The Coincidence 05 The Certainty of Violet & Luke (23 page)

I start to smile and cry at the same time as waves of emotions ripple over me. Some of relief. Some of heartache. Some I don’t even recognize. ‘Okay, I will.’

Luke’s freaking out – I can see it in his brown eyes, so I give his hand a reassuring squeeze.
It’s okay. I’m going to be okay.

Either the detective can hear my thoughts or my hear tears because he says, ‘Violet, it’s going to be okay.’

It takes me a moment to answer, to process everything that he just told me. I’m not sure how I feel about Preston being the son of the man who took my parent’s life. I feel sick to my stomach. Disgusted. Disappointed. Confused. There’s a lot of history with Preston and I, a lot of things that I did, and all that stuff slams me in the chest at once. I almost fall.

Almost, but not quite.

I grasp tighter onto Luke’s hand. I don’t want to live in the past, let my guilt control me like that, let Preston control me like that.

It’s still a lot to take in and I know there’s something that can briefly take it all away, but that’s the thing. It’ll only be temporary and if I survive whatever crazy, erratic thing I do, everything will still be the same afterward and I’ll still have to face it.

‘I know it is,’ I whisper through my tears and it feels like the truth. For once, it feels like everything’s going to be okay. Yes, not everything turned out perfect. In fact, if I really analyze it, I can see all the ugliness and darkness that has come out of this. I could sink back into that dark hole and let it eat me up, like I did for years. But I’ve only just climbed out of that fucking hole and I don’t want to go back. I want to be strong. I want to let myself be happy.

And let myself be in love.

Two things I never, ever thought were going to be possible, but then I had a taste of them and it was wonderful – I’m not ready to let the wonderful go. I know nothing will ever be perfect; things won’t always turn out the way that I want. That’s not how life works and perfect doesn’t exist. But for the most part, everything will be okay if I just let it be. And I’m going to try my damn hardest; I’m going to go on living life, trying to get better instead of worse. And I have Luke by my side.

And really, that’s all I need.

One month later….

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ I ask, as I stare at the roundabout. It’s barely December but winter has rolled in and has turned the entire park into a winter wonderland. Ice glazes everything and all of the swings glisten with frost.

Luke nods as he brushes some of the snow off the roundabout. ‘Lana told you to do something childishly fun so here you go.’

I pull my coat tighter around myself, wishing I’d had time to shower before we came here. But Luke picked me up straight from the gym after my kickboxing thing with Callie and Seth, something I do at least twice a week. ‘But it’s freezing.’

He cocks an eyebrow at me as he brushes the snow off my gloves. ‘Since when does snow make you back down from a challenge?’

Snow is falling from the sky even though the sun is peeking through the clouds. ‘How did this become a challenge?’

‘Because I’m making it a challenge,’ he tells me cockily as he zips up the leather jacket he’s wearing and waits for me to get on the frozen deathtrap.

Earlier this week, Lana had suggested that I do something fun, something that I missed out on when I was younger. Luke came up with this idea when I couldn’t figure out one on my own. Said he played at the park sometimes when he was hiding from his mother.

‘Oh fine.’ I walk over to the thing that looks like a flying saucer with bars on the top of it and hop on. The chilled metal sinks through my clothes and freezes my skin as I sit down in the center and hold onto the bars. ‘Now what?’

He gets this goofy grin on his face and I know I’m in trouble. ‘Now you hang on.’ Before I can say anything else, he takes off running, holding onto the bars so it causes the roundabout to spin. The faster her runs the faster the thing spins until everything around me is a blur of shapes and colors. Then he jumps on himself and joins me in the center.

I’m laughing my ass off as my eyes fight to focus on something around me, but I just get dizzy, so instead I focus on Luke’s face.

‘See, fun, right?’ he asks, gripping onto the bar.

I nod, smiling as I stare up at the sky. ‘It feels like I’m in the center of the world and everything around me is moving.’

He chuckles. ‘There’s that philosophy class showing again.’

‘It’s a fun class,’ I admit, daring to let go of the bars and spin freely, feeling as though I’m flying. Luke’s hands clamp down on my legs as if he’s afraid the force is going to send me flying, which only makes my grin expand. ‘I picked a major today.’

‘Really?’

I nod.

