I stand up and cross the room to her, kicking dirty clothes out of the way. ‘You look beautiful,’ I tell her, brushing the pad of my thumb over her bottom lip. ‘You always do.’

She looks like she’s about to tease me for being sappy, but then decides against it and bites down on her lip. ‘You seem in a good mood.’ Her eyes carry a question.

‘Just happy that you seem happy.’ I trace my thumb back and forth over her lips, mesmerized by the softness of them. ‘That shiny stuff you just put on them makes them look so tasty.’

With a wicked look in her eye, she opens those soft lips and bites down on my finger. It’s gentle but still sexy as hell. ‘Wow, did you used to use those kinds of lines on women? I know you and I haven’t really dated,’ she says. ‘So I’m not sure what your moves are.’

‘Hate to break it to you, but we’ve dated. A lot.’

‘Not really. We went out on a couple of dates in the beginning, but even before that, things were different between us. I mean, it’s not like you met me and wanted to f**k me right away. I just kind of forced myself into your life, or well destiny did anyway.’

There are a million things wrong with what she just said. ‘First of all, I’ve always wanted to f**k you, even before we met. It just got way worse when we met.’ I pause. ‘Remember the party when we danced.’

That gets her to laugh, her green eyes sparkling. ‘And you told me I was beautiful and that we should go back to one of the rooms – I remember.’

‘Yeah, it was an awesome line, right?’ I joke as I put my hands on her h*ps and pull her closer. ‘The one that won you over?’

Her expression falls, her skin turning white as she gives me a guilty look. ‘Actually, if we’re being honest, I freaked out, ran out of the house, and jumped into the lake.’ She sighs but continues before I can make a remark. ‘I’m sorry, but you were making me feel things I wasn’t ready for.’

‘That’s okay. I was pretty freaked out too by what I said to you – about what I was feeling.’

She gazes off over my shoulder, lost in her thoughts. ‘It just feels like almost all the memories of the time we’ve spent together are like that.’ Her attention snaps in my direction. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I love spending time with you … It’s just that …’ She bites down on her bottom lip and gives me an apologetic look.

‘It’s just that what?’ I’m worried where she’s going with this.

She lets her lip pop free and her expression conveys uncertainty. ‘It’s just that I think maybe we should try to change that. You know, not have a bad memory connected to every semi-normal one … So I was thinking that maybe we could try tonight, to do something normal, I mean. After we have dinner with your dad and Trevor, like go to a concert. Seth says there’s a good one in town and I told him I’d try to go.’ She’s talking really fast like she’s nervous.

It makes me smile, f**king grin like the stupidest, most happy idiot in the world. ‘Oh, you’re asking me out.’

Her brows dip. ‘Why are you smiling like that?’ I can’t help it – I bust up laughing at her. She swats me with her good arm. ‘Luke, seriously, what the hell is so funny?’

Shaking my head, I try to settle my laughter. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that you looked so nervous I was seriously expecting you to say something really bad, like you thought we needed to take a break or something.’ She playfully slaps my arm again and I cover the area with my hand. ‘Hey, what the hell was that for?’

‘For laughing at me. You know, I’ve never asked a guy out, right?’

‘And I’ve never really used lines on a girl either. Trust me, for the most part I was a f**king ass**le.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Jesus what is wrong with the female population. Treat them like shit and they want you even more.’

‘Not all of them.’ I trace the path of her jawline, loving the way her eyelids flutter from my touch. As far as I know, she’s the only woman who’s ever reacted to my touch that way and that’s because she’s the only woman I’ve paid enough attention to, to notice her in reactions in that much detail. ‘That’s one of the first things that attracted me to you – because my shit didn’t work on you.’ I give her a half-smile. ‘I was drawn to the fact that I seemed to annoy the shit out of you whenever I opened my mouth. Well, that and the fact that you were so f**king sexy and I couldn’t stop thinking about f**king the shit out of you.’ I give her a full smile now as she rolls her eyes. ‘See those are my lines. Not too impressive, right?’

