THIRTEEN
Violet
I’ve got the Top 40 rocking through my earbuds while I plan for the first month of AP Bio. I’m holed up in my room for our workday, relaxed in my black stretch capris and a t-shirt, tapping my flip-flop to the beat of “Strip That Down” when Claire walks in. I pull my earbuds out with a sigh but don’t stop typing. I’m in a zone and need to get my thoughts out for this research.
“A little far from the Social Studies wing this morning.”
“Thought I’d see how you are.”
“Thanks, Claire, I’m fine. How are you?” I do my best not to sound bored and dismissive.
She flips her wavy hair over her shoulder and looks around my room while I take a second to shake my head at her two-sizes-too-small top. I feel like I need to take her shopping to show her the difference between appropriate and whore.
“Oh, I’m fine, too,” she scans my classroom. “It’s so…organized…in here.”
“It is, isn’t it? Everything that belongs in here has it’s own place. No place, it gets thrown out.” My voice drops a little on the last sentence to emphasize my point. And she needs to get to hers soon.
Her eyes flick over to mine. I can’t help but move this along, “Is there something I can do for you? This is the first time you’ve been in my room since I started teaching here and only, what, the second time we’ve talked? I’m far from stupid, Claire, but I am very busy.”
She folds her arms, puffing out her chest a bit. It’s comical; she reminds me of a peacock but clearly, smirking will only piss her off, so I bite the insides of my cheeks to stop myself.
“Cullen came to see me yesterday after our kickoff meeting.” I wait, expressionless. “He said you two are ‘together.’”
She makes quotes with her bony fingers and now I’m pissed. Air quotes are a close equivalent to spitting on someone, in my opinion. They’re sarcastic, like Cullen attempted to portray last night. They’re also dismissive and I’ve had my fill of being treated like that.
I release my cheeks, the humor I felt a minute ago is gone, and clench my jaw.
She continues, “I’m just wondering if that’s kind of fast. I mean, you’re whole world just got turned upside down a few months ago. It can’t be healthy for you to add the stress of a new relationship on top of your husband dying and moving and a new school year starting. I’d just hate to see you or Cullen get hurt from this fling going bad and then having to see each other every day at school. Don’t you think that would be just awful?”
At this point, I say a prayer of thanksgiving to the heavens above for the shit I’ve been through because if anything, it taught me restraint. I momentarily consider all the different ways I could lose my shit on Claire right now from stapling her face to tossing her down the stairwell. Fortunately, I know the game she’s playing and although I’m super pissed, I feel kinda sorry for her. My chair creaks as I lean back and fold my hands in my lap.
“You seem awfully concerned with my business. And Cullen’s.”
“Just trying to be a friend.” There’s the haughty smile I was waiting for.
“Well, we have plenty of friends, but thanks. What we do need is some space and a Social Studies teacher, so if you can manage that kind of multitasking, everything should be fine.”
She stares me down a second, then shrugs and starts to walk out.
“Whatever. But think about it, Violet. He doesn’t deserve to have his heart smashed because you’re trying to forget that yours hurts.”
“Yeah, ok, thanks for that,” I holler as she exits my room and saunters down the hall.
What the hell? Is that what people think? I’m just with Cullen to get over my own heartache and because he’s fun and delicious? Does he think that?
I’m staring at my computer screen, concentration broken. Renee appears in the doorway, “Wanna get lunch? I gotta get outta here. Second day back and my skin is already crawling. What the eff happened to you?”
“Claire.”
“Oh shit, now what?” Renee stands with her hands on her hips.
“She made a good point.”
“I doubt that. What’d she say?”
“Besides that I’m under a lot of stress and shouldn’t be in a new relationship? That I’m only with Cullen to distract myself from my wounded heart, and he doesn’t deserve me breaking his.”
“Wow, jealous much? That’s bitchy. How is that a good point?”
“She’s right. He doesn’t deserve a broken heart.”
“Are you planning on breaking it?”
“No, but no one plans that shit.”
“Are you using him?”
I shake my head but then blow out a long breath. Renee sits down on one of my lab tables, folding her arms. “What aren’t you telling me, Violet?”
“Ugh, I can’t do this,” I mutter as my head flops forward and thuds on my desktop.
“Spill it, right now.”
“Fine,” I tell the desk. “Remember that one week back in May when I kept coming into work looking like fucking shit? I was tired and ragged? Right before Anden died?”
“Yeah, you’d had sleep deprivation torture and some shitty arguments.”
“That’s not all.”
“Oh my god, Violet. What did he do?”
