Page 21

VIOLET

2 MONTHS LATER

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Violet,” Mom and Dad sang. “Happy birthday to you!”

Violet couldn’t help but laugh as Lynne clapped, hopped, and sang at the top of her voice. The kindergarten teacher in her had never been more evident than at this moment.

“Now close your eyes and make a wish!” Lynne encouraged and held up a finger. “And know that all your dreams are within reach!”

Violet dutifully closed her eyes for show and waited an appropriate amount of time before she blew out the candles.

“Woo-hoo!” Lynne cheered and turned on the dining room lights to reveal the smoking candles. “Eighteen,” Lynne marveled and wrapped her arms around Violet. “I can’t believe it. You’re all grown up.”

Violet allowed herself to lean into Lynne. Dad watched them with a fond smile.

Lynne kissed the top of her head. “You’re the best daughter. We’re so happy to have you here with us.”

Violet lowered her gaze and ignored the sudden lump in her throat. Lynne gave her a squeeze and went into the kitchen to fetch bowls and ice cream.

“Did you have a good day at school?” Dad asked.

Violet nodded and, to avoid eye contact, reached out to stroke the velvet petals of a rose in a vase in the middle of the table. “Everyone remembers my birthday since it’s back-to-back with us starting school. My friends got me enough balloons to make my backpack float,” she joked.

“Are you sure you don’t want a party? This is the first time you haven’t had one, and eighteen’s such a special year,” Lynne said as she cut into the strawberry cake.

“I don’t need a party. I’m happy with this,” Violet said, gesturing between the three of them. “And you paid for us to go to that concert. We’ll celebrate then.”

“Here you go.” Mom placed a generous slice of strawberry cake and two scoops of ice cream in front of her. “For the sweetest birthday girl.”

They had followed the same ritual for her birthday that Lynne established five years ago. She woke to one dozen pink roses and red velvet pancakes for breakfast, followed by her favorite meal for dinner and now strawberry cake and ice cream. Usually, she had a party on the weekend after her birthday, but this year she asked to skip it. The concert tickets Mom and Dad had bought for her and her friends were more than enough. Everything was as it should be. Better, actually. So, why wasn’t she happy? Why didn’t she feel anything?

She refused to look to her left, where Jesse used to sit. Even though he wasn’t there, she felt the heaviness of his presence. He was everywhere and yet, nowhere. It had been almost two months since he left. She assumed once he was gone that she would magically revert to who she’d been, only to realize that part of her was gone forever.

Her grand plans of enjoying the rest of her summer never came to fruition. After Jesse left, she shut down. She had a hard time getting out of bed and struggled to do basic daily functions. The thing that snapped her out of her zombie state was Mom suggesting she speak to Pastor Sonny or one of the other church leaders. Fear of being questioned galvanized her into action.

She thought she would no longer have to act, but she was putting on the performance of her life. All eyes had always been on Jesse. Without him to deflect everyone’s attention from her, she now had to work three times as hard to appear normal. She did what was required of her. She did her chores, went to church, and had recently returned to school for her senior year. She responded when spoken to and smiled on command, but she felt absolutely nothing. When she was alone and no longer had to pretend that she was like everyone else, she plummeted into a mental space so bleak that she worried about her sanity.

Although she’d been half expecting it, her heart stopped when Mom’s phone rang. Mom dropped her bowl with a clatter and sprinted to the counter, where the phone was charging. From her delighted expression, Violet knew who the caller was before Mom announced, “It’s Jesse!”

As her body went numb, she asked Dad, “How’s Uncle Perry?”

Dad took his gaze from Mom and focused on her. “He’s still in the hospital.” Dad shook his head. “He dropped two stories with that toddler in his arms. The kid didn’t have a scratch. Perry’s lucky he just broke his leg and not his?—”

“Violet?”

She turned her head and saw Mom holding out her cell phone.

“Jesse wants to wish you a happy birthday.”

Even as dread weighted down her limbs, making her stumble as she rose from her chair, Violet tried to look eager rather than sick to her stomach.

Mom gave her a puzzled look as she handed over the phone. “Jesse said he’s been trying to get in touch with you all day.”

Violet pressed the mute button before she said, “Really? Huh. I don’t know why I didn’t see his messages.” She put the phone to her ear and said a bright, “Hello?”

“Violet?”

The sound of Jesse’s voice unleashed a torrent of emotion that made her knees buckle. She braced her hand on the table as she bowed her head and closed her eyes to get a handle on herself.

“Thank you,” she said, as if Jesse had wished her a happy birthday and tried to inject some warmth and enthusiasm into her voice as she asked, “How are you doing?”

She hadn’t heard his voice since the day he left. She blocked his number so he wouldn’t be able to contact her, and managed to avoid speaking to him whenever he called their parents by making herself scarce or saying she would call him back on her phone and never doing so. She considered having a party just to have more people around so she would have an excuse to skirt this phone call. Stupidly, she’d hoped Jesse would forget or be too busy to call. Now she had no choice but to carry on a fake conversation in front of her parents. She would leave it up to Jesse to explain why he was unable to hear anything on his end. He was good at making up lies.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your messages. Maybe I need to get my phone checked out,” she said.

