And now I was just stalling. I pulled into the driveway since Violet was either not home at all, or her car was in the small, attached garage. I really hoped she was home. I didn’t know what I was going to do once I saw her, but maybe it would come to me by the time I made it to the door.
I gathered up her scarf and wondered why I was here at all. Maybe I missed her. Or maybe I just needed to atone for my sins.
Because there was sure a hell of a lot of them.
I knocked on the door, not wanting to ring the doorbell in case she was asleep. Not that I thought she would be, but I wanted to give her the opportunity to ignore me. Because she was allowed to do that. She was allowed to forget that I even existed. I had been an asshole, I had left, and I deserved whatever came to me.
But all those thoughts fled as soon as Violet opened the door, and I saw her wide eyes filled with tears, her cheeks red from crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, instinctively reaching forward before pulling my hand back. She wouldn’t want me touching her, and I would do well to remember that.
“I just had a tough day. What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
I shook my head before moving my hand forward so she could see her scarf. “Everything’s fine. My brother just found your scarf, and I figured I’d bring it to you. And now that I’m here, I realize that this was actually a really stupid thing to do. You could’ve remembered your scarf at any point and come back for it. Or maybe this isn’t even yours, and I should just be going now.”
I took a step back, grateful that she didn’t have stairs on her front porch, when she suddenly moved forward and took my hand. I froze, wondering when I would stop reacting this way every time we touched. We used to touch all the time, used to do more than that. Now, just the feel of her made everything seem different. It was as if I was coming home. Not that I was actually doing so.
“Thank you for bringing my scarf back. I didn’t realize I even left it. I guess I’m not quite all there right now.”
I handed over her scarf, reluctant to let it go, and then stood there with my hands once again in my pockets, rocking back on my heels. “I’m glad that Dillon found it.”
“Oh, it was Dillon? You said your brother and I thought it was one of the other two. Not that Dillon isn’t your brother…I’m just rambling now. Do you want to come in?” She paused as if she hadn’t really meant to say that, and I was a little surprised she had. “If you want. You don’t have to. I just…I was just sitting here awkwardly in the dark, crying. So, maybe I could use some company.”
I nodded and then took a few steps in as she gestured for me to enter. I liked the inside of her house—the warm colors, and soothing tones. Her couch was big enough that I could probably lay on it and not have to scrunch up. And that was saying something since most couches these days seemed to be too small for any man my size.
Not that I was actually thinking of myself on her couch. Not at all.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, I’m okay. But are you? Why were you crying?”
She turned on more lights so I could see more of her, and I noticed that her eyes were clearing up a bit, her cheeks not as red as they had been when she first opened the door. “I’m just thinking about Allison. And the fact that she wasn’t out with us tonight. And that your brothers are going to come help us clean out her apartment. It just sucks. And I hate that there’re no answers.”
“I hate that there are no answers for you either. For any of us. I know Aiden loved her back in the day, and I figured that they were still in contact with one another, but that was a long time ago. I hadn’t really seen her since I left.” I held back a cringe, not meaning to bring that subject up.
“I assumed you didn’t talk to a lot of people after you left,” she said, a bit icily.
I deserved that.
“I should probably apologize. Probably should have done that a long time ago.” My words were soft, but they still felt like barbs.
“Apologize for what? Walking away without saying goodbye? Or leaving the rest of your family in a lurch just like you left me?”
“I deserve that,” I said, my voice rough.
“Yeah, but maybe I deserve something, too. Why did you leave, Cameron? I figure it had to do with Dillon now that I know a bit more, but that doesn’t make any sense to me. Why couldn’t you tell me? Why did you just walk away as if I was nothing?”
I swallowed hard, my hands clenched at my sides. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. You meant everything to me.”
“Don’t lie to me. If I meant so much to you, you wouldn’t have left like you did.”
This wasn’t how I had wanted this conversation to go. Hell, this wasn’t how I wanted anything to go. I hadn’t come here to talk about this, but it was time. Everything was past time.
“Seven years ago, my mom contacted me. Not Rose, the one who birthed Aiden and me and threw us out on the streets after she overdosed. Aiden and I are twins, the same birth mom, same birth father. And you know I don’t know who my dad is.” I didn’t know why I was repeating the obvious, but I needed to collect my thoughts.
“I know,” Violet said, her voice soft. We were standing in her living room, facing off with one another as if this had been waiting for us this entire time. And maybe it had. I should have told her this before. I shouldn’t have hurt her like I did. But I was young, stupid, and didn’t know what to do with my own emotions, let alone hers.
But that was all on me. And I knew it.
“Mom was doing drugs, and Aiden and I were the result of one of her Johns. She needed money for the drugs she loved, and so she sold her body. And while I will never judge anyone for the choices they make if they want to be a sex worker, I will always judge my mother for making the choice so she could shoot up again. I will always judge her for taking Aiden and I with her down that rat hole.”
“Cameron, you don’t have to start there if you don’t want to. You just have to tell me why you left, not how you came here in the first place.”
“But I have to. You have to know why it’s all connected. And why I’m such a fucking screw-up.”
