Cigarette Burns.

Part 2.

Violet is sitting on a picnic table in a small town on the edge of Georgia and South Carolina. It’s been about a weak since Asher had made her relax while she slept but as he watched her lips purse while she studied her old fashioned camera he was sure he could still taste her on his mouth.

Violet was wearing an old grey t-shirt of Asher’s that at one point was his favorite, and now the sleeves and the sides were gone and Violet’s perfect skin was showing from the gashes. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans of her own that had gotten to be so used she had to lose the legs.

Her blonde hair was pushed to one side of her head while she looked down in the camera lens ad snapped a picture of Asher. Asher was leaned against a brick wall that went to the middle of his back with a hand in his pocket and the other holding a cigarette. Granted-he was so lost in the site of Violet he wasn’t smoking it.

“It’s wrong you know,” Violet’s voice was just high enough to break Asher from his day dream. He would admit that he was guilty of thinking of Violet’s perfect body pressed against his. But he shook his head of the thoughts and threw the cigarette remains to the ground using his tow to put it out.

“What’s wrong?” Asher was unaware that his brow had connected in deep concern that Violet was indeed loosing her mind. However Asher would have loved her either way. He would love her even if she was a figment of his imagination.

Often times Asher will catch himself wondering if maybe that’s correct. Maybe Violet wasn’t a real person because god she was so perfect she could get into heaven even after committing the worst of sins. And if anyone dare not let her in Asher would gladly sell his ticket to heaven to her because she deserved to be there.

But Violet not being a real person wouldn’t make sense. Because if she wasn’t real how had Asher touched her, how had she been able to comfort him? It didn’t make sense because even the most random of people were sure of the matter the two belonged together. But now Asher was so in thought about the littlest thing he thought maybe it was he-who had been losing his mind.

“The camera, it doesn’t capture your beauty. The freckle above your eye isn’t visible-” Violet had swiftly stood from her cross legged position to skip over to Asher. He was sure that she would feel his pulse speed up when she placed her fingers like feathers on his face.

“And it’s a black and white camera so it can’t see your brown eyes-” Asher swallowed something that was blocking his airways and realized it had been the scent of Violet stopping his breathing. She smelled strangely of a mix of grimy hotel, cigarette smoke and vanilla. He closed his eyes and breathed out as Violet’s nimble fingers traced lightly over his eyelids.

“And it’s old so your cheek bones aren’t prominent.” Her hands touched his cheeks and she smiled as they changed to the strawberry color. Asher was certain he shouldn’t allow himself to get lost in her blue eyes so he focused on the old fashioned camera hanging from Violet’s neck.

However when Violet went to her toes and traced over soft spot on Asher’s neck he was gone for. Her lips connected to the area, and Asher knew what was coming. She played this game daily with him because she deep down in her own heart knew that she loved him. She loved him like the night sky loved the stars. She wasn’t right or as beautiful without him.

But as her lips placed patterns on his delicate skin and chills went through his body Violet thought of the night neither of them spoke about. Not the night they had drunkenly hooked up on, but the night of the Christmas party last year. The one with her parents, and her grandparents, and the night of the car accident.

Violet and Asher had been up in her room waiting for the party to leave. Because as much as she loved her family, she loved Asher more. And her family had very much asked her to “leave the trash outside,” She didn’t care what her family thought of course because Asher had known her better than anyone. Her family hadn’t realized Asher was saving there daughter because quite possibly she was the trash.

But when her father had come up to check on Violet and tell her that Grammy was about to leave it seemed he forgot Asher was there. So when he opened the door and Grammy was behind him seeing the boy with his brown hair a mess, black all up and down, with leather bracelets on his wrist, standing by a window in Violet’s room with a Green Day CD her heart had stopped.

Violet had been wearing her blonde hair in a bun with a pink ribbon around her head. A grey skirt and stripped pink and white shirt-long sleeved of course- with her knees to her chest on her bed. She had been forced to dress like this around her grandparents because god how they would have felt to see her naturally. Probably tell her she worshipped the devil.

“Violet Rose!” Violet cringed at her double flower name. Her parents must have been having a bad trip when Violet popped out she thought, and of course she was wrong because her parents were good Christian people just like Grammy.

Violet wasn’t even sure how it had all happened but the door was slammed in dad and Grammy’s face and her window was opened. Her bag was thrown over her shoulder, now dressed in skinny jeans and an old t-shirt with black converse. Her blonde hair falling back onto her shoulders. Asher was waiting in the driveway for her while she scaled the side of her house to get away.

As Violet still worked on Asher’s neck she pressed harder remembering detail’s of that night. She must have forgotten they were in public because she bit down leaving a purple mark. Asher sucked in a sharp breath and let his head fall back in bliss while he grabbed at Violet’s sides.

“Faster!” Violet had yelled as they drove down the freeway. They didn’t know where they were going and they really didn’t care. The back of Asher’s bike had always made Violet feel better, and that was a good thing about Florida, it was never too cold for a ride on the motorcycle.

Asher obeyed her not because he was scared, or because he didn’t think it was a bad idea. He did it because as he watched the speedometer reach 90 he felt Violet relax. He was sure now that Violet would never admit she loved Asher because her family would disapprove, and as much as she said it, she would never hate them. And she would hate to disappoint them. And Asher could deal with that.

Apparently though Asher has been so deep in his thoughts of the cruel people raising his beautiful Violet that he had forgotten he was driving the motorcycle with his love on the back. So when he lost control and ended up in a ditch without Violet his heart stopped.

Asher hardly remembered the night because the bike had landed on his and he suffered severe head injuries along with outside ones and some minor internal-bleeding. But Violet had been thrown from the back of the bike and had safely landed on a pile of fallen leaves and dead grass with only a small cut on the forehead and a sprang wrist. And that’s when Asher thought that maybe Violet had been sent to him from the heavens because she had to be a angel to still be okay.

It had taken weeks for Asher to be released from the hospital, but in that time Violet never left his side. As he would drift in and out of sleep she would be smiling at him, frowning or her head would be laid on his bed with her hand around his wrist. But not only had that happened.

After Violet was forced to go get some real food and sleep for twenty-four hours, her parents had visited him. Violet’s father had told him that Asher was lucky to have survived that and he was lucky Violet’s dad didn’t kill him for his stupidity. Violet’s mother kind of just cried and slapped Asher’s shoulder. As much as she said she hated Asher, she knew that to her, he was a second son because Jarrod was never home and Asher had fixed her daughter. She wasn’t as stupid as Violet thought.