She shakes her head, but then wraps her arms around me and presses her lips to mine, giving me a quick, but deep kiss. I nip on her lip as she pulls away.

‘We better get going.’ She looks at the clock on the nightstand. ‘Or we’ll be late picking up your dad and Trevor.’

‘Yeah, you’re right.’ I collect my wallet from the nightstand then start toward the door, but she grabs my hand and draws me back to her.

‘Are you going to be okay with this?’ she asks. ‘With them being here. I mean, I know we spent that time at their house, but this feels a little different.’

No, not at all. ‘Yeah, I’m good.’

She’s right. This is different. When Violet and I went to their house, it was to hideout. Yeah, my dad and I talked and everything, but most of my time was spent on taking care of Violet. This is just a plain and simple visit, to hangout, chat, have dinner, spend time together. It’s strange and unnatural and something I’m completely not used to. But all I can do is cross my fingers that it’ll be okay.

That everything will be okay.

We’re about fifteen minutes late picking them up, but my dad seems happy with me just showing up, like he expected me not to. When I pull up to the curb, park and get out, he comes up and gives me this awkward hug while Violet helps Trevor put the suitcases in the trunk. After they’re finished, my dad pulls away, giving me this strange, almost choked up look and I can’t help but think: f**k, is he going to cry? Thankfully, he doesn’t and steps back to give me a good look.

‘I swear you’ve grown taller,’ he says to me with a smile. My dad is about four or five inches shorter than me, medium build, with thinning brown hair. He likes to wear a lot of jeans and t-shirts, nothing business-like, something I learned when we were in San Diego.

‘I’m twenty years old,’ I tell him. ‘I stopped growing like five years ago.’

His smile falters, but he quickly recovers and steps back to let Trevor give me a handshake. ‘It’s good to see you again, Luke,’ he says. Trevor is closer to my height with blond hair and he likes to wear a lot of button down shirts, so pretty much the opposite of my father.

‘You too.’ I really don’t know what to say. Trevor and I don’t know each other very well at all. We’ve only met the one time and he was working a lot, so we maybe had like ten conversations tops.

Trevor releases my hand and steps back, opening his mouth to say something when my father walks up to Violet and pulls her in for a hug. I can tell it startles the shit out of her by the way she goes tense as a board. She manages to pull herself together enough, though, to give him a one-handed hug.

‘It’s so good to see you,’ my dad says as he frees Violet from the hug. ‘Both of you.’

Violet shuffles back from him toward the curb and starts fidgeting with her cast, scratching her fingernails up and down on it, staring off at the doors of the airport. There’s not much to look at, though, hardly any people coming in and out since it’s a small airport and it’s in the middle of the afternoon. I’m guessing there’s some sort of emotion building in her and she’s trying to keep it together.

‘Yeah, good to see you too.’ I give Violet’s hand a squeeze. She doesn’t look at me, but she does inch closer. ‘Should we hit the road?’ I ask.

My father nods then opens the back door of Seth’s Camry. While they’re climbing in, I open the passenger side door for Violet and when she starts to duck in to climb inside, I place my hand on the small of her back, stopping her. Putting my lips beside her ear, I whisper, ‘Everything okay?’

She nods then lowers herself into the seat. ‘Yeah, everything’s fine.’

I don’t believe her, but now’s not the time to press. I round the car, get in and drive down the road toward the center of town where Trevor and my father are staying for the next three nights. The keep making comments about how small and quaint the town is, but Laramie is anything but quaint. Yes it’s low in population, but it doesn’t have that old-fashion, homey look to it. And the wind blows like a motherfucker; the winter’s cold enough to freeze your balls off if you stayed outdoors for too long.

Violet barely says anything the entire drive, staring out the window like the sights are fascinating, like she hasn’t seen them a thousand times. Once we drop my father and Trevor off, I head back to the apartment until we head out for dinner in a few hours.