“You’re not a screw-up. Yeah, you screwed up, but you’re not one.”
“I sure as hell feel like it sometimes. But, anyway, Aiden and I were finishing college, and Mom contacted me. She left us before because she OD’d. She almost died, and the state took her away. I was born and raised here in Colorado but in the system most of the time. And then Jack and Rose took me in, and then they found Aiden.”
“I had forgotten that, the fact that you and Aiden didn’t grow up together.”
Thankfully, Violet sat down on the edge of the chair and let me do the same. My knees were weak just talking about this. I wasn’t a big fan of it. But she needed to hear it all. And maybe I needed to say the words.
“After Mom OD’d the first time when we were really young, they put Aiden and me into the system. Brendon was in the system too at that point, but we didn’t know each other then. We were all just young boys who were split up into homes because no one wanted to take two twin one-year-old boys that may or may not have learning disabilities since their mom was on drugs when we were born.”
“That’s just cruel,” Violet said on a whisper.
“That’s life. Nobody wants to adopt grown kids. They all want little babies, and they sure as hell don’t want kids that may have to deal with withdrawal at some point in their lives. Not that I remember any of that. Anyway, Jack and Rose adopted both Aiden and me, making sure we were in the same home, and then they got Brendon. And that’s when you met us. In high school and college. The seven of us were all a big unit.”
“I know. I was part of it. That’s why I don’t really get why you just left like that.”
“Because while we may have been a unit, and while I loved you—”
“Don’t say that. Not now.”
“But I did. I loved you.”
“Not
enough. Obviously.”
I held back a wince, knowing I deserved it. “My mom called me, saying that she had OD’d again and needed my help. I hadn’t planned on going down there until I thought she was really going to die. So I left, only for a weekend I thought, and found out she was going to lose custody of her other baby if she wasn’t careful. That boy was Dillon. It was with a different John, and no, I don’t know who Dillon’s birth father is. I’m not sure she does. Regardless, even though I hated my mother, I didn’t want her to die. I don’t know what that says about me, but I just didn’t want her to die. And I didn’t want her to take Dillon down with her once I found out about him.”
I looked up, and Violet was wiping away tears, but I continued. “She was out in California, had been there for a while, I guess. I lost track of her after everything happened when I was a kid, and it wasn’t like I could just look her up on Facebook or some shit like that. Apparently, she kept track of me, though. She didn’t ask for money, didn’t ask for anything, really. She just didn’t know what to do with this other kid that she had. This eleven-year-old. Eleven years old, and I didn’t even know he existed. Aiden and Brendon didn’t know either, not that Brendon was actually related to the kid, but sometimes, I forget that Brendon’s not my biological brother. You know?” Violet nodded in answer, and I continued.
“Aiden wanted nothing to do with my mom at the time. He told me if I left, I deserved whatever I got. He said we were making a life out here, and to go back to Mom would just fuck everything up. Because you see, I didn’t know that she had a kid when I went out there. All I knew was that she needed me. And in some self-righteous, bullshit part of myself, I wanted to make sure she was okay. I didn’t want her to die alone, you see. And so, Aiden said that if I walked out, that was it. That I would be choosing her over the family we had made. I didn’t think about it like that, I just thought about the fact that I wanted that part of our past not to die alone. And so, I left.”
Violet’s eyes widened. “So, you’re saying Aiden didn’t know about Dillon at all? I find that hard to believe.”
“As soon as I found out about Dillon, I tried to contact Aiden, even Brendon. But they wouldn’t answer my calls. And I was too busy trying to figure out how to raise this eleven-year-old while feeling like a kid myself. And I didn’t really keep trying to contact them after about a year.” I paused. “I told Jack and Rose, though. At least over the phone. They understood, but then I was selfish and made them promise that they wouldn’t tell Aiden. I was so pissed at him for not helping me when I needed it, and I didn’t want to hurt him. Or maybe I wanted to hurt myself. I don’t know, but Aiden never answered my calls, he pushed me away just like I pushed him away. And so, in the end, I was out in California, trying to start a new life and raise this kid.”
I paused, swallowing hard. “Mom died about a year and a half after I moved out there. OD’d again, but that was the final time. I barely scraped enough money together to cremate her because it was cheaper than a burial out there. Dillon still has her ashes. I wanted nothing to do with them. I don’t even know if Aiden knows about the ashes. Hell, that’s probably something else I should tell him.” I let out a sigh and rubbed my temple. “Everything’s really fucked up. And it has been fucked up for a long time. And so, I left. I left Denver, and I left you. Because I couldn’t say goodbye to you. I didn’t know how.”
“Cameron.”
Violet’s voice was soft, and I could see her shaking. I didn’t know if it was sympathy or rage. Or maybe it was a mixture of both.
Her shoulders lifted and fell as she took deep, gulping breaths, and then she looked at me, and I knew that there was just rage there.
