linda was cruel, but this is different. It changes things. No, Linda has no control over me. Little Violet might, though.
The bus ticket in my purse slowly begins to mean nothing the longer I wait for someone to give this poor girl a hug. My bag tugs the skin on my shoulder as it begins to slip.
I had a future planned. One where I was alone and working my ass off to survive. It was going to be better than living here. I'm eighteen. I'm done.
Except, the future I've been yearning for ebbs away with each moment I've been waiting for them to comfort Violet. They don't. I've never gotten a drop of care or comfort in this house, and it seems like Violet won't either.
Unless...
The strap of my bag leaves a slight burn behind as I allow it to fall. Thump. Startled green eyes snap to mine. Nothing matters but her. She won't grow up the way I did if I have anything to do with it.
Stepping forward, abandoning my duffle bag and ticket out of here, I kneel in front of the little girl. "Hi, Violet. I'm Erica. Can I hug you? I could really use one right now."
Maybe I'm not fully acknowledging the decision I have made, but when her tiny arms wrap around my neck, I know I've made the right choice.
The warmth of Violet's trembling frame is yanked from me as I'm shoved back into the thick quicksand. There's a sense of relief as all those feelings are ripped away, but also sadness because I would love to go back and do more for young Violet. She deserved better.
A soft twinkling voice drifts around me, and my heart clenches as I'm once again deposited into the body of my younger self. "My boot ripped today on the playground."
The weight of having to make another sacrifice suffocates me for just a moment until I look into Violet's eyes. She's ten, yet she knows we don't have enough money for nice stuff.
"My teacher tried to fix it, but—but it's pretty bad," V murmurs, twisting her hands in her sweatshirt. Minnesota has been one struggle after another. Why Linda chose to move here in the winter is beyond me.
"Alright," I say, adding a chipper tone to my voice as I tuck Violet's jacket around her. "Let's go get you a new pair."
New isn't the right term since we can't afford that.
"Y-you sure?" She sounds scared, and it breaks my heart. No ten-year-old should be worried about asking for a necessity.
"Yes. I'm sure." I boop her nose, then let her boop mine. She smiles, and I know skipping my next two meals will be worth it.
Sucked away once again, I barely have a moment of relief from the struggles of selflessness until I'm shoved into a slightly older version of myself.
I'm hungry and a little weak. I've been working my ass off at the bar every night, but that doesn't mean I get to sleep in and rest. Violet has to get to school, and she's too young to walk there herself.
While I've found time to hone some kind of skill to pay for food and clothes for Violet, she's still the priority. Which means her priorities, like school, are at the top of my list.
At some point maybe I'll be a kick ass bartender and have a safe home for me and Violet to live in. But for right now, I'm still spilling most drinks I make and haven't perfected the art of sly flirting without being called a slut.
Minnesota hasn't been a favorite of mine these past three years, but I've heard Linda talking about Chicago. I'll follow, of course, because there's no way I'm letting teenage Violet live with Linda alone. As far as I'm concerned, she's mine.
"Will you come inside with me? I decorated my locker, and I want to show you," Violet explains while skipping beside me.
Shoving my exhaustion aside, I smile big at V and tell her how excited I am to see what she's done to it this time. I love how crafty and bubbly she's growing up to be.
We're stopped in the hallway by Violet's favorite teacher. I've heard a lot about the new art teacher, but this will be the first time I'm meeting her.
"Hello," the woman greets. "You must be Violet's mama. Erica, right?"
Hopefully not for long. I'm ready to never hear that name ever again. Wait! Mama?!
I know my eyes must be bulging out of my head when I look at Violet, who's blushing and tucking her blonde waves behind her ear. "Um," she hums. "I'm sorry."
"Violet?" Turning to her, I boop her nose to get her to look at me. She does with a small scowl and rubs the tickle away.
Sighing, she looks from her teacher to me. "Can I call you that? I've been doing it for a while now when I talk about you."
"I-you-what?" Damn it, what a tough first impression.
"I'll let you two chat. It was nice meeting you," the art teacher says with a soft smile on her face and walks away.
Violet sighs again. "I've been calling you mama. You're more like my mom than Linda is. Please? Can I?"
I'm speechless.
"If not, it's going to be weird when you come for parent-teacher conferences in a few weeks because all of my teachers know."
A shocked laugh slips from my parted lips. Dragging her in for a big ass bear hug is out of the question, so I wrap my arms around her and breathe in Violet's vanilla scent. "Of course, you can call me that. I love being your mama."
"Love you..." She sniffs and pushes back a little. "Okay, you're smooshing my curls."
This time, instead of being pulled down by the thick current of this dreamscape, I'm lifted up. No longer do I feel like I'm dragging or floating; I feel like I'm flying.
Slowly, as if I needed the reminder of how I've come to be where I am, I hear their voices. I'm not the same girl they abandoned. I'm a woman who raised herself and another human being. A kick ass human being at that.
I think....I feel...like I might love myself just a little more after this nap.