I sit up and look at Renee. Misery overwhelms me at having to confess to my best friend the horrible truth behind that entire week.
“Sleep deprivation started it, but Anden went kinda crazy after that. The next night he… he woke me up in the middle of the night again but not for another lecture.”
I close my eyes, but I can see everything clearly. I smell Anden’s tangy sweat, his stale breath rebounding off my neck. I hear my shorts ripping and the springs of the bed groaning with his weight as he climbs on. I feel my body go still, lifeless and dull, allowing it to happen as my mind wanders far away. I see the ugly walls and the even uglier picture of me, laying there, taking it.
Renee’s arms wrap around me because she knows it’s something awful, something shameful and horrific, but I’m incapacitated. She swipes at my cheeks. Opening my eyes, I find tears between us. Surely, they’re not mine. I don’t cry.
“He forced me to have sex, Renee. I said no, but he ripped off my clothes and stuck it in anyway.” She wipes my face again. Shit, they are mine.
“He fucking raped you, and you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t tell anyone. I mean, was it really rape? Can you rape your wife? It’s my fault anyway. I’m difficult and uncooperative and suck at making him happy and…”
“If you say you deserved it, I’m going to throw this stapler at you. And yes, a spouse can be raped. No means no, Violet.”
I give her a weak smile, “Yeah, well, there’s more. The next day—“
“When you had all the bruises and shit?” she interrupts.
“Yeah. I went home and was really pissed, so I started working on the mulch beds. You know how I clean when I’m mad? Well, Anden came home and we got into an argument. The one that killed him. I killed him, Renee.”
“Oh my god, Violet. There is no way this is your fault. Of course you had a fight after what he did to you. And it was his dumb ass that didn’t fix the fucking porch! Did you shove the rake in his back?”
I shake my head.
“Then there you go. He did it to himself. It was karma, fate, whatever getting back at him for all the evil shit he’s done to you.”
“I’m still a horrible person, Renee.”
“Oh, Jesus. Why?”
I look at her wide-eyed, “I nearly giggled when the officer told me he was dead. Giggled! And I haven’t even been to the gravesite since the funeral.”
Renee’s expression softens, and she holds my hands, clutching them tightly. “Of course you haven’t, honey, and that’s ok. You have every right to not visit that son of a bitch.”
I lean forward to give her a hug, and she pats my back. For whatever reason, I needed her permission to make it ok.
“Does Cullen know?”
“Know what?”
“Any of it?”
“No,” I pull back.
“Why?”
“I have to work through it alone and he’ll think I’m disgusting and pitiful and he’ll run.”
Renee folds her hands in her lap. “Don’t you think he’s got more invested in you than that? He’s liked you for, ummm, I don’t know, forever. Shouldn’t there be more hope for your relationship than that?”
“Hope is bullshit, Renee. It’s imaginary. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“What are you talking about?”
I sniff and clear my throat after rolling my shoulders. If there’s anything I believe, it’s that there is no hope.
“When you say ‘I hope so’, what you’re really saying is ‘I fear it won’t’, so hope is really just fear in disguise. I don’t want any part of that, so I don’t believe in hope. It doesn’t exist. I make my own way, so if I ignore all this shit and just move forward, a little at a time, eventually it will all fade into nothingness. It’s logical, right?”
Renee studies my face thoroughly and knows she’s not going to get any further with me. My mind is made up; Cullen can’t know any details about Anden.
“Knowing you,” she answers with a heavy sigh, “that’s rhetorical. Ok, I’ll leave it alone for now but I will say go reapply some makeup so we can get outta here for lunch and re-center ourselves. When’s the last time you cried anyway?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her as I’m walking out my door, “at least two years. Certainly not at the funeral.”
I slam into Cullen. His arms wrap around me but then automatically thread through my hair to tilt my face up.
“Have you been crying?!” He peers at Renee through the opening. “What the hell happened?”
“Easy, Thor, girl talk. She’s fine, better even. Leave it be,” she waves him off with her hand.
He studies me again as I grip his waist, “Did you tell her your sister called me Thor?”
“Yeah,” I chuckle, “it was cute.”
“Oh my god,” he rolls his eyes. “Are you sure you’re ok?” He eyes me suspiciously.
“Yes, I am O.K. I just need to run to the ladies’ room and I’ll be right back. We’re heading to lunch, wanna come? Renee, can he come?” I shout over my shoulder.
“If he’s not gonna act like a caveman,” she yells back.
“See? There ya go. You can come!” I look left, then right, and give him a quick kiss on his tasty lips.