“Mom, are you there?” Jesse asked impatiently.

Her nails sank into her palms. Memories swarmed over her, reviving needs she was desperately trying to forget. She opened her eyes and saw Mom watching her intently. Violet flashed a megawatt smile as she said, “We just finished dinner. We’re eating cake and ice cream.” She let out a false laugh and said, “No. Not German chocolate cake, but we did have buttermilk pie recently. Dad got two pies all to himself.”

“That’s what you get when you go to the military! No home cooked meals!” Dad said loudly and took a swat on the arm from Mom before he carried his bowl into the living room to finish eating in front of the TV.

“Mom? Violet?” Jesse called.

Violet moved into the kitchen as Mom began to clear the table and asked, “What have you been up to? Are they treating you good?”

“Mom,” Jesse bit out.

Violet’s stomach churned. He sounded different. Harder, colder. Even his voice had deepened.

“Mom? What the hell?” Jesse snapped and hung up.

Violet blew out a breath. “Uh-huh,” she said, nodding. “That doesn’t sound too bad.” She wiped down the counters as she chattered for show. “School’s been good. At first, I loved driving myself everywhere, but now I miss being a passenger princess. Can you believe that? Oh my gosh. You know who I saw recently? I…”

She yanked the phone away from her ear when it began to ring loudly. Why hadn’t she thought to turn off the volume? Damn! When Mom frowned, Violet widened her eyes. “I didn’t even know we got disconnected.”

She answered the phone and immediately pressed the mute button again.

“How long was I talking to myself?” Violet asked ruefully.

“Mom?” Jesse called in a clipped tone.

“That long?” Violet chuckled before she flicked her hand. “I was just talking about school and wishing you could chauffeur me around like the good old days.”

When Mom turned away with a smile and went to join Dad in the living room, Violet’s tense shoulders dropped.

Jesse’s voice abruptly hardened. “Damn it, Vi. I know you’re there. Answer me.”

Her hand tightened on the phone. “You’re almost done with basic training, right?”

“It’s been two months,” he rasped. “Let me hear your voice.”

Fuck him. She wouldn’t give him anything he wanted ever again, even if it was just the sound of her voice.

“Oh, really?” she asked, trying to sound interested.

“If you don’t talk to me, I’m going to tell Mom,” Jesse said.

Outrage seared her throat. She should be the one threatening him, not the other way around! She wanted to slam the phone on the counter until it came apart in pieces. Instead, she held her smile, though it was now more of a sneer as she unmuted the call. Thankfully, Mom and Dad were watching the news and not paying attention to her.

“You’re an asshole,” she said quietly.

He exhaled before he said grimly, “This is the only way I can get you to talk to me since you blocked me.”

“You’re blocked for a reason.”

He ignored that and asked, “How… how have you been?”

He sounded nervous and awkward.

She glanced at Mom and Dad before she hurried down the hallway to her bedroom. If she had to speak to him, she wanted privacy to say what she needed to.

“I was okay until I had to talk to you,” she retorted as she closed her bedroom door and punched one of the balloons a friend had given her.

“I wanted to tell you happy birthday.”

“Thank you,” she said ungraciously. “Is that it?”

“No, I…”

“You what?” she demanded. “What do you want from me?”

She hated the warble in her voice. She’d hoped the next time they interacted that she would be stone-cold, but clearly, not enough time had passed. His voice whipped her emotions into a frenzy. She hated that he had such power over her, but she hated even more her body’s response. The neglected space between her legs throbbed, begging to be possessed. What the hell was wrong with her? What kind of sicko missed the fucked-up things he used to do to her?

A filthy slut, that’s who , her inner critic jeered. She bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed to disrupt the scathing litany and focused in time to hear Jesse say, “I want what I’ve always wanted. You.”

Her hand whistled as it slashed through the air. “You can’t have me! You’ll never have me. I want nothing to do with you. Why can’t you understand that?”

“I didn’t call to upset you,” he said wearily

“Then you should have left me alone! You know I don’t want to talk to you. Why force me?”

His voice shredded as he said with a little heat of his own, “Because I miss you! Not seeing you, not being able to talk to you has been hell. We’ve never been apart this long. I’m going crazy. Don’t you miss me at all?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. The worst part was, she did miss him, and she hated herself for it.

Her prolonged silence made him sigh. She couldn’t see him, but she imagined him running his hands through his hair.

“I thought…” He hesitated and then said in a rush, “The day I left, you held on to me. You didn’t want me to go. Damn it, you kissed me back, Vi!”

She flinched as her stomach churned, threatening to expel her favorite cake. That day haunted her because it demonstrated how weak she was when it came to him. It didn’t matter what he did to her. Her defenses would never be as strong as they needed to be where he was concerned. She had to keep him at a distance, which was possible now that he was in the military. She thought she’d built up some resistance to him, but this phone call proved her shields were as sturdy as wet napkins.

