Fix me

Chapter 29

Song on the side........................................................................................................................................................

Chapter 29

I left soon after we returned back. Amy had invited me to stay for dinner, but I turned her down. I could see it in her eyes and the way Lucas was staring at me that I had long worn out my welcome.

Hunter had driven me home, walking me up to my front door. Like an average date.

“Will you be okay?” I asked him, out breaths mixing together.

He took my hand, impacting slim fingers and the unscarred knuckled of a girl still learning to fight back. “I’ll have to be,” He said softly, leaning in and pressing a soft kiss on my lips with a whispered, “I love you,” before leaving me with my eyes still closed and my chin tilted up.

I watched his car pull away, biting my lip and flying a million miles away.

It was nearly dark by now and I knew my father was at work and I would be home alone with my mother. The thought unsettles me. My parents had been . . . closer since her confession. It was like my dad had just been waiting for someone to state what had been on all of our minds during the past 12 months now and was happy now that it was said and done with, accepting it even.

And I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

He began talking to her, standing within five feet of her, looking her in the eye. Like nothing had even happened. Like she hadn’t taken his heart with her when she left.

I opened the door to the sound of laughter drifting in from the family room, a laugh I had not heard in so, so many months. A laugh that I could hardly believe I still recognized. It was a laugh that was so unexpected that I stopped, still standing with the door wide open behind me, my arm extended, and my lips slightly parted.

It was a laugh ringing with late night talks and campfire songs and brownie baking and song singing and sixteen years of life.

“Mom?” I called, not able to stop myself as my through clogged with memories and I choked on recollection while tears blurred my vision.

The laughter stopped, a bated breath. “Violet?”

My feet began moving without me telling them to towards the family room. “Mom?
 I called again as I turned the corner and slammed right into a brick wall.

Jeremy stood from his seat next to my mom on the couch, stretching his arms high over his head. His eyes collided with mine, glinting. He smiled. “Hi,” He said, completely terrifying.

“W-what-?”

“Violet, why didn’t I know that you were going to Vanessa’s house after school?” my mom asked, her face still flushed and her lips still quirked up in a small smile.

“W-what?” I repeated, dumbfounded. My gaze could not not not leave Jeremy and his wandering eyes, swallowing me whole.

“Jem stopped by about an hour ago. He saw that I was worried about you and told me you went to Vanessa’s house. Does Dad know that you went?”

I couldn’t remember ever forming thoughts in my head before. I had always been in this comatose state, and I had never been anything other than a carrot. Why why why why would he cover for me like that? What was he trying to do? Why was he doing it here?

Someone stole my tongue and I couldn’t speak.

Mom stared at me, waiting for an answer to a simple question that was an impossible task. “Violet?”