The Certainty of Violet & Luke Read online

  Don’t let her get to you. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does. “Get out of my way,” I say through gritted teeth.

  She shakes her head. “No way. I don’t have to listen to you, you loser, smelly, crazy girl.”

  The other kids laugh and it takes a lot of energy not to clock her in the face. You were taught to be better than that. Mom and Dad would want me to be better. I move around to the other side but she matches my step and kicks me in the shin. A throbbing pain ricochets up my leg, but I don’t give her the satisfaction of a reaction, remaining calm.

  “No wonder you don’t have any parents. They probably didn’t want you,” she snickers. “Oh wait, that’s right. They died… you probably even killed them yourself.”

  “Shut up,” I warn, shaking as I step closer to her. I can feel anger blazing inside me, on the brink of exploding.

  “Or what?” she says, refusing to back off. The boy on the floor stands up and starts to head toward us with a look on his face that makes me want to bolt. But I won’t. I’m sure they’ll chase me if I do and in the end I’m going to get blamed for this incident.

  “What do you mean, she killed her parents?” he asks, wiping some grime off his forehead with his thumb.

  Jennifer grins maliciously and then turns to him. “Haven’t you heard the story about her?”

  “Shut up.” I cut her off as I move so close to her I almost knock her over, then raise my hand up in front of me, like I’m going to shove her. “I’m warning you.”

  She keeps talking as if I don’t exist. “Her parents were murdered.” She glances at me with hate and cruelty in her eyes. “I heard my mom saying she was the one who found them, but I’m guessing it’s because she did it herself because she’s crazy.”

  I see the image of my mom and dad in their bedroom surrounded by blood and I lose it. I quickly shove the image out of my head until all I see is red. Red everywhere. Blood. Red. Blood. Death. And a stupid little girl who won’t walk away from it.

  I throw the hamburger meat down on the ground, not concerned about what happens to me, and grab a handful of her long blond hair and yank on it. “Take it back!” I shout, pulling harder as I circle around to the front of the car, away from the boy, dragging Jennifer with me.

  She starts to cry, her head tipped back, tears spilling out of her eyes. “You evil bitch!”

  “Let her go!” the boy yells, running around the car at us. “You crazy psycho.” He turns to the other girls and tells them to go get someone and then they take off running, looking at me like I’m crazy, too.

  I know it’ll be just moments before Amelia comes out and then not too long after she’ll call social services to come take me away. I’m trembling with anger and hate all directed toward Jennifer, because she’s the one here in front of me. No one else. My vision blurs along with my head and my heart and it feels like I’m back at my childhood home walking into the room again, seeing the blood… hearing the voices…

  I’m trembling so much my fingers have no strength left to hold on to Jennifer and I release her. She immediately stumbles forward into the front of the car. Regaining her balance, she spins around and shoves me so hard I fall to the ground and my head bangs against the wall.

  “You psycho!” she shouts, her face bright red, tears streaming out of her eyes. “My mom and dad are so going to send you away.”

  I stare at the space on the floor in front of her feet, hugging my teddy bear, motionless.

  She lets out a frustrated grunt and then stomps her foot on the floor before running out of the garage.

  Moments later, Amelia comes rushing in, shouting before she even reaches me. “You’re done here! Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” I don’t have a single drop of emotion left and my voice sounds hollow.

  “Yes, what?” She waits for me to answer her with her arms crossed.

  I don’t reply because I don’t have to anymore. I’m finished with this home. There’s no erasing what just happened. I can’t change the past just as much as I can’t control my future.

  She gets livid, her face tinting pink as she tries to contain her fury. She tells me I’m worthless. She tells me that no one will want me. She tells me I’m leaving. She tells me everything I already know.

  “Are you even listening to me?!” she shouts and I shake my head. Fuming, she snatches the bear from my hands.

  That snaps me out of my motionless trance. “Hey, that’s mine!” I cry, jumping to my feet and lunging for the bear. My shoulder bumps into her arm as she moves it out of my reach.

