She smiles up at me, surprisingly not annoyed by my bitchy attitude. ‘Sounds like you’re a tough chick.’
‘No, just blunt.’ This is going to be harder than I thought.
‘Hmmm … maybe … But maybe not.’ She looks down at the folder again, reading a paper that’s inside it. After looking it over briefly, she shuts it and slides it aside before overlapping her hands and putting them on the desk. ‘So other than what the news says about you, what do I need to know about you?’
I give a relaxed shrug. ‘Doesn’t the news tell you enough … tell you what’s wrong with me.’
She gives me a soft smile. ‘I’d like to hear what you think about you, not anyone else.’
I honestly don’t know how to answer her, not used to this kind of situation. ‘There’s not much to know.’
‘Do you have a job?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you go to school. You’ve been really good with attendance up until a couple of months ago. Do you want to tell me why?’
I shake my head. ‘Nope.’
‘Okay then.’ She lets it go easily and I’m relieved that she does – I’ve already heard enough about that from other people. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all. ‘And what about boyfriends. Do you have one of those?’
I shrug, the walls I’ve put up starting to chip away. ‘Maybe.’
She appears lost. ‘Maybe?’
‘It’s complicated.’
She nods like she understands, but how could she when I haven’t told her anything. ‘What about friends?’
I fold my arms across my chest. ‘I might have a few of those.’ Maybe.
She mulls over my answer then picks up a pen and grabs a notebook from her drawer. ‘And what about family?’ She starts to write something down.
‘Dead.’ The walls crash down. ‘I’m a foster kid.’
I catch her hesitating, but she quickly recovers. ‘Are you close with any of them?’
I almost laugh. Not by choice, I want to say. Because one won’t leave me alone. ‘Again, no. Adults really aren’t a fan of this.’
She glances up at me. ‘Of what?’
I point at myself. ‘Of a girl that scares the shit out of them.’
She writes one more thing down, then sets the pen and paper aside and focuses on me again. ‘Why do you think everyone’s afraid of you?’
‘Because that’s what they say.’ I’m uncomfortable, my inner demons and addiction clawing to come out and regain control over the situation the only way I know how. ‘I don’t blame them either. It’s creepy what I did.’
She considers what I said for the longest time. ‘You know, regardless of what you think, you’re reaction wasn’t odd.’
I snort a disdainful laugh. ‘I just sat there in the house with their bodies for almost a day. Even I think I’m creepy.’
‘Maybe that’s the problem then,’ she says, reaching for a tin of mints on her desk.
I feel oddly on display for her, like I’m sitting in a glass case and she can see every part of me, inside and out and there’s nowhere to hide. It’s not the most settling feeling and I can’t figure out a way around it. ‘What is? Me being creepy?’
‘No, how you think that about herself.’ She pops a mint into her mouth and closes the tin. ‘Sometimes we hear people say stuff about us so frequently that we start to believe it ourselves, even if it’s not true.’
‘No, it’s true.’ My voice is tight, unable to accept what she’s saying.
She sets the tin aside. ‘We’ll see,’ she says, then picks up her pen and jots something else down. ‘I’d like to see you next week, if that’s okay. Same time and day?’
I want to tell her no, be a bitch so I don’t have to come back and let her analyze my mind, but I find myself muttering okay, then I take the card she offers me before bolting the hell out of that office before she can say anything else.
The more I walk, the more I replay what she said about the problem. That I believe everything everyone’s told me. The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off, like I’m that weak-minded that I just believe what everyone told me. And that’s the thing. There’s only so many times you can get told how unwanted you are, before you start believing it’s true.
I hurry across the busy campus, yellow and brown leaves crunching under my boots as I stomp across the lawn, telling myself I’m not going back even though I agreed. I have a feeling that the next visit is going to go much deeper than our short preliminary appointment and Lana makes me too uneasy, probably because she cuts straight through the bullshit. I can tell I’m not going to be able to be the hardcore Violet with her and just fake smile through everything. I’m going to end up being the unstable one that cries in the privacy of her own bathroom because she so desperately wants to risk her life to turn off the pain, but made a promise to the only person she cares about that she would try not to do that anymore.
