9. now
now
Iam a trembling mess of nerves and unbridled wrath.
Let the record show, Violet Preston is typically a sane woman.
I get good grades. I pay my rent a few days early.
I call my mom at least once a week. Sure, I occasionally dye my hair blue and abandon weddings partway through, but I’m rational where it counts.
And you know what, even the hair and wedding fiascos weren’t my fault. Not really. They were his.
I knock hard enough to shake the door. Derek better have the right address. I’m so worked up at this point, I have to argue with someone. If Atlas doesn’t live here, then the owner of this apartment is in for a rude awakening.
“Jesus, I’m coming!” a man yells.
I hate that I instantly know it’s not Atlas. The voice isn’t quite deep enough, and the man’s words come too fast. Atlas has always been a slow talker. I know because I had to restrain myself from finishing sentences for him in middle school. By high school, I found the quirk endearing.
The door swings open, revealing one of the men from the party.
He’d been with Atlas. The shortest of the four men, and up close, he’s a bit terrifying.
Buzzed hair, intense expression. He’s handsome though.
My height, maybe an inch taller, but significantly wider.
He is muscles on top of muscles, and at the moment, most of those muscles are exposed.
He’s wearing a pair of shorts—the kind runners wear—and a pair of tennis shoes.
No shirt. No socks either, though hopefully I just can’t see them.
“You here for Atlas?” He looks me over twice, not crudely, but clearly checking me out.
“Yes.” It comes out more like a bark than an answer. My entire body feels hot with rage, but I can’t resist asking, “How did you know?”
“Well, you’re not here for me.”
He looks over me again, smirking before he steps back.
He leaves the door ajar as he disappears deeper into the apartment.
He didn’t tell me to come in, but I enter anyway, shutting the door behind me.
Despite being stupidly expensive, the apartment is pretty basic.
Where Hayden and I spent hours hanging pictures and matching colors, it’s clear these guys did the bare minimum.
They’ve got a brown couch, a square dining table, and a large cardboard box for a coffee table.
Their TV is on the floor with a game console off to the side.
I roll my eyes before I can stop myself. Typical.
“Violet.”
I turn back toward the kitchen. Atlas stands at the end of the hallway. His roommate has disappeared, which is probably for the best. Atlas is about to be eviscerated, and I’m guessing he’d prefer no witnesses.
“What are you doing here?”
He’s not wearing a shirt either. Maybe that’s a rule in their apartment. All abdominal muscles must be on full display. He’s not wearing running shorts though. Just plain black basketball shorts and bare feet. His brown hair is tousled, like he’s freshly rolled out of bed.
“Violet?” he repeats. “Why are you here?”
I scoff. The actual audacity.
“That’s my line,” I snap. I stride into the kitchen, until only its island counter separates us. Atlas looks me over, but unlike his roommate, there’s no heat there. Only cautious curiosity.
“I don’t understand.”
“This is my town.” I press my hands against the counter, over-enunciating each word. “In case you forgot, you’re supposed to be in Missoula.”
“You keeping tabs on me?” His lips twitch into the beginning of a smile.
“Did you switch schools?” I ask, ignoring him. “Or are you just here to torture me?”
The smile falls. Good.
“I transferred here.”
“Why.” It’s not a question. It’s an accusation, and I’m not leaving until he confirms what I already know. He’s here to further ruin my life, to ensure I’m so miserable, there’s no possible way I survive.
“Well, I guess I got my answer about your phone number,” he says in lieu of answering. My stomach pitches, but I work hard to keep my expression neutral. Atlas sighs. “I wondered if you were getting my texts, whether you were just ignoring me or whether you’d actually blocked my number.”
I offer a one-shouldered, noncommittal shrug.
“I tried to text you. Just to give you a head’s up. I didn’t want to blindside you like that.”
“Stop,” I snap. “Stop acting nice or like you’re worried about me. I don’t care where you are. I just—why are you here, Atlas? I thought you were in Missoula. My mom said you had a swimming scholarship there. A good one.”
That infuriating little mouth twitch happens again, the one where he’s trying hard not to smile. When we were sixteen, I always felt compelled to kiss that look off his face.
Now, I’m more inclined to use my fist than my lips.
“I switched majors, and Aber has a better program for it. They offered me a scholarship too. It was an easy decision.”
Don’t say ‘Aber’ like you’re a local, I want to say. You’ve only been here five minutes.
What was your major? I almost ask. What is it now?
Do you regret what you did? I’ve wondered, every single moment of my existence since that day. Even a little bit?
“So it’s purely coincidental that you ended up here, out of every other college in the whole fucking United States.”
He smiles, and it’s a punch to my chest. I’m momentarily stunned, struggling to remember how to breathe.
“I’ll never get used to you cussing,” he says. Like we’re friends. Like he knows me at all. “But no, it’s not purely coincidental. You’re here, Violet. We have unfinished business.”
A shocked gasp breaks between my lips before I can stop it. He cannot be serious.
“No, we really don’t.” I step back from the counter, facing Atlas, even as I grab the door handle. Confronting him seemed like a good idea when I woke up this morning. Now, I’m desperate to put as much distance between us as possible. “You ruined my life, Atlas. There’s nothing more to say.”
His smile drops again, and he takes a deep breath. I can see his mind working, the same way I could when we were kids. Like it or not—and I most definitely do not—I know Atlas better than I know anyone else.
