Page 46 of The Violet Hill Series

We’d only been together for a few months, but my lease had been up and she’d wanted me out of that crappy studio. So when she’d asked me if I would rent a place with her, I had no objections.

“It’s only because you sneak him treats,” she said, fiddling around in one of the boxes for the wine glasses she thought she had in there. We’d gotten everything inside the apartment. Now we just had to unpack it, but first we needed a drink.

“I can only find a mug with the word ‘fuck’ on it and a cereal bowl with a unicorn on it,” she said, holding them up.

“Good enough,” I said and popped the bottle of wine, filling the unconventional glasses.

Lacey Cole was my girlfriend and we were living together. I didn’t know much beyond that, but I didn’t need to. I was happy. She was happy. I was still working my three jobs, but I’d cut back a little on my hours so I could have more time with Lacey. More time to be idle. To be still. She was still working on her project and was looking at launching it soon. Instead of staying in a new place, she would go for a weekend, or a few days. She also had been taking photos at her friend’s studio and was building up quite a list of clients and had several weddings booked this summer.

I took the offensive mug, leaving her with the bowl.

“To love,” I said, holding the mug up.

“That’s a cliché,” she said, making a face.

“So?”

“So, we should toast to something original.”

“Like what?”

“To . . . boxes!” She raised her bowl. We were surrounded by them.

“Okay, fine. To boxes. And love,” I added.

Lacey smiled.

“To boxes and love.” We both raised our “glasses” and clinked them together.

Murder yowled in protest.

“No, you can’t have any wine,” Lacey said. “Wine is for humans only.” We sipped and set our makeshift wine glasses down.

“Come here,” Lacey said, holding her arms out.

“What are we doing?”

“Dancing.” We started to sway to nonexistent music.

“This is my favorite song,” I said.

“What song is that?” Lacey said, dipping me. I arched back and then looked up at her.

“Ours.”

“Mine too,” she said.

One

“I swear, if I don’t get out of here I’m going to lose it,” I said to my cousin Anna, holding my phone against my shoulder as worked on packing up my dorm room. Staying with her this summer was my absolute last resort. I could not live at home with my parents suffocating me. Plans to crash with friends had fallen through, so she was my only hope. She’d moved in with her girlfriend, Lacey, who traveled a lot doing photography, so I didn’t think it would be too much of an imposition. I’d sleep on the couch; I didn’t even care. I would sleep on the damn floor.

“Hey, it’s okay, Serena. Of course you can stay with us. You’re family.” Not only were we family, but she was also one of the only other queer people I knew. My parents didn’t understand my demisexuality or my demiromanticism or my bisexuality and I was tired of trying to explain myself to them so they’d believe I didn’t just make words up from reading too many Tumblr posts.

“Thank you,” I said, those two words not enough to express how I felt. I sat down on one of the boxes that contained part of the crap from my dorm room. Honestly, I would have loved to go straight to Anna’s from here, but I didn’t want to shove all of this junk in her small apartment, so I had to go home first.

Home. It was a strange word, and it didn’t feel the way it was supposed to feel. Home was supposed to be warm and safe and the people in it were supposed to accept you unconditionally.

Or maybe that was just for Hallmark cards.

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