She’s been doing it since the beginning of our relationship, occupying my mind with other stuff when I’ve needed it the most.
I need to put an end to it.
She can’t show up unannounced. Can’t be breaking into windows on my behalf. Whatever line of connection is left has to be severed. Whatever tether exists needs to be macheted clean off.
Because I can’t have Violet when my head is so fucked up. Every time I think of Mom, boulders of guilt crush me. I sit in this house, and I think about the what-ifs, about what I could’ve done differently, about her having more time. About me being parentless.
I hate that something so greedy took her, that her heart was too weak to carry on, to fight, to give me more time with her. I’m irrevocably helpless. And then there’s the shit with Finn and the Lincolns.
Forcing rehab should’ve been my priority over paying them back. My entire existence went to that, and I know I promised I was going to get Mom help after, but then everything happened so fast.
Finn was right.
This place embeds itself into you, and it doesn’t leave.
I’m not about to let that happen to Vi. I care about her too much, which is exactly why I’m putting an end to this tonight.
For good, this time.
“Thanks for helping me out. You know, when I fell out there.” It’s soft on her lips when it comes out, and she limps a step away. “I think I can make it out to my car without help. It’s actually, uh, starting to feel better.”
I glance down at her ankle. I might be seconds from breaking her heart all over again, but I won’t let her go out in the dark alone and fend for herself. I’ll at least make sure she gets to her car okay.
“I can help you outside.”
Her eyes meet mine. “You can do something better for me.”
“Hmm?”
“Answer your phone when I call.”
I roll my lips into my mouth and three, two, one…
“That’s not going to happen.”
She covers the hurt on her face remarkably well, but she forgets that I can read her like the back of my hand.
“What do you mean?”
“I told you I don’t want to be bothered. You can’t come around and push your way into my life, Violet. You can’t show up, suck my dick, and think everything is going to be back to normal.”
“I didn’t—” She rubs her hands over her face and pushes her fingers up into her hairline. “I didn’t dothatjust to convince you to get back with me or convince myself that everything is okay. I know it’s not.”
Violet will keep trying to right a wrong that has nothing to do with her. She’ll continue to try to be here for me because it’s who she is, it’s whoweare together. Only we’re not a we anymore, and if I have to be the biggest asshole on the planet for her to see that, then so be it.
“Are you sure about that?” I question.
She’s offended by my audacity, rearing her head back. Fuck, I am, too. “You truly think that I risked breaking in and rolled myankle just so I could get in your pants and convince myself that life is just fucking dandy, Colson?”
“What matters is that we’re done.”
I don’t want anything to do with you,I tell her in my head, even though it makes my entire body revolt.
If we were still only friends, and some other guy was pulling this shit on her, I’d pound him into the ground. I’d take one look at him and know it would be easy making his life a living hell.
She brings her fingers to her lips and shakes her head. She’s seconds from cracking, from being consumed by the heartbreak my words stir, and it’s so goddamn painful to have a front row seat to it.
But I have to do it.
