I didn’t know why I cracked, just that I had.
How could I explain something inexplicable? That the safest person I’d ever known suddenly felt dangerous? That I knew it made no sense when he’d only ever been a saint to me,but everything inside me screamed that I shouldn’t go near him? That the moment I was sure I loved him and I didn’t care what my family had to say about it, I crumbled? I pushed him away, buried myself in my studies. Maybe if I just kept busy, that black hole of fear I was running from wouldn’t swallow me alive.
Colton deserved better than what I gave him.
And yet, here he was, coming back for more, approaching me with that smile I remembered above me, below me, next to me, in my sweetest dreams, and sometimes, in my darkest nightmares.
TWO
COLTON
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, WEST VIRGINIA
What’s worse than despair?
Hope. Dumb hope that enough time would have passed for old wounds to heal. Hope that she’d talk to me. Hope that she missed all the same things I missed. Nights spent pumping each other up for whatever challenges we faced, challenges that seemed high-stakes at the time. Late night fries dipped in a shared Frosty. Winking at each other through the glass at my games. Watching her give presentations, in awe of her brilliance.
My blood felt magnetic, bound to pull me into her orbit.
I stood at the cocktail reception for my college buddy Guy Stelle and his fiancée, Kitty Gatto, surrounded by familiar faces: guys I played against in the league, friends from college, and most notably, Violet Gennari.
I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at her, and she at me. Violet wore a gauzy floral gown that came to her ankles, dressed up but flowy. Her tall block heels accentuated her long and lean look, her chestnut hair cut with lighter streaks and pouring over one shoulder. Her olive skin glowed, a product of her dad’sLebanese heritage. She wasn’t quite as tan as she was in college, but she probably didn’t have time for things like sunshine if she followed her dream to get her doctorate in neuroscience. Not an MD, like her family wanted.
From a few drunken late night internet searches, I knew she went the neuroscience route.
Had she looked me up? Did she ever get the itch to find out what I was up to? Did she think of me at all?
She talked to a couple. The woman looked like Kitty but with curly hair, and the man wore a gray suit and cowboy boots. The woman put out her left hand for Violet to examine her ring. Violet beamed and put a hand over her heart, fanning her face. She said something to the man, and all three of them laughed.
Stelle told me Violet would be flying solo to this wedding, and that she hadn’t been seeing anyone. Watching her get emotional looking at someone’s engagement ring awakened that tingle of hope in me.
Maybe she still wanted that kind of commitment. The kind of commitment we used to talk about in the middle of the night. How many kids. What kind of house. What she envisioned for her future, and what I envisioned forours. Because to me, Violet and I weren’t ever going to end.
Funny how sure you can be when you’re young and in love.
“Had you ever met him before, Jonesy?”
I zoned into the conversation in front of me. My old college roommate, Mikey, stood with his girlfriend, Jessie. “Who?”
“Jack Leroy. That was who just got cussed out by his wife. Wait,” Mikey paused, looking to where my head was turned. “Are you looking at Violet?”
I grimaced. “Maybe.”
“Have you talked to her since college?”
I shook my head, then stared down into my whiskey glass. “Nah. Just kinda fell out of touch. I don’t think she really wants to talk to me.”
But I sure as hell wanted to talk to her. I thought maybe this wedding would give me some closure, extinguish the flame with her for good.
It only took one look for me to know I was dead wrong. Magnetic blood and closure don’t really go together.
Jessie quirked a brow at me. “She’s looking at you, you know.”
“Is she?” I asked, snapping my head up. And there she was, lips curving up as the last rays of mountain sunshine caught the edge of her silhouette. My cheeks already hurt from smiling so hard. It washer. My Violet.
Mikey scoffed and waved at her. “Come on, man. Don’t make it weird. Let’s go over there.”
Mikey gave his usual effusive greeting, a few decibels too loud but charming as can be. Violet beamed, falling into a hug with him. She coughed and looked alarmed when he squeezed her extra hard.
