38. Violet
38
VIOLET
There’s a knock at the door as soon as I step out of the bathroom, and Isaac jumps up from where he’s sitting on my bed. His eyes are wide, and his momentary panic is so funny as he looks around, trying to find somewhere to hide.
“It’s probably Luke,” I tell him with a smile as I wonder how I’m so lucky to call him mine. He relaxes instantly, moving to the door to answer it, but he waits until I’ve closed the bathroom door and am standing by my desk before he opens it and lets Luke in.
I watch as they seem to have a silent conversation, ending with Luke gently punching Isaac’s arm and Isaac throwing his head back and letting out a groan of frustration. It’s cute watching them together, and they seem to have a connection where they can say so much without saying anything. I’m glad Isaac has Luke, especially now that his parents don’t want him to come back home. Luke didn’t hesitate to tell Isaac he could stay with him, practically demanding that he did .
“Hi, Violet,” Luke says, sauntering into my room in his football kit as if this is a completely normal occurrence and he’s been here a thousand times.
“Hey,” I reply, giving him a small wave. Isaac stands behind him, head in his hands, and I can immediately tell he’s regretting asking Luke for help.
The silence stretches between us as we all look back and forth at each other. It’s excruciating. This is the first time I’m interacting with Luke as Isaac’s girlfriend, and even though this is something that was always going to happen, it feels incredibly awkward now.
I’ve only spoken to Luke during classes, and our conversations were always focused on whatever we were studying, so having him in my room right now feels extremely weird, but I try not to show it. He’s Isaac’s best friend, and I don’t want to make a bad impression or say anything that will make Isaac feel awkward.
“Luke, thanks for coming, you can leave now,” Isaac breaks the silence, grabbing the tote bag that’s slung on his shoulder, before gripping his upper arm and leading him back towards the door.
“I just got here!”
“Don’t you have football?”
“I can be a little late. Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“We’ve all been in the same class for nearly seven years. What introduction do you need?”
Luke frees himself from Isaac’s grip and walks back to me. His playful smile and quick raise of his brows tell me that he’s going to do something that will mess with Isaac.
“Violet, would you say we know each other?”
I glance at Isaac, and the way he’s standing there like he can’t believe what he’s just set into motion is so cute that I decide to play along.
“I don’t think I even know your name. Duke, was it?”
“Ah yes, my fair lady,” Luke says with an accent like he’s in a regency drama as he bows his head, his arm held out as though he’s asking for my hand. I stifle a laugh while Isaac lets out a groan, spinning around and pressing his head to the wall, his arms limp at his side.
“A pleasure to meet you.” I copy his accent, and just as I’m about to put my hand on top of Luke’s, Isaac is in between us and pushing Luke away.
“Okay, you’re done.”
Luke and I burst out laughing, and Isaac looks back and forth between us, probably regretting all the times he’s said he wants me to get to know his friends.
“I was just messing with you.” Luke claps Isaac on the shoulder before turning his attention to me. “Violet, I hope we can see each other again soon when Isaac isn’t on the verge of a breakdown.”
“That would be lovely,” I tell him, and then he walks towards the door, pulling Isaac with him.
They duck their heads together, and Luke whispers something in Isaac’s ear that has him shaking his head. I can only see his side profile, but the smile on his face is clear. He closes the door after Luke and then comes to where I’m sitting on the bed.
“I like him, he’s funny,” I tell Isaac, smiling brightly up at him and hoping that the whole interaction wasn’t actually too bad for him.
“Please, don’t tell him that. That boy does not need his ego inflated any more than it already is.”
Isaac lets out a soft laugh before he goes through the bag and takes out whatever he asked Luke to bring. He pulls out his laptop first, followed by some snacks and then two hoodies. He passes one to me, and I have to stop myself from grabbing it from him too quickly. I missed wearing his hoodies so much, and I hate that I’d given him back the only one I had just before we broke up. I notice it’s my favourite one, the one he wore on our date, and I pull it over my head as quickly as I can, the smell of his cologne comforting me, bringing back so many fond memories.
“I missed seeing you in my clothes,” he says, his voice as soft as the look in his eyes as he pulls the hood over my head and tugs at the strings. He smooths the fabric over my hair before planting a kiss on the crown of my head and then sits next to me.
Isaac opens up his laptop and clicks through a few things, creating a new folder to copy some files into it. I study him while he does it, how his fingers move over the keyboard, how his glasses fall down the bridge of his nose because of how his head is ducked to look at the screen.
“These are all the ones that are pretty much finished. They just need some refining.” He highlights a few of them, and I notice that none of them have real titles, all some kind of variation of random letters with ‘final,’ ‘real final,’ and ‘actual final’ attached at the end, apart from one.