Cullen
Elliot’s trying to go over the plan for today. I’m taking offense to the practice field—that’s all I care about. Everything else is just rambling, especially since Claire is walking out of Violet’s room. What. The. Fuck.
“Dude, I got it. I’m running gauntlets and tire drills with running backs and distraction drills between QB’s and receivers once we split off. You’ve got Special Teams the first hour and Dean’s on it with defense. How long have we been doing this, man? And we’ve had two games already…which we’ve won.”
He shoves the playbook in my chest with a smirk, “No shit, but we’ve got a young team. I’m just checking all the bases, dumbass.”
I slap the ball cap off his head, and catch a glimpse of Renee marching into Violet’s room. My eyes go back to Elliot with a cough, “Dumbass? You just made a baseball reference during a football discussion. And it’s a young team, not a young coaching staff, dick.”
He swipes his hat off the floor with a chuckle, “Well, shit, that’s a good point. Maybe you were paying attention. See you at practice then.” He claps me on the shoulder and starts walking away.
I yell after him, “I made two good points!” Asshole.
Wanting to see what’s up with all Violet’s visitors, I start down the hall but our principal catches up with me first. Jesus, what is with people today?
“Hey, Crawford, what’s up?”
“Metz, how are you? Good season starting, yeah?”
I’d admire the man’s ability to be reserved if he could do it without being a colossal jackass at the same time. His only true function is as a face for Vista. We run the show while he signs the paperwork. I doubt Charles Crawford even knows what subject I teach.
“Since you’ve ventured up here into the Social Studies wing, how can I help you?” I tuck my playbook under my arm.
“We made some changes to your schedule to accommodate your practices this year. You’ll be having your prep during last block instead of third. I think you’ll find it’s easier to prepare for football that way. It was suggested that you should be told firsthand in case you didn’t see the email in time.”
Oh fuck no, that’s totally not when Violet has her plan, so now I’m off when she’s not. Shit. Fuck. Damn.
I steady my voice, “Really? Interesting. When was that decided? I don’t remember seeing that change the last time I was in on my schedule.”
“Yesterday afternoon, I think it was.”
What a coincidence. After my chat with Claire. I bite my tongue until I’m sure it’s on the verge of splitting in half. Crawford takes a slight step backwards. Maybe one of the fireballs I’m sending from my eyeballs hit its mark.
“Well, I’ll take a look at it, and see how I can best use whatever time you give me,” I grind out. “Last minute changes aren’t always conducive to the department, however.”
“I knew you would, Metz. And don’t worry about your department. It’ll survive.” Crawford offers me his hand and I shake it, trying hard not to squeeze it till he drops to his knees. Asshole.
Going in my classroom, I toss the binder I was holding onto my desk with a startling clatter. It slides and for a second, I imagine it tumbling to the floor and papers scattering all over the place but it stops just shy of the edge. I let out the breath I was holding and shut my door with some force.
With my elongated strides, it doesn’t take me long to get to Violet’s side of the hallway. I round the edge of the stairwell and glide to her door. I hear her say the word “funeral” and it has me jolting right as she slams into me coming out of her room. Instinctually, I fold my arms around her but she’s stiff—she doesn’t fall into them the way she should. I lace my fingers through her hair and tilt her head up to look into her eyes. If Claire pissed her off…
My heart stops when I see streaks on her face. I’ve never seen Violet cry before and once I get over my initial shock, I wanna bust some heads.
Who the fuck made my girl cry?
Renee blows me off like it’s no big deal; Violet agrees and practically skips down to the bathroom thinking about lunch. I’m thinking about hunting down the sorry mother fucker who hurt Violet, carving out his heart, and biting into it like some kind of primeval champion.
Renee gets up from the desk she’s sitting on while Violet is gone and approaches me tentatively. It’s possible I have a very specific look of rage on my face…
“Look, Cullen, she’s fine, ok? There was some stuff that we had to talk about from her past that was a little upsetting. It’s my fault. I brought it up,” she pats my arm and looks at me pleadingly.
I cross my arms in front of me, “What stuff?”
“Nothing, let it go. It’s not important. If she wants to talk about it again, she will.”
“It’s important if it made her cry. Why wouldn’t she tell me? I’m her boyfriend.”
Renee smiles in a grimace-like way, “Yeah, well, she wouldn’t hardly tell me, so going Alpha on her won’t help.”
Violet comes around the corner, “Everyone ready?”
I hold my arm out for her and tuck her into my side when she gets closer. “Yeah, Beautiful. We’re ready for anything.”
I flash Renee a scowl over Violet’s head. I don’t think Renee knows that I hear both of them sigh.