The Destiny of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #3)(32)

I stand in the crowd, shaking my head at myself, dumbfounded by my own idiocy. “God, you’re so beautiful? We should go back into one of the rooms.” Yeah, it wasn’t my best line ever but Jesus, she runs off more than anyone I’ve ever known.

After analyzing her for way too long, I decide that it’s not my f*cking problem—she’s not my f*cking problem. I need to move on, cut whatever it is that’s drawing me to her, get over my developing obsession with the mysterious girl who jumps out windows and seems to show up wherever I go. Leaving most of my thoughts of Violet behind, I shove through the crowd and push to the kitchen where the counters are lined with bottles and bottles of alcohol. There are so many choices it’s like Christmas. I select a bottle of Crown Royal and slam back another shot… or two… or three… or four… until they all blur together and I can’t think anymore.

When I’m almost gone, veering on blacking out, I find the first decent-looking girl I come across and flirt with her until we’re heading back to one of the rooms. It doesn’t take long after the door shuts before our clothes are off and I’m thrusting inside her. The headboard bangs against the wall as I pin her hands down to the side of her head and she screams out, not my name because we never got that far. Her head is tipped back, her neck arched, her skin beaded with sweat. As I stare down at her, thrusting our hips together, all I think about is how I can do anything to her right now. For a second it feels right. I don’t feel so helpless and f*cked up inside. So controlled by the things around me and my past. I feel drunk and high on this girl under me, who’s ready to give me whatever I want. For a brief moment I have control over everything. There’s not all this noise inside me, reminding me of the bad and horrible stuff that makes up my past. I feel content and still inside. Then I’m pulling out of her and the wholeness inside me empties out. The girl rolls over to her side and moments later she passes out. The control I felt over the situation is dissipating and I feel like helpless kid again, which is so f*cked up. I climb out of bed and get dressed, and then I leave her behind, hoping I never cross paths with her again. As I exit the room, the control fleetingly rises again, but once I step out into the living room again it’s all gone. Leaving me to try and outrun it again.

Violet

After I leave Luke on the dance floor, I hurry for the back of the house, trying not to run, but I can’t help but walk quickly. The guy I was working before I headed out to Luke catches me by the arm as I’m crossing the kitchen.

“Hey, where’d you go?” he asks as he reaches for a beer on the counter. “I thought we were going to go somewhere and talk.”

“We will, but I have to take care of something first.” Before he can respond, I jerk my arm out of his hold and leave him behind with his jaw hanging open. I burst out the back door and then stare at the small lake a little ways out in the backyard. There’s a dock stretching out over it and that’s where I head, pushing past the crowd and to the grass, the sounds and lights of the party disappearing the farther away I get. The closer I get to the water, the quicker I walk, the pain in my ankle tearing at my muscles. When my bare feet brush the wood of the dock, I run as fast as I can toward the edge. My heart thrashes in my chest, my blood pumping furiously. It wants to escape the adrenaline rush, but me, I embrace it, bask in it as the adrenaline pours through me like liquid fire, burning away everything I feel at the moment; the want, the desire, the way I let Luke touch me and how I let myself feel when he touched me. He wasn’t just groping me. What was going on inside my body was very real. Too real. So real I actually briefly considered going back to a room with him and letting him do whatever to me because I wanted him to.

When I reach the end of the dock, I gather every ounce of energy I have left and jump, releasing all the oxygen from my lungs until I’m empty of air. Empty of everything. Seconds later, I crash into the water and the cold water floods over my body, drenching my dress, my skin, my hair. It weighs me down, drags me under, and I don’t fight back. I willingly let it take me over.

I remember when I finally realized that my parents weren’t coming back. That they were dead and the blood I saw all over them wasn’t just in my imagination. That the images of them lying on the floor, their bodies still, and their eyes open wasn’t just a picture I’d drawn up in my head. It was real. The reality that I was alone started to seep in and even at six years old I knew that nothing would ever be the same.

I’d never be the same.

It was hard to feel it, the blunt truth that I didn’t have parents anymore. There was a lot of pain. A lot of razors slicing at me from the inside. Needles stabbing at my veins. A hole rapidly growing inside my heart. I felt it—I felt everything. I’d wake up sometimes at night clawing at my skin, trying to dig the feeling out of me, but all I’d ever get were cuts and scratches.

The first couple that took me in thought I was crazy. I heard them talking about it once, that they worried I’d hurt them or myself and why wouldn’t they after what’d I’d seen. Death. Violence. Murder. The morbid part of life—it was branded into my head, which meant I was going to become morbid myself. It confused me and I think I actually started to believe that it might really happen, that I changed into a violent person. Between the idea that I’d end up hurting someone and the constant pain inside me, I decided to give up feeling all together. Turn it off. Shut down. Self-induced numbness.