Chapter 3
THREE
COLTON
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, WEST VIRGINIA
I sat on my hotel bed, elbows on my knees and eyes fixed on the ribbon in my hands. I rubbed the fabric between my thumb and forefinger, satiny on one side and ribbed/ on the other. One of Violet’s many bows.
I hadn’t even bothered to take off my suit jacket, just marched into my room, opened my suitcase, pulled out the ribbon, and plopped down on the end of my bed.
It was a busy night of catching up with old friends, talking shop with other guys from the league. A healthy person would have reflected on how much fun they had at the party.
But all I could see as my ears rang and my blood swished through my veins was her.
Waking up next to her. Laughing with her at parties.
Her hand in mine, lingering as long as she could until we had to part.
Her studying with me, which was mostly me studying her while she focused.
The pressure of her head resting on my butt while I read on my stomach.
Idly stroking her calf. Study 69, we called it.
Pumping her up before a big presentation. Tracing her fingers as we talked about what scared us. Taking her for late-night fast food when she studied through dinner. Those plush lips open wide as she yelled and pounded the glass during a hockey fight.
Her leaving. Me chasing after her.
Her shutting me out. Me begging. Getting drunk and pulling a Romeo, throwing pebbles at her dorm window. Sending text after text, calling again and again. I stopped short of waiting for her outside her classes. That felt like a stalking bridge too far.
Her ignoring me. Me, pretending I was fine.
Me knowing I was lying.
Me in love with her.
Me at my all-time low, with the only person who knew just how low I could get no longer in my life.
My phone buzzed, and even though I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, I picked it up.
VIOLET
this is cliché but
u up?
My palms grew sweaty, ears flushed, and a surge of hormones hit my bloodstream. And yet, I couldn’t give away too much enthusiasm. Going down Hell Memory Lane had my stomach in knots, but she didn’t need to know that.
COLTON
yeah
VIOLET
what room?
COLTON
334
VIOLET
ok if I stop by?
COLTON
yeah gimme 5
VIOLET
k
I jumped up, slipping the ribbon back into my suitcase and pacing to the mirror behind the door. I needed to look put together, but not quite like I’d just been sitting here in a suit. A shower? A shower would work.
I raced into the bathroom and turned on the water, peeling off my clothes in record time. I balled them up and tossed them in the closet. Thank god I picked an all-in-one body soap so I could move quickly.
When I got out, my phone buzzed on the bathroom counter.
VIOLET
now good?
COLTON
yeah come on down
VIOLET
omw
I’d just pulled a t-shirt over my head when there was a quiet knock at the door.
I opened it to find Violet dressed similarly to me: wet hair, t-shirt, shorts, bare-faced. Her arms were crossed like she was cold and she looked upset.
“Hey, come in.” I stepped back to let her through. My stomach sank as it became apparent that something was very wrong. “You okay? Sit.”
I moved to my ice bucket to get her some water. She put up a hand. “I’m not staying. I just . . . wanted to talk to you about something.”
I couldn’t help it. I touched her how I would have eight years before. My hand met her upper arm as she leaned against the wall. Again I noted the soft skin on her arms. “What’s up?”
She smiled, but it was morose, sentimental somehow. “You were always so nice, Colt.”
“You’re scaring me. What’s going on? Are you sick?”
She shook her head and rolled her lips through her teeth, the pressure turning them white. “No. Nothing like that. I just came to say I’m sorry for how I ended things. I wasn’t fair to you, and I’ve regretted it a lot lately.”
This was unexpected. An apology, all these years later. I was stunned. I ran a hand through my hair, tugging on the ends. “It’s no big deal.”
“It is, though,” she said. “You were always good to me and I acted like you weren’t. I couldn’t get myself to say it earlier tonight because well, it’s kind of emotional and a lot to drop at a cocktail reception.”
I swallowed, watching her. She blamed it on the conflict with her parents, on needing their support, but it always felt like there was more than that. Like she would have stuck around if not for that one thing, and I was never privy to what the one thing was.
She went on.
“I made it seem like it was your fault, but it wasn’t you. I guess I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry. I really do wish the best for you. And,” she snorted and raised her eyebrows, “I’m sorry I didn’t apologize sooner. You deserve better.”
My heart pounded as my face relaxed.
“Anyway, I was hoping things wouldn’t be awkward this weekend.”
“Violet,” I started, but got stuck. There were so many things I wanted to say that they got into a traffic jam in my brain.
“But I can just stay away from you,” she offered. “I respect that if it’s what you need.”
