Chapter 14
Violet
I’m not brave.
People think I am because surviving something dramatic and awful looks heroic from the outside.
Because I get out of bed every morning and pretend like the world still fits me.
Because I walk grocery store aisles with a cane, ride horses again, and live alone despite the fact that everything in my life changed overnight.
But bravery isn’t the big things. It’s the tiny, invisible battles no one sees.
The moments that feel stupid and small to everyone else but swallow you whole from the inside.
The places where fear sneaks into your ribs and settles there, heavy, familiar.
Bravery is standing still when every part of you wants to run. It’s lifting your chin when you’d rather curl inward. It’s taking one more step into a world that stopped looking familiar a long time ago. And some days? Bravery is as simple—and as impossibly hard—as choosing to keep going.
It’s also standing in my kitchen with trembling fingers, debating whether to send a text.
Since my accident, I haven’t flirted with anyone.
Hell, I haven’t even been attracted to anyone.
I haven’t had the urge to have someone in my space.
To share this side of me that I don’t really understand myself yet.
But that infatuated feeling I have for Human-Jason really turned to something more the other night during our cooking lesson.
There was definitely heat and sparks, and it had nothing to do with the stove.
I started to feel something, and I’m sure he did too.
Which has led me to this moment.
My heartbeat is loud—so loud—like someone pressed Meemaw’s megaphone right up against my ribs.
Every thump echoes inside me, a hollow, trembling drumbeat I can’t outrun.
My hands are damp; my grip on the phone keeps slipping.
Sweat gathers at my hairline even though the kitchen is cool, a bead rolling down my temple like my body wants to betray me in every possible way.
My breath feels too shallow. My throat too tight. How can a text—a few words on a screen—feel scarier than flames, hospitals, or relearning my entire life? But it does. Because this isn’t survival. This is vulnerability.
I let the app read the message back to me, because hearing the words helps me decide if I’m about to humiliate myself.
“Would you… want to come over for dinner tonight? I thought it might be nice to cook something myself. No lessons today. Just… dinner.”
My whole face scrunches, like I can physically wrinkle the awkward out of the sentence. “Just dinner. Oh my god, what’s wrong with me?”
Dog-Jason’s tail thumps once, slow, judgmental, like he’s already disappointed in me.
“Don’t judge me,” I mutter, heat crawling up my neck. “It sounded more confident in my head.”
The words wobble in the air, and I cringe at the sound of my own voice—soft, shaky, hopeful in a way that feels too exposed.
I pace, my slippers tapping softly along the tiles, a steady little metronome for my spiraling nerves. My heart does this fluttery, ridiculous thing, like it hasn’t felt excitement in months and now it’s overdosing on it.
I am not a very romantic person now.
I was never much of a romantic.
Not before the accident. Not even before the world narrowed and darkened and taught me how to live inside my own body like it was a fragile thing that might betray me again.
Back then, love was something other people leaned into. I was practical. Focused. Work came first—hard work. Healing came second. Survival took whatever was left. I learned how to ration my energy, how to be careful with hope, how to settle.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped considering that I might want more.
But standing here now, with warmth in my chest and something tentative reaching outward instead of curling in on itself, I realize this isn’t me going back to who I was.
This is me, for the first time, wondering what it might be like to give it a chance. Romance didn’t fit into that. It didn’t have room. And now here I am… texting a man. Shaking like I’m about to freefall off a cliff.
Feeling attraction again feels… foreign. Too alive.
But when Human-Jason stands close, or guides my hands, or says something unexpectedly soft in that low, steady voice, it wakes something inside me.
Something I thought had burned to ash and been buried under the weight of everything I’ve had to carry.
I hit send before I can talk myself out of it. The message swooshes away into the universe. Then I remember the “just dinner” part. Great! Oh well, it’s done now.
No response yet.
One minute.
Three.
Seven.
Even Jason is pacing nervously at my heels.
“I shouldn’t have sent it,” I groan, dropping my forehead onto Dog-Jason’s giant shoulder. His fur is warm, grounding. “He probably thinks I’m weird. Or forward. Or—”
My phone pings.
I flinch like I’ve been caught doing something wrong. The robotic text-to-speech voice reads:
“Ye”
I blink. “Ye?”
Dog-Jason snorts like he thinks that answer is lackluster too.
“It’s… yes?” I say slowly. “Right? That’s yes?”
He huffs.
“Well, it’s not no.”
My stomach flips—uneven and messy and hopeful enough to make me want to sit down.
“Oh god,” I whisper. “I have a date.”
Jason barks once.
“I suppose I better get ready.”
I shower, more out of nerves than necessity, letting the hot water and scented steam soothe me. My body knows this routine better than my mind does, and for a few minutes, I almost feel like the version of me “before”.
When I step out, I set up my makeup on the bathroom counter for later, fingers brushing over each container in the order I always use.
