I get a little uneasy as we veer toward two subjects I hate. My diabetes and needles. “Yeah, it doesn’t do any good when there’s alcohol in my system.”

“But usually you use a needle.”

“Yeah.” My throat feels thick.

“Does it hurt?”

“Sometimes it does,” I say, sounding choked. “Depending on my mood.”

She observes me briefly then drops the subject.

“So where’s the box heading?” I ask, patting the bottom of the box.

She hugs her arms around herself as she glances over her shoulder at the window. “Outside, I guess.”

I nod, and then head out into the hall. She follows me, shutting the door behind her. As we walk to the elevator I try not to think about the fact that after I get done helping her, I’m going to have to go back to my own dorm and figure out what to do with my stuff—figure out where I’m going. When we get outside, I glance around the parking lot. There are hardly any cars left on campus.

“So which car am I putting the box in?”

She stops at the edge of the curb and bites her lips as she looks at the road to the side of us. “You can just set it down here.”

I lower the box onto the concrete, lost. “Is someone picking you up or something?”

“Or something,” she mutters and plops down on the box. She props her elbow on her knee and her hair falls to the side of her face, veiling her expression from me as she lets the handle of the bag slide off her slumped shoulder and to the ground. “Thanks. You can go now.”

I lean forward and try to catch her eye, but she won’t look at me, so I have no f**king clue what she’s thinking. I want to know and that’s not a good thing because it gives her some control over me.

I begin to back up the sidewalk and force myself to walk away, go back to my Jack Daniel’s, and women who don’t interest me enough to pull me back to them. But right as I’m losing sight of her, I spot her lowering her head onto her arms, looking so defeated I know I can’t leave her like this.

I backtrack my steps and halt beside her. “Violet, where are you going?”

Her chest rises and falls as she sighs deeply, keeping her face buried in her arms. “I have no idea.”

I feel the faintest acceleration in my pulse as I crouch down beside her and sweep her hair out of her face. “Do you need me to take you somewhere? Because I can. As a thank-you for last night.” What the hell am I doing?

Her eyes are closed, her face angled toward me. “I don’t need a thank-you,” she says. “I just need a ride… somewhere.”

Despite my initial reservations, the least I can do is give her a ride as thanks for getting me to my truck and not letting my dumb-ass get beat last night and for helping me get glucose pills in my system. “Okay, where do you need to go?”

“Just outside of town.” She opens her eyes and her pupils shrink as the sun hits them, absorbing any emotion with it. But for a concise instant, I see something in her: the very familiar feeling of helplessness—the same thing that drove me to the strip club looking for a fight. “It’s on one of the back roads just off the freeway… you take the road where the strip club is,” she says.

“Why were you walking down that road last night? And what made you stop at the strip club?”

“A freakish coincidence,” she states, searching my eyes for something.

“A coincidence?” I stroke my finger across her cheekbone and she doesn’t flinch or move away, staring at me like she stared up at me last night. “I’m not buying it.”

“Okay, you caught me. I was stalking you,” she jokes dryly, then shuts her eyes again. “I have a headache,” she mutters, breathing in and out.

I watch her sink farther and farther into herself, her lips part as she forces air into her lungs. It’s like watching someone break apart and I’m not sure if I want to fix her, try to catch the pieces, or step back and let them fall all over the ground. God, the look is tearing my heart in half. Needing to make her feel better, more than I need to make myself stay under control, I start to lean in toward her, to either kiss her or hug her… needing to touch her again… comfort her. She holds completely still, her expression neutral but her eyes widen. I still have my hand in her hair and I pull gently on the roots, causing her breathing to quicken. Her chest rises and falls and images of the things we could do together pour through my mind; things like what we did last night in my trunk. I could touch her again and remember it more vividly—soberly. Suddenly I realize I’m thinking of us together. I’m not thinking of just me getting off. I’m thinking of getting her off. This is no longer just about me anymore. I snap out of it, untangle my fingers from her hair, and straighten my legs to stand up. “Do you want me to carry your box to my truck?” I ask, trying to get my shit back together. I refuse go back to that place I used to live with when I was a kid and my mom controlled everything I did. And getting involved with someone, means giving up total control.

She watches me with her head still on her arms, her eyes scaling me, then she sits up, running her fingers through her hair as she rises to her feet. “No, I can get it.” She bends over and scoops the box up. Even though I can tell it’s a little heavy for her, I let her carry it to the truck, putting a much-needed boundary line between us. It’s the line I put up between most of the people that breeze through my life, to keep people away, to keep me safe from ever having to go to that place I lived for so many years. The one where I feel lost. The one where I’m weak and have no control over anything.

Violet

I think he might have almost just kissed me. I could feel it in the electricity in the air and through his energetic pulse in his fingers. I’m glad he didn’t otherwise I would’ve had to hurt him and I don’t want to hurt him. Go figure. I’m too upset to keep my anger under control today and I’m too lost over last night with him. I don’t even know if he can remember it, the electric kiss that, at least for me, had feeling behind it. And if he’s forgotten, then I’m going to forget, too.

Forgetting is a good thing. I wish I could do that with everything; what happened with Preston, that I have no home, and that come Monday I’m going to have to drag my ass down to the police station and face my parents’ reopened case alone, like I’ve done with everything in my life. All I want to do is stand on the top of a building and inch my way to the edge, feel the adrenaline of knowing I could fall and everything would end.

The longer I sit in the truck with Luke, the more I want to taste the adrenaline rush instead of having this unsettling feeling about going to Preston’s house and facing whatever’s waiting there for me. By the time we’re pulling up, I’m contemplating if I should just grab my boxes and bail. Just leave before Preston can tell me to. Go live in the ditch just a little ways down the road.

