Chapter 13 Violet
THIRTEEN
VIOLET
SEPTEMBER | COLUMBUS, OHIO
I told Colton everything.
The situation surrounding it. The aftermath. How I called my mom and begged to come home and she wouldn’t let me. How I couldn’t talk to my dad because he was visiting Maya.
“A boy hurt me,” I told her.
“Boys hurt girls all the time,” Mom had said. “If we all quit every time that happened, there wouldn’t be female surgeons.”
It reinforced the shame I felt. This was the curse of being a woman in a male-dominated society.
I should have known better. I felt stupid for putting myself in a situation where I was an easy target.
After talking to my mom, I felt like it was all my fault, and that if I didn’t get past it, I was a disappointment, yet again.
I couldn’t afford more disapproval from my parents.
Who I really wanted was Maya, but she was studying abroad during my freshman year. The irony was that she would have been studying at Alden, been there for me, if my parents hadn’t pushed her so hard to be perfect and do everything.
All I wanted from my mom was comfort, and maybe a little rage on my behalf.
What I got were unfair questions. Why would I want to leave Alden, my dream school, an Ivy League school?
Why was I at a party in the first place?
Didn’t I know dating was a distraction from school?
Maya didn’t date. Why couldn’t I be like Maya?
I internalized those questions. I swallowed the victim blaming along with every other bitter pill from this.
Now, I knew it wasn’t my fault. If a friend told me this happened to them, I’d never blame them.
But eighteen-year-old Violet didn’t know that.
Eighteen-year-old Violet wanted to please her parents, to be as “good” as her older sister.
Maya never caused problems like this. I needed to do what my mom said.
Suck it up. Move on. Get on the straight and narrow.
So I stayed at Alden. I pretended I was fine.
Better than fine. I was a woman on the prowl.
A maneater. I acted like I was “easy” to blend in with my sexually liberated friends, but when push came to shove, I never sealed the deal with any guys.
I could put up the front. I could be who I wanted to be, and not the wounded, broken person I was afraid of becoming.
I would defeat the bruises and the black hole in my memory.
The night I met Colton, I was confident I could maintain my rise-above-it attitude. But then I saw him: the boy who hurt me.
I hadn’t seen him since the night it happened, and I almost convinced myself it was all some weird hallucination. And anyway, our school was big enough that I assumed I could coast through the rest of my college career without seeing him.
As it turned out, that was not the case, because he was goalie for Alden’s hockey team. And I, fool that I was, was in the hockey house. The lion’s den.
I tried to talk myself into staying, that I could handle being in his presence. He should have been afraid of me. I knew what a piece of shit he was. Or at least, who I thought he was. Hard to prove something you only partially remembered.
But all that false swagger couldn’t stop me from shaking, panicking, feeling sick—until I backed into Colton. Colton, who was the exact ray of sunshine I wished I could be. Who I pretended to be. A guy who was naturally lucky, who didn’t know what it was to suffer.
That ray of sunshine gave me exactly what I needed that night.
A night of mostly sober beer pong. A night of kisses and cuddles with no pressure for anything else.
A night of sweetness that still gave me giddy stomach swoops to remember.
I gave my limits, and he respected them. He never pushed. He always listened.
And now he was here, listening again.
“My god,” he breathed. “Can I hug you?”
“I’d love that,” I squeaked.
Colton twisted himself around the console to get a good grip on me. I savored his body heat and the mineral scent of rain. He stilled. “This does not help me like your parents any more.”
I laughed and gave him a big squeeze before letting go. “Yeah, that didn’t do our parent-child bond any favors.” I stared at the dash, figuring out how to tell him the next part. “So the reason I left, both times . . .”
Colton’s eyes misted, but his hold on my hand stayed steady. “Did I do something he did?”
I winced. “You had always been safe for me, Colt. You always listened. But . . . I didn’t know it was coming, or that it even bothered me, and I froze.
I didn’t know how to tell you because I didn’t understand it myself.
I think it was . . . the position. Going from the back.
It’s like I went straight back to that dark place. ”
“No spooning. I remember.” Colt’s brow lowered, and he lifted my hand to kiss the back of it. “I wish you could have told me. I’d never have done something to hurt you.”
“I’m sorry.” Tears built in me again. “I wish I could have too.”
Colton was quiet for a long time, giving me space to cry, himself space to process it. He spoke low, and with conviction. “Do you know who did it?”
His expression was full of nothing but concern.
I had no logical reason to fear telling him.
But I also knew how strong the brotherhood of hockey is, especially for him, who really treated his teams as family.
He could deny everything. He could say this person isn’t capable of this, flip it back on me somehow.
That betrayal might be the worst thing to come of this.
His hand tightened on mine. “Is it someone I know?”
I closed my eyes—god, they burned—and nodded. If I cried one more time, my eyelids might crack and crumble off my face.
His words were careful. “You don’t have to tell me who it was. You owe me nothing in all of this.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I’m afraid you’ll be mad at me.”
I opened my eyes to find Colton’s as big as saucers. “Let me get one thing straight: you did nothing wrong. Whoever did this to you, they are the problem. And I don’t care if it’s my closest friend. They’re dead to me.”
This was safe. As safe as I was going to get in this scenario. Colton of all people wanted me to be okay. I could tell him.
