When You Come Back to Me (Lost Boys #2) - Emma Scott Page 0,74
“But you’re so good at it. Like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.”
“It’s wasteful, right? To want to throw it all away?”
I waited for her to tell me yes. That I needed to get my shit together and do the right thing for my dad and my career. But Violet shook her head, her eyes clear and honest.
“Well, no. Not if it makes you unhappy. What do you really want to do?”
I lay back and stared at the ceiling. “You’ll laugh. Or think I’m a huge dork.”
She smirked. “As someone who dabbled in not being a dork for a short time until Evelyn Gonzalez returned me to the Land of Dorks from whence I came, you have my word.”
We shared a laugh, and I told her my dream of living here, working at the shop, and starting a family, and how my father would be crushed to know I’d give up football in a heartbeat to have it.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” I said. “I don’t know why I even told you, except that I feel comfortable with you.” I grinned. “Just not when we’re kissing.”
She laughed. “Story of my life.”
We both stared at the ceiling, settling into a deeper friendship that already felt more real than anything I had with my other friends. Like Donte. His insinuations rattled in my head, and Holden felt so far away.
“So Violet.”
“So River.”
“Since we’re both secretly dorks in disguise, how about we go to Prom together?”
A laugh burst out of her. “Oh, sure. Why not?” She glanced at me, and her smile fell. “You’re serious?”
“As the plague. We’d just go as friends.”
“Don’t you have a gaggle of girls waiting for you to ask them out?”
I nearly laughed out loud at how Holden would react to that question.
“Ha, no. Honestly, I don’t even want to go—”
“Way to sell it to me, Whitmore.”
I laughed. “Sorry. I mean. I do want to go, for my parents’ sake. Dad keeps asking which girl I’m bringing…and Mom loves you. We should go. It’s our senior year.”
Violet pretended to think. “I seem to remember a certain other dance that you were supposed to take me to and then didn’t.”
“I know, I’m so sorry. But this is how I make it up to you.”
“I suppose,” she said and was quiet for a moment. “I’ll go to the Prom with you. But only as friends.”
Of course, only as friends. Our awkward tumble in my bed made it painfully clear I had nothing else to give, and I wasn’t about to toy with Violet’s heart. My douchebaggery had its limits.
“Just friends.” I grinned and touched a small cut on my lip. “Safer for me that way.”
Violet rolled her eyes. “I’m never going to live this down, am I?”
I nudged her arm. “It’s already forgotten.”
A short, comfortable silence settled between us, and I felt the integrity and honesty of this girl. Violet was smart. Kind. She wanted to be a doctor. You could tell things to a doctor and they couldn’t repeat them. Like a priest. When I told her my football secret, I felt it in my bones that she’d keep it safe.
If I told her about Holden…
“Violet?”
“Yeah?”
“About Homecoming…”
“What about it?”
The words were there, ready to fall. I sighed them out instead. There was nothing left between Holden and me except the constant ache of missing him. Like a low-grade fever that never went away. He’d kicked me out of his life, and mine was on track with iron rails, no way to change course.
“I’m sorry I ditched you, Violet.”
She frowned. “You’ve already apologized a hundred times.”
“I know. I just…I kind of miss you.”
“You do?”
“I know we never talked much but when we did, it was…good. Do you think we could keep talking? Now and then?”
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
“Me too.”
Chapter Seventeen
Saturday afternoon was so dull and boring, I actually found myself looking up UCSC’s Creative Writing program requirements and application process. The deadlines had all passed but there were summer programs and spring admissions.
The requirements looked easy enough. For shits and giggles, I’d taken the SAT and passed with a 1590. (I shaved a little off the top so the other students wouldn’t feel bad about themselves.) My AP exams were all perfect and I could write the UCSC application essay with my eyes closed.
And if they didn’t like my essay, I could get in the old-fashioned way and donate my way in.
For a moment, I let myself have a different life than the one I was set on. According to one colorful