“Thanks for the ride,” I mutter to Luke as he parks the truck behind Preston’s Cadillac.

Luke stares through the windshield at the trailer house and the people passed out in lawn chairs on the front porch. “Whose house is this?” he asks as I flip the door handle.

“A friend’s.” I swing my legs out of the truck, preparing to jump out.

He snags me by the elbow. “This is where you’re living for the summer?”

I don’t look at him, face forward, torn on how much to say. “I don’t know where I’m living.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.” I bend my arm and wiggle it out of his grip, making sure to look straight forward as I kick the truck door shut.

I grab my box out of the bed of his truck and trek up the driveway, my long skirt dragging in the dirt behind me. The entire yard is littered with beer bottles and cigarette butts. There’s vomit on the lawn and gravel and the front door to the trailer is agape. As I approach the Cadillac, the screen door swings open and Preston appears in the doorway with his hand cupped around his cigarette as he lights up. Once he has it lit, he blows out a cloud of smoke and looks over at me. By the lack of surprise in his expression I bet he saw me pull up, but what I can’t tell is if he’s still mad at me.

He doesn’t say anything as he trots down the stairs. He kicks some bottles out of the way with his bare foot as he makes his way down the rocky path over to the driveway. When he reaches the front of the car, he glances down the driveway.

“Who’s that?” he asks, nodding his head at Luke’s truck.

“Someone,” I say without looking back as I pause at the trunk of the car, debating on how to go about this as I drop the box beside my feet. I don’t want to let it go. I want to allow myself to get angry at him, because he deserves it, but I also feel that stupid gnawing guilt. I owe him, for giving me a place to stay.

“Don’t be a bitch.” He grazes the pad of his thumb across the bottom of the cigarette as he approaches me. He doesn’t have a shirt on and the cargo shorts he’s wearing hang low on his hips, the top of his boxers peeking out. The bags under his eyes and the redness in them scream that he’s hungover and irritated.

“So you’re still pissed,” I say, through hooded eyes. “Good, so am I.” I sidestep to the left to get to the driver’s door so I can pop the trunk open, but he moves with me, blocking my path.

“I’m not pissed,” he says, blinking his bloodshot eyes and then rubbing his free hand across them. “I’m just confused what the hell happened—why the hell you took off like that.”

I cross my arms. “Because you were being a horny asshole.”

“I was high,” he argues, spanning his arms out to the side of him. “People do all kinds of crazy shit when they’re high.”

“You tried to get me to f**k you.”

“I was on E… of course I did.”

I gape at him, unfathomably. “So what? I’m just supposed to forgive you because you were high?”

“I’m not asking for your forgiveness.” He scratches at his arm as he glances down the driveway where I can hear Luke’s truck running. Is he still there? “And what did you do? Run off and f**k the first guy you came across.”

“Does that sound like something I’d do?” I ask, lifting my eyebrows.

He sucks a drag from his cigarette. “How the hell should I know? You never tell the truth. You barely show any sort of reaction when I ask you to pretend to be a slut to sell drugs for me.” He leans in, moving his arm out to the side of him and I cringe, thinking he’s going to hit me. “You let me put my hands on you however I want without so much as blinking an eye.” He suddenly cups my breast with his hand. “I can’t tell if you like it or if you want me to stop and when you stay stop it doesn’t even sound like you mean it.”

I shuffle back and his hand falls from my breast. “I’m telling you to stop right now and I mean it.”

“You’re saying to stop, but there’s nothing in your eyes that’s matching your words.” He marches forward and grabs my breast again, this time rougher. “I think that you secretly like it but you don’t want to admit it.”

The intensity of the moment is making me very mellow. I want to see him explode, so I can feel more adrenaline and more sedated from my emotions even after the fact that he hit me and is now fondling my breast. It’s obvious he’s crashing and unstable and it makes the situation dangerous. I love it.

“Is this because Kelley is getting remarried?” I ask. “Or are you just going through a midlife crisis?”

His face reddens as he hunches over, lowering his face so it’s right in front of mine. His breath is searing hot and a large vein bulges in his forehead. “I’m not that much f**king older than you are, Violet! So stop with the age shit!” he shouts, the muscles in his neck tensing.

A surge of energy instantaneously crashes through me, my chest lifting and descending as I catch my breath, my heartbeat booming in my ears. It feels like I could do anything at the moment and maybe I will—maybe today is the day that I’ll take that extra step and finally fly away from all of this. As I rack my mind for something absurdly reckless I could do, he shifts his fingers from my arm and yanks me with him as he stomps toward the house. I should probably pull back and run… Maybe when I get in the house I’ll finally run away… or when he hits me again. Beats me. Would he beat me? Do I care? I’m not sure. About anything.

“Violet, are you okay?” The sound of Luke’s voice slowly penetrates my thoughts and my adrenaline surge deflates like a balloon.

“I’m fine,” I say through gritted teeth as Preston glares at him from over my shoulder.

“Who the hell is he?” Preston’s nails pierce my skin as he glances from Luke to me and there’s a slight hint of uneasiness in his expression, like Luke’s presences unsettles him a little.

“My stalker,” I lie, not as amused as I want to be. The fact that I have nowhere to live, no one to count on, no one to help me is catching up with me.

“What?” Preston’s jaw drops as he blinks at me. “He’s stalking you?”

“No, he’s just a guy.” I blow out a breath and then raise my voice. “Who won’t leave me alone.”

“Who won’t leave you alone? Seriously?” Luke suddenly appears beside me, startling me by his abrupt nearness and how much anger is in his eyes. “You keep on showing up wherever I go.”

I angle my head to look up at him. “Because you look for me.” I know he really doesn’t, but I don’t want him to think I want or need him.