The Destiny of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #3)

I start to get up when he flips us over, putting his body on top of me. I freeze as he stares down at me, the lights from outside barely illuminate the cab.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he mutters, tracing a line up my cheekbone. “It drives me so crazy how beautiful you are.”

It takes me a second to remember that I’ve never actually been pinned underneath a guy before. I’m always either standing or taking the top. I’ve never lay in bed beside one. Never touched a guy before just because I want to. Never kissed while feeling any sort of emotion behind it. It takes me another second or two to realize that this moment is going against all of my previous experiences. Because I’m pinned below him, being touched, and feeling something I desperately want to run away from. I don’t do normal feelings. There’s no point. Letting someone in and giving yourself to someone else has no purpose but heartache. I should shove him off and bail before he does.

But as he breathes heavily, leaning down, his lips inching nearer, I remain stationary. Frozen by fear and want. The contact of his lips only heightens the fear and desire, the two feelings mixing so persuasively that I start to weakly tremble as the walls I worked so hard to put up begin to crack. I try to keep my mouth closed as he works to kiss me, not wanting to give in, not wanting to give any part of me to him, knowing that eventually he won’t want me anymore. But as my body warms below him, I can’t help it and my lips readily part. Seconds later, his tongue slides into my mouth and he groans against my lips. It sends vibrations through my body and I shiver.

“Jesus, this feels so much better than I imagined…” he moans as his fingers tangle through my hair, tugging at the roots and it feels so good. “I need this… God…” There’s an alarming amount of panic in his voice as he breathes heavily. It’s deafeningly quiet around us and I’m about to say something, when his tongue slips back into my mouth more forcefully and his movements fill with desperation. I can barely keep up with him, gasping for air as his hands travel restlessly across my body, over my legs, my stomach, my breasts. I’m crushed between him and the seat, pinned down and I don’t do anything to escape. And I don’t want to because for a fleeting, unfamiliar, passionate, overwhelming moment, I feel safe with him over me. And I haven’t felt safe in a very long time.

I kiss him back, but don’t touch, feel him with my tongue, keeping some sort of boundary between us. I don’t think of anything else, but the taste of his breath, the blinding heat of his body. His scent: tequila, cologne, and a splash of cigarette smoke.

Then suddenly as quickly as he started, he stops, sliding to the side and nearly falling onto the floor. I turn over and look at him, his chest descending and rising as he breathes. He’s passed out and I’m left wide-awake. I lay there for an eternity, watching him sleep, knowing once I sit up I’m probably going to panic over what I just did. Reluctantly, I sit up and face the consequences of my choices, let them hit me square in the stomach.

I open the door to turn the interior light on and search the floor, the glove box, and the visor, for the keys. I want to get back to the dorm before he wakes up. I get out of the truck, leaving him in it, and backtrack to the bar, searching the ground for the keys. The farther I move away from the truck and into the dark, the less safe I feel, yet I keep going because it’s familiar. I continually curse myself for what I just did as I hunt for the keys behind cars and in the gravel, taking my cell phone out to use the screen as a light. That was not a no-strings-attached kiss. It had meaning behind it and I can’t stop thinking about doing it again, even though he probably can’t even remember doing it. It’s a bad place to be and I need to get away from it.

All I end up finding on the ground is the pack of cigarettes Luke dropped. I pick them up and tuck them into my pocket. The only other place to check is in the strip club and I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back in there.

I drag my hand across my face, deciding whether stay here and help Luke or bail out on the situation and hitchhike back to campus. I’ve hitchhiked a few times, wandered around a desolate highway more than once, and slept in the streets. But something is pulling me back to the truck, almost like I feel guilty for leaving him there. I don’t know where the feeling’s coming from. I’ve never cared about anyone before, but then again no one’s ever given me a reason to care about them. And no one’s ever made me feel safe. I don’t want safe—I need danger—because it’s easier.

As a car zooms by, I realize that just like everyone else who’s ever entered my life, Luke is just someone who will be gone by morning when he wakes up with a hangover, unable to remember what happened between us. So I hike up the road beneath the stars and the moon, with my arm out to the side and my thumb up. The possibilities of what could happen float through my mind like they always do. I could get run over. Picked up by some creeper, maybe the one on the phone. Be beaten. Murdered liked my parents. Is death in the cards for me tonight? Is that what I’m searching for?

Eventually, a sleek red car slows down and pulls up beside me. The headlights light up the darkness in front of me as I open the door and climb in. The cab smells like pine trees and there’s garbage on the floor. The driver, a thirty-something, slightly overweight, bald guy, smiles at me as he turns the steering wheel toward the road. The imaginative side of my brain wonders if he’s the guy who’s been calling me.

“Where you heading to, sweetie?” he asks as he flips on the brights, the road ahead getting brighter, yet it feels like I’m falling farther into the dark.

I stare at him, noting that his voice doesn’t sound like the guy’s on the phone. I wonder what he’ll want from me in exchange for the ride. Will he want me to suck his dick? Will he hurt me if I refuse? Try to hit on me? Or is he simple just a nice guy giving a girl in need a ride. “I’m not sure,” I mutter as he drives down the road.

“Not a problem, gorgeous,” he replies. “I know just the place where we can go, if you want to have some fun?”

I don’t respond and contentment settles in my chest as I step farther and farther into the unknown, just like I have been since I was six.





Chapter 7



Luke



I open my eyes to the stained ceiling of my truck and my body feeling like it’s been run over. My head is throbbing and my eyes sting against the sunlight shining through the window. It’s not the first time I’ve woken up in a situation like this and I’m sure it won’t be my last.

I know not to sit up quickly otherwise I’ll end up hacking up my lungs, so I take my sweet time getting upright and then move for my pocket where my cigarettes should be, but they’re gone. I start to feel the anxiety of addiction stir awake as I reach for the glove box where I keep an extra pack for emergencies just like this. Once I get one lit up and the smoke saturates my lungs, I feel a little bit better and I quickly check my insulin. Something about doing it registers a memory of Violet… helping me check my insulin… Violet giving me pills. I rarely let anyone know I’m a diabetic, not wanting to reveal my weakness, and if someone does find out, it’s usually by accident. If I’m remembering correctly, which it’s hard to tell, I’d willingly asked her for help and she willingly gave it.