  She moves back and tucks her arm behind her back. “Consider it a punishment for hurting my daughter.”

  “Your daughter deserved it.” I panic. If she does anything to that bear I won’t be able to take it. I need that bear or else I can’t survive—don’t want to. Why did I survive?

  “Well, when you’re ready to apologize to Jennifer, you can have it back.” She heads toward the door to the house where Jennifer is standing with a smile on her face, expecting an apology.

  “Sorry,” I practically growl, wanting the damn bear back enough that I’ll do whatever she asks at the moment. “Please, don’t take it away.” Desperation burns in my voice. “It’s all I have left of my mom and dad—it’s all I have of them.” I’m begging, weak, pathetic. I hate it. I hate myself. But I need that bear.

  Jennifer grins at me as she crosses her arms and leans against the doorway, her cheeks stained red from the drying tears. “Mom, I don’t think she’s really sorry.”

  Amelia studies me for a moment. “I don’t think she is either.” She frowns disappointedly, like she’s finally seeing that she can’t fix me, then turns for the door with my bear in her hand. “You can have it back when I see a real apology come out of that mouth of yours. And you better make it quick because you won’t be here for very much longer.”

  “I said I was sorry,” I yell out with my hands balled into fists at my side. “What the hell else do you want me to say?”

  She doesn’t answer me and goes into the house with my bear. Jennifer smirks at me before turning for the house, shutting the lights off and then closing the door on her way inside.

  Darkness smothers the garage and I’m suffocated by the dark. But it’s nothing I can’t handle. Seeing things is much harder than seeing nothing but the dark. I like the dark.

  I slide down to the ground and lean back against the wall, hugging my knees to my chest as I let the darkness settle over me. A few tears slip out and drip down my cheeks and I let more stream out, telling myself it’s okay, because I’m in the dark, and nothing can be seen in the dark.

  But after a while I can’t get the tears to stop as what Jennifer and the other kids said plays on repeat inside my head. I think about the last time I saw my parents lying in their coffins and how they got there. The blood. I’ll never forget the blood. On the floor. On me.

  More tears spill out and soon my whole face is drenched with them. My heart thrashes against my chest and I tug at my hair as I scream through clenched teeth, kicking my feet against the floor. Invisible razors and needles stab underneath my skin. I can’t turn off the emotions. I can’t think straight. My lungs need air. I hurt. I ache. I can’t take it anymore. I need it out. I need to breathe.

  I stumble to my feet and through the dark, until I find the door that leads to the driveway. I shove the door open, sprint outside into the sunlight and race past the cars parked in the driveway and toward the curb. I don’t slow down until I’m approaching the highway in front of the house where cars zip up and down the road. With no hesitation, I walk into the middle of the road and stand on the yellow dotted line with my arms held out to the side. Tears pool in my eyes as I blink against the sunlight, my pulse speeding up the longer I stay there and that rush of energy that has become the only familiar thing in my life takes over.

  It feels like I’m flying, head-on into something other than being moved around, passed around, given away, tossed aside, forgotten. I hav
e the unknown in front of me and I have no idea what’s going to happen. It feels so liberating. So I stay in place, even when I hear the roar of a car’s engine. I wait until I hear the sound of the tires. Until I see the car. Until it’s close enough that the driver honks their horn. Until I feel the swish of an adrenaline rush, drenching the sadness and panic out of my body and mind. Until my emotions subside and all I feel is exhilaration. Then I jump to the right where the road meets the grass as the car makes a swerve to the left to go around me. Brakes screech. A horn honks. Someone shouts.

  I lie soundless in the grass, feeling twenty times better than I did in the garage. I feel content in a dark hole of numbness; a place where I can feel okay being the child that no one wants. The child that probably would have been better off dying with her parents, instead of being left alive and alone.