And I don’t want to be here.
But really, I do, otherwise I’d have given up already.
Grunting in frustration at myself, I turn down the sidewalk for the Humanities building to go to class. I started going yesterday and am continuing today, which feels like a step in the right direction, whatever that direction may be. I spot a news van on my way there, so I take the long way, going behind the building where there’s a wall of trees blocking their view of me. The media has this fascination with me dating Luke, the son of the women who’s being charged with involvement in my parents’ murders. There have been reporters showing up at the University and at my home. I usually give them my best go-fuck-yourself attitude, but what I really want to say is: how the hell can I answer your question about what’s going on with me, when I can’t even figure that out for myself.
Yes, I like Luke.
To the point that it’s actually starting to hurt when he’s gone.
And my heart leaps when he’s near.
But there’s also this pain.
This pain linked with the idea of losing him.
But I want to be the person I know I can be when I’m with him. A new person maybe.
I think a lot, honestly.
Maybe it’s because I have one less thing to think about. All that time spent thinking about Mira and now I don’t have to worry about her anymore. So much time now to think about what I want.
What do I want?
I just want to be happy.
But happiness isn’t something that comes easy to me and I think I’m going to have to learn how to let it in. But do I let something in that I’m not sure I’ve ever had?
Later that day, my mind is teeter-tottering somewhere between bored as hell and bummed out. I have countless assignments scattered around me on the bed, some make-up assignments a few of my Professors who were kind enough to give me because of my ‘condition’. As if having my parents’ murder case plastered all over the place and a constant herd of reporters trying to get some insight into my head is the same as having an illness. Still, I’m glad I’m getting a second chance, although I did have to drop two classes, but it’s my own stupid fault.
That’s not what’s making me bummed out, though. I took the box out again today, the one with my parents’ stuff, for reasons that are unknown – maybe it was therapy or this dire need to torture myself. I did manage to flip through a few pages of the notebook and discovered that that’s all it was. I guess my mother was trying to start a diary but stopped doing so a few days later, because she died.
I ended up throwing the box under the bed, hearing the contents spill, but not daring to clean them up. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what I keep telling myself. Then I buried myself into my homework, trying to use it as a healthy distraction instead of what I really want to do, which is wander up to the roof, or maybe knock back something strong and numbing.
‘What are you doing in there?’ Luke strolls into the room and shuts the door behind him. I have some grungy music blasting from my laptop, totally adding to my begrudging m
ood. I’m holding a marker in my hand and using it as a doodle tool to draw on my purple cast instead of working on my assignments. My hair’s braided to the side, no makeup on, and I’m wearing a tank top and boxer shorts, a real hot mess.
I reach over and turn the music down. ‘Well, I was working on a Calculus assignment, but I started seeing numbers everywhere, so I took a break.’ I lift my cast that’s covered in drawings, some my own, others from Greyson and Seth who have took it upon themselves to turn my arm décor into art. ‘I really do hate math.’
He closes the door behind him and slips off a shoe. It’s late in the evening and from his sporty attire – drawstring shorts, a tank top and running shoes – I’m guessing he’s just gotten back from the gym. ‘Then why did you take Calculus? You know it’s not a requirement for a General Studies major, right?’
‘Yeah, but I had nothing better to take and I like a challenge.’ I recline against the headboard and stretch my legs over the mess of textbooks and assignments, frowning at the Calculus book. ‘It’s not like it’s hard, just not fun.’
He laughs as he kicks off his other shoe. ‘Math never is … although, can I point out that most of your classes are higher course levels then most sophomores take, and they come easy to you, so not only are you smart, but you might want to rethink that General Studies Major and do something else, like Physics or something.’