“Really? Really? You could’ve just said it. You could’ve just told me. I wasn’t going to break because you needed to leave for your family. No, I broke because you didn’t have the decency to say goodbye. That’s why it hurts to look at you. That’s why every time I see you, I remember everything we once had, and how you threw it all away. I’m not going to hold taking care of your family against you. I’ll never hate you for wanting to make sure that little boy was okay. But I can hate you a little for how you did it all. I can hate you a bit for how it broke me into a million pieces and left me shattered on the floor.
“And that’s why you need to go. Because I don’t think you can be here right now. And I think I need to breathe.”
There was nothing else to say right then. I had told Violet why I left, which, in retrospect, was a stupid decision. But I hadn’t known what else to do at the time, and I had messed everything up. There was no amount of atonement that would make that okay.
So, I stood up and left, closing the door softly behind me. I just hoped that she would lock it and keep herself safe. But then again, it wasn’t my responsibility to keep her safe. I had nothing to do with Violet. Our lives might have been tangled once, but it didn’t mean they had to continue being so.
I didn’t know what direction I was headed—not physically or emotionally. But no matter what, it wasn’t going to be with Violet.
It couldn’t be.
Chapter Seven
You’re a mess. But then again, so am I
- Allison in a text to Violet
Violet
To say I was not ready for today would be an understatement. But there was no getting away from this. There was no running from anything. Allison needed us, even if I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant anymore.
Harmony stood on one side of me, Sienna on the other, and I wondered how it had all come to this.
Death wasn’t supposed to be easy, life was hard, after all. But what was left behind seemed to be the hardest, at least in my recent experience.
Allison was gone, her life cut far too short by her own hands. And I still didn’t know why she had done what she did. Maybe there wouldn’t be any answers. Perhaps there didn’t need to be. Maybe those answers were only for her, and even though I was the one left behind, it didn’t mean that it was all about me.
Because it wasn’t. Of course, it wasn’t.
And today wasn’t about me either. It wasn’t about the fact that my chest felt too tight, or that my palms were clammy. It wasn’t about the fact that I knew a migraine would come on eventually, or that I felt like I was going to throw up if I didn’t focus.
It wasn’t about any of that.
No, today was about saying goodbye to Allison once more and cleaning out everything that she had once loved and owned.
It still shocked me a little that Allison didn’t have a will. But because of that, her parents had been in charge of everything, though they had left this part up to me and my friends and family. Allison’s parents were already dealing with enough, compartmentalizing the fact that their daughter was gone and they had no answers. They had handled the funeral, the casket, dealt with watching their daughter be laid to rest, inch by inch as she was put into the ground.
They’d held the wake at their own house. They had fielded the questions, confronted being strong in the face of insurmountable pain.
And though I didn’t agree with exactly how they had handled everything, it wasn’t my place to say anything. But what was my place, was making sure that they didn’t have to deal with any more than they already had. Because while I lost my friend, they had lost their daughter.
They had lost their only child, their baby girl. And I would do anything to make sure they didn’t feel any more pain from that.
So, Sienna, Harmony, and I were going to clean every inch of Allison’s place and make it ready for the next tenant.
Somehow, we were going to make this place that still smelled of Allison no longer have even a single inch of her. There would be no remnants of the woman that I loved, no remnants of the best friend who had held me when I cried, who’d helped me through my migraines, and through college when I thought that I was making a mistake in my chosen field.
Allison was always the strong one, but I hadn’t been able to see beneath the surfa
ce. I hadn’t been able to see that something else was going on with her.
And I’d never forgive myself for that.
“Where do we begin?” Sienna asked, her voice hesitant.
“We start where we need to. So, we have boxes, and we’ll put things into piles.” Harmony clasped her hands in front of herself, her voice sounding far stronger than I thought it could. After all, Harmony had done this with her husband’s things. Apparently, she was an expert at this now.
The fact that there was that much knowledge while dealing with loss at our ages just pissed me off.
“So, what kind of piles are you thinking?” I hadn’t really done this before, not really. And I really wasn’t in the mood to think about it now. But we didn’t have a choice.
“Well, there’re things that we’ll want to keep for ourselves, there’re things that her parents may like, there’re things to donate, things to sell. And, obviously, there may be some things to throw away. There’ll also probably be a pile that we have no idea what to do with, but we’ll come back to that later. It really just depends on what there is. I know it’s going to be hard, and it’ll suck. But that’s why we have wine for later, and that’s why we don’t have to do it all right now. We can do a little bit, and then a little bit later. As long as we do it in steps, we’ll be okay.” She took a deep breath. “We’re going to be okay.”
I inhaled deeply just as she had and then wrapped my arm around Harmony’s shoulders. I kissed her head and closed my eyes, resting my temple against hers. Sienna wrapped her arms around both of us, and we just stood there, the three of us as a unit. A troop against what was coming next, and the fact that we weren’t four. We would never be four again. And it sucked.
“I guess we should get started?” I asked, my voice low. I really didn’t want to start. I just wanted to go home and wrap myself in a blanket and forget that any of this ever happened. But there was no ignoring this. There would never be any forgetting this. How could that actually be when every single time I looked in the mirror, I remembered that I had walked in to see my best friend in the entire world no longer with us.
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