“That’s not what I said,” I told her, my voice hardening. “I said I wanted you to be happy. That’s all I care about. That’s all I’ve ever cared about.”
She shook her head, staring out at nothing, a thousand thoughts in her eyes. The hand on her mouth slipped around to touch the pale skin of her neck which was flushed pink. “You’ve been ignoring me for weeks, and now you kiss me…”
“And you kissed me back,” I said, my jaw clenching.
And it was everything. So much. Too much…
The familiar sounds of her parents blasting each other in muffled but loud voices rumbled up from below. Sudden and unnervin
g. Like a leaf burning in a beam of light, Violet curled up on herself, hugging her elbows and casting her eyes to the ground.
She said in a small voice. “River and I…we’re going to Homecoming.”
“So what? You don’t like him. That’s a story you tell yourself instead of…”
Loving me.
Violet lifted her eyes to me, heavy and shining. “Do you hear them? Is that what happens? It all blackens and rots away?”
Fury raged in me. At her but at myself more, because a part of me was just as fucking scared as she was. Nothing good lasts. Not your health, not the roof over your head…
Not fathers who should stay but don’t.
The thought stopped me dead, like a punch in the chest. I never let myself think of him. Ever. I pretended I was okay. I told myself his leaving hadn’t cut me to the core, but now I could see my scars were the same as Violet’s. Her parents had done nothing to guide her, either. We’d both been left out in the cold by the people who should have sheltered us the most.
I inhaled through my nose, a million fiery words burning on my tongue, and tore out of Violet’s room. Her footsteps followed behind.
“Miller, wait. What are you—?”
I found them in the kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. McNamara shouting over one another, a broken dish shattered on the floor in front of them.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
They stopped and fell silent, shocked and staring. I felt Violet slip behind me, her hand on my arm, small and trembling.
“Miller, no…” she whispered.
“Yes,” I shouted, my wrathful glare going between her parents. “Do you know what you’re doing to her? Do you care? You just fucking shout and break shit and then pretend like it’s all normal? Like she can’t hear you? Because she can and it’s fucking tearing her apart.”
The soft sounds of Violet crying behind me. Incredulous stares in front of me.
Mr. McNamara was the first to break free of his shock. “Now, hold on, young man. You can’t just—”
“Shut up!” I barked. “Shut up, for once in your lives. Shut up when you think you need to scream at each other. Shut the fuck up and spare one goddamn thought for what you might be doing to your daughter.”
I must’ve been losing it, since all of my own pain bubbled to the surface. Pain I’d tried so hard to keep buried put a red haze over my eyes. I hardly understood the words that were pouring out of my mouth. Or who I was talking to anymore.
“You can’t do that to your kid,” I raged. “You fucking can’t. You can’t just leave. You can’t go and leave behind giant fucking black holes in someone’s life that suck the light out of everything.”
“Miller?”
Violet’s hand on my arm gave me a squeeze, grounding me back to reality. I blinked the red haze away, my breath coming hard.
Jesus, what was that?
“How dare you come in here and speak to us like that,” Mrs. McNamara said in a seething tone.
“It’s about fucking time someone did. Violet won’t. She doesn’t say anything because she does what she always does. Tries to make things okay. She puts on a smile and keeps going. Working her ass off to stay ahead of whatever fucked up shit you’re up to.” My throat started to close, and I fought to keep control. “Because of you, she doesn’t believe in love. Congratulations. Job well done.”