Strength in Submission

Chapter 1

Chapter One

VIOLET

“The interaction with your last post has been amazing.” Jessie, who’s one of my coworkers and is also one of my best friends, says from the cubicle beside me.

We both work in downtown Jacksonville on E. Bay St and our office overlooks the St. Johns River. We work at a fashion magazine called Season, but over the last year, it’s turned into more than just a magazine about fashion.

Now we’re having our journalists going out and doing things like trying certain feminine waxes, the newest beauty trends, and so much more. Honestly, we’re rapidly growing and I think we’re going to be comparable to Cosmopolitan soon.

I pick up my afternoon cup of coffee. “Which one? I’ve scheduled so many over the last few days.”

I’m one of those women who drink it early in the morning and then right before I leave. Hell, if they offered it to us in an IV I'd gladly take it that way as well.

Today is a little bit different, I’m leaving a few hours early so I can go enjoy a beautiful sunny Jacksonville afternoon. I had some rollover vacation time from last year so now it’s time to use it.

“The post on X, it really got people moving and communicating with the magazine. I heard Victorio say something about it.”

I arch a brow, uncertain if this is a good or a bad thing. “Positive or negative?”

Victorio’s our boss, one of the men whose photo is on the hallway leading into the offices with some of the other more established and reputable people here. I think he might even be on the board, but I can’t be too sure. I’d have to double-check.

“Positive. This is good, Violet. You’re making it so he knows your name.”

I smile lightly, but there's something no one knows. The only reason I wanted to get a job here is because Victorio could very well be my father. My mother told me she never told him, and I have so many unanswered questions.

Now, I’ve debated strutting right up to him and telling him who I am, and who I believe he is…

but I couldn’t do it. Not only would it take a crazy amount of balls, but it would be really unprofessional.

I felt like I needed to prove myself here at Season first before I even mentioned it to him.

And, from the looks of it I’m starting to do just that.

But, I'm not going to lie. I'm a little nervous. I'm afraid that he won't take me seriously because I work here, too. Who knows, it could turn out really well for me if I'd just give it a chance.

My mother told me she had an affair with a man in journalism, one who was always searching for his next story.

She told me that even though she felt fondly of him, she knew he wasn’t the type to stay home and raise a family, how his heart was burned into his work and she felt it was unfair to force him into playing house.

Not many people would understand the position she was put in, but I do.

She grew up in a very rural part of Georgia and moved to Florida with me when I was a few weeks old.

When I was sixteen, she sat me down the evening of my birthday and answered every question I had about my family, about why my grandparents didn’t come to my birthday parties as a child, about why I didn’t know her brother, or two sisters, or even my cousins.

Anything I could’ve possibly had a question about, I asked.

I discovered some ugly truths that day, truths I often wish weren’t my reality but alas they are.

My mother. No, let me rephrase that. My angel of a mother left behind her entire family when I shot out of the womb and they saw what I looked like.

Every bit of excitement they could’ve had flew out the window, the same excitement that took months to build up, considering their daughter was unwed.

Georgia is a very hush-hush state, so having kids out of wedlock at the time wasn’t exactly the way most people wanted to go. My mother told them she was having me and that was pretty much it. After a while, they began to support her and then I was born, and my grandparents saw I was too dark.

I was too dark for their liking.

I wasn’t white enough to be Caucasian, but the irony is how I wasn’t dark enough to be with the other Latino kids in my community when I went to school.

There weren’t even very many kids who had the same skin tone as me when I was in elementary, middle, or high school .

. . which only ended up making it worse.

They’d make jokes, call me a gringa, even though I’m not one and wasn’t one. Now I accept the fact I’m a beautiful, biracial woman, and while the road called life wasn’t easy… I pride myself on my triumphs.

I may be a mixture of both worlds, but I truly believe it’s the best. Now I only wish I can gain the courage to speak to Victorio, who yes is one of my bosses, but is also half of the reason I’m here.