“What’s that one?” I ask, leaning closer to him to point at the file that is simply called 18 .
Isaac hovers over it but doesn’t open it, turning to face me instead.
“It’s not finished yet.” He pauses for a second, biting his bottom lip. “It was meant to be a surprise. ”
“For what?”
“Our eighteenth birthday.”
He can see the confusion on my face and hears the unasked question, but he just shakes his head slightly before turning back to the screen and clicking on it.
The movie starts to play, and I instantly recognise the setting - our Year 7 classroom. Soft instrumental music plays in the background, and it takes me a few seconds to realise it’s one of our favourite songs.
A cartoon version of Isaac and I stand next to each other, our friends surrounding us but they’re blurry and not quite in focus, as if we’re the only two that exist in the world. The scene ends with the butterflies in my hair flying around until they transform into the birthday card he gave me that first year.
I watch as every birthday we shared plays out in front of me, watch how the cartoon version of ourselves grows closer, sparks starting to fly between us until they turn into hearts somewhere around our fourteenth birthday.
When it gets to what should be our seventeenth birthday, the screen goes dark, the music fading until it’s silent, and I can see the reflection of Isaac’s worried face. A part of me wishes he would have just made something up, and created some kind of happy story for it instead of leaving it blank. But that’s the truth of what happened, and it’s led to where we are today.
In the next scene, Isaac is alone, and all the colour drains from the screen as he sits with his head in his hands. It sends an ache through my chest that has me clutching onto his arm. I want him to know that I’m here now, that I’m not going anywhere.
When I appear again, the colour gradually starts coming back, starting as a faint glow around Isaac’s chest until it grows to fill the whole screen. A series of quick flashbacks of all our best moments play out before us, the sound building to a crescendo before it quietens again.
The last scene is our imagined future, the one we talked and dreamed about - us standing side by side in a small apartment, my head on his shoulder and his on top of mine, our hands linked together as we stare out of the bright window at what’s to come.
When the screen turns black, I bring my hand up to Isaac’s face and turn his head to make him look at me. His bottom lip is drawn between his teeth and I want to soothe his worries away. I want him to know this is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
“I love you so much.”
I hope he hears everything else I’m saying with those words.
I’m so proud of you.
Your work is amazing.
I’m so lucky to have you.
I can’t wait for our future.
I’m yours, and you’re mine.
He lets out a shaky breath before pressing his forehead to mine, eyes closed as he speaks.
“Jaanu, jaanu, jaanu,” he whispers like a prayer like it’s the only word he ever wants to say, like it means everything to him. “My life, my soul, my everything.”
I pull him towards me, kissing him like it’ll seal those words between us forever and make sure they can never escape.
We smile at each other before looking at the screen again, and it’s like he can read my mind because he presses play on it, and we watch it all over again.
“How long have you been working on this?” I ask, knowing that it must have taken months to make something like this.
“Do you want the real answer or the answer I want to give that seems less creepy?”
I poke his side, and he lets out a small laugh.
“The real answer.”
“I started it the summer after Year 8.”
“We were barely friends then. You were that confident we’d be together at eighteen?”
“I always knew we would end up together. We’re fated, remember?” He kisses the side of my head. “It was just a matter of time. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but looking back now, I think I started falling for you that year. I used all of my allowance for that book, but I didn’t even think twice about it. And then your eyes lit up when I gave it to you, and you got so excited talking about the first one, and when I trace it all back, I think it was that moment.”
“I never told you but I actually already had that book.”
Isaac pulls back, a crease between his brows as he looks at me.
“When you gave it to me, I felt so special and so relieved, too. Because I thought that maybe it meant you’d been noticing me in the way I’d been starting to notice you. I kept trying to convince myself that I was reading too much into everything you did, but I think I knew then, too.”
He smiles at me, pure joy lighting up his face, and he’s so beautiful and so mine .
“If it’s okay with you, we can submit this for the competition. It’s pretty much ready to go, but maybe you can just add some words between each scene so they know you worked on it, too.
“That’s fine with me. But actually, I have something I want to show you, too.”
I shuffle off the bed and rifle through my desk drawer until I find what I’m looking for, and then I take my place next to him again. I pass the book to him, a puzzled look on his face as he opens it and starts to read.
I watch the way his expression changes when he realises what he’s reading, starting with his brows furrowed but then relaxing, his mouth slowly curving upwards into a soft smile as he leafs through the pages.
In our own ways, we’ve both documented the story of us. It’s one that started with two eleven-year-olds who were excited to share a birthday and grew into two seventeen-year-olds who couldn’t imagine a life without each other. I can’t wait for it to end with the two of us, old and grey, side by side until the very end.