Page 44 of Our Secrets and Scars

“You what?”

“To make sure you were all right, Violet. It was late and you clearly weren’t okay. I just wanted to make sure you got home safely.”

She snorts derisively and turns her head to look out the window.

“You saw the letters, didn’t you?” I ask gently.

Her face tilts to the floor as she avoids my eyes, but I see the slightest nod of her head in confirmation of my suspicions.

“Wanna talk about it?”

She shrugs.

This conversation is hard to navigate. Not simply because she’s behaving so uncharacteristically cold, but because I don’t know how much she knows. I don’t know whether or not she’s worked out that I spent the last four years in a federal prison or if this is just a jealousy thing.

“Is she the girl you have feelings for?”

Well, that’s my question answered.

I stuff my hands into my pockets and nod. “You don’t have to worry about her though.”

“No?” Her eyebrows lift. “Why’s that?”

“She’s not in my life anymore.”

Her face flickers with an expression I can’t place. Sadness mixed with something else. Jealousy, maybe, but I don’t think so.

“Why?” she whispers.

I’m silent for a long while, thinking about Kinsley. The girl who brought me comfort when I didn’t deserve it, the girl who kept me breathing when every moment felt as if I was drowning.

“I don’t know,” I say finally. “It’s been a while since we last wrote to each other.”

“But you keep the letters?”

I nod.

“Why?”

My head dips, and I rub the thin material of her bedsheets between my fingers as I think. How do I tell the girl I slept with yesterday afternoon, who took my virginity, that I’ve given my heart away to a woman whose face I’ve never seen?

“They’re special to me.”

For a long while, neither of us says anything. Violet stands dead still, staring out the window at nothing in particular; the drink I bought her left untouched and melting on the top of an old chest of drawers.

“I think you were right,” she says finally. “When you said that I should stay away from you, I think you were right.”

My brows crease in confusion. “What?”

“Whatever this is between us isn’t going to end well. Not for me.” She sucks in a deep breath, closes her eyes for a long beat, and says, “I’m already delicate and I think you might just shatter me.”

“Violet.” I stand to go to her, but she holds up a hand to stop me.

“Please don’t.”

Tears are stinging her eyes. I watch her try to blink them away, but they’re there. Clear as day, I see them. And it makes my heart clench painfully because I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know how I can make this better when I don’t understand what’s going on.

“I think you should go, Holden.” She chokes my name and turns to look away.

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