She brightened and looked wistful. “Maya is getting married soon.” She chuckled. “Another doctor, if you can believe that.”
“Wow. Just like your parents.”
“Yep,” Vi said, popping the p. “But I can’t even be bitter. Nouri’s a great guy, and Maya’s still Maya.”
My lips quirked up. “Best sister you ever had.”
“Only sister,” she said in a goofy voice. “But yeah. She’s busy now with all the doctor stuff. And then Mom and Dad are still both working.”
That was a point of contention: how busy her parents were, so busy that Maya was often more of a parental figure than their actual parents. I took a sip of my water. “Did they get over you going for your PhD?”
Vi puffed air out of her lips, an exasperated sound. “No. They’re still holding out hope that I’ll go to med school in my thirties. Which, people do, but I won’t be one of them. They can’t accept that this, research, is my final destination.”
It broke my heart the night she told them she was considering changing her major from pre-med to biology. The disappointment in their faces. Then, once we left the restaurant, it became clear I was no longer welcome in the conversation. I waited for Violet in the car and overheard the things her parents said. Their harsh words for Violet, about her choices, about me. I was ruining her life, filling her head with nonsense. Like she wasn’t a grown adult capable of making her own decisions. That I was trying to make her a trophy wife. That I’d get her pregnant and forget about her in a month, which was the opposite of the trophy wife argument, but most of their arguments weren’t fair or sensical. Violet was incredibly successful, and they made it seem like she was flunking out.
Violet had her fill of it, and delivered the bigblow: “I don’t want to be a doctor and abandon my kids like you did. You were never there.”
There were no hugs goodbye. No apologies. Nothing but her mother snatching the car keys from her father and storming off, and her dad giving a “we gave you everything” speech. Violet cried all the way home and I held her as she cried herself to sleep.
Violet and her parents were talking again by the time we broke up, but the damage was done. You can’t go back from confessions like those.
In the present, I gave her what I was too young to understand back then. “I know it’s not the same coming from me, but I really am proud of you.”
“Thank you. Sounds like you haven’t done too bad yourself.”
She was deflecting. She knew I knew how bad it was.
I lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, I do alright.”
Violet looked pensive, then yawned and stretched. “I should get to bed. Kitty’ll kill me if they can’t cover the bags under my eyes in the pictures.”
“Well, can’t upset the bride on her wedding day,” I said, standing to walk her out. “Thanks for coming by. This was good.”
Violet squared up with me at the door. “It was. Thanks for . . . late dinner? Early breakfast?”
“No one I’d rather eat garbage with,” I said, extending my arms to hug her. We fell into an embrace, and Vi tightened her grip on me. I took the pause as an opportunity to pat her now-dry hair. “You don’t wear a bow in your hair anymore.”
She smirked and stepped back. “And you don’t wear Ax body spray anymore.”
I guffawed. “Excuse me, Iwas being nice!”
“I was too,” she joked. “I didn’t even make fun of the body spray. I loved your signature scent.”
I glared at her.
“Fine. I may have given you a little shit about it.” Her face softened. “I still wear ribbons sometimes. Just not as often. Growing up, less whimsy, all that.”
“Wear one for me tomorrow.”
“Somehow, I don’t think my ribbons are in the bridesmaid handbook.” She swallowed another yawn.
I drank in her sweet, sleepy smile and tired eyes, the Violet I knew best. That was the girl who told me everything and who I told everything to. The one I unpacked life with. She was right here in front of me, eight years later. I swiped my thumb at her chin. “Go get some sleep, pretty girl.”
Her nickname. Her old nickname. Seeing her like that just made it fall out of me.
Violet’s lips popped open like she wanted to say something, but she just pressed down on the door handle. “Night, Colt.”
FOUR
