Chapter Forty-One Violet
Chapter Forty-One
Violet
The clock on the wall didn’t tick. It hummed.
Dr. Afonso sat across from me, legs crossed neatly, her skirt and cardigan two different shades of beige. Her face was neutral but soft, practiced calm. She didn’t rush me. She never did.
I sat on the edge of the couch, knees together, hands knotted too tightly in my lap.
My nails dug into my palms until it hurt.
But the pain was proof I was still here.
I uncurled my fingers and pressed them to the leather instead.
It was smooth, cool. The faint scent of lavender hung in the air.
Intended to soothe, probably, but it was too sharp, too fake. It made my nose sting.
Dr. Afonso’s pen hovered over her pad, untouched. She smiled, the professional softness therapists probably practiced in mirrors. “You have a lot on your mind today, Violet?”
I shrugged, forcing myself to lean back against the couch, pretending comfort. “No more than usual.” My voice sounded smaller than I meant it to. Even after months of therapy, I sometimes found opening up just as hard as on day one.
She nodded, that slow, understanding motion that said she’d wait me out if she had to. “I’ve noticed you’ve been arriving early for our sessions. Sometimes half an hour. Is that something you want to talk about?”
I looked down again. My hands were already clenched in my lap. “Not really.”
“Sometimes being early is a form of control,” she said gently. “After a traumatic event, control can feel like safety. You can’t change what happened, but you can control when you show up. It helps manage anxiety. Does that sound familiar?”
I exhaled slowly, eyes on the floor. There it was . . . that word again. Trauma.
It always landed like a diagnosis and a sentence at once.
I kept my eyes on the painting behind her instead of her face. It was abstract with soft swipes of watercolor that didn’t form one shape so much as suggest a dozen. Blues, grays, and greens bleeding into beige. Curves that felt like waves one second, storm clouds the next.
She didn’t have to glance back to know what I was staring at. “Do you like that one?”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. I don’t like or dislike it.”
“Do you see anything in it?”
I hesitated, still studying the brushstrokes. “Maybe the ocean. Maybe nothing at all. I’ve never thought too deeply about it.” I exhaled. “It’s chaotic. Too busy. Too messy.”
Her pen moved softly over paper. I hated that sound, those tiny scratches that made me feel peeled open. “The world is full of chaos,” she said. “Sometimes all we can do is sift through what’s ours to control and what isn’t.”
I shrugged again. I understood her point, but it still sounded like filler.
“Violet,” she said gently, “do you want to tell me about that night again?”
The change in topic made my shoulders tense. For a moment, all I could do was stare at the floor. “Okay,” I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper.
Her pen stilled. “Take your time,” she said. “If you can really look at it this time, to let yourself sit with what comes up, it might help you see something new.” Dr. Afonso sat quietly, her pen poised but still. “When we talked last week,” she said softly, “you mentioned the fire.”
I nodded, staring at my hands. My fingers twisted together until my knuckles ached. “It’s hard not to.”
“What do you see when you think about it?”
I hesitated. The air in the room was too thin.
The words always felt like glass in my mouth—sharp, cutting on the way out.
“I see the barn burning every time I close my eyes,” I said finally.
“I can hear it. The popping, the screaming wood. The light is so bright it hurts.” I drew in a shaky breath.
“The air around it feels like it’s breathing. Like it’s alive.”
She didn’t interrupt, didn’t write. Just let the silence stretch long enough for me to fill it.
“I can smell it,” I said finally. “Smoke. Dirt. Burnt wood. Burnt . . .” My throat closed around the word. “Everything.”
Her brow furrowed. “Would you like to talk about Grayson?”
My chest tightened until it hurt. “I’m always thinking about him,” I whispered. “He wouldn’t leave until he knew I was safe.” The tears came fast, blurring the room. “When he finally got out, he was bleeding. I held him while we watched the barn burn to the ground.”
“Do you remember what happened after that?”
I nodded slowly. “Pieces. Some things are sharp. Others are just flashes. The brightness of the fire. Grayson’s weight in my arms. How he kept getting colder even with the heat right in front of us. And then—” I exhaled shakily. “Then it was quiet.”
