Wild Girl ✔️

chapter 16: gone

Sebastian

Two weeks had passed since I told Rose about Violet. The last time I saw her, she was shutting the door behind me with a promising smile on her lips. One that now went unkept.

Everyday, I tried to convince myself her sudden distance had nothing to do with the secret I had confessed to her. That my mind in all its fucked up glory wasn't what pushed her away. I told myself that maybe she had her own reasons, one that revolved around the secret she kept hidden.

But no matter what new excuse I fed myself, it never worked. She thought I was messed up, too, and the worst part was that I couldn't blame her. Who spends two years talking to their dead girlfriend? 

I shut my eyes against the hot water pouring down from the shower head. After spending years completely alone while guests came and went but never became anything more than that, I had finally found someone whose company I enjoyed and managed to scare her off with my own instability within a few weeks.

What is wrong with me?

The nozzle groaned as I shut the water off, standing in the tub as the cold air filtered in through the edges of the curtain.

I shouldn't have told her.

It was too late now. I shook my head and pulled back the curtain, nearly falling out of the tub face first when I spotted Violet leaning casually against the vanity, her eyes trained below my waist.

She smirked. "Now that is something I definitely do miss."

"Violet," I groaned, quickly grabbing a towel off the hook on the door and wrapping it around my waist. "What are you doing here?"

"Aside from wishing I was alive so I could touch you again?" She took a step towards me as I took a step back. Her eyebrows lifted in a challenge.

I stepped around her and opened the drawer to the vanity, pulling out a comb and running it through my hair.

"You need a hair cut," Violet chirped from beside me. I stared at her in the mirror, her face was beaming in a large smile.

"My hair's fine," I huffed, pretending it didn't drive me crazy every damn day.

"Suit yourself." Violet sat on the edge of the tub, her hands planted under her thighs as she watched me. The steam from the shower caused her short, pixie-cut blond hair to cling to her skin.

She's not real, I had to remind myself.

She rolled her eyes. "What? Am I interrupting your solo pity party? Should I leave so you can go back to sulking?"

I averted my gaze from hers and tugged the towel tighter against my waist. "I'm not sulking. I'm showering."

Violet pointed a finger at me. "You're sulking in the shower, Sebastian."

I ignored her as I ran my hand over the mirror as the heat from the shower made it fog up. Violet, completely oblivious, continued to offer her two-cents.

"You told Rose your secret and now she wants nothing to do with you." I turned around quickly, my eyebrows shooting upwards in surprise. How did she — "I like to eavesdrop," Violet explained, shrugging. Slowly, her face softened as her gaze dropped to her lap.

I didn't have to ask what she was thinking about. The betrayal was written all over her face.

"It's been two years, Vi," I said softly.

"I know."

"It was just a kiss." With that, her narrowed eyes shot up to mine.

"Your first kiss since I died, Sebastian," Violet stressed. "That wasn't just a kiss."