Chapter 3 #2
“They were. I was lucky to have you. You always babied me.” Her cheeks tinted pink and Vi focused on her plate. “You’ll be a good dad someday.”
“Okay, now, I was not your dad,” I objected.
“Ew, not like that!” Vi said, tossing a napkin at me. “You just like everybody in your life to have what they need, you know? To feel loved—”
She cut herself off and stared at her plate.
Love. It was the thing I felt but never said. I never got the chance, and in those final agonizing days, I wanted to tell her so badly. Being older now, I know it would have been manipulative, and I was doing enough questionable things at the time.
Red crept up my neck as I balled up my napkin and tossed it over my plate. “Hey, um, while we’re burying hatchets . . .”
Violet paused, a fry suspended in the air over the milkshake. “Yes?”
“I know you feel bad about the breakup and how everything went down, but I should apologize too.”
Her face dropped. “Why?”
I took a breath, my gut churning. “I didn’t handle the breakup very well. I think I put a lot on you because I wasn’t in a good place mentally. I’m sorry for that.”
She sat back in her chair, pulling her knees under her chin. She lifted a shoulder. “You were just trying to work it out. To understand. I get that.”
I shook my head. “No, I really wasn’t regulated. Some of the stuff I said was . . . well. I’m sure you remember.”
Vi’s brows bunched. “You scared me. I was afraid I was going to ruin your future by leaving. That I ruined you somehow. And I felt worse for not responding.”
I stared at the table between us. In a way, she did ruin the future. Our future. But I knew what she meant. She was talking about some of the threats I made. Quitting hockey. Leaving school. A full-blown mental breakdown.
“You did what you needed to do. My mental health problems weren’t your fault,” I said. “If anything, the breakup was the push I needed to get help.”
Vi’s eyes met mine. “Really?”
“Yeah. Mom was the one who picked up on it. I was having mood issues before you came along, and the breakup really made it stand out.” I combed my teeth over my bottom lip.
“How are you doing now? With the heavy feelings?”
“Better. I got on meds. Did some therapy. Good thing too. I don’t think I could have gone to Tampa and had a long distance relationship with you without . . . Yeah. I needed help either way.”
“I’m glad you got what you needed. I was worried about you.”
Didn’t it occur to her that I was worried about her too? That I knew she wasn’t just moving on like nothing happened? Vi glossed right over it, though. “Speaking of your mom, how’s Janice?”
“Mom’s good. She told me to tell you hi.”
Vi smiled. “Your mom’s the best. Tell her right back at her.”
And now, the topic we’d both been avoiding. “How about your parents? Your sister?”
She brightened and looked wistful. “Maya is getting married soon.” She chuckled. “Another doctor, if you can believe that.”
“Wow. Just like your parents.”
“Yep,” Vi said, popping the p. “But I can’t even be bitter. Nouri’s a great guy, and Maya’s still Maya.”
My lips quirked up. “Best sister you ever had.”
“Only sister,” she said in a goofy voice. “But yeah. She’s busy now with all the doctor stuff. And then Mom and Dad are still both working.”
That was a point of contention: how busy her parents were, so busy that Maya was often more of a parental figure than their actual parents. I took a sip of my water. “Did they get over you going for your PhD?”
Vi puffed air out of her lips, an exasperated sound. “No. They’re still holding out hope that I’ll go to med school in my thirties. Which, people do, but I won’t be one of them. They can’t accept that this, research, is my final destination.”
It broke my heart the night she told them she was considering changing her major from pre-med to biology.
The disappointment in their faces. Then, once we left the restaurant, it became clear I was no longer welcome in the conversation.
I waited for Violet in the car and overheard the things her parents said.
Their harsh words for Violet, about her choices, about me.
I was ruining her life, filling her head with nonsense.
Like she wasn’t a grown adult capable of making her own decisions.
That I was trying to make her a trophy wife.
That I’d get her pregnant and forget about her in a month, which was the opposite of the trophy wife argument, but most of their arguments weren’t fair or sensical.
Violet was incredibly successful, and they made it seem like she was flunking out.
Violet had her fill of it, and delivered the big blow: “I don’t want to be a doctor and abandon my kids like you did. You were never there.”
There were no hugs goodbye. No apologies. Nothing but her mother snatching the car keys from her father and storming off, and her dad giving a “we gave you everything” speech. Violet cried all the way home and I held her as she cried herself to sleep.
Violet and her parents were talking again by the time we broke up, but the damage was done. You can’t go back from confessions like those.
In the present, I gave her what I was too young to understand back then. “I know it’s not the same coming from me, but I really am proud of you.”
“Thank you. Sounds like you haven’t done too bad yourself.”
She was deflecting. She knew I knew how bad it was.
I lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, I do alright.”
Violet looked pensive, then yawned and stretched. “I should get to bed. Kitty’ll kill me if they can’t cover the bags under my eyes in the pictures.”
“Well, can’t upset the bride on her wedding day,” I said, standing to walk her out. “Thanks for coming by. This was good.”
Violet squared up with me at the door. “It was. Thanks for . . . late dinner? Early breakfast?”
“No one I’d rather eat garbage with,” I said, extending my arms to hug her. We fell into an embrace, and Vi tightened her grip on me. I took the pause as an opportunity to pat her now-dry hair. “You don’t wear a bow in your hair anymore.”
She smirked and stepped back. “And you don’t wear Ax body spray anymore.”
I guffawed. “Excuse me, I was being nice!”
“I was too,” she joked. “I didn’t even make fun of the body spray. I loved your signature scent.”
I glared at her.
“Fine. I may have given you a little shit about it.” Her face softened. “I still wear ribbons sometimes. Just not as often. Growing up, less whimsy, all that.”
“Wear one for me tomorrow.”
“Somehow, I don’t think my ribbons are in the bridesmaid handbook.” She swallowed another yawn.
I drank in her sweet, sleepy smile and tired eyes, the Violet I knew best. That was the girl who told me everything and who I told everything to. The one I unpacked life with. She was right here in front of me, eight years later. I swiped my thumb at her chin. “Go get some sleep, pretty girl.”
Her nickname. Her old nickname. Seeing her like that just made it fall out of me.
Violet’s lips popped open like she wanted to say something, but she just pressed down on the door handle. “Night, Colt.”