Follow Your Heart Auto Memories Doll

Chapter Twenty-One

Trevor swallowed hard, his lips dry and his throat already aching. He drew in a deep breath and his broad shoulders rose and fell with it as he tried to find the resolve he'd had the night before.

Violet had walked with him to the Belle company that morning, but he didn't think his father knew that just yet. It had been a silent walk, neither of the partners really knowing what to say or what to expect. Trevor had spent much of the walk with Violet's hand in his, toying with the metal joints that made up her fingers as he fidgeted nervously.

When they came in the front door the receptionist had given Trevor a strange, but not unkind look, admiring that he clearly was not dressed for work. Sure, he had his boots on, but his black dress shirt was far from his average work day attire. His fellow employees too seemed quite surprised, even happy to see him so cleaned up, with Violet by his side as they headed through the shop toward his fathers office.

He'd stopped in front of the door, the clouded glass of the door obstructing his vision. He felt awful. Empty. Like he was about to be caught doing something wrong.

Trevor felt only marginally better when Violet took his hand in hers once more and moved up onto the tips of her boots and pressed her lips into his cheek. "I'll be right here. You can do this, Trevor," she affirmed, and as his eyes met hers he almost thought he believed her.

Violet stepped aside and her hands tightened around the hem of her dress. She knew she'd wanted to come, but now that she was here she had regrets. What would his father do if he saw her? If he knew that Violet had pushed him into this decision. What would he do if he knew she was waiting with baited breath right outside the door as Trevor said those magical few words that would, in theory, save himself from his father.

As Trevor's fingers clasped around the door handle though, every terrible thought that had plagued her mind for months crawled back up Violet's spine and filled her head with worry. There was silence as Trevor opened the door, well, as close to silence as they could get. The shop was live after all, each machine in the building whining and whirring away, drowning out almost any voices that Violet may have been able to hear.

Still, she was pretty sure neither of the men said a word as Trevor went inside the office and shut the door gently behind himself.

Violet felt eyes on her, and every time she looked up from her lap she saw Trevor's co-workers looking away, back to their work, anywhere other than at her, really. She wanted to stand, to peer in through the window, or even press her ear into the door to try and at least hear some semblance of the conversation going on. She hated to wait like this, even if she had been trained to do so.

Violet couldn't believe how far she'd fallen from her time in the military. She couldn't even sit still. She had been trained to go days without moving. Sleeping and waiting patiently in the mud and dust and dirt without so much as a flinch. Even when bullets would zip over the top of her head the men around her would jump, but not Violet.

Never Violet.

Now she couldn't even sit in a chair for more than a minute without becoming unbearably nervous. Well, she could, obviously, but not this chair. Not the chair right outside Trevor's father's office. She needed to know. How long would they be in there? Would Trevor's father try to hurt him here? Right now?

Violet twisted her figure toward the wall behind her and pressed her ear into the wood paneling. She didn't care what she looked like, not when she needed to know if Trevor was okay. She'd made him risk everything by coming here and she wasn't going to sit idly by if something happened to him.

It was only then that Violet realized her mistake. This wasn't the only way, god, how could she be so blind. All this time she'd been so busy with work, so busy worrying, so busy trying to rescue Trevor from his life that she'd failed to put the simplest answer together.