Alwaysmorethan.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to force down the emotions.
I lost Mom, and even though it felt like I lost Violet before, this feels even more permanent. Before, she may have been gone, but a part of me still felt like I had her. But now…it’s like trying to catch steam or smoke in your palm. It just scurries around your fingers, impossible to catch. She’s fading before me, turning into a pigment of my imagination where I’ll only have the memory of her all because I shoved down my truths and buried myself beneath the lies.
My heart, having had enough with the twisting and burning, splits in half. It’s a chunk of wood and Violet’s words are the ax that bears down on them.
A pressure forms at my back. I quickly realize it’s Violet resting her head there. I focus on the fact that she’s touching me and how it’ll probably be the last time. I know that if I turned around and tilted her chin up, her eyes would glisten in the glow of the lantern. “She wouldn’t want you doing this. No parent wants to see their child this low. The truest version of herself wouldn't want to see her son in this much agony.”
It’s incredible seeing how wrecked Violet is over what’s gone down, and yet she still finds kind, uplifting words to give me. I don’t know how she does it.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know the first thing to do to get rid of it,” I admit in defeat.
“The first thing to do is tofeelit, Colson. You’ll never make it to your destination if you keep taking detours. Youalwayshave to go through. Out of everyone, you should know that the most.”
I miss her touch when she lifts her forehead off me. I hear the click and creak of a departure I’m not ready for. I despise how she’s leaving with Finn, but it’s so hard to speak up. To say…
Come back to me, Violet.
I’m so fucking sorry for everything.
I’m ready to rise above it all.
To get the help I know I need.
But more than all that I want to tell her something even heavier. That I love her. And I don’t think that love will ever run out.
TWENTY-NINE
VIOLET
Everleigh: Merry Christmas! Love you both!
Violet:Happy Holidays!
Violet:Olive says the same!
Sylvia left the chat.
Christmas morning creeps uplike a fox in the night. I’m so distracted by life that I don’t realize it until Olive busts through my door and jumps on my bed like she used to do when we were little. The mattress springs up and down, and she tugs the blankets off me.
I yank them back over my shoulders and nuzzle in. I didn’t sleep well last night. In fact, I spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling thinking about Colson and Finn.
Even though I never got on Colson’s case about being more open with me before, it hurts that he kept something so big from me. Part of me wonders if it’d be best that I close that door andnever see him again. It’s why I tossed and turned a lot last night. I was too engrossed in a real-life nightmare by imagining a world where he doesn’t exist.
Even now, my stomach rampages at the thought of it.
“Oh, come oooon,” she croons, pressing her mouth to my ear. “It’s time to get up. We made a deal.”
I groan, “Can I take it back?”
“No. No take backsies.” She pulls my hair lightly, but it’s enough to get me to swat her away. “I said I’d stop nagging to go to a strip club if you promised we’d go to Mom and Dad’s for Christmas.”
I roll over to my back. “I still don’t understand why you want to go to a strip club.”
She sits on the edge of the bed and shrugs. “For the experience.”
That worry that’s always present for her pushes to the front of my mind. My sister has always been the more neurotic one out of the two of us, but it isn’t lost on me how she randomly showed up on my doorstep without mentioning it. I want to ask if something is going on, but I also don’t want to ruin the holiday by being overbearing. I was so worried Dad’s infidelity would destroy her in the same way that stupid boy did when she was in high school, but she stayed upright. She proved there are things she can handle. That she’s not the same broken girl she was back then. So, maybe, it’s better I let her feel like the woman she’s growing into, instead of the little sister I’ll always view her as.
