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VIOLET

W hen I woke up, Quinn, Nicholas, and Kenji were still in my bedroom, fast asleep in the same positions they’d occupied the night before.

I let myself enjoy the warmth and closeness of my boys for a little while, but the events of the night before quickly caught up with me—along with the realization of what letting the three of them sleep with me meant. It was all a mess. A big, huge mess, one I couldn't bring myself to solve at the moment. I needed time and space to... to understand the tangled, intricate feelings stirring in my chest, to sort them out. To make them disappear, maybe? But no, no—I didn't really want that. I had no idea what I wanted, truthfully.

Careful not to wake the guys up, I freed myself from the tangle of arms and legs and jumped off the bed, ignoring the immediate sense of loss and emptiness that came with pulling away from them.

Space , I told myself, trying to shrug away the need to crawl back to bed and get lost in my boys’ arms. Space and time, Violet. That’s all you need right now.

I grabbed some clean clothes, and after scribbling a few reassuring lines on the back of a receipt, I left the bedroom. The sun hadn't fully risen yet: the light pouring through the blinds of the common area was a soft, buttery gold, a glowy halo smoothing every surface it touched, and yet Griffin was already up—I found him sitting on the couch, surrounded by suitcases and bags, a somewhat tense expression on his face.

“It’s early” I signed, glancing at the living room window. “What are you doing up?”

He shrugged, lifting his hands from his lap. "I couldn't sleep. I've been awake for hours." He lifted an eyebrow. "What time did you get here last night?"

I had no idea. I wasn’t even sure how I’d gotten back home, let alone the hour. “Late” I signed. “You were probably asleep.”

The suspicion in his expression only deepened. "V, is everything okay? You look…" He hesitated for a moment, hands hovering mid-air, then tilted his head to the side. "Weird."

“I always look weird” I replied, trying to twist my face into a silly mask. “I’m okay.” I swallowed, already regretting what I was about to say. “Things got heated last night. I’m a little tired, that’s all.”

It was, at the same time, the best and worst thing I could have said: Griffin dropped the matter immediately, but his expression left little doubt about how he felt about my fake confession. I could only imagine the kind of things he was thinking about me. It didn’t matter: it was better if he thought I’d slept with three men rather than knowing the truth. I wanted him unaware of what had happened last night. If he even suspected someone had tried to kill me again, he would never leave for college, and he was too close to his goal to give up now.

"Do you want to leave now?" I asked, although it was way too early. "We can…" I shook my head and scratched the back of my neck, looking for a good excuse to justify that weird proposition. I was always late—never early. "We could have breakfast together. One last hot chocolate before college starts."

Wow. The lamest excuse to ever exist in the history of lame excuses.

It turned out fine, though: Griffin was nervous, too, although for very different reasons, and he immediately agreed to leave early.

"I'm ready" he signed, a half smile on his lips, his left eyelid twitching slightly. "Let's go."

Less than fifteen minutes later, the pick-up was speeding on the half-deserted highway. The sun had finally broken the horizon's surface, flooding the sky with the softest pink light, painting the clouds a lovely palette of pastel colors.

There were two main reasons we hardly drove anywhere. One of them was that our mother and Reggie—a shiver passed through me while thinking about them—had taken over my pick-up ever since I'd bought it; the other was that it was difficult to communicate while I was driving: I couldn't see what Griffin was signing, and I couldn't sign back—not exactly an ideal way to communicate. The car was still, silent, a fertile ground for unwanted thoughts. Images from last night kept replaying in my head, raw, relentless, conjuring new details each time they imposed their presence. The way my locks snapped like crazed whips. The greedy glint in Zane's eyes right before he disappeared from the cliff's edge. Nicholas's fingers holding onto the tender flesh of my hips, grasping, digging, as if trying to make the two of us one single being. And then how the four of us had slept together in the same bed, skin touching, breaths mixing, limbs intertwined. A shared warmth I still felt on my skin. Nothing sexual had happened, but this was somehow worse: it felt more intimate than kissing or fucking. And I couldn't afford intimacy. I couldn't allow myself to need them— because then what? What would happen if I let my true feelings roam free? I couldn't have all of them—not in the way I wanted to. Loving one person was already complicated. Loving three? It was outright impossible. And beyond that, it wasn't even ethical—not in the world I'd always lived in. I knew exactly what they would call me: a whore, a rotten bitch with no common sense. Not that I cared about what others spewed into the void, but just the thought of it made me tremble.

A small voice kept asking why: why couldn’t I have the three of them? Why was it so wrong when the sentiments in the pit of my stomach felt so right? But the chaos rampaging in my head like a deadly storm prevented me from answering. What would happen to Zane? Was I actually ready to send my brother off to college? More importantly—was he ? Could I simply hide in a dark hole and pretend nothing, including me, existed?

I spent the entire drive to Harvard lost in thought, so focused on the tangled mess of my mind I didn’t even realize the time to say goodbye to my brother was dangerously close. I came back to my senses while unpacking the last few things in his dorm room. It was a single—one bed, one desk under a tiny window, one dresser.

I dropped a pile of folded t-shirts onto the bed and turned to my brother so fast my head started spinning. “Won’t you feel alone?” I signed after brushing his shoulder to get his attention. “Do you prefer a double? Do you want a roommate?”

For a moment, he just frowned at me, fingers still pinching a crumpled t-shirt. He finally shook his head, still staring with that half-confused, half-annoyed expression. "I specifically asked for a single" he signed, moving his hands slowly. "Why do you think I'd want a roommate?"

I shrugged, turning around for a moment to hide the tears in my eyes. I pretended to fix an already neat pile of pants before turning back to face Griffin. I forced a smile so wide it looked fake, even to me—and I couldn't see it. "Don't mind me. I'm basically asleep."

He didn’t look fully convinced, but he went back to putting his clothes away, making it clear the conversation was over.

I sighed. Everything was changing so fast, spiraling out of my control. It made me feel helpless. Passive. Lost in a world where nothing, not even my own beliefs, stayed the same. I still hadn't entirely made peace with the fact that I was a witch, for fuck's sake! Let alone the rest. All I needed was something familiar, some solidity in my ever-changing life. Something that would make me forget how nothing, not even my survival, was granted. That was why, after giving my brother the biggest hug and forcing myself to leave his room, I locked myself into my car and dialed the phone number of the only person I wanted to talk to at the moment—Daisy. I hadn't heard from her in days. I had a feeling she was angry: she didn't answer her phone, and when she did, our conversations were short and weird, almost forced. I missed my best friend.

The phone rang for a full minute before I decided to hang up, opting for a text message instead.

Hey, I know I’ve been super absent lately, and if you’re mad at me, you have every right to be. I just want to talk and make things right because I can’t imagine a life without you. Message or call me when you feel like it, but don’t come to my house—we’re not living there anymore.

I hesitated for a second. She didn’t even know what had happened with Sue and Reggie. She didn’t know I’d risked my life more or less a thousand times in the span of a few weeks. She had no idea I’d made out with three different guys and, more importantly, that I was attracted to all three of them.

Biting my inner cheek, I went back to typing.

I have so many things I want to tell you, and I can’t wait to hear what’s going on in your life. I’ll be waiting for you, Dais. I love you so much.

I sent the message, but it didn’t get delivered. It was left hanging, stuck between the starting point and the destination, a limbo of nothingness that felt eerily similar to the one I was living in.