  Chapter 1

  Violet

  (Freshman year of college)

  I’ve got my fake smile plastered on my face and no one in the crowd of people surrounding me can tell if it’s real or not. None of them really give a shit either, just like I don’t. I’m only here, pretending to be a ray of sunshine, for three reasons: (1) I owe Preston, my last foster parent I had before I turned eighteen, big time, because he gave me a home when no one else would; and (2) because I need the money; and (3) I love the rush of knowing that at any moment I could get busted so much—so much that it’s become addicting, like an alcoholic craves booze.

  “You want a shot?” the guy—I think his name is Jason or Jessie or some other J name—calls out over the bubbly song beating through the speakers. He raises an empty glass in front of my face, his gray eyes glazed over with intoxication and stupidity, which are pretty much one and the same.

  I shake my head, my faux smile dazzling on my face. I wear it almost like a necklace, shiny and making me look pretty when I’m out in public, then when I go home I can take it off and toss it aside. “No thanks.”

  “You sure?” he questions, then slants his head back and guzzles the rest of his beer. A trail drizzles from his mouth down to his navy blue polo shirt.

  I’m about to say Yes, I’m sure, but then stop and nod, knowing it’s always good to blend in. It makes me look less sketchy and people less edgy and more trusting. “Yeah, why the hell not.” I aim to say it lightly even though I loathe the fiery taste of hard alcohol. I rarely drink it, but not just because of the taste. It’s what I do when it’s in my system, how my angry, erratic, self-destructing alter ego comes out, that makes it necessary that I stay sober. At least when I’m sober, I have control over the reckless things that I do, but when I’m drunk it’s a whole other ballgame, one I don’t feel like playing tonight. I already have a barely touched beer in my hand and have no plans on finishing it.

  Jessie or Jason smiles this big, goofy, very unflattering smile. “Fuck yeah!” he practically shouts, like we’re celebrating and I want to roll my eyes. He lifts his hand for me to high-five and I slam my palm against it with a frustrated inner sigh, even though it’s a good sign because it means he’s veering toward becoming an incoherent, drunk idiot.

  It’s always the same routine. Get them drunk and then I can get more money. It’s what Preston taught me to do and what I do pretty much every weekend now, hitting up the parties around the nearby towns. Never in the town I go to college in, though. That would be too risky and way too easy to get noticed according to Preston.

  I’m wearing a tight black dress that shows off what little curves I have, along with my leather jacket, and thigh-high lace-up boots. My curly black hair that’s streaked red hangs down my back, hiding the dragon tattoo and two small stars on the back of my neck, each star drawn to represent the people who have loved me in life. I usually wear my hair down because guys always seem to like to run their fingers through it, like they get their kicks and giggles from the softness. Personally, I have no opinion about it, although a lot of girls seem to gush over guys playing with their hair. Let them touch it if they want, just as long as I get paid at the end of this charade.

  J, as I’m going to call him because I honestly can’t remember his name, pours two shots of tequila, spilling some on the countertop. When he hands it to me I slam it back without so much as flinching, filling up my mouth with the disgusting drink, then I quickly move my beer up to my lips, pretending to chase the shot with it, when really I spit the tequila into the bottle. I smile as I move the bottle away from my mouth and set the empty shot glass down on the counter. Preston would be so proud of me right now, since he taught me that little trick as a way to stay sober when everyone else is getting drunk to avoid mistakes with the deal. And I’m glad, because mistakes with Preston never go over well.

  “Another?” J asks, pointing a finger at the glass.

  I decide it’s time to move on from shots and on to taking care of business. I dazzle him with my best plastic smile as I set my beer down on the counter. I stained my lips a bright red before I left and my dress is low-cut enough to show a sliver of my cleavage, created by a push-up bra. It’s all a distraction, a costume to keep them focused on something else besides the deal. Distractions equal mistakes.

  I grab the bottom of his shirt and bat my eyelashes at him as I lean in, trying not to scrunch my nose at the foul scent of alcohol on his breath. “How about you take me to your room?” I breathe against his cheek. “So we can take care of some business.”

  He blinks his blue eyes through his drunkenness, alarmed by my bluntness. Most people are. And that’s what I love about it. Throw them off. Never let them know what’s really hidden in me. Never let anyone in because no one really wants to get in, not for good reasons anyway.

