My expression immediately plummets and Seth notices that it does. He sits up quickly, eagerness written all over his face. ‘Holy shit, he said it to you, hasn’t, he?’ He scurries to his feet, eager to hear the gossip.

‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ I say uncomfortably, scanning the workout room, searching for a diversion. But machines that look like torture devices and sweaty people I don’t know surround me.

‘Talk about what?’ Greyson joins us from seemingly out of nowhere, sweat on his brow and in his hair. His shirt has some on it too, yet he looks content with his tired, sweatiness.

‘Nothing, hence why I said I don’t want to talk about it,’ I tell him, picking up my coffee, ready to bail. I’ll tell Luke I had to run somewhere. Lie. Problem is, after last night, he’ll freak out I’m sure and I don’t want to do that to him.

‘Luke told Violet he loves her,’ Seth announces and I shoot him a dirty glare as he slaps his hand over his mouth. ‘Sorry. I’m a terrible liar though.’

‘What?’ Greyson sounds more hurt than excited. He steps in front, blocking my path out of here. ‘When did that happen?’

I pick at my purple fingernail polish. ‘I don’t know, like a couple of weeks ago.’

The hurt in his eyes magnifies. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

I shrug, guilt burning in my chest. ‘Because there wasn’t much to tell.’

There’s a pause then he grabs my good arm and tugs me to the corner of the gym that smells worse than the mat. Seth calls out to him, but he ignores him.

‘What happened?’ Greyson asks, standing in front of me, so I’m kind of trapped in the corner. A corned cat, that’s what I am. And one that wants to run.

‘He said,’ I make air quotes. ‘’I love you’ … I couldn’t say it back.’

‘Yeah, okay.’ A slow breath escapes his lips as he nods at something he must be thinking inside his head. ‘Couldn’t because you don’t love him? Or couldn’t because you just couldn’t say it back yet?’

I wish I could say the latter, that I was the kind of person capable of love and just needed more time, but I honestly don’t know. ‘I’m not sure which one.’

He gives me a sad look. ‘Violet, I know love can be scary and everything, but it’s scary in the amazing, steal your breath, feels like your flying kind of way. You shouldn’t be afraid of it.’

‘I’m not afraid of it.’ My heart begins to do panicked dance inside my chest as emotions singe through my veins. ‘Just confused what it is.’

I don’t want to have to say it – that I don’t even know what love is. That the last time I felt loved and truly loved someone was when I was five and my parents were still alive. Greyson knows enough about my past that he can perhaps figure this out on his own. Please, please figure this out on your own so I don’t have to say it aloud.

I don’t know if he figures it out or not, but he steps back and drops it.

We head back to the mat when suddenly his eyes light up. ‘I have an idea,’ he says, his sullen mood vanishing.

My mind is swimming with too many emotions. I’ve been trying not to do it, to run off and seek some sort of dangerous thrill in order to calm myself the f**k down. But it’s been two weeks, two weeks of piled up emotions, heavy, painful emotions. ‘Oh yeah …’

He nods then motions at me. ‘Follow me.’

I don’t want to follow him. I want to run out the door – the door that I can see, so close, I just need to step toward it. But what happens when I get outside? What happens when I decide to dive into the water this time and I don’t make it out? Or what if I make it out and Preston is there and this time a crowd doesn’t show up?

‘Hey, Violet.’ The sound of a female voice greeting me forces me to turn my head away from the door. I’ve reached the mat area in my daze and Seth, Greyson and Callie are all standing near me, like we’re at camp and attempting to form some sort of friendship circle. I feel like we should be holding hands and singing. Seriously.

I give Callie a tight smile. It’s not that I don’t like Callie. It’s just that things are a little weird between her and me since we shared a dorm freshman year and she thought I was a prostitute. Really I was selling drugs, but I let her believe that I was a whore because I never really cared what people thought of me – still don’t. But I was kind of mean to her sometimes; although my argument is it wasn’t just her I was rude to, but everyone.