He waits for me to explain but then grows impatient. ‘Are you going to tell me what it is?’

My smile takes up my entire face. ‘Physics.’

His grip tightens on my legs as the roundabout continues to spin. ‘Are you being serious?’

I look away from the sky and to him, nodding. ‘Someone told me I’d be good at it once.’

His lips quirk. ‘Sounds like a smart person if you ask me.’

‘Yeah, a real genius,’ I say with a grin. ‘We’ll see how it goes, though. I still might change it.’

‘I don’t think you will,’ he says as the roundabout starts to slow.

‘We’ll see.’ I grow quiet as the spinning slows to a stop and suddenly it feels like we’re grounded, but neither of us move. ‘How’s your job going?’

‘Good.’ Luke’s been working at the gym for the last few weeks and he seems happy about not having to work at the bar anymore. ‘I mean, I don’t want to do it forever, but it’ll get me through school.’ He pauses, then sits up. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I got a text from Ryler this morning.’

Ryler is Luke’s mute cousin that I met once when we were in Vegas. His dad’s an asshole and I felt kind of bad for him, especially since he also grew up in foster homes.

‘Oh, yeah? What’d he say?’

‘That he was thinking about starting next semester at the University of Wyoming and wondered if it’d be okay if he crashed with us for a few days when he got out here, until he found a place to live. I told him sure.’

‘Good, I feel bad for him.’

‘Because he can’t talk?’

I shake my head. ‘No, because he didn’t have a real family growing up.’

Luke looks at me with empathy. ‘Speaking of families, how have you been doing with all the trial stuff?’

I scoot closer to him as the wind starts to blow and snow flurries around us. ‘You ask me that all the time.’

‘I know, but I want to make sure you’re okay all the time,’ he says, brushing a snowflake off my cheek.

His touch warms me from my head to my toes to my soul. ‘I’m still doing okay, although I’ll be more okay when Preston starts trail.’

Luke shakes his head, anger flashing in his eyes, which happens every time we talk about Preston. ‘I still can’t believe he’s saying he did all that stuff because he blamed your family for what his father did. Guy seriously has some bolts lose.’

‘I know, but at least he’s behind bars, right?’ Although I wish he was being sentenced for more, that somehow he could be blamed for what his father did. I know it’s kind of selfish of me to want it, and that really I know he doesn’t deserve that, it’s just hard sometimes thinking about how his father is dead and will never actually pay for what he did. ‘How about you?’

He sucks in a slow breath. ‘I’m doing fine, but I’m glad I got my part over with.’

Luke was called up last week and questioned. He was really nervous about doing it, but the important part is that he did; he conquered his fear of his mother and let the world know what a monster she is.

‘Thank you for doing that.’ I press my lips to his and give him a soft kiss.

‘I’m not going to lie,’ he says. ‘I did partly do it for myself.’

‘I’m still glad you did it.’

‘Me too.’

We sit back and enjoy the quiet for a while until the wind kicks up, then he takes my hand and pulls be too my feet. ‘Ready to do the rest of Lana’s challenge?’

I instantly frown. The rest of the challenge is a lot harder than playing at the playground. ‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ I admit.

‘Yes, you can,’ he encourages, taking both of my hands in his and guiding me off the roundabout.

I hop off with him and land in the snow. ‘But what if you’re wrong? What if we drive all the way out there and I freak out and can’t do it?’

He offers me one of my favorite smiles. ‘Then I guess I’ll get to spend some time with you.’

‘You spend all the time with me, pretty much, now.’

‘Now I’ll get more.’ He tugs on my arm and pulls me through the snow toward his truck and I reluctantly drag my feet as I follow after him. When he feels the weight of my walk, he pauses and looks at me. ‘Baby, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I would never make you do anything you don’t want to.’

‘I know you wouldn’t.’ I stand there in the middle of the snow, holding his hand, terrified out of my mind. I’ve dealt with so much stuff lately I’m not sure if I’m ready for this. But then again, if I don’t do it now then I’ll just think about how I didn’t do it and it’ll drive me mad and I’ll disappoint myself. ‘No, I’m ready,’ I say, then pull him toward the truck, so that I’m the one choosing to do this.

Because in the end, it has to be my choice.