‘Physics? Really?’ I question with skepticism. ‘That’s what you see me doing?’
He shrugs as he removes his wallet and some spare change out of his pocket and drops them on the nightstand. ‘You’re good at science and math.’
‘You are too, so maybe you should major in it.’ I kneel up on the bed and slip the hoodie off that I was wearing because the bedroom is getting too warm for jackets. ‘And how do you know I’m good at science?’
‘Because I took Chemistry with you,’ Luke replies as I throw the jacket on the bedpost, adding more chaos to the room. Luke and I used to be so neat and orderly but we’ve gotten kind of turned into slobs over the last month, too busy with other things I guess.
‘That was before we were dating, though,’ I say. ‘Were you watching me or something?’
He pauses, then clears his throat several times, confirming my accusation. ‘Maybe, but that’s not how I know you got an A. It was because the Professor posted finals on the door.’
‘Just because I got an A, doesn’t mean I’m smart. I could have cheated.’
‘Yeah, you could of.’ He positions himself in front of the edge of the bed with his hands in his pockets. ‘But you’re smart enough that you don’t have to.’
‘So are you … And stop calling me smart.’ I’m getting uncomfortable with the compliments about my allegedly wonderful mind. In the past there’s only negativity when people brought it up. Crazy. Erratic. Unstable. Disturbed. Psychotic. That’s what I’m used to and it makes it harder to listen to the positive. It occurs to me then that Lana might have been onto something today and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Not wanting to think about that stuff and how it makes me feel, I aim for a joke. ‘If you keep giving me compliments, I’m going to start glowing.’
His mouth curves to a smile as he chuckles. ‘Oh really? Is that what happens?’
I nod, sitting down and bending my legs so I can rest my arms on my knees. ‘All compliments and no negativity makes Violet a glowing girl.’ I wink at him, all suave.
He laughs even harder, wrapping his arm around his taut stomach, and I kept help but let a smile grace my lips.
Then his elation fades and unexpectedly he’s leaning toward me. ‘It’s good to see you smile,’ he says, grazing his finger across my cheek and letting his fingertips linger at the corner of my lips.
I keep on smiling, but it’s becoming complicated with the feel-goods that he’s giving me and I don’t know how to deal with those except for panic and run. I grow quiet, battling to keep myself calm and not bolt out the door. Try to be different. Try not to be that girl, the one he asked me to be in the truck.
Moving away from me, Luke tugs his shirt over his head and tosses it on the floor, fleetingly veering me away from my thoughts and toward his muscular abs and chest painted with symbols, sketching, and beautiful sayings. ‘You look more muscly lately,’ I admire absentmindedly.
Unbuttoning his jeans, he cocks a brow. ‘Does it turn you on?’
I thrum my finger on my lips and pretend to think about it really hard as he slips off his jeans. ‘That’s a really tough question to answer. I may need to see more to come to an accurate conclusion.’
He chucks his jeans at me and they hit me in the face. I playfully throw them back at him, but he ducks and I end up missing him and knock over an empty soda can on the dresser. He laughs while I flip him the middle finger.
‘I’m more muscly because I’ve been taking care of myself and working out more with Kayden,’ he says and as if proving his point that he is indeed taking better care of himself, he picks up his case that carries his stuff for his diabetes to check his blood sugar level.
‘I know you have been.’ I collect a pen from the bed and lie back down on my stomach, trying not to think about how easy this conversation is. How simple. It’s been so long. ‘It’s good that are.’
After pricking his finger, he wanders to the dresser to get some clean clothes, but pauses and turns to look at me. ‘You should come with me sometime.’
My gaze flicks up from one of my literature papers. ‘To the gym?’ When he nods, I snort a laugh. ‘Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I’m not athletic. At all.’
He grabs a pair of pajama bottoms from the dresser and then flops down on the bed with me. ‘You don’t have to be athletic … Callie comes with Kayden a lot.’
