The Certainty of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #5)

‘Talk about what?’ Greyson joins us from seemingly out of nowhere, sweat on his brow and in his hair. His shirt has some on it too, yet he looks content with his tired, sweatiness.

‘Nothing, hence why I said I don’t want to talk about it,’ I tell him, picking up my coffee, ready to bail. I’ll tell Luke I had to run somewhere. Lie. Problem is, after last night, he’ll freak out I’m sure and I don’t want to do that to him.

‘Luke told Violet he loves her,’ Seth announces and I shoot him a dirty glare as he slaps his hand over his mouth. ‘Sorry. I’m a terrible liar though.’

‘What?’ Greyson sounds more hurt than excited. He steps in front, blocking my path out of here. ‘When did that happen?’

I pick at my purple fingernail polish. ‘I don’t know, like a couple of weeks ago.’

The hurt in his eyes magnifies. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

I shrug, guilt burning in my chest. ‘Because there wasn’t much to tell.’

There’s a pause then he grabs my good arm and tugs me to the corner of the gym that smells worse than the mat. Seth calls out to him, but he ignores him.

‘What happened?’ Greyson asks, standing in front of me, so I’m kind of trapped in the corner. A corned cat, that’s what I am. And one that wants to run.

‘He said,’ I make air quotes. ‘’I love you’ … I couldn’t say it back.’

‘Yeah, okay.’ A slow breath escapes his lips as he nods at something he must be thinking inside his head. ‘Couldn’t because you don’t love him? Or couldn’t because you just couldn’t say it back yet?’

I wish I could say the latter, that I was the kind of person capable of love and just needed more time, but I honestly don’t know. ‘I’m not sure which one.’

He gives me a sad look. ‘Violet, I know love can be scary and everything, but it’s scary in the amazing, steal your breath, feels like your flying kind of way. You shouldn’t be afraid of it.’

‘I’m not afraid of it.’ My heart begins to do panicked dance inside my chest as emotions singe through my veins. ‘Just confused what it is.’

I don’t want to have to say it – that I don’t even know what love is. That the last time I felt loved and truly loved someone was when I was five and my parents were still alive. Greyson knows enough about my past that he can perhaps figure this out on his own. Please, please figure this out on your own so I don’t have to say it aloud.

I don’t know if he figures it out or not, but he steps back and drops it.

We head back to the mat when suddenly his eyes light up. ‘I have an idea,’ he says, his sullen mood vanishing.

My mind is swimming with too many emotions. I’ve been trying not to do it, to run off and seek some sort of dangerous thrill in order to calm myself the fuck down. But it’s been two weeks, two weeks of piled up emotions, heavy, painful emotions. ‘Oh yeah …’

He nods then motions at me. ‘Follow me.’

I don’t want to follow him. I want to run out the door – the door that I can see, so close, I just need to step toward it. But what happens when I get outside? What happens when I decide to dive into the water this time and I don’t make it out? Or what if I make it out and Preston is there and this time a crowd doesn’t show up?

‘Hey, Violet.’ The sound of a female voice greeting me forces me to turn my head away from the door. I’ve reached the mat area in my daze and Seth, Greyson and Callie are all standing near me, like we’re at camp and attempting to form some sort of friendship circle. I feel like we should be holding hands and singing. Seriously.

I give Callie a tight smile. It’s not that I don’t like Callie. It’s just that things are a little weird between her and me since we shared a dorm freshman year and she thought I was a prostitute. Really I was selling drugs, but I let her believe that I was a whore because I never really cared what people thought of me – still don’t. But I was kind of mean to her sometimes; although my argument is it wasn’t just her I was rude to, but everyone.

I’m about to bail, figuring I’ll let them do their thing and I can go do mine when Greyson says, ‘Callie, you should show Violet some of your kickboxing moves. I think it’d be good for her to let a little steam out.’ It seems funny to me, Callie teaching me to kickbox. She’s about four or five inches shorter than me, brown hair, blue eyes, thin – basically a little tiny thing. Yeah, I’m thin myself, but I look rough around the edges. But looks can be deceiving and I’m guessing from the way everyone is acting, she’s got some hidden badass kicking skills.

‘Why does everyone think I have anger issues?’ I ask, fixing my hair tie, wondering if they all know about my twisted past and the issues going on between Luke and I. Just the news alone will give them details about the case so I’m guessing they at least know my history. Maybe that’s why they think I have anger issues. Either that or Luke told them something, but I doubt he’d do that to me, especially when he has his own secrets I’m pretty sure he doesn’t share with them.

‘Um, because you do,’ Seth says with an eye roll.

Callie shoots him a warning look. ‘Don’t be rude,’ she says like I’m something precious and can’t handle a little bluntness.

I almost laugh at the idea, but restrain it, thinking about how I couldn’t handle it at therapy the other day. ‘Yeah, well do you too,’ I tell Seth in a lame attempt to get the attention off of me. Besides, I’ve seen Seth angry before, many, many times.’

Seth rolls his eyes again. ‘Honey, I have the exact opposite of anger issues.’

I cross my arms and give him a conniving look. ‘Oh yeah, tell that to the Silver Linings Playbook DVD.’

Greyson looks at him aghast then points a finger at him. ‘That was you.’

Seth aims me a dirty look and I smile innocently back at him. ‘Hey, it was a total accident.’ But he sighs as soon as he says it. ‘Okay, that’s a lie. But the damn thing wouldn’t play.’

‘That was one of my favorites.’ Greyson shakes his head. ‘And you broke it in half.’

‘I’ll buy you a new one today. I promise,’ Seth says and Greyson nods and lets it go. Then Seth turns to me. ‘You are paying for half of that for ratting me out,’ he hisses, not really mad, just being a drama mama as he put it early.

‘No freaking way,’ I retort. ‘I didn’t break the DVD. You did.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Seth replies. ‘If you kick the bag a few times, I’ll let it go. But they have to be bad ass ninja kicks.’

‘Why does everyone keep pushing me to do this?’ I ask. ‘Yeah, I have anger issues. So what? Kicking some damn bag is not going to do anything for me.’

‘Oh, but it will,’ Seth assures me while Greyson wanders back to this large boxing bag dangling from the ceiling over the center of the mat. ‘I know these things. I took a psych class.’

‘I’ve taken three different ones,’ I tell him. ‘And that wasn’t mentioned in any of them.’

‘Three different classes?’ Seth gapes at me. ‘Really.’

I shrug as Greyson calls out, ‘Violet’s a badass when it comes to classes. Don’t let her looks and attitude fool you, she’s a smart girl.’

Wanting to get off that subject of me, I sidestep around Seth and walk up to the bag. ‘Fine, I will kick this damn thing a few times, but only if we can stop talking about me, my brain, and my anger issues.’

‘Deal.’ Greyson moves behind the bag and puts his hand on it to hold it in place. I don’t know why. Damn bag is big as hell. I’m sure I’m not going to be able make it budge.