The world zones out, then back in. She’s still in that basement. There may not be concrete walls, but she’s still struggling to adjust her eyesight to the darkness, still struggling to find light. Whatever the Riot said to her has kept her trapped and has her terrified for her life.
Like in the back of the car, I hook one of my fingers with hers. She glances at me, her forehead furrows and she mouths, Help me.
The ache hits so low I have to work to keep from flinching. Can’t remember the last time Violet asked for help. From the club, from her friends, from me.
I rip my stare away and it lands on Eli. He’s looking down at the photos and it’s a kick in the gut to see the pain of his expression. Each and every photo on the floor is of Frat, Violet, her mother and her brother. Each and every photo a smiling family. Each and every photo a moment that will never happen again.
“Go on upstairs, Violet,” I say in a low voice. “Get some sleep.”
Her eyebrows disappear behind her longer bangs at the mention of sleep, and I understand her concern. We’ve tried to sleep apart and it didn’t work. She talked about buzzing with me not around and I couldn’t relax. I lay in bed and flipped around as if I was attempting to rest on sharp nails.
“I’ll show,” I mumble. She briefly closes her eyes as if that’s what she had been wishing to hear.
Every now and then the crazy and wild angels who occasionally watch over me and Violet produce a miracle. I expected a fight from her, but instead she squeezes my finger, releases it and starts for the door. The way she hobbles, it’s obvious she’s in massive pain.
“You’re not supposed to be on your knee as much as you have been,” Eli says.
She hesitates at the door, back still to him, and her shoulders rise and fall with her deep breath. “Sometimes life doesn’t hand you choices. Sometimes the world is how it is. Sometimes you have to go down the path given to you.”
“Sometimes,” Eli says. “But sometimes people choose the harder path just to prove they can do it.”
“Sometimes, I guess they do,” she says softly, then leaves.
Eli and I wait in silence as we listen to her go down the hallway, up the stairs, and shut her door. Salvage. That’s what I need to do. Need to buy Violet and myself time until I figure out what the hell is going on—why she’s still so terrified.
“I’m responsible for this.” Eli looks at the pictures as if the memories are of war atrocities. Broken and bleeding limbs instead of smiling faces. “It’s my fault Frat died and this family is in shambles. It’s my fault Violet’s in pain.”
It’s what Violet says, but I don’t believe her and I don’t buy what he’s saying. “It’s the Riot’s fault.”
Eli presses his lips together, then bends to pick up the photos. “She was right. Frat kept a picture of them in each of his files. The guys used to give him hell for it, but he never cared. Frat loved his family. Loved them in a way not many people can understand and I stole that from them.”
I open my mouth to argue, but he cuts me off as he starts on the files. “Go to her. I’ll clean up.”
“Anything important in those?” I fish.
He shakes his head. “Vending and purchasing invoices for the food and alcohol at the clubhouse. Frat was a man of many talents. Had a knack for keeping everything organized and in its place. We should have moved all this stuff by now, but no one’s had the heart to look at those photos.”
Bet no one’s had the heart to take anything of his out of this house.
“Do me a favor,” Eli says.
“Sure.”
“Tell Violet... Tell her I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“She’ll know. That’s all that matters.”
Violet
CHEVY DOESN’T BOTHER KNOCKING. He walks in, shuts the door behind him, places his hands on his hips, then narrows his dark eyes on me. In the dim light of the lamp on my bedside table, Chevy’s a glorious sight. He’s always been sexy when he’s mad. Something about his brooding expression would typically cause butterflies in my stomach. Because of how long we’d been together plus how we pushed each other during our breakup, we’ve had plenty of experience at being furious.
I don’t want him angry at me now, but I don’t blame him for being so. I lied to the club, I lied to Eli and I lied to him. Betrayal isn’t something McKinley men forgive.
I’m on my bed, sitting near the pillows. My sore leg extended. This room is a beautiful place. Full of purples, hand-stenciled flowers, white sheer flowing curtains and perfection from a magazine. I remember the first time I wanted to make my room my own. I brought home a poster of a puppy from the school book fair. Mom told me no, I put it up anyway with pushpins into her perfect wall. Mom yelled at me, I yelled at her, Dad came home from work and told me to let my mother have her way.
The house is all she has. It’s her identity. Let her have it.
At least Mom still has the house. I put too much of my identity into my father and now I’m lost.
“What the hell, Violet?” Chevy sounds as exhausted as I feel. “Just what the hell?”
“I’ve been confused by our math makeup work,” I say. “Can you please take a look at it?”
He cracks his head to the side as if that action could keep him from throttling me. “Violet—”
“Please,” I add.
Reluctantly, he turns to my desk, flips open my notebook, and nervous adrenaline enters my system. It’s like ants are crawling under my sheets. Unable to stay still, I pick up the stuffed bear Chevy won for me at the county fair when we were fifteen and hug it tight.
I should have been the girl who threw away or burned everything he gave me after we split up, but I could never bring myself to part with the items he had chosen for me with such care. There is nothing fake about him. He’s thoughtful, loyal and loves people so much that it can cause him pain.