“Let’s just agree to stay out of each other’s way, all right?” I open the door, but only make it halfway through before he speaks.
“You dyed your hair blue.” The words slip out like a tortured confession. “Blue, Violet. Do you remember?”
I work my jaw. His question draws a buried memory from the recesses of my mind. A whispered conversation from nine years ago, from a night I remember for an entirely different reason.
“We’re not kids anymore, Atlas,” I say. “You’re trying to save someone who no longer exists.”
I don’t allow myself to look back as I leave his apartment, closing the door behind me.
“I take it the talk didn’t go well,” Hayden drawls from the round table.
“What talk?” I don’t look at her as I storm around the kitchen, taking out all the ingredients for fresh pasta. There’s nothing quite as therapeutic as punching dough.
“With Atlas?” She flips a page of her textbook. “I assumed that’s why you left at like five in the morning.”
“I left at seven.” I drop a bag of flour on the counter. Making pasta from scratch is far more time-consuming than it is difficult. There are only a couple of ingredients. Flour. Eggs. Salt. A little olive oil. Basil when I’m feeling fancy, which I’m currently not.
“She denies the time, but not the reason.”
I tear open the bag of flour, scoffing as a cloud of white dust puffs into the air. I should’ve put my pajamas back on. Instead, I’m wearing the same outfit—a fitted black tank top and red leggings—as I was at Atlas’s.
You dyed your hair blue. He sounded perfectly gutted, and I hate him for it.
I scoop a couple cups of flour onto the counter, ignoring Hayden’s blatant staring.
I’m coated in a thin layer of flour now, but I don’t care.
I’m going to be reckless and messy and pissed off for the rest of the day.
All because this stupid guy can’t take a hint.
He’s insisting on ruining my life, more than he already has.
“Jesus.”
I snap out of my daze. There’s flour all over the counter and down the front of my shirt. The eggs have already escaped the little well I made in the flour, and one yolk is getting dangerously close to the edge.
Worse, I’m crying. When the hell did I start crying?
“What happened?” Hayden speaks with the tone of someone facing a deranged grizzly bear.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I smear my hands over my cheeks, roughly wiping my tears and streaking flour down my face. Then I pull my shirt over my head. I don’t care that our blinds are open or that there are most definitely people walking on the sidewalk outside. Let them watch. Let them—
“All right.” Hayden shoves away from the table and grabs me by the shoulders, hauling me toward our bathroom.
The counter is littered with the makeup I used this morning.
Because while I was too proud to put on a cute outfit (even though I definitely had one picked out), I wasn’t too proud to put on some foundation and mascara and lip gloss.
Hayden points at the edge of the bathtub. “Sit.”
“I don’t need to sit.”
“You’re naked and trying to make pasta at…” She pauses to consult her phone. “Nine in the morning.”
“I’m not naked.” It’s true. I’m wearing a sports bra, which a glance in the mirror confirms is also covered with flour. “And you like my pasta.”
“Sit.” She clamps down on my shoulders, pushing until I stumble back against the tub. “Don’t make me call your mom.”
“God, Hayden.”
“You’re crying!”
“Barely!”
She plants her hands on her hips. She’s wearing a pair of cheer shorts and an oversized T-shirt that likely belongs to one of her recent hook-ups. Her mouth is set in a firm line, like she’s determined to fix whatever’s wrong in my head.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot in need of fixing.
“Sorry. I’m having a shit morning.”
“I know.” She unspools some toilet paper and holds it out to me. “Just tell me what’s going on, and I’ll let you go make naked pasta to your heart’s content.”
“We don’t…I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” She takes the toilet paper back from me and starts dabbing my face. “At least let me clean you up.”
I take a few slow breaths, trying to control the ache in my chest. Hayden takes her time on my face, and eventually, the silence becomes too much for me to stay quiet. I’m pretty sure it’s part of her evil plan, but I’m too tired to contain myself.
“Atlas transferred here because of me. Because he thinks I’m a mess or something.”
Hayden arches an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. She steps to the bathroom counter and takes out her bag of makeup. Kneeling beside me, she starts applying her makeup over mine.
“I dyed my hair at his sister’s wedding.” I snort. “That’s why he’s here.”
Both of Hayden’s eyebrows are raised now. She’s looking at me like I’m crazy, and to be fair, that sounds crazy. It is crazy.
“It’s a long story, but he’s acting like he’s here to save me. Which is just ridiculous because he’s the reason I’m so fucked up.”
“Do you think he wants to get back together?” She applies liquid contour, then blush around my cheekbones.
“No.” It’s the truth, and it’s for the best. My chest clenches at that reality anyway. My brain understands why Atlas and I can never be together again, but my heart has never quite understood. “He knows it won’t happen. Not that he’d want to anyway. He probably has a girlfriend.”
A girlfriend who’s probably in Missoula, wondering why the hell her boyfriend transferred to his ex’s college.
You dyed your hair blue.
“Walk me through your conversation,” Hayden says. “And start with how you got his address.”
“Derek. I mean, it’s his fault all this happened. He was supposed to disinvite Atlas, remember?”
“Fair enough.” She touches my chin, tilting my face toward the bathroom’s only light source. “Walk me through it.”
“All right.” I swallow, but I don’t have to tell Hayden everything. Just enough that she understands. “Let me start with the blue hair…”