Page 139 of Come Back to Me

“Yeah, sorry. Coach Taylor has been on our asses about our first semi-finals game. We’ve been practicing almost every day. I’m exhausted.”

“Oh…we can watch the movie another time.”

“No, I’d love to watch it now, especially with how you reacted earlier.”

“Yes!” I grab the remote and press play.

I find myself struggling to not get closer to him. I can’t do it because I don’t want to make things more awkward than they already are, and we’re just friends.

I keep enough distance between us, but not too much to where he’ll want to ask me why I’m so far away from him.

I hope I’ll be able to make it through this movie without doing something I’ll regret later on.

We’re watching the credits roll on the TV, and I anxiously ask him the question I wanted to ask as we were watching the movie. “So, what did you think? Did you like it? Did you hate it?”

“I loved it. Definitely a new annual rewatch for me.”

Score.

“You’re not just saying that, right? It’s okay if you didn’t like it.”

“I was laughing through most of the movie, Vi. You would’ve known right away if I didn’t like it.”

“True.”

“Look, I know we don’t want to bring up the elephant in the room, but I feel like I have to.”

“Okay…” I trail off, emphasizing the ‘O’ in okay.

“Violet, I need to know what happened on that night six years ago.”

I knew he was going to ask me about this again.

To be honest, if I was in his shoes, I’d do the same. I hate that I have to tell him because I’m scared it’ll ruin the friendship we’ve begun to build. I’m more scared that he’ll hate meand never want to talk to me ever again, but that’s a risk I’m going to have to take.

“You’re going to have to bear with me because this isn’t something I love to talk about.”

“I know. Take your time.”

This is going to take a while.

then

VIOLET | AGE 17

“Violet, I know you’re in there,” Blake says.

I go wide-eyed and my pupils dilate, making the blue in my eyes disappear. “Ugh, not again.”

“It’ll be fine,” Grayson reassures me.

“What do you want, dipshit?” I ask.

“I’ll tell you what I want when you open the door.”

“You can’t make me open the door, you know. This ismyroom.”

“Violet, I don’t have the patience for your stupid antics. I’ll bust your door down if you don’t let me in.”