We Were Lightning (Landslide Book 3: Violet)

Chapter Six

Hello Hello! I'm bored at my girlfriend's family's house awaiting her brothers birthday party, so I thought I'd post! We're picking back up in the present with Emery and Violet at school. 

Enjoy!

Chapter Six: Present

We make it to the office just before the professor came in to collect the papers.

"Right on time, Violet. I'll take that," Professor Banks says holding out her hand with a smile. "Have a good night."

"You as well, professor." I smile politely back as she walks out of the office. I let out a puff of breath in relief. We had walked over here in near silence, not sure how to do small talk with each other when there were much bigger things that needed to be said.

"I think the building closes soon," Emery's head peers into the office. I nod and follow her out of the building to the walkway. The sun is setting behind the library washing the campus in a warm orange glow. Emery's dark brown eyes turned golden as the ray of lights hit them. My breath is caught in my throat for a moment as I take in just how beautiful she is. Not that my brain ever let me forget, but over time the edges of those images were blurring. To have her right in front of me but not nearly close enough...it is a special kind of torture.

"Are you going home?" I ask her and gesture in the direction of the commuter's lot.

"Yeah, probably, why?" She tilts her head, her brown hair falling in front of her face. She pushes it behind her ear.

"I'll walk with you, I'm heading back to the library for a while." Emery looks at the clock on her phone and gives be a pointed look.

"It's almost 10 o'clock, Violet." She puts her phone back in her pocket. "Even you need to relax every once in a while."

"Oh," I blush, my lips twitching up in the corners. "My roommate probably has someone over right now or she will soon, I don't really want to walk into that, you know?"

"Oh, my god." Emery laughs holding a hand to her stomach. "You get sexiled?"

"I...what?"

"You get exiled, so she can have sex?" I nod. "Oh please, come on, you have as much a right to that room as she does." She grabs my hand and starts dragging me toward my dorm. "Honestly, Violet, you used to be such a badass, what happened?"

"I'm not sure you want to know."

"Can't be any worse than what happened to me," She says with a shrug my hand still wrapped in hers. I flinch at the words and try to keep my expression as neutral as I can. We don't say anything else as we wind our way across campus to Spruce Hall. Eventually her hand falls from mine as we near the building. I key our way up to my room that's on the third floor and all the way at the end of the hall. The discolored blue carpet is covered in stains much like the tan walls on either side of us. A few panels from the ceiling are missing due to a rowdy bunch of drunk lacrosse players jabbing their sticks into them a few nights ago. That wasn't a fun hall meeting to sit through.

My name sits in a horribly cut out flower next to my roommate, Heather's, name. The number 343 is crooked but thankfully still on the door. I key in and push the door open to find it dark and, thankfully, empty. No moans, groans, or other bodily noises coming from anywhere in the room. I flick the light on and let the fluorescent washout all corners of the room. I blink rapidly trying to adjust from the dimly lit hallway.

"Well, I obviously beat her back," I say dropped my bag at my desk and kicking my shoes off under my bed. "You don't have to stay, I'll be fine." I turn around and see Emery staring at my desk. I have a little lamp sitting in one corner, a pile of papers opposite of it, but along the back edge of the desk are two picture frames. One has my mom, my brother, and I from Christmas. Tyler is getting taller, his hair much darker than the vibrant red that I have. My mom is smiling wider than either of us. We look like a happy family, and for the first time in a long time, we were.

But Emery isn't looking at that picture frame. She's looking at the one next to it. The one that holds a picture of the two of us. Our backs were leaning up against a wall in the courtyard at Elmsfield High School. Both of our faces were buried deep in the books we held in our hands. Emery had one of her hands resting on my thigh and I had one hand on hers. It was soft, intimate, and of course her yearbook friend Grayson captured the moment. He sent it to the two of us later, but I'm not sure if Emery still had it.

"You have a picture of us," She whispers as she picks it up.

"I do." I keep my eyes trained on her as she stares in awe at the picture. I can't read her, not like I used to. I'm terrified she's going to run. Some kind of karmic retribution that would be.

"Why?" She says finally looking back up at me, our eyes locking. A sad smile tugs at the corners of my mouth, my heart hammers against my ribcage like its begging to me let out. I feel my whole body vibrating out of fear of the unknown because as soon as I say these words, I open a whole new door to a conversation I'm not sure either of us were ready for.

Deep breath. Take the plunge.

"Because, I missed you."  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, shit. Violet finally took a big step and maybe it'll lead them to opening up about what happened between them and while they were gone. 

I hope you peoples liked it and, as always, let me know what you think.

Also, also, is the back and forth between past and present confusing? Especially between longer periods of time? Would it be helpful to put a quick recap/where we left off in the present? Let me know!