Acts of Violet(102)

I’m already at an angry simmer, but she has an uncanny knack for turning up the heat until I boil over. “That’s not an explanation. You had to disappear without a trace? Why the fuck … Why?” I spit out the word, imagining it trailed by a hundred question marks.

“Remember how obsessed Mom was with curses, how she made us wear red strings to ward off the evil eye and all that stuff?” Round and round she goes, staring at her feet as she speaks.

“Of course. Oh my god, you’re giving me motion sickness.”

She stops pacing. “I think, in some weird way, I was the curse. You were the helper, you made everyone’s life better. I made everyone’s life worse.”

There aren’t enough eye-rolls in the world. “Nope. Not happening. This is one pity party I will not be attending.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me. And I wasn’t trying to blow up your life, even before I left. I just wanted you to be a little less serious.”

“Right, because ‘everything’s too serious to be so serious,’ like you said in your little note.”

“It was such a grind to get you to have fun.”

“We can’t all live in a fantasy world like you. It’s hard to have fun when you’re taking care of everybody.” This is not the warm and fuzzy reunion I was hoping for. Who am I kidding, Violet and I don’t do warm and fuzzy.

“Sasha, it was your choice to take care of everybody.”

“Yeah, but why did you always have to make me feel bad about my life choices?”

“I didn’t want you to feel bad, I wanted you to dream bigger.”

“Not all of us need big dreams. Some of us are fine with small-to-medium ones. You wanted to dazzle the world and get the stardom and big money, and you got all of that. I didn’t want that. And anyway, you never seemed genuinely happy. It was like none of the fame and success was ever enough.”

“I wasn’t happy. It wasn’t enough.”

“Oh, are you gonna say you wanted my quaint little life, even though you went out of your way to take digs at me in your books? You Are Magic, Except You, Sasha Dwyer, Are a Loser.”

“More like You, Sasha Dwyer, Are Magic. Wake Up and Smell the Glitter.”

I strain to catch a note of sarcasm in her voice, but she’s being sincere. Huh. “I always felt like you wanted to shove your superiority in everyone’s face, but especially mine. Like you were forcing me into a series of contests. And you always won.”

“I never won. Nothing that mattered, anyway. You were smarter and more beautiful and nicer. People cared about you because of who you were, not who they wanted you to be. What you have matters more than anything I ever had.”

“Tell me this wasn’t all about Gabriel. All those ways you tried to stick it to me, the microaggressions. Tell me it wasn’t because of a boy who didn’t fall in love with you.”

She lowers her head and kicks at the sand. “I thought something more would happen … eventually … and then you swooped in.”

“There was no swooping. You said you didn’t like him like that.”

“You still should’ve backed off. Gabriel and I had more in common. He was my friend first.”

“So what?”

“So I had dibs!”

“Violet, we’re talking about a person, not the last slice of pizza. You can’t call dibs on someone’s heart.” I shake her arm until she looks at me. “And what about when you Indecent Proposal-ed Gabriel? Don’t give me that crap about it being a joke.”

Violet hisses through her teeth. “Yeah, not my best moment. I just had two relationships implode and was starting to change my mind about having kids, because it seemed like a kid would stick around, you know? That night at the bar, I got super drunk. In the moment, all I could think was how impossible it was that I’d find someone like Gabriel, but how amazing it would be to have his baby. Even if he’d said yes, there’s no way I would’ve gone through with it, but there wasn’t a second he wasn’t anything but mortified. I thought passing it off as a joke might lighten the mood, but … not so much.” Violet opens her hands and stares down at them. “I could never find a good way to apologize. For what I put you through. And Gabriel. And Quinn. Saying I’m sorry isn’t enough. But for what it’s worth, I am sorry.” When she looks up at me, she’s crying. “I wanted a family like yours, but I didn’t know how to get it.”

“A good way to start is by being decent to the family you do have.” My voice is soft, less chastising, more regretful. “And are you sure that’s what you really wanted? I think you would’ve still found a way to be dissatisfied with your life.”

“Probably. But you put your whole heart into family, I put mine into work, and I feel like I ended up with nothing. Trust me, you won.”

The rising lump in my throat makes it tough to speak. “Come on, Violet. You made people fucking believe in magic.”

“Not all people. Not you.”

Tears gush out of me.

“That’s the real reason I wanted Quinn to be part of my act,” she says. “To make her believe things you never could. It wasn’t right for me to do it that way, and I hate myself for hurting her. I wish I could undo it … but I can’t undo anything now.”