Two hours, five
Eagles
songs, and one ‘Songs that Remind me of Violet’ mixed tape later, we’re pulling up to the cemetery I’ve been dreading coming to. It’s bad enough in my dreams, but seeing it in real life it’s …

‘It’s so empty and quiet,’ I whisper, as I press my face to the window and stare out at the frosted ground dotted with headstones.

Luke puts the truck in park and leaves the engine running. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ he asks.

I shake my head with hesitancy. ‘No, this is something I have to do on my own.’

It takes me at least fifteen minutes to get out of the truck, but Luke waits patiently in my silence never questioning or pushing me, one of the things that I love about him. Finally, I get the door open and step out into the snow. It takes me another ten minutes before I actually make it through the gate and into the cemetery itself.

This is the first time I’ve ever stepped foot into a cemetery since I was five years old. The air is cold, the trees leafless, the headstones all a painful reminder of why I’m here – who I’m here to see. Lana told me that it would be good for me. That it’d be healthy to finally face this milestone in my life. That I’ve been doing so well and that maybe it’s time, not necessarily to say goodbye to my parents, but to accept that they’re gone and that I’m still alive and that that is okay.

I don’t even know how I find their headstones so easily. Maybe it’s my subconscious or maybe I just luck out, but it only takes me a few minutes of wandering around before I see two Hayes’ tombstones, side by side.

I sit down in front of them, in the snow, even though it’s freezing. I trace hearts patterns in the frost, avoid saying anything for the longest time, but then it all comes spilling out suddenly.

‘I used to be so lost.’ I pick at the frostbitten grass as the wind dances around me. ‘In fact, I’ve been lost since you guys had to go, up until a month or so ago.’

‘It might sound weird,’ I say. ‘But I felt like if I let myself have direction, have purpose, let people into my life, care for them, that eventually it would all be taken away from me and I’d be left alone again, drowning in my pain. In the weather, the words of the people around me, in the eyes of others.’ I scoop up a handful of snow and let it slowly slip from my fingertips. ‘I used to be so good at masking off my emotions. I had these little tricks, ways to numb myself to the point that anything I was feeling inside was overpowered by an emotion much stronger than any other. Fear. The fear of death. Although, I worked a little different.’

I let the grass go in my hand, sit back and utter words I’ve never dared to truly say aloud before. ‘Death wasn’t so much a thrill as a panicking thrill to me. Was I terrified of dying?’ I consider the question and admit the truth. ‘I thought I wasn’t – thought I was fearless. But it turns out I wasn’t … turns out I didn’t want to die. It took me a while and a lot of self-torture to realize that. That really what I wanted was what I was most afraid of.’

Tears sting my eyes as emotions prick inside me but I let them come because I know that eventually they calm down and I’ll survive through it. ‘Things haven’t been so easy for me, mostly because of my own doing. I guess that’s what I’ve learned over the last few months … Lana told me that’s what I was supposed to do here,’ I mutter. ‘Admit what I’ve learned – how I’ve healed.’ I pause, gathering all the strength I have in me. I have to glance over my shoulder at Luke in his truck and that gives me the extra boost I need. ‘What I’ve learned is that I wasn’t just pushing myself toward death. That I put a wall up around myself to keep me away from everyone, so I wouldn’t have to feel anything because no one can hurt you if they don’t know you, right? That was my motto in life. I think it partly came from being passed through foster family after foster family, but some of it stemmed from the fact that I experienced a loss so great that I never wanted to feel it again.’

I start to choke up and the letters on the headstone become blurry, beginning to melt away. ‘But I’m getting better. I can’t take all the credit, though. I’ve got some great friends and a boyfriend who help me every single day. I’m even going to a therapist. It’s crazy, but for once things actually feel okay.’ I raise my wrist and pull back my sleeve, showing that I have the bracelet with
Sempre
on it. ‘I’ve been doing a little research and found out that you guys went to Italy for your honeymoon because dad has a little bit of Italian in him. I’m not sure how mom got the bracelet exactly, but I’d like to think that you gave it to her while you were there. It seems like such a nice story.’ I lower my hand to my lap and let the tears pour out, knowing that my story will always be just a story, that I’ll never know for sure, but that there’s nothing I can do about that but accept it and hold onto what I do have – my life.