I’ve been slowly gaining the courage to speak to him about this for a while now, and while I’ve had countless opportunities I’m going to wait. I’ll wait until the end of the month, and on my twenty-fifth birthday I’ll tell him everything.

I’ll tell him who I am. I’ll tell him who my mother is, and I’ll pray he’s accepting and open to communicating with me in a different way than he does while we’re at work.

“Guess I’ll have to throw more polls online from time to time. I was experimenting with our readers a bit, but I’m glad to know it paid off.”

Jessie smiles widely. “It more than paid off. When you come in Monday morning check and see what the counts were. I overheard him talking to Clarise and he said your idea was, and I quote, 'brilliant'.”

Heat swarms in my chest and I’m happier than I’ve been in ages. To know I’m doing something right here at Season is one thing, but knowing he holds pride in what I accomplished makes me even prouder.

I finish my last sip of coffee and log out of my computer.

It’s about sixty-three out today so I wore a light jacket in and I’ll be wearing it out as well.

I plan on going straight home to the apartment I share with my boyfriend of six months, Derek, and then I’ve booked myself a nice spa day starting this evening at four.

Smiling at Jessie, I pick up my purse and sling it over my shoulder after I have my jacket on. “Thanks for telling me. I really needed to hear that.”

“It’s no problem. You know how the upper management is here.

They’re hardly ones who go boasting when someone does a good job and it’s always nice to hear whenever we’re doing something they like.

” Jessie has a really good point here. I’d rather know what’s working well for not only the magazine, but for the people upstairs as well.

“Thank you. I really owe you one.”

“How about we go out to dinner and have a girls’ night?

I’m desperate for a good wing woman.” Jessie and I have known each other for the last year, both getting our jobs at the exact same time.

Season operates a bit differently, offering hiring surges.

For example, if they need new journalists, they might hire five to ten at a time.

The same goes for every other department here.

“Okay, just text me and let me know when and I’ll be the best wing woman you’ve ever had,” I say with a wink, causing Jessie to laugh.

I finish sorting out my desk, close my laptop and slide it in my laptop case that looks like a backpack and sling it over my arm.

Since I’m ready to head out, I walk right to the elevator, get in the second it opens and take a deep breath.

Today is going to be a great day. I can just feel it!

I don’t waste any time getting into my car and peeling out of the parking lot. I just can’t wait to get home and be able to relax a little bit. God, it’s going to be glorious!

I roll through a yellow light on Rosewood Avenue, grinning at the way my dented Honda shudders when I accelerate. Three hours early. Three whole hours to surprise Derek after I get back from the spa.

Maybe with takeout from Szechuan Palace, maybe that bottle of Prosecco we’ve been saving since New Year’s. My phone buzzes in the cup holder.

It doesn’t take me long before I’m back at our apartment building and I park right behind

Derek’s Jeep, fingers tapping the rhythm of Lizzo’s chorus still thumping in my skull.

I get out of my car and head up the stairs.

They smell like old curry and Pine-Sol, same as always.

Fourth floor landing. Our faded turquoise door with the peeling Yankees sticker.

My key sticks in the deadbolt—that damn humidity again—and then I’m inside, kicking off my sneakers with a cartoonish flourish.

“Guess who’s—”

I step on something odd, probably a sock and then I realize what it is.

A leopard-print thong.

Derek’s head snaps up from the couch, his hand frozen mid-stroke against the back of a bleached blonde ponytail. The woman’s sequined skirt rides up her thighs where she straddles him, her coral-painted nails digging into the collar of his work shirt.

My bag slips off my shoulder, hitting the laminate with a thud.

“Vi—” Derek starts, but I’m already moving.

My pulse roars like subway trains as I close the distance.

The blonde twists toward me, lips swollen and glossy, and I see it—the tiny mole above her eyebrow, same placement as mine.

My fingers tangle in her extensions before she can scream, the synthetic strands slipping through my grip like seaweed.

She crashes sideways into the coffee table, sending an open jar of artisanal salsa clattering to the floor. Glass shards glitter in the afternoon light.

“Who the fuck,” I pant, standing over her, “are you?”

