Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 60482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
But he goes on, undeterred.
“Violet, just a word—”
Travis’s growl behind me is a warning. “She’s taken. What part of that don’t you understand?”
“You’re seeing him,” Dan spits, unbothered by Travis. “After everything he put you through.”
“Yes. And I don’t regret it.”
He shakes his head. “After what he did, I never thought you’d stoop so low, but you always were weak when it came to him.”
“He’s changed, not that I owe you an explanation. Besides, you’re hardly one to throw around judgment. After all, you’re the one who cheated on me.”
He flinches. “I was a fool. I know that now. If you’ll give me a chance...”
“She said no,” Travis barks, his voice firm.
People all around us have stopped. Another one for social media.
Dan glares at him, then looks to me. “I hope I’ll run into you again, alone.”
“I don’t,” I mutter.
He turns and leaves, and Travis and I get the hell out. When we’re back at my car, away from everyone, I turn to him. “What were you doing in there?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Was getting lunch.”
“I’m sorry that’s what you walked in on,” I say, shrugging. “I didn’t know he lived here.”
His eyes are flashing, a storm brewing behind his gaze. “Will you see him again?”
I shake my head. “No.”
He leans close, curling his hand around the back of my neck. “Good, because you’re mine, Violet.”
He doesn’t say another word—not in public, not in the car, not all the way back to his work. He keeps a hand on my thigh the entire drive, holding so tight I’m sure his fingerprints will rise in my skin by morning. He turns to me when we arrive at the record label, his eyes searching my face.
“You ever think about him?”
I shake my head. “Not since we ended.” Lie, but only by omission; I don’t think of Dan as Dan, I think of him as something I never want to be again. I think of that part of my life as over, and I’m grateful for it.
“He’s not going to be a problem, is he?” Travis’s thumb draws slow circles on my knee.
I shake my head. “No one’s ever going to be a problem for you.”
He gets out of the car after a hot, long kiss, and goes back to work. I make my way home, needing to unload everything on the one person I know I can turn to. My mom. As soon as I am inside Travis’s house, where I have been spending far too much time, I dial her number.
“Hi sweetheart.”
“Hi Momma. Sorry, I know you’re probably busy. I just needed to hear your voice.”
Her sigh is warm and full. “Honey, you never need to apologize for calling. Are you alright?”
I want to lie, but all my lies have dried up.
“I guess, things with Travis are intense. I mean, they always are, but they feel even more so now.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know, it feels like we’re in this crazy spiral, now that he is so famous and I am just the girl he wants to be with. There is always so much drama. So many things happening.”
I tell her everything, from him leaping off the stage at his show, to seeing Dan today. When I’m done, I exhale and my shoulders slump.
“I get it, it sounds intense, but I think the real question you have to ask yourself is, does he make you happy?”
“Yes,” I breathe. “But I’m scared. What if it goes bad again? What if this time I don’t get over it?”
My mom laughs, not unkind. “The girl I raised could row a tiny boat through a hurricane. Nothing in this world could ever bring you down, sweetheart. You can’t live your life scared about how things might turn out. If it is what you want, and it feels right, then you have to go for it.”
I flop onto my back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “I still haven’t told Dad. He will flip.”
“Maybe,” she says. “But you’re not a kid anymore. He’ll need to deal with it. Just be honest with yourself—and with them. The longer you keep this a secret, the worse it will be.”
I pick at a loose thread on the blanket. “I haven’t told Travis about Lillian. I know I should, because it feels like I’m hiding such a big part of myself from him.”
This time she does sound surprised. “Oh, honey. You didn’t tell him yet?”
I shake my head, throat tight. “I don’t even know how to say it. I’m scared that he will never look at me the same.”
“Maybe before you go any farther with him, you should,” she whispers. “Secrets have a way of digging under everything when you least expect it. He deserves the truth. You might be surprised at how he takes it.”
She’s right, of course. She always is.