  “Okay,” he slurs, dropping the bottle of tequila down onto the countertop, and then he drags his fingers through his clean-cut blond hair.

  I keep smiling as I grab a lime slice from off the counter and shove it into my mouth. I suck the juice off so that I can get the damn tequila taste out of my mouth. It tastes bitterly sweet, but better than the burn of the alcohol. After I’m done with it, I discard it onto the counter and scoop up the bottle of tequila.

  “Lead the way,” I say to J and he gives me another one of those goofy drunk smiles of his, probably thinking he’s going to get lucky after we make the deal. Most guys do which is why Preston loves having me do this for him. You’re a distraction, he always tells me. A very beautiful, enticing distraction.

  Deep down, I know I could do it. Fool around with J and probably feel fine afterward. I can turn off everything I’m feeling in the snap of a finger and put it away, only bringing it out when needed. I wouldn’t feel a single part of it, which makes doing things I don’t necessarily want to do easier. Plus J’s not that bad looking, although he’s a little too athletic and preppy for me. He’s tall, with broad shoulders, and lean muscles, his entire body screaming that he spends way too much time at the gym. I wonder if he’s a jock, but I’m not going to ask him. Just like I’m not going to fool around with him.

  He takes my hand, his palms clammy, and he leads me through the crowd of college-age people packed in the townhouse living room, where a game of beer pong is going on. A few of the girls shoot me dirty looks, like I don’t belong with a clean-cut guy like J who’s wearing a collared shirt and a watch that probably cost more than all the money I’ve spent in my entire life. And I’m fine with it, too high on the thrill of what I’m doing—what I’m about to do. The danger. The instability. The adrenaline.

  When we reach the hall, we disappear out of the sight of all the judgmental eyes and lucky for me, J’s not doing that great. His feet can barely carry him as he stumbles his way to the last door in the hall, hauling me with him.

  “Whoops.” He giggles like a girl as he turns the doorknob. “I’m sorry.”

  I have no idea what he’s sorry for, but I just smile. “It’s fine.”

  He grins again, stealing the bottle of tequila from out of my hand. He tips his head back and knocks back a mouthful, gagging as he moves the
bottle away from his lips. Then he aims it at me.

  Not having my beer to spit it back in, I grab the bottle and set it down on a small bookshelf nestled in the corner. “Let’s take a little break from drinking, okay?”

  “Sure,” he says, trying to stun me with an award-winning smile. “How ’bout we just get ya in here and get ya out of those clothes of yours.” His gaze scales my body and I briefly contemplate clocking him in the face. I know that look way too well, just like I know what he wants way too well.

  I give him a little shove so he stumbles across the dark, empty bedroom. I follow him as he continues to stagger back and then lands on the bed. I shut the door and lock it without taking my eyes off him as he lies there on the mattress. Soft moonlight filters in through the window and lights up the dazedness on his face.

  “Come… here…” He props up on his elbows, working to keep his head up.

  I saunter toward him, glancing around at the clothes scattered around the large room decorated with a dresser set that matches his king-size bed.

  “How about we talk some business,” I tell him, positioning myself in front of where his legs hang over the edge of the mattress.

  He shakes his head determinedly, and then flops his hand toward the leather belt looped through his slacks. I watch him fight with the buckle for a while and then growing impatient, I finally unhook the buckle myself, and jerk it from his belt loop.

  “I knew you’d like to play rough.” He laughs and starts to sit up, his fingers seeking my waist. But I gently shove him back by the chest so he’s lying flat on the bed.

  I toss the belt onto the dresser. “I didn’t come here to play.”

  “Preston promised you’d take… you take…” He blinks around the room, looking lost. “That you’d take care of me first.”

  I roll my eyes. Damn it, Preston. I hate when he promises stuff. If he’d just be vague about what was going to go down, then I wouldn’t get in so much trouble when I don’t follow through. Then again, most of them can’t remember that much about what happens anyway.