She wipes blood from her split lip with the back of her hand, smearing it across her cheekbone. Laughs. It’s a wet, gurgling sound. “Your replacement.” Her vowels stretch with a Texas twang I hadn’t noticed before. “Since you couldn’t do the job right.”

Derek’s standing now, buttoning his jeans with trembling fingers. There’s a hickey blooming beneath his collarbone, purple against his summer tan. I wait for him to look at me and he’s too chicken shit to do it.

“What the fuck is going on?!” My voice comes out shredded, like I’ve been screaming for hours.

“You know what’s going on.” His thumb swipes at the hickey beneath his collar. “Get your shit and leave.”

The blonde snorts, a wet bubble of sound. She’s found her phone in the wreckage, filming us with her good eye already swelling shut. Derek doesn’t tell her to stop. Doesn’t even glance at the cracked screen reflecting our disaster back at us.

“You heard her.” He nods toward the human tripod, casual as ordering takeout. “And quite frankly?” A shrug. One shoulder lifts higher than the other—the side where he tore his rotator cuff doing keg stands. I paid the urgent care bill. “She can fuck way better than you.”

Something detonates behind my sternum. Not anger anymore—something colder, sharper.

Surgical. I stare at the chipped turquoise polish on my toes, the shade he called tacky last weekend.

Count the water stains on the ceiling we pretended were constellations.

Breathe in the stench of Target-brand candle wax and betrayal.

“Okay,” I say.

Derek blinks. “Okay?”

The blonde lowers her phone. Blood drips onto her faux-vintage Def Leppard tee. I hope it’s dry-clean only.

I step over the salsa river separating us and head straight into our bedroom. His laundry basket overflows with shirts I folded. His gym socks mushroom under the bedframe I tightened monthly.

The framed photo on his nightstand—us at Coney Island, my cheeks windburned, his arm slung over my shoulders like a taxidermied python—catches the light as I yank open drawers.

“Vi—” He’s in the doorway, backlit by the carnage.

I toss his limited-edition Pokémon cards onto the bed. The holographic Charizard winks at me from its protective sleeve. “You’ve got one minute to leave me alone before I go fucking psychotic on your ass.”

His Adam’s apple bobs. “You wouldn’t.”

Our eyes meet. For three years, I mapped the gold flecks in his irises, traced the laugh lines he swore weren’t from smoking. Now they’re just holes in a face.

“Fifty-nine.”

He slams the door.

Before I do anything, I pick up the card and rip it into a million little pieces. That was one of his most prized cards, and now it’s nothing. Just like our relationship I guess.

I empty my half of the closet into a Trader Joe’s reusable bag. The polyester strains against my denim jacket, the sundress he said made me look “approachable,” the Docs I wore when we got caught in that thunderstorm. Through the wall, I hear him whining—baby, clinic, and crazy bitch.

My fingers brush the velvet box hidden behind the winter scarves. Inside: two tickets to the immersive Van Gogh exhibit, purchased four months ago with overtime tips from the brewery. Date circled on our shared Google Calendar in neon yellow.

No way in hell am I going to leave them here.

The blonde’s gone when I emerge, but her presence lingers in the cloying vanilla perfume and the boot-shaped dent in the drywall.

Derek hunches over his PS5, controller clicking furiously.

Doesn’t look up as I toe the last evidence of myself into my bag—a hair tie around the bathroom doorknob, the Burt’s Bees on the windowsill, the chipped mug proclaiming WORLD’S BEST BARISTA that he’d rolled his eyes at forever ago.

“Bye, you dumb fuck.” I say to his hunched shoulders.

He grunts and kills a zombie onscreen.

What he doesn’t realize is that his entire life is about to be fucked up.

My name is on the lease. I’m the one who paid the security deposit and all of the rent…

and when I call my landlord and explain my boyfriend kicked me out, I’m sure he’ll make Derek apply to be a resident there.

Guess what? He won’t pass the background check.

You want to fuck me over? Fine.

I’ll fuck you over twice as hard.