Page 56 of Avenged

He stared at my hand a moment or two before he took it. I helped him get up, but when I went to let go, he wouldn’t let me, and we walked back to the pickup with our hands still joined. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I added it to the things I was grateful for that day. I had six things on my list, even if it was for the brief moment that our limbs were tied together by our fingers.

When we got back to the house, he put the pickup in park and turned toward me.

“Can I just say one thing?”

Did I want him to? No. But I owed him at least that after our entire day had been so fraught with drama at my expense. Drama I normally avoided by staying below the radar. By not going out more than necessary but keeping my focus on Violet. I nodded.

“That kiss. It was goddamn beautiful.”

I swallowed hard. I hadn’t expected it to be about our kiss. I thought he’d put it behind us. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to put it behind me. I’d be remembering it in my dreams and late at night when I couldn’t sleep. I’d remember it when the pain was great and I just wanted to believe again in the beautiful things I’d once believed in my youth. I inclined my head in the barest of nods because I was afraid of admitting it to him. I hated that I was using those words so much that day. Fear. Scared. Afraid.

I hated all of those emotions. I wanted to be the kind of person who faced the world head on and didn’t back down, but I hadn’t been that person in a really long time—if I’d ever really been. I put up a good front; I held my shield up to the world, but it wasn’t the same as having the armor built into your own body. I was just a bag of flesh and muscles and bones that already had cracks and scars and had a good chance of disappearing altogether if it was put to the flame for too long. I wasn’t strong. In fact, I was very weak.

“Is it wrong that I want to do it again?” he asked. His eyes were hopeful, and I loved it and hated it because I was going to crush it.

“We can’t,” I whispered out.

“Why? I mean, other than the contract, why not? We could revise the contract. It’s just between the two of us, so why?”

“Nothing can come of it,” I said, and my mind went back to all the reasons I’d told myself earlier. Dawson, Violet, lives that couldn’t be blended for real.

He was silent, considering what I’d said. I didn’t want to be some woman in a picture his friends were teasing him about. Some girl named Jersey instead of Liesl. One who he’d been with for the time of his assignment and then left because her family and her world was in New London. I’d fall in love with him, and he’d leave. I’d fall in love with him when Ana Perez couldn’t love her husband or her children anymore, and that wasn’t right or fair. I’d fall in love with him, and Violet would want me to leave her to go with him, and I’d never do that. Never. It was safer not to fall in love at all.

I opened the door and slid out. He followed suit, unlocking the door of the cottage and letting me go in first.

A body collided with mine. Violet.

“You’re back already,” I said, hugging her.

“I got worried when I beat you guys. I’ve been texting you.”

More guilt ran through me. “I’m sorry. I turned the sound off when the doctor came back in the room, and I didn’t feel it vibrating.”

I was reaching into my bag when she halted me with another hug. “You’ve been crying. Why are you crying?”

The panic in her voice was barely controlled.

“Momentary lapse of reason. You already heard the gist of it.” I relayed to her the important parts, leaving out the chance of future malignancy. Knowing Violet, she’d probably already read about it, but I still couldn’t say the words to her. I didn’t want her to linger on any notion that I, too, could leave her.

Travis was in the kitchen, banging plates around and starting the microwave. The movements turned to silence as I told Violet what the doctor said. He knew I was leaving things out.

“You’ve had a pretty cruddy morning.”

I had. Travis had. But I knew it would pass. That tomorrow the sun would shine, and I would be able to count my five good things that hadn’t left me, and that would be enough to get me out of bed and moving.

“So, I guess this would be the perfect time for some really good news, right?” Violet asked with a mischievous smile on her face.

Her smile and energy were always contagious. I felt myself turning toward it like a flower opens to the sun after the rain. Like I was grounding myself in her instead of the sand.

“I think we could use some good news,” I said quietly.

“I won tickets to the Hartford Comic Con.”

I stared at her for a few minutes, the words not registering at first.

“Jers, did you hear me?”

“Holy shit!” I exclaimed as pure joy and excitement filled me. Anticipation. Wonder. I’d been dreaming of going to the annual Comic Con since I knew what a comic con was.

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