The Certainty of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #5)(10)

‘No, not until this weekend.’ He grabs his diabetic kit and stuffs it into his backpack, along with his books.

‘Okay, see you later then.’

He whispers something about being safe then briefly waits, as if either wanting me to say something or wanting to say more, an excruciating almost painful habit that’s developed between us. And just like always, nothing ever gets said and he ends up leaving in silence.

I only move again when I hear the front door shut and then enough time’s passed that I know he’s not coming back. Hopefully, by the time her returns home later today I’ll have gotten myself collected enough that I can pretend I’m okay with everything. Put on my smiles. Skip around, clean the house. Be drunkenly stupid, pretty much, because that’s what it takes now.

After about an hour ticks by, I get out of bed and take a quick shower then pull on a pair of holey jeans and a faded Silverstein t-shirt. I put my hair up in a messy bun and then head back to the room, passing by Seth’s bedroom door. It’s cracked and I can see that he’s sleeping in his bed. Greyson’s gone, probably to work.

I wander back into my bedroom, lock the door behind me and turn on my playlist and ‘People Live Here’ by Rise Against clicks on. I go over to my bed, lie flat on the floor, and crawl halfway under it until I reach the box I’m looking for. Once my fingers brush the box, I slide out with it in my hands and get onto the bed.

Like every day since I got it, I stare at it for at least a half of an hour before I get the courage to open it up. Then it probably takes me another half of an hour to reach in and take out the contents: a small stack of photos, a silver bracelet and a spiral notebook with notes my mother scribbled down. These were the things that Detective Stephner could let me take that belonged to my parents. They’d played no part in the investigation, had been checked for blood and DNA but came up with nada, so he gave them to me a couple of weeks ago – right about when we got back from California – thinking I’d want them. I’m not sure if I do, since I spend way too much time simply holding them and staring at them – I haven’t even made it past the first page in the notebook yet. No one knows I have the stuff either, except the detective.

I’m still not even sure what to do with it. When it comes to my parents, I usually avoid thinking about it, hence the adrenaline addiction I’ve developed. I try not to think about them, remember them; I’ve never even visited their graves. It just seems too hard, you know, to face head on what happened, what I lost, what will never be. Letting go, moving on, instead of drifting somewhere between the past and the future, like I have been for most of my life. Face the future. God, I can’t even imagine what that would be like.

I turn the bracelet over in my hand and then with a deep breath put it on my wrist. It’s nothing special, just a silver bracelet with a plate that reads Sempre, which after some messing around with online translators, I discovered meant forever in Italian. Not sure why it’s in Italian, since I don’t know enough about my parents to understand why they’d choose that language, which makes me depressed.

All of this stuff does.

But I won’t ever acknowledge it.

Can’t.

God, I wish I could just be free from my thoughts and the past. But it’s never going to happen, not when the past has its chains wrapped around my wrists, weighing me down and constantly holding me back. I know I’ll never be able to let go of the pain and darkness inside until there is justice for my parents.

I end up tossing everything back into the box like it’s made of fire, and then I close it up and shove it back under the bed where it belongs. I should stop looking at it – it’s becoming an obsession. But just being in the room makes me want to take out the stuff and obsess over things I can’t change.

‘I have to get out of this damn room,’ I mutter to myself as I hurry over to my closet and get my leather jacket and boots. I put them on then head out, grabbing the keys and my wallet off the kitchen counter on my way. I momentarily hesitate before stepping outside, with the slightest ping of guilt for bailing without telling Seth where I’m going like I promised Luke I would. I don’t want to explain to Seth, though, why I’m freaking out at the moment. So I hop over the threshold and close the door behind me, the guilt building inside my chest like bricks of steel. I know going out alone isn’t necessarily the safest thing for me to do, and deep down I know Luke has every reason for me not to go out by myself. Detective Stephner would agree with him. Preston’s obsession with me is beyond creepy … that room with all those photos of me, some from when I was young. It’s disturbing and anyone would worry, except me. Plus he continues to text me from random numbers and then of course there’s the box from last night. I also wonder if there might be more to it that I’m not even getting told. The fact that the police send a cop car over here every night has to make me wonder, but what Detective Stephner would keep from me, I have no idea.

‘I should just walk back into the house and lock the door,’ I say, trying to convince myself, but it doesn’t work and I end up trotting down the stairway. Because I’m twisted, broken, messed up. A million different things. The voice inside my head is not my own, but a choir made up of my foster parents over the years. This is what I do. I mess up. I do everything wrong. I shut down because it’s easy and I’m the kind of person that takes the easy way out.