I used to do my makeup in the car on the way to work during traffic jams, red lights, fifteen-minute commutes that somehow became my private glam station.
I never looked at what I was doing back then either; it was all muscle memory, feeling the shape of my face under my fingers. Sight was optional.
Sure, things are different now. My eyes are different now. The scars tug, the angles have changed a little, the lids don’t move the same way. But the gist? Yeah. I still have that.
And the volunteers on Be My Eyes always compliment me.
“Flawless.”
“So even.”
“Your eyeliner is better than mine and I have working eyeballs.”
Their voices make me smile every single time.
I open the app and get connected to a volunteer—a woman with a warm voice who sounds genuinely delighted to help. “What are we choosing tonight?” she asks.
“Something that says casual but not too casual,” I say, already laughing at myself. “Like… I didn’t try, but obviously I did, but you can’t tell I did.”
She snorts. “So… jeans and a nice top?”
“See, you get me.”
We flip through options together—her describing colors and textures, me running my fingers over fabric. Eventually, we land on soft denim and a top that feels elegant without screaming date night.
Perfect. Or as perfect as I can manage with butterflies cannibalizing each other in my stomach.
I lay the outfit on the bed, press my palm to the fabric, and inhale.
I want to look casual, but I feel anything but. I slip on my robe while I cook. I don’t want to spill on my outfit before the date even starts. I can just picture him staring at the spot the whole night, distracted about whether to tell me or not.
I start cooking with the kind of excitement that’s a whole lot of adrenaline, some self-doubt, and maybe ten percent sheer delusion.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” I confess as I chop herbs. My hands are shaking, but in a good way. “I haven’t flirted since the accident. I barely remember how flirting works. Do people still flirt? Is that still a thing?”
Dog-Jason leans his head against my thigh, the warm, solid weight of him comforting me.
“I guess maybe you’re not going to be able to answer that are you?” I add the herbs to the pan with the salmon ready to go in the oven.
“Do dogs even flirt? Is that what all the butt sniffing is about?” I make my voice deep. “Hey, baby. C’mere so I can sniff that butt of yours.”
Jason sighs dramatically.
“All right, all right, I’m being ridiculous.
I’ll stop now. Do you know what I like most about Human-Jason?
” I ask. “He doesn’t talk to me like I’m fragile.
” He talks to me like I’m a woman with a spine and a mind and a heartbeat, not someone made of cracked glass and disaster residue.
He talks to me like I’m strong, even on days when I don’t feel it, when I can’t see it, when the only version of myself I recognize is the one limping through survival.
Somehow, just by being near me, by treating me like I’m capable, by handing me a knife and trusting me with it, he makes me believe I am too.
I add chopped garlic to the pan, and the kitchen fills with the scent of garlic butter. My mouth waters, and for a moment, I forget everything heavy in my life.
Slowly, carefully, I slot the pan into the oven. That was easy enough.
“Let’s go get ready.”
We make our way up the stairs. I have to admit that the grips do make it safer to navigate the stairs. Once in the room, I quickly get dressed and do my makeup. “How do I look?” I do a little twirl.
I jump when I hear Jason howl. I bend to give him a hug. “You silly boy. But you do know how to make a woman smile. Let’s hope Human-Jason likes it.”
It feels good to just be Violet, girl getting ready for a date, instead of Violet, navigating a world that hates disabled people. I can’t wait for him to arrive.
I’m rearranging the plates for when the food is ready—fingers steady now, senses tracking every little sound, when I hear Dog-Jason pad toward the door.
He scratches, then sits.
“You want to go out?” I ask, kneeling. I find his harness, unclip it. “You’re off duty. Go have fun. Smell things. Knock over trash cans. I don’t know what dogs do for fun.”
He snorts.
“I’ll leave your dinner out.”
He nudges my cheek affectionately.
“Love you too,” I whisper before my brain catches up.
He freezes, then gives my hand the tiniest lick before trotting off into the night.
The door closes behind him, and suddenly the house feels too quiet. Too still. Too full of possibility.
The doorbell rings.
I jump, nearly knocking over the plate. My pulse bolts up my throat like it’s trying to escape.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself, smoothing my shirt on the way to the door. “Okay. Be normal. Be charming. Don’t be a disaster.”
I open the door.
“Hi,” Jason says.
Just one word.
One simple syllable.
But it hits me low in the stomach, warm and deep. His voice is soft, a little breathless—as if he rushed here. He smells like cool night air and something faintly woodsy beneath it.
“Hi,” I echo, trying not to sound like melted chocolate.
“You cooked,” he says, with something like awe in his tone.
“I said I would,” I say. “You know. Bare minimum.”
“I’m honored.”
I blush. I can feel it warming my cheeks. “Come in,” I say quickly. “Before I lose my nerve.”
He laughs, and the low, velvety sound makes the butterflies in my stomach riot.
I think tonight’s going to be great. Maybe I am brave.