parking lot, and the car hadn’t been going very fast. Otherwise, I could have ended up with much more severe injuries...like she had.
And Leo and Tristin had been there to witness the entire thing. No wonder they’d been so protective of me over the last couple of weeks. The incident must have been traumatic for them on multiple levels, and I’d been so wrapped up in our other drama, I hadn’t taken the time to think about how it might have affected them.
Self-involved much?
That was a big, fat yes.
Turning my attention back to Violet, I said, “Thank you. This is a really thoughtful gift, and I’m excited to try it out.”
She smiled. “You’re welcome. I know I haven’t earned your trust, but if you ever need someone to talk to about what happened, I just want you to know I’m here.”
“I appreciate that.”
The truth was, I didn’t yet know how I would react to existing out in the real world again. I’d convinced Leo to take me out for ice cream yesterday, just to get out of the townhouse, and it hadn’t exactly gone well. While I hobbled into the shop on my crutches, a car passed behind me in the parking lot, and I flinched so badly, I lost my balance and almost tumbled into the sidewalk. If Leo didn’t have such quick reflexes, I’d probably be sporting a broken arm right now.
At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, I looked that direction. Tristin was jogging down the stairs but stopped the moment he caught sight of Violet.
“Oh, I, uh, thought Petra—” He shook his head. “I’ll just go—” He started to turn, but I watched as he froze and closed his eyes before descending the rest of the stairs. “Actually, Violet, I’d like to talk to you for a minute, if you don’t mind.”
Her already-large eyes widened to cartoon-level huge, but she croaked, “Sure. Of course.”
I glanced down at my leg propped on the chaise part of the couch and then back up at Tristin. “Do you want me to go?” I was getting around fairly well now, though it was still slow going. It would probably only take me about three minutes to get upstairs.
“No, I want you to hear this too.”
He took a seat next to me on the couch, and I could practically feel the tension rolling off of him. After staring down at his hands for a few moments, he looked directly at Violet. “This is long overdue, but I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for what happened that night.”
Her eyebrows scrunched in obvious confusion. “Leo told me the truth. I know you weren’t driving.”
Tristin shook his head. “Not for the accident. For what happened before.”
“What do you mean?”
He sucked in a deep breath before slowly releasing it. “I saw you at the party. Those guys you were with were feeding you shots, and it was clear that you weren’t reacting well to the alcohol.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I could have—should have—intervened, but I did nothing. I’m sorry. I might not have been driving, but I was still responsible for what happened to you.”
Violet blinked at him, appearing as speechless as I felt. Had he been holding on to guilt over that this whole time? It was misguided, sure, but it also made a little too much sense. He hadn’t reacted so strongly to Violet’s presence in Western Civ that first day because she was a constant reminder of juvie.
No, he’d felt responsible for her accident this whole time, and even eighteen months of punishment hadn’t been enough to erase those feelings of guilt.
And I was flat-out stunned.
I’d managed to convince myself that there was nothing more