I’m about to bail, figuring I’ll let them do their thing and I can go do mine when Greyson says, ‘Callie, you should show Violet some of your kickboxing moves. I think it’d be good for her to let a little steam out.’ It seems funny to me, Callie teaching me to kickbox. She’s about four or five inches shorter than me, brown hair, blue eyes, thin – basically a little tiny thing. Yeah, I’m thin myself, but I look rough around the edges. But looks can be deceiving and I’m guessing from the way everyone is acting, she’s got some hidden badass kicking skills.

‘Why does everyone think I have anger issues?’ I ask, fixing my hair tie, wondering if they all know about my twisted past and the issues going on between Luke and I. Just the news alone will give them details about the case so I’m guessing they at least know my history. Maybe that’s why they think I have anger issues. Either that or Luke told them something, but I doubt he’d do that to me, especially when he has his own secrets I’m pretty sure he doesn’t share with them.

‘Um, because you do,’ Seth says with an eye roll.

Callie shoots him a warning look. ‘Don’t be rude,’ she says like I’m something precious and can’t handle a little bluntness.

I almost laugh at the idea, but restrain it, thinking about how I couldn’t handle it at therapy the other day. ‘Yeah, well do you too,’ I tell Seth in a lame attempt to get the attention off of me. Besides, I’ve seen Seth angry before, many, many times.’

Seth rolls his eyes again. ‘Honey, I have the exact opposite of anger issues.’

I cross my arms and give him a conniving look. ‘Oh yeah, tell that to the Silver Linings Playbook DVD.’

Greyson looks at him aghast then points a finger at him. ‘That was you.’

Seth aims me a dirty look and I smile innocently back at him. ‘Hey, it was a total accident.’ But he sighs as soon as he says it. ‘Okay, that’s a lie. But the damn thing wouldn’t play.’

‘That was one of my favorites.’ Greyson shakes his head. ‘And you broke it in half.’

‘I’ll buy you a new one today. I promise,’ Seth says and Greyson nods and lets it go. Then Seth turns to me. ‘You are paying for half of that for ratting me out,’ he hisses, not really mad, just being a drama mama as he put it early.

‘No freaking way,’ I retort. ‘I didn’t break the DVD. You did.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Seth replies. ‘If you kick the bag a few times, I’ll let it go. But they have to be bad ass ninja kicks.’

‘Why does everyone keep pushing me to do this?’ I ask. ‘Yeah, I have anger issues. So what? Kicking some damn bag is not going to do anything for me.’

‘Oh, but it will,’ Seth assures me while Greyson wanders back to this large boxing bag dangling from the ceiling over the center of the mat. ‘I know these things. I took a psych class.’

‘I’ve taken three different ones,’ I tell him. ‘And that wasn’t mentioned in any of them.’

‘Three different classes?’ Seth gapes at me. ‘Really.’

I shrug as Greyson calls out, ‘Violet’s a badass when it comes to classes. Don’t let her looks and attitude fool you, she’s a smart girl.’

Wanting to get off that subject of me, I sidestep around Seth and walk up to the bag. ‘Fine, I will kick this damn thing a few times, but only if we can stop talking about me, my brain, and my anger issues.’

‘Deal.’ Greyson moves behind the bag and puts his hand on it to hold it in place. I don’t know why. Damn bag is big as hell. I’m sure I’m not going to be able make it budge.

‘So what do I do exactly?’ I ask. ‘Just kick it?’

‘Yeah, but kind of turn to the side to begin with.’ Callie comes up to me and surprises me by putting her hands on h*ps and forcing me to shift to the side. Then she gives my hip a pat. ‘Pivot your hip and bring your leg up. You can also use these.’ She grabs my arms and positions them in front of me. ‘You can even punch the bag, but probably not with this hand.’ She taps my cast then steps back, giving me space. ‘Go ahead. Trust me, you’re going to feel a whole lot better.’ She has this look on her face like she understands her words very well. Hell, maybe she does. Maybe hidden in that tiny body is a person who is raging with anger. Perhaps she has a messed up past too. God, maybe everyone does in their own way.

Giving them what they want, I do exactly what Callie said, pivot my hip and bring my leg up, slamming my foot against the bag. It doesn’t move, but I also barely kicked it.

