The Destiny of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #3)(74)

Seth gets up off the sofa. “I’m going to go have a smoke,” he says to me. “You want to come out with me?”

I shake my head and his face contorts with confusion, because I rarely turn down a smoke break. “Okay,” he says, his eyebrows raised as he leaves me and goes out onto the balcony.

I wonder why none of them are reacting like I am, but then again neither of them know the stuff I do about Violet. They might not even know her last name, since she was so reluctant to hand it over to me.

Jesus. What do I do? I mean, maybe it’s not related to her, but she did just go down to the police station today and she grew up in foster homes, but wouldn’t tell me what really happened to her parents. But other than that I don’t know much about her, which seems so wrong at the moment, especially if she’s carrying that inside her, all that death. Death is so heavy. I know this.

God, she must be hurting. I get up and go to the bedroom door. It’s locked, so I knock. It takes several more knocks before she opens the door with a look on her face that rams me in the chest. She’s not crying or frowning or upset. She just looks like she’s drowning in a lack of emotions. There’s a small television perched on the desk in the corner and the same news channel I was just watching is on the screen.

She takes one look at my face and says, “Don’t ask me.” Then she steps back from the door and flops down on the bed on her back. Desperation filters through her voice. “Please just don’t ask me anything about it.”

How the hell am I not supposed to ask her? Her parents were murdered? There’s so many questions. I want to understand her life, her, and worst of all I just want to hold her and tell her it’ll be okay, like I wish someone would have done for me after Amy died. But that’s what I wanted and I have no clue if that’s what she wants. The only thing I know is that she asked me not to ask her anything and if that’s what she wants I’ll give it to her.

“I’m going to go get something to eat,” I tell her, gripping onto the door frame as I smother the urge to bombard her with questions. “Do you want to come with me?”

She shakes her head as she gazes up at the ceiling; her arms flopped to the side. “No thanks.”

“Do you want me to pick you something up?”

“If you want.”

“Okay, I’ll bring you something back,” I say, letting go of the door frame. “Or if you want I can just stick around and hang out.”

“I want to be alone,” she whispers. “Please just go. I need to be alone right now.” She reaches for a purple teddy bear on the bed, hugging it as she rolls over. It takes a lot of strength not to lie down in bed and wrap my arms around her, but I don’t because she asked me not to.





Chapter 13



Violet



Today is turning into the shittiest day of all days in the shitty history that makes up my life. It was going fine. I got up for the twelfth morning in a row at my new apartment in my new bed and for the first time I wasn’t disoriented. Good start. Then I read a book, which was relaxing, and I didn’t think about my parents or their death the entire time. As an added bonus, I hadn’t seen Luke all morning. I’ve been avoiding him ever since he found out about my parents because I don’t want him looking at me with pity in his eyes. I don’t want him asking questions. I don’t want him learning all the details, like how I found my parents. At least the news kept that much quiet.

I’ve been focusing on moving forward and getting myself back to the place I was before all this happened, before the case was reopened, before Luke came along and it wasn’t just me in my life anymore. I need to get my head back to where it was before, become the independent unaffected Violet again.

He hasn’t even moved into our room yet, probably because I scared him off. He did stack some boxes in the closet but I think he keeps his clothes in a duffel bag in the living room. He hasn’t said anything about it either and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I keep telling myself that it’s a good thing—that space is a good thing—but I find myself questioning my true feelings.

After I spend most of the afternoon reading, I go to work and it isn’t that crowded because it’s raining and for some reason rain keeps the crowd away. Everything is simple. Until everyone suddenly decides they’re going to take their chances out in the rain. Then things get a little chaotic and I’m running around seating everyone and waiting on them the best that I can. The doorbell keeps dinging as more people file in, tracking water and mud in with them. There’s this one guy who comes in by himself, which sometimes happens—random people wander in and eat alone. He’s wearing a red T-shirt, tan pants, and has a creeper mustache, but, hey, to each their own.

“You want to sit at the bar?” I ask, hopeful, otherwise he’s going to take up an entire table.

He shakes his head, closing his umbrella and brushing the water off his arm. “I’ll take a booth.”

I mentally roll my eyes at him, seat him in a corner booth, then leave him to read over the menu while I go behind the counter to get him some water. Then I hurry and tend to the register, before I head over to his table, hoping he’s ready to order and not ready to waste my time.

“You’re Violet Hayes, right?” he says as I press the tip of the pen to the order book and suddenly I recognize his voice. I glance up from the order book as he says, “The Violet Hayes whose parents were murdered in Cheyenne thirteen years ago?”