Dr. Afonso leaned forward slightly, her voice soft but steady. “Quiet how?”
“Like everything just . . . stopped. No fire. No sound. Just nothing.”
She nodded, her tone even. “Trauma can feel oppressive and suffocating. Some days it dulls marginally. Some days it’s—”
“Crushing,” I finished for her.
“Yes,” she murmured. “Sometimes the brain holds on when it doesn’t know where else to put the pain.”
I pressed my palms to my knees, grounding myself, or at least trying to. “Sometimes I still smell it. The smoke. Even after all this time.”
“That’s a normal response to trauma.” Her tone was kind. “It’s your body remembering what it survived.”
I looked at her, at the calm professionalism she wore like armor, and part of me ached for that steadiness. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It isn’t simple,” she said. “But speaking it aloud can help. Knowing it wasn’t your fault. Accepting that life can hurt and still choosing to stand, anyway. You are here, Violet. You are strong. And it is all right to ask for help.”
My throat burned. “Maybe. But it doesn’t change the fact that he died in my arms.”
Her voice softened. “No, it doesn’t. But in time, healing can change what that memory does to you.”
I nodded faintly, trying to believe her.
Maybe one day I would not feel so hollow.
“I should hate him for betraying me,” I whispered, “but I can’t.
In the end, he wasn’t the villain.” Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the same image: Grayson’s face lit by firelight, his lips parting as if he had one last confession, but the flames took it from him.
Dr. Afonso tapped her pen lightly against her pad, the sound steady. “What does it feel like when you talk about him?”
I let the question sit for a moment, really thinking about it. “Like I wish I could do it over. If I had taken him with me when I ran, things might have been different. For both of us,” I said, my voice barely more than a breath.
She nodded slowly. “You can’t rewrite the past, Violet, but you can choose what you carry forward from it. Regret is heavy, but it doesn’t have to define you. That you can still feel compassion for him says more about your capacity to heal than your guilt ever could.”
I tried breathing slowly, but it was still hard not to taste ash in the air.
She gave a small nod. “You’re safe now, Violet. Let yourself feel that.”
Safe. The word didn’t sit well with me. It did not feel like I had earned the right to feel . . . calm, not after everything. But slowly, with each passing day, it was getting easier to breathe.
I looked down at my hands again. “He should have left with me. If he’d listened, he’d still be here. We could have worked out anything after that.”
“You said before that he wouldn’t leave you,” Dr. Afonso said. “It was his choice to make.”
“I know,” I said. “But knowing doesn’t make it easier to live with.”
The room fell silent again. After a long moment, Dr. Afonso glanced at the clock, then back at me, her tone softening.
“Let’s pause here for today.” She waited a second, letting the quiet settle again.
“You have unpacked a lot, and I want you to give yourself permission to rest after this. Emotional processing can be just as exhausting as physical work.”
She jotted a note, her pen moving steadily. “For this week, I would like you to try something. When the memories hit and the smells and sounds rush forward, don’t push them away. Let them in and feel them. Say to yourself that you are safe now. Breathe through it, anchor yourself in the present.”
“Sounds like a lot, and pretty uncomfortable,” I said honestly.
Her gaze lifted to mine. “It is a lot. But you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. Have you been writing your thoughts and feelings in the journal we discussed?”
I nodded. “It’s harder than I thought it would be.”
“It is,” she said. “But it’s not to relive the pain and trauma.
It’s to track when the thoughts come, what triggers them, and how you react.
” She offered a faint, reassuring smile.
“Sit with it all. Process what we discussed and how you feel today. Next week we’ll start looking at how you can separate who you were in that moment from who you are now.
You have already survived the hardest part, Violet. ”
Once outside, sunlight hit hard and bright and I closed my eyes briefly. Castina had a different feel to Sweetwater Lake, one I couldn’t place. I stood there a moment, letting it all sink in. The world kept moving, even after mine had fallen apart months ago.
The pain was still there. It was quieter now, but constant.
Healing didn’t mean forgetting. It just meant learning to live with what would always ache.