‘Oh, come on,’ Greyson says disappointedly. ‘Show us that tough girl kick.’

I tolerate them, giving it a good hard kick. For the briefest moment, when my shoe collides with the bag, I do feel a twinge of relief from the emotional overload I was experiencing. I decide to kick it a couple of times more and the feeling gets more intense.

I finally stop, breathing pretty hard. I don’t say anything, wiping the sweat from my brow, but Greyson gives me this I told you so look.

‘You should do it with the other leg now,’ Callie encourages. ‘And this time, try to think about something that will give you fuel.’

I arch my brows at her. ‘Fuel?’

‘Yeah, you know, for the kicking,’ she says simply, leaning down to grab her bottle of water beside her feet.

Figuring it won’t hurt anything, I turn to the other side and try to figure out what the hell she meant by fuel. Then something snaps inside me and I start kicking the crap out of that goddamn bag. Last night, two weeks ago, fifteen years ago, none of it feels so heavy inside me. Control. That’s what it is. I feel like I have more control over myself. Right now, in this moment, there is only me and this bag and this bag is everything – all my foster parents, Mira, Preston, all the guys who’ve copped a feel, everyone who’s taken something from me.

When I finally stop, I’m gasping for air, my skin is drenched with sweat, and my heart is hammering inside my chest.

‘I’m so tired,’ I say, hunching over as I catch my breath.

‘It’s called exercise,’ Greyson teases me with a grin.

I’m too tired to retort with a good comeback, so I turn and smile tiredly. But it’s a real one, not my shiny, fake one I used on him the first few conversations we had. The same smile I used when I went to parties and dealt. The smile I used on everyone almost my entire life.

No this one is real because at the moment I feel like myself.

I feel like the real Violet.

Chapter 18

Luke

She’s been sleeping for a couple of hours. I’d worry she was depressed, but not only did she get up way too early for her, she also exerted herself with kickboxing, so I figure she has a reason to be sleeping.

It’s rounding toward eleven in the afternoon. I have to pick up my dad and Trevor at the airport in like an hour. They’d offered to take a cab from the airport and I had to explain to them that Laramie wasn’t like San Diego and that getting a cab means calling and waiting at least an hour for one. They said they could rent a car, but I’d insisted.

Yeah, I Luke Price insisted that I’d pick up my father. Never thought that’d f**king happen and I’m still uncertain how I feel about it.

I’m borrowing Seth’s Camry to go pick them up so we don’t have to crowd into my truck. Violet was going to go with me, but she looks so peaceful sleeping on her side, her hair splayed over the pillow, her legs tangled in the sheets that I almost don’t want to wake her up.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed I brush her hair back out of her face and then graze my finger up and down her cheekbone. She sucks in a soft breath and then her eyelids flutter open, her green eyes glazed with exhaustion.

A few confused blinks later, she’s sitting up. ‘What time is it?’ She yawns, arching her back like a cat as she stretches her arms above her head.

‘Eleven.’ My eyes skim over her nearly na**d body. She’d stripped off her sweaty workout outfit the moment we’d gotten home, left her panties and bra on, collapsed into bed and fell asleep about thirty seconds later. ‘You can stay here and sleep if you need to. Seth and Greyson said they’d be here until tonight so you won’t have to be home.’

‘No, I want to go with you,’ she says, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed then standing up.

I don’t argue with her, glad she wants to go with me. I sit down on the bed and watch her pull a t-shirt on and a pair of black jeans.

‘I have to shower when we get back though,’ she says, sniffing herself. ‘I have gym scent.’

‘Gym scent? ‘

She pulls a repulsed face. ‘Yeah, those mats in there smell like they haven’t been washed in years.’ She runs her hands over her arms. ‘I swear I can feel the smell on me.’

I chuckle at her as she grabs her boots and bends over to put them on. ‘Well, you look good.’

She peers up at me as she’s tying her boot. ‘I look like shit, but thanks.’ She stands up and combs her fingers through her red streaked hair then adds some glossy shit to her lips.