“No,” I said. She watched me, eyes moving over my face like she was afraid I’d come at her. “Violet, I was never mad at you. It’s so far in the past now. You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”
Her eyes got glassy, her voice high-pitched like a sped-up recording. “Oh. You haven’t given this nearly as much thought as I have. I don’t even know why I’m here.”
She shifted toward the door, her room key and phone in her hand.
“Violet.” My voice was stern and made her pause in her tracks. “I have thought about it.”
She raised her perfectly arched brow. “But you said I didn’t hurt you.”
I shook my head. “You hurt me. I’m just not mad at you. Never was.”
Her eyes drifted to the floor between us. “Oh.”
“You did what you needed to do for you. I can always respect that. But believe me when I say that it hurt.”
Still does.
“And I appreciate your apology.”
All that time, I knew how I felt. Violet ruined me. She took the deepest parts of me and ran like a thief in the night. Like what we had never mattered. Like our connection wasn’t bone deep and stone strong.
But I knew she was hurting too, and that made it impossible to be angry with her. She picked her family over me, and while that hurt, I knew it wasn’t an easy choice.
She was still hurting now. She wouldn’t have been standing there in front of me, begging my forgiveness if she wasn’t. And I couldn’t bear hurting Violet. I opened my arms. “Come here.”
She stepped into me, and the echoes of every hug surged through me again.
And the one time she didn’t hug me.
I loved her. I loved her and there she was, the feel and smell of her the same. She grew. I grew.
Choppy breaths shook through her. “I’m so sorry, Colt.”
“I know, baby.”
It slipped off my tongue before I had a chance to take it back. But instead of resisting, she squeezed me harder. I wrapped her tighter in my arms, resting my cheek on top of her wet hair.
“It’s okay now.”
“It’s not,” she said on a hiccup. “You were good to me and I was so harsh when I left. You were the best, and I acted like you weren’t. I cut you off.”
The best. Hope flared again, like the flash of a spinning lighthouse that hits you head on, then fades. Did she still think I was the best? Was this the beginning of a new chapter for us?
“We were young,” I said. “We didn’t know how to fight fair.”
“There’s no referee in relationships. No five for fighting. No sin bin.” Her voice was warbled, but I couldn’t help but laugh. She was cracking jokes, even in her pain.
I stroked my hand down her hair and chuckled. “You remembered hockey rules well enough to make a joke. I’m touched.”
“Well, I kinda went to a lot of games. I do have a knack for remembering things.” She stilled in my arms, but I continued passing my fingers through her damp hair. She whimpered again, sounding like she was suppressing a sob. “I remember everything, Colt.”
I swallowed around the golf ball in my throat and nodded. “Me too.” Violet’s sob spilled out and I kissed the top of her head. “Don’t cry over me, Vi. I’m just a lowly peasant.”
She laughed and we stepped apart. She wiped under her eyes and sniffed. “Still on that joke, huh?”
“What? You come from Rhode Island coastal elites. Sturdy stock. I’m just a farm boy.”
She popped my arm and laughed again. “You’re so stupid.”
“I know. That’s why you shouldn’t cry over me.”
The laugh settled between us. It would be normal for her to go back to her room, to go to bed because it was late. But there had to be a reason we both lingered.
“Well, we buried a hatchet. You wanna stick around? We could,” I shuffled through the snacks in the minibar, “I don’t know, eat garbage?”
She considered my offer. A smile slowly curved her lips. “I . . . would love to eat garbage with you.”
“Just admit that you’re not a dog person.”
Violet’s eyes bulged as she prepared to argue back. Her mouth was full of the feast we ordered from room service. Once she cleared her bite, she spoke. “I am a dog person! Your parents’ dogs were just insane!”
“They’re farm dogs. What do you expect? A perfect lap around the show ring? They’re used to herding sheep. Working dogs, Vi.”
“They have border collies in dog shows,” she said. “Hey, hand me that milk. I’ll pour it over our ice cream.”
I wrinkled up my face and sat forward in my armchair. There was no official sitting area in my room, just a couple chairs with a small side table between them. “What?”
“It’s a bootleg Frosty. Come on. I reconstructed our late night meal of choice.”
The balloon of nostalgia in my chest got another pump of air. She placed our room service order while I went to the bathroom, and I didn’t think anything of it when our food arrived. “A cheeseburger with fries, and chocolate ice cream and milk to make a milkshake? You’re a genius.”
Vi pantomimed a bow. “Thank you, thank you.”
I slouched onto my right elbow and twisted my lips. “Those nights were fun. Eating trash.”