I buried my face in my hands, then dragged my fingertips down each side of my face. I took one, two, then three breaths to prepare. “It was your goalie.”
Colton’s jaw popped, an audible click. Then his voice sounded like I’d never heard him before. Dark. Lifeless. Homicidal. “Doyle?”
I gave an almost-imperceptible nod.
His next words were slow, calculated. “I will fucking kill him.”
I leaned against the headrest on his very comfortable passenger seat, arms buzzing from what was probably hyperventilation.
Colt started talking fast. “We could put him in jail. We could file a civil suit. We could get him thrown out of the league. You’d get a settlement—”
“Colt, no.” My voice was firm. “I appreciate everything, but no. My goal is to move on. Work toward a normal life again. Heal.”
His chin trembled. “That motherfucker deserves to pay. What kind of fucking sicko—”
“The only way he would pay is if I came forward and . . . I don’t think I can do that. It’s like reliving it all over again. And you know how things go out in the world when people report it.”
He seemed to snap out of his rage, sitting back and rubbing his forehead. “You’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to be constantly reminded of it. Whatever you want is the right decision.”
He was quiet, and I gave him a minute to let it all sink in. He stared at the console between us on his next question. “Was that time your first time?”
My lips quivered. I hadn’t even touched this part with my therapist yet. We hadn’t made it that far. I nodded and Colt dragged his hand over his eyes.
“I rewrote it in my head. I should have gotten a choice. And if I’d gotten to choose, it would have been you. I told you that you were my first because that’s what I really wanted.”
Colton’s eyes filled with tears, the trails running down his face.
Then he just lost it. He climbed to his knees in the driver seat and bent so he could hold me as tightly as possible.
We stayed that way for a long time, heavy sobs pouring from this man I loved.
My first love. My only love. “Fuck, Violet. I’m so fucking sorry. ”
I nodded. “I know. It’s not your fault.”
He was still crying when he pulled back from our hug. My back throbbed from the awkward position, but we needed this. We needed to come to terms with this. I used the backs of my fingers to wipe away his tears.
“You gave me a gift,” I said. “You gave me what everybody deserves.”
I’d always remember my first time with Colton fondly.
We’d already done the other things, but it was all still relatively new to me.
I was nervous. I wanted to do it before winter break, but he didn’t want to have sex with me and then bail.
He wanted to make sure he gave me a good experience, even in the days after.
He did all the things he thought he was supposed to do, even if they were cheesy.
He made sure his roommates were gone so no one would bother us.
He lit candles. He put on soft music. He took his time undressing me and warming me up, teasing me with his hands and mouth.
He let me touch him however I wanted to.
He encouraged me to say what I was feeling, to push him where I wanted him to go.
Colton even used lube even though god knows I didn’t need it.
I was dying to have him by the time it came down to it.
Everybody deserves that kind of first time. And to my knowledge, he never told his friends I was a virgin. I put out the reputation that I wasn’t, and he wasn’t about to ruin that for me.
“It’s my honor to be your first, Violet. It was then, and it still is now. If you want that time to be your first time, then it was.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, renewed tears flowing down my cheeks. “You were the best. That was such a sweet night.”
He smiled wistfully, wiping his own tears away. “You were perfect. I’ll never forget it.” He paused, then lifted my hand to kiss the back of it. “I’m here for you, Vi. No matter what.”
“You have no idea what that means after everything.” We both made use of some tissues, laughing at what a mess we’d become. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, but know that I’m sorry.”
Colton shook his head. “I forgave you a long time ago, Vi. You know that. None of this is your fault.”
“I know. What happened to me isn’t my fault. But I’m sorry I couldn’t separate you from him.”
“You’re forgiven,” he said, squeezing my hand. A soft smile played on his lips. “You know what I think this calls for?”
“What?”
His fingers tickled my palm. “A forehead kiss, a junior bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a Frosty. If you want them.”
Warmth spread through me and a smile crept across my face. “I want all of that. But no bacon for me.”
“Of course. Bacon for me. No bacon for you.” Colton cupped my neck, his thumb in front of my ear before pulling me to him.
I closed my eyes as his lips pressed into my forehead, taking in the slightly wet dog version of his scent.
It was familiar, taking me back to a simultaneously simpler and more complicated time in my life.
He inhaled while his lips stayed attached to me, smelling my hair like he used to.
He sat back after a shorter kiss, then peppered down my cheek with tiny kisses that made me giggle.
I pulled him into a tight hug across the car’s console.
“Thank you for coming. For being here for me.”
“Thanks for calling,” he said before kissing my hair. “And for trusting me.”
We pulled back and looked into each other’s eyes, and for a moment, I considered kissing him. It had been so long, and seeing him felt surreal. And now I knew why he scared me so badly, and that he was never the enemy.
My parents remained the only barrier, and I was a grown adult. If they couldn’t accept my decisions, that was their loss. Colton and I had no reason not to kiss, not to date, not to let ourselves love each other.
Except for one. One very big reason.
What if I let him in again, only to get triggered and push him away? What if my healing process wore him down? What if I broke him? What if I sent him to the depths of depression, ruined his career?
I must have marinated for too long, because Colton’s smile turned wry. “Let’s go smash some food.”