‘Good for Callie.’ I flip the page of my textbook. ‘If I went to the gym, I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself.’
‘It would get you out of the house.’ He slides my books out of the way so he can scoot closer to me then slips his fingers through mine, causing me to drop my pen. ‘I worry about you … you haven’t really left the house since … Well, since you went to the station a couple of weeks ago, nor have you talked about it … and I’m worried.’
‘You’ve said that twice,’ I say then give a heavy sigh. ‘And it’s hard when there’s a mob always waiting around for me.’
He rotates onto his side and combs his fingers through my hair around his finger, gazing off with great contemplation. ‘You can’t let them control your life. And besides, I’ll punch them in the face if they come too close.’ The corners of his lips tease upward.
But I frown. ‘No punching anyone in the face. I don’t need you going to jail.’
‘Please just come with me.’
Clearly this is important to him, although I don’t know why. And if I’m being true to myself about trying to get my acted together, heal all my brokenness besides the bones, I need to start attempting to make up to him for everything I’ve been taking lately. ‘If I go, I’m just going to sit there.’
‘You can do whatever you want.’ He inches closer and his body heat engulfs me and puts me into this temporary state of high where I swear to God I’m floating. ‘Although there is a kickboxing area. Seems like something right up your alley. You could take out your anger aggression on it.’
‘Anger aggression? ‘I narrow my eyes at him, but it’s more playful than annoyed. ‘Are you saying I have anger problems?’
‘Maybe … I mean, you have every right to be angry, but I think it would be good for you to try finding a healthy outlet.’ He glances down at my cast then I catch his gaze flicking to the other wrist where there’s a mark on my flesh hidden beneath a leather bracelet; a mark I put there when I cut my own skin hoping that maybe if I made myself bleed, my emotions would bleed out with the blood.
There’s also a questioning in his eyes, and I get what he wants to know – needs to know.
‘I haven’t done anything since that d
ay.’ I fidget with the leather band self-consciously. ‘I’ve been trying not to.’ But it’s been a rollercoaster of difficultness. Up and down. That’s what I’ve felt like every second of every hour of every day.
‘I know you have,’ he says. ‘I just want you to find something that might help, so maybe won’t have to do it anymore … so maybe it won’t be so hard not to try.’
It’s crazy how much he gets it and how much I want to stop for him and kind of for myself. But if I’m being honest, I can’t picture my life without my reckless behavior and that makes me wonder how long I can go on like this. It’s been so long that it doesn’t even feel possible; even though I never want to have that helpless feeling I had in the water again. And I don’t for one second believe that going to the gym is going to help get rid of my problem, but he’s looking at me with hope in his eyes, so I agree.
‘Fine, I’ll go.’ I force a smile.
He grins from ear-to-ear and it makes agreeing worth it, despite the fact I’m going to look like a dumbass trying to beat up a bag. ‘Good, we start tomorrow at seven o’clock,’ he says.
‘In the morning?’ I give him a disgusted look. ‘What the hell. I don’t get up that early.’
He laughs at me then gives me a kiss on the forehead before sitting up. ‘Yeah, it’s early but I have to pick up my dad and Trevor from the airport and noon and then we’re going to dinner later, remember?’
Honestly, through all the stuff going on the past couple of weeks, I’d forgotten about it. ‘I kinda forgot they were coming,’ I admit, sitting up and reaching for my Calculus book.
‘That’s understandable.’ He heads for the door with the pajama bottoms in his hand. ‘You’ve been under a lot of stress lately.’
‘You’ve been sounding like a psychologist lately. So either Seth’s been wearing on you or maybe that’s what you should major in.’
He releases a cynical laugh. ‘Yeah, that’ll be the day. Me sitting behind a desk, listening to other peoples’ problems and trying to fix them.’
‘You’re better at it than you think.’ My words carrying more meaning than meets the ear.