I loved Chevy and I still do. Keeping what he had given me reminded me that the moments of happiness we shared weren’t make-believe, weren’t a dream...that they were very, very real.
Chevy’s taking too long. What he has to read can be done quickly, but he continues to stand there, his back to me, his head lowered. Each second of silence causes my skin to feel stretched thin to the point of breaking.
He closes the notebook, slowly pivots in my direction, and his eyes meet mine. Inside that notebook are the notes the Riot lovingly left for me. I’m not safe at the clubhouse. From the conversation I had with Justin when I was kidnapped, I know I’m being watched here. I’m not safe anywhere, and I will not do or say anything to jeopardize my family and I won’t allow Chevy to screw this up for me either because of his inherent need to be a caveman.
“If my father knew you were in here, he’d be angry,” I say, knowing Chevy can understand subtext better than anyone else.
“Never stopped me from sneaking up.”
The right side of my mouth tips up and then falls just as quickly. He’s playing along, but he’s also speaking the truth. The thrill and innocence of those days are sadly gone. “What do you think of the math?”
Chevy crosses the room and the bed dips as he sits. “More complicated than I remember.”
“Yeah. There’s a lot of that going around.” I pull down the covers and wonder how much he’s willing to forgive me and how badly he wants to know all the truth. “Stay with me? If only for a bit.”
I’ll take whatever he’s willing to give—at least for now—even if he’s only willing to give me memories. Memories are golden and on cold lonely nights, sometimes if I try to remember hard enough, they almost make me warm.
Chevy undoes his shoes, I turn off the lamp on my bedside table, then slip under the blanket. Chevy settles in facing me. His legs and chest are touching mine and the sweet, sweet memory of the last
time he was in this bed with me heats my blood.
The day had been humid, we had been out in my field and the rain had caught us by surprise. He had taken off his shirt because it was drenched, and I took off mine because I loved the way he became hypnotized by me anytime we were alone in a room.
He was mine. Physically, emotionally, spiritually and I loved feeling needed, desired and like I belonged.
Chevy places a hand on my waist and I’m not sure if it’s for comfort or from habit. Either way, I snuggle deeper into the pillows and into him, hoping what I’m about to do isn’t a mistake. The venetian blinds are closed, but moonlight still filters in through the slats. He’s beautiful. Oh so beautiful and he’s about to become very, very angry.
Having no idea of the extremes the Riot have gone to eavesdrop on me, I’m afraid to talk in a normal tone. But Chevy needs to know and in this bed with the covers nearly over my head is the safest place I can think of. Walls between us and the world. Him tucked close to me. Me tucked close to him. Us speaking so quietly that we can barely hear each other.
“I’m being watched by the Riot,” I whisper. “Here at home, at the clubhouse, in Cyrus’s house. Justin told me it’s been going on since before the kidnapping. I didn’t know it was happening. I’m not safe. I’m terrified to be talking to you about it now. Scared of how much they know, what they see, what they hear.”
A cold chill runs up my spine, and I shiver. Chevy runs his hand along my arm and his warmth is welcome. “Why are they watching you?”
“If I tell you, you can’t tell Eli or the club.”
His body quakes with anger. I suck in a breath to still the fear that’s causing my heart to go faster.
“Is that what this is all about? Is that why they let us go? Did you make a deal with Justin to betray the Terror in order to set us free?”
I don’t get self-righteous. There’s no point. I would do anything to protect Brandon and my mom. I’d do close to anything to protect Chevy. “I’ll explain everything as long as you give me your word that what I say stays safe with you. No one else can know.”
Chevy’s eyes wander over my face. I know him. He’s thinking, he’s weighing, he’s hoping I’ll change my mind. “We need to involve the club. If the Riot are watching you, then you need to be protected.”
“I can’t involve the Terror. If the Riot finds out I’m not doing what they want, that’s when I’ll be in danger.”
His grip on me tightens. “So you are working with them.”
I am, but not how he’s thinking and I can’t explain until he gives me his word.
His expression hardens as he reads my silence like a prison sentence. “If you’re working with the Riot, I have to tell. I can’t let you betray the club. They’re our family. My family.”
“Is that what I am? A traitor? When you protect your family, it’s called being an upstanding member of the club, but when I do it, I’m a traitor?”
“Yes, if what you’re doing hurts the people I love.”
My head pitches back in anger. “Do you think I’m capable of that? Do you think I’m capable of hurting the people you love? That I love?”
The buzzing that Chevy used to quiet returns and it grows louder with each second he remains silent. As if we hadn’t been kidnapped and survived together, as if we haven’t held each other night after night, as if last night meant nothing. I place my hands on his chest and try to push him away. Try to ignore my breaking heart.
“Get out. Run off—tell Cyrus I’m being watched and you don’t know why. And before you try going all self-righteous on me, I heard. I heard you tell Cyrus you would sell me out the moment I trusted you with anything. So go. Tell him you think I’m betraying the club. Tell him whatever you want. He can grill me, the club can grill me and I won’t say a thing. Go, Chevy. Go on and finally make your choice to be their lapdog.”
