“Please, let me go…” she begs between gasps, tearing my heart in half with the agony in her voice. “I just need to sit in the window for a moment… see it… and I’ll be okay…” She tries to suck air in her lungs, but the anxiety is too great and I can tell she’s not breathing very well.

She’s going to blackout and I know I need to calm her down somehow, but I honestly have no idea how. When I get riled up like this, I either drink, gamble recklessly, or start fights. I want none of that for her so instead I turn her around so she’s facing me. She’s too weak to really fight me, too focused on trying to breathe. Tears stain her green eyes and face, mascara running down her cheeks as she refuses to look me in the eye.

“Violet, look at me,” I say in a soft but steady voice I’m pretty sure I’ve never, ever used before. I cup her face with one hand, while supporting her weight in the other. When she shakes her head, more tears streaming down her face, I try again in the gentlest voice I can summon. “Baby, look at me.”

Her eyelids flutter as she tips her head up, the light reflecting in her glossy pupils. But she makes eye contact with me, which is surprisingly intense, considering how exhausted she looks.

“I don’t want to feel this way,” she whispers, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I want to feel something else… not this… not all this pain… I don’t even know where it came from. One minute I was drunk and then you turned me down and I…” she trails off, sucking in a breath.

“I’m so sorry, Violet. For causing you pain.” God, kill me now. This is too much. Too unbearable, seeing her like this.

“Stop apologizing… It’s not even your fault… it’s your mom’s… it’s Preston’s for making me do all that stuff… It’s my own damn fault for not fighting him harder… for going back… for not just being able to let go of shit…” She starts to sob, drunken tears and I wonder if she’ll even be able to remember any of this in the morning. One thing’s for certain, I sure as hell will, especially the part about Preston. “If you’d just let me near the window….” She inhales, forcing oxygen into her lungs as she opens her eyes to look at me again. “Just let me calm myself down… this would all be better.” Her speech is a little slurred from the alcohol and it looks like she’s fighting exhaustion, probably from the panic attack. I’m guessing if she was more alert and sober then she’d not be openly admitting this to me.

“You want to jump out the window to make yourself feel better?” I choke on the idea of Violet hurting herself.

She shakes her head. “No, I just want to think about it… I need to feel the rush, not this.” She puts a hand on her chest and presses her heart as if it’s aching. “Please, Luke, just let me go and everything will be okay.”

I shake my head. “No, I can’t do that… ever…” My voice is strained as I stand us both to our feet and support most of her weight. Then without saying anything, I pick her up and walk back to the window, not letting her go when I set her down; even when she climbs up in the windowsill and lets her legs hang down the other side.

It starts to make sense a little, bit by bit, piece by piece, how Violet never can seem to comprehend danger, at least that’s what I thought. But now, I get that she understands it, she just welcomes it. In fact, it seems to settle her down like booze and gambling do to me.

After what seems like a thousand deep breaths, she finally relaxes against me. “It’s not the same with you holding me,” she mutters, but she doesn’t try to slip out of my arms or tell me to let her go. She just leans her head against my chest and I rest my chin on top of her head, holding on for dear life, praying to God we both don’t fall.

Violet.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I wake up is that I can remember losing it. Completely and utterly losing it right in front of Luke. I was so drunk I didn’t give a shit, even when he looked like I was scaring the crap out of him. But when morning rolls around, it’s a whole other story.

When I open my eyes and notice the heavy weight on my side. I realize that it’s Luke’s arm and that we’re spooning in the bed, our bodies so close to each other there’s no room for anything else. I’ve got my ass pressed against his manly part, which is gracing me with its morning wood. He’s got his face pressed into the back of my neck, his warm breath caressing my skin and our legs are tangled together, the slip I have on riding up so I’m barely covered up at all and his hand is resting softly on my side. The smell of him overwhelms me and all I can think is please, just freeze this moment right here and never let me move forward or backward again.

I’m surprised how content I feel, especially after the drama of last night. But maybe that’s just denial. I don’t want to admit that I got so trashed that I completely fell apart and he discovered my dirty little secret. God knows what all I told him… I remember some stuff about pain… and Preston… dammit, did I tell him about the bruises and the blowjob?

I think about lifting his arm up and sneaking out before I can find out. Finding the nearest bus stop and going home to avoid confrontation. But technically I don’t have a home, so it’d just be me going back to Laramie and trying to find a bench to sleep on until I can come up with an alternative living situation.

“How are you feeling?” Luke’s voice dusts the back of my neck as he presses a soft kiss to my neck, right where my tattoos are, startling me.

My body twitches as he brushes my hair away from my shoulder and begins tracing gentle circles on it with his finger. “Fine, I guess,” I tell him. “I have a little bit of a headache but nothing a few pain killers won’t cure.” I force my tone to be light, hopefully he’ll play along and pretend, let me stay in my land of make believe.

“What about the other stuff?” His hand slowly slides from my shoulder, down my side, then rests on the side of my leg, bare skin to bare skin, his palm right over the bruises.

I squeeze my eyes shut and take several deep breaths before I can speak. “I’m not sure what to say… I’m sorry.”

His hand tenses on my leg. “For what?”

I open my eyes and stare at the wall. “For turning all psychopath on you last night.”

“You didn’t go all psychopath on me last night. You had a fucking panic attack, which I totally get. Trust me. I’ve had my fair share of them.” A pause, then his hand glides back up my body and neck, residing on my jawline. He turns my head toward him, forcing me to rotate my body with it so I’m facing him. He looks so worn out, the circles under his eyes even more defined and his skin even paler than usual. He’s shirtless, the blanket covering just his bottom half so I can see his bare chest. He’s still in shape and everything, but he looks like he’s lost some weight. It’s starting to concern me, like maybe he’s not taking care of himself enough with his diabetes, but how do I bring it up to him? “I want you to tell me what happened with Preston.”

I shake my head, my lips trembling as I smash them tightly together, weak just with the mention of his name. “I can’t.”

“I know it’s hard,” he says, his fingers spreading across my cheek. “But I need you to tell me… if he hurt you then I—”

I cover his mouth with my hand. “I don’t want you hurting him,” I state firmly. “And not because I care about him at all—I don’t want you getting hurt.” I wait a minute then lower my hand.

He’s grinding his teeth in frustration. “If I promised you I wouldn’t hurt him, would you tell me?” It seems like it takes a lot of self-control for him to say it.

He wants me to willingly talk about my problems? There’s a new one. “I hate talking about stuff aloud,” I admit. “Don’t you think it’s so much easier just to keep stuff to yourself? Especially when you’re the reason it happened it the first place? I mean, it’d be pretty pathetic for me to whine about anything that happened when I walked straight into it.”