Finally, her silence gets to be too much and I turn down the volume of the stereo. ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘The many complications and complexities that make up my life,’ she responds without so much as a glance in my direction.

‘Was it the hug?’ I ask. ‘Did it get to you?’

She breathes heavy enough that it fogs the window in front of her face. ‘I don’t want to have a pity party.’ She turns her head toward me. ‘Or feel sorry for myself.’

‘You have every right to feel bad over stuff,’ I tell her, slowing the car down to a stop at a red light.

She shakes her head. ‘No, I need to get over it. I want to, you know.’

‘Want to what?’

‘Get over getting worked up over everything.’ She slumps back in the seat and props her boots up on the dashboard, looking straight ahead. ‘Stop getting worked up over simple things like getting a flipping hug … it’s just that it’s been a while, you know …’ Her head slants to the side as she dazes off, her hair curtain around her face. ‘Since someone’s hugged me. I mean, I know you do, but …’ she shrugs. ‘I honestly have no idea what my point is. I guess I’m just rambling.’ She waves it off, wanting to dismiss the conversation. ‘Ignore me.’

I had the exact opposite problem, forced to spend hours being hugged by my mother in a way that felt unnatural and caused me to be ill to my stomach. I’d always thought things would have been better if I’d never been hugged, but Violet is contradicting this theory. Maybe if the hugs had come from a sane person, if my dad hadn’t bailed out, then I’d think differently.

I sweep her hair out of her face, knowing she’s trying to hide whatever expression she has, but I care too much about her to let her conceal her pain anymore. ‘I’m not going to ignore you. Not when you say something like that.’

She shakes her head, glancing at me. I swear I can see every infliction, every invisible scar. ‘Please, can we just drop it?’

I start to lean over the console toward her. ‘Violet, we’re not going to—’

‘Light’s green,’ she interrupts, waving me forward while the person behind me honks their horn.

I drive in silence the rest of the way home. As soon as I park the car under the carport, Violet opens the door and hops out. I follow her eager exit, turn off the engine, hop out and meet her around the front. Before she can move past me, I catch her in my arms and yank her against me.

‘Luke, I said I was okay,’ she protests. She works to get her good hand between us, then attempts to shove me back. But she’s not strong enough to get me anywhere, no matter what she believes.

‘If it was possible, I’d hug you every hour of every minute of every second of every day.’ I pull her closer to me, disregarding the fact that she hasn’t put her arms around me yet.

We stand that way for a while, me giving her everything and her afraid to take it as the wind surrounds us and the grey sky begins to rumble. It takes her a snap or two of lightning to get there, but finally she relaxes.

‘We’d look pretty ridiculous walking around like this all the time,’ she whispers, her arms sliding around my waist. She tucks her good hand into the back pocket of my jeans and rests her head against my shoulder. ‘Although, I’d love to see the looks on people’s faces as we attempted it.’ She sighs, surrendering. ‘Sorry I freaked out on you.’

‘You don’t need to apologize.’

‘No, I need to …’ She tips her chin up and looks up at me. ‘I need to get my shit together. I’m just trying to figure out how to do it.’ The wind blows her hair into her face and she plucks strands from her mouth. ‘Maybe this whole therapy thing will help … I don’t know though. I’m still skeptical.’

I’m not sure if I entirely disagree with that idea either. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know … I guess I don’t trust adults very well. They can be nasty, disloyal people.’

‘Baby, we’re technically adults.’

‘I know that, but sometimes I forget that we are,’ she says, saddened. ‘Maybe it’ll work out though. Maybe they’ll be able to fix all the cracks and ugliness inside my head.’

I press my lips to her forehead. ‘This thing is anything but ugly.’

‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll see if that’s the case after they crack me apart and see what’s inside.’ She makes a mock scary voice than makes a ghostly sound.