The Destiny of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #3)(96)

I bend down and scoop her up in my arms, ignoring how badly it hurts. She doesn’t protest, only cries harder, gripping me as if I’m the only thing holding her to this world. I carry her to the bed and lie her down and she pulls me down to her. I let her grip me, let her cry, let her sob into my chest, never touching her, letting her take whatever she needs and wanting nothing in return.

Eventually, she falls asleep in my arms and even though I fight the urge to get up, I stay put until finally the emotional drain catches up with me and I pass out with her balled up in my arms. It only seems like I close my eyes for minutes, but when I wake up the bed is empty. I get up and look around the room, noting her bear is gone and when I open the dresser drawers her clothes aren’t in them. I search the house and I can’t find her or anything that belongs to her anywhere. She’s gone. Everything is.

And it hurts, more than my broken hand, more than remembering, more than anything I’ve had to endure in my entire life. I didn’t even know how much I felt for her until now, when I can’t feel it anymore. I want the pain gone. I want it all gone. I need it gone.

I head to the fridge and take out a bottle of tequila. It takes a lot to get the cap off with my injured hand, but I manage. Then I tip my head back and put the mouth to the bottle, going back to the one thing I know will take everything away. I drench my throat with the burning liquid, letting it seep into every part of me, letting it drown me, until I’m so far under, I don’t even want to try to breathe.





Epilogue



Violet



“So things with lover boy didn’t work out, huh?” Preston asks as he drops the last bag of my stuff on his living room floor. Everything’s in plastic bags, because I packed in a rush, needing to get out of there before I threw myself out the window. I would have done it, too, because the idea of everything being over sounded far better than letting the one simple, good thing in my life go. But being around him would remind me of how I got to that point, how I got to be the person that would consider throwing herself out the window.

The worst part is I feel for him, care for him, want him to be the one sitting here with me, yet I don’t even think I could look at him without thinking about my parents’ murder and how his mom could be connected to it. Even as he held me and I cried, the safety that I once felt in his arms was gone and all I felt was hollowness.

“He’s not my lover boy… he’s not my anything,” I mutter to Preston, rubbing my eyes as I sink down onto the couch. My eyes ache almost as much as my heart. I’ve never cried that much. Never had a reason to. And I’m still trying to figure out if I was crying over the fact that Luke told me his mom was there the night my parents were killed or if it was because I knew I couldn’t stay there with him, not in the way we were just moments earlier before I sang that song and broke everything apart.

After Luke fell asleep, I’d gotten up, feeling the insane, uncontrollable need for adrenaline and I did the only thing I could think of that wouldn’t end badly, with one more death. I walked away and went to the only place that I have left. I’m surprised Preston even came to pick me up. I’m still not even sure why I went back to him or if I’ll stick around. But right now I’m too defeated and drained to do anything else. And I’m not ever sure I’ll get who I was back, the person I became with Luke, or even the person I was pre-Luke who could hold it together as long as I could shut down my emotions. Even after I tell the police. Even when—or if—they can finally make an arrest because in the end I’ll still be all alone.

After Preston stacks the last of the boxes onto the floor near the hall, he shuts the door and drops onto the couch beside me. I’m still in boxer shorts and I’m wearing Luke’s shirt that I can’t even remember putting on, but I’m glad I have it because it smells like him.

He drapes an arm around my shoulder. “So are you going to tell me why you look like shit or should I start guessing?”

I rub my fingers over my puffy eyes. “How about we just pretend nothing happened?”

“Oh, I can’t do that,” he says, pulling me against him. “But at least tell me why you’re crying.”

“Because everything’s ruined.”

“Wasn’t it already?”

“No, it was far from ruined.”

He doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about and I’m glad. “You know, I still haven’t gotten over how you talked to me before you left.”

“You deserved it,” I mutter and he squeezes my arm hard.

“And you never gave me back that stash,” he says in a firm voice. “So unless you still have it, you owe me. Big time.”

“It’s gone,” I say flatly. “I gave it away.”

He shakes his head and presses my head so tightly against his chest it hurts my neck. “See that’s the thing about you, Violet. You never think about the future.”

“That’s because I’m stuck in the past.”

“I know, and you need to stop thinking about the past and start thinking about moving forward, starting with how you’re going to pay me back.” He starts massaging my shoulder with his fingertips roughly as his other hand drifts up my thigh.

My initial reaction is to hit him, but lifting my fist up seems too complicated at the moment. Everything does and it just seems like it’d be easier to give in to him than fight back.