I go to roll out of bed, but Chevy snags my wrist. “Stop making me choose between you and them.”
“How about you stop behaving like there are no choices to make? I walked away from you months ago because you aren’t capable of choosing. Guess what? I’m very capable of choosing. I know what I want out of life and it’s not the Terror and it’s not Snowflake. I’ve applied to twenty different colleges. What about you? Have you applied to any? Have you even thought about what you’re going to do after high school? After football season is over?”
His blank expression answers every question. “You’re talking in circles. None of this has anything to do with us or with what the hell is going on.”
“No, it has everything to do with you. You’re terrified to choose and because of that you’ll never be happy.”
“I can’t choose between the girl I love and my family. I get enough of that shit from my mother and I’m sick and tired of being in everyone’s tug-of-war.”
“You’re in the middle because you don’t make a choice. You know what? Go ahead, do nothing like always so once again I have to make the tough decisions when it comes to us. You want to be mad because you feel like I’m betraying you—fine, but remember, you planned on betraying me, too. Trust is a two-way street. Go, Chevy. We’re done and this time we’re done for good.”
He jerks as if I slapped him, and this time when I go to roll out of bed, he doesn’t stop me. I pull a shirt over my tank top because I need as many layers as possible to hide the blood pouring from my soul.
“Why can’t you see that Eli, that the club wants to protect you?”
“Why can’t you see they can’t?” My lower lip trembles and tears burn my eyes, but I walk closer to Chevy so he can hear my near-silent angry whisper. “Someone in the Terror is either working with the Riot or the Riot is that good that they could slip past everyone in the Terror to reach the room I slept in at Cyrus’s. Eli and Cyrus are not gods! They are flesh and blood and they cannot protect me or my family.”
Chevy stands there as if I shot him in the chest, staring at me like I’m going to cave and tell him I’m not drawing a line in drying concrete. “I want to help you.”
“Then stay, give me your word and I’ll let you in. I’ll tell you everything. I’ll curl up in that bed right now, let you hold me, dry my tears on your chest and you’ll know every single thought going on in my head. But you have to be with me on this. With me.”
“I promised Cyrus I would tell him if there were problems with you. I promised. Way before you overheard what you did in the kitchen. Before last night. You know I keep my word.”
“And you promised to love me!” I shout and then swallow to help with the closing of my throat. Returning to a whisper is difficult but needed. “You’re right. I’m asking you to choose, but I’m not asking you to choose between me and the club. Stay with the club, become a member tonight, I don’t care. But what I’m asking is for you to choose me this one time. I’m not safe. My family is not safe. And I have found a way to make us safe, but I cannot bring the club into this. They think they can help, but they can’t. They will only make things worse.
“For the first time, can you please see I need your help more? I deserve that. I am not my mother and I am not someone who can sit by and be second place time after time. I deserve someone who puts me first, at the very least when I ask for it, and if you can’t choose, then I choose to go this alone.”
Muscles twitch in Chevy’s face, and when he blinks several times, my chest aches as if someone took a knife and sliced me open.
“They won’t forgive me if I do this. They will find out because nothing in the dark stays a secret forever and that’s asking me to choose between them and you.”
“You’re right. If they find out, they won’t forgive. But I won’t forgive you either, so you have to decide which one means more to you.”
His head snaps up as I hit a nerve and I won’t take the words back.
“I thought loving people was supposed to be easy,” he says quietly. “But it’s the hardest thing I’ve done. I wish I knew how to love you right.”
“I’ve told you how to love me. You aren’t willing to love me how I need to be loved.”
We stand there, willing the other to relinquish control, but we’re too far on the other side of this war to make concessions. Like being on a carnival ride with no restraints, my heart bounces between being bruised and broken and all combinations in between.
“I still love you,” he says. Chevy picks up his boots, goes to the door, turns the knob and I swear to God this hurts worse than the first time we broke up. “That will never change.”
Chevy leaves the door open and each of his steps down the stairs is like a spike through my heart. When the front door closes, I sink to the floor, pick up Chevy’s bear that had fallen off the bed and squeeze it to my chest as if that could keep me from falling apart.
I won’t cry, I won’t cry, I won’t cry.
I don’t cry.
My eyes press shut and I rock as I hold the bear tight.
CHEVY
IT’S OCTOBER OF my senior year and I haven’t considered applying to college.
Sure, I’ve seen the signs in the hallways, even talked to football recruiters, have a dozen or so cards ferreted away somewhere in my room from men who would like me to consider playing for their team. Nobody big, smaller places, but still it’s interest, but I have yet to show any interest in return. I haven’t visited a place, gone to a website, even thought about a career beyond high school.
Violet’s right, I’m not making choices. The decision I’m making now isn’t the one that’s going to help ease the sting of Violet throwing me out, but I’ll receive honest answers.