“You can’t hold what I did that day against me. I didn’t know what I was doing! I was messed up—I’m still messed up because of you. I don’t know if I’ll ever be…”

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to smother a rogue sob without success. She shut her eyes, utterly humiliated. She hadn’t even been talking to him for two minutes, and she was spiraling out of control.

“Don’t cry,” he said gruffly. “Or so help me God, I’m going to show up.”

“I’m not crying,” she lied defiantly. “And you can’t ‘show up’. They decide what you do now.”

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I’m almost done with basic training, and I have the opportunity to come home before I?—”

“What?” she quietly shrieked.

“I may be able to stay for a week or two before I ship off to Alaska.”

“D-did you mention this to M-mom or Dad?” She was so rattled, her words tripped over one another.

“No. I wanted to talk to you first. It was supposed to be a surprise for your birthday.”

“No!”

“I need to see you,” he said desperately. “I’m dying without you.”

“You can’t shove me back into your twisted game again! I can’t do it!”

“I won’t,” he began earnestly, but she cut him off.

“Don’t make promises we both know you can’t keep!”

The thought of seeing him again threw her into a panic. She thought she would have six months or more to prepare before facing him. The thought of seeing him any sooner was horrifying.

“You don’t know what you did to me,” she said in a strangled voice. “I am not okay. I’m just starting to feel human again, and you want to come back and break me all over again.”

“I don’t?—”

“You’ve done it countless times! That’s all you know how to do! I don’t know how you can live with yourself when I don’t want to live with myself. How do you do it?”

“Violet.”

His voice cracked like a whip, but she didn’t want to hear what he had to say. He had to stay away. Her sanity depended on it. She was barely hanging on. If he came back, it would destroy her. She couldn’t take another round of him, not when she had finally adjusted to his absence. In the past, she did her best to keep him from seeing how much damage he inflicted, but she would reveal all if it would keep him at bay.

“I thought once you were gone, I would feel better, but…” She shuddered as the ever-present shame rose up to choke her. “Every time I get in the car, I think of all the things you’ve done to me in it. I go to church, and I think of what you did to me on that stage. I go to school, and I think of all the places you took me, the things you forced me to do…” Her hands brushed at the invisible sludge she could feel on her body, but could never remove, no matter how hard she scrubbed.

“Baby.”

She stomped her foot. “Don’t call me that! Don’t call me anything. Don’t talk to me!” she said wildly as she mentally unraveled.

“Violet.”

“Do you know what I did today?” She clutched the phone in a death grip as her eyes filled with tears. “My friends wanted to treat me to lunch, but instead of going with them, I drove to that park where you broke me the first time. The place where you showed me the real you. I sat there and thought about ending it all.”

There was no sound on the other end of the line. She wasn’t sure if the call dropped, but she kept talking. Now that she’d confessed the dark path her mind had taken to the one person who would understand why, she couldn’t stop.

“I am barely hanging on,” she said hoarsely as tears poured down her face. “All the secrets and lies… I can’t do it anymore. I can’t live like this.”

As the pain mounted to an unbearable degree, her eyes flicked around the room for something to inflict damage on her person before she closed her eyes, willing away the violent, compulsive urges brought on by the self-loathing she couldn’t shirk.

“If you ever felt anything for me, you’d stay away.”

Silence.

“I’ll never ask anything of you ever again,” she pleaded. “Just don’t come home, at least while I’m here. After I graduate, you can see Mom and Dad whenever you want.”

“Is that what you really want?” he asked in a stifled tone.

“Yes.”

There was a brief pause and then, “If that’s what you need.”

Relief made her legs weak. She collapsed on the edge of her bed and dropped her face in her hand. “Thank you.”

“Violet, I… I never meant to hurt you.”

She knew he heard her whimpering because his voice broke.

“I swear I can fix this if you give me a chance.”

“You can’t f-fix something that’s shattered into a m-million pieces,” she said raggedly.

“I’ll spend the rest of my life finding every piece and putting it back where it belongs,” he said fervently.

“I used to think you were heaven sent,” she said in a hollow voice. “I loved you more than I loved myself. I made so many excuses for you because I didn’t want to believe the truth.” Her breath hitched before she finished, “You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

The call ended. She wasn’t sure if they got disconnected or if he hung up. Either way, she was grateful because she reached the end of her rope. The phone tumbled across the carpet after it fell from her nerveless fingers.

She had officially severed their bond. She felt the disconnect as acutely as if she severed a limb. Internally, she was screaming that same bloodcurdling cry she had the day he left. It was the grief-stricken wail of a woman who had lost someone she didn’t think she could live without, but she had no choice. Cutting him out of her life was the only way she could cope. She had the misfortune to give her heart to a monster who damaged her so severely, she would never be the same. It was the right thing to do, so why did she feel like she was back in that dark tunnel without light or hope?

She wrapped her arms around herself and folded at the waist. Fat, salty tears rained down on her pink heart socks. Her agony was so profound she couldn’t make a sound.

She lost countless battles, but she just won the war. Jesse would honor his promise. She would never see him again. She should have been elated and relieved. Instead, she mourned. Jesse was right. When she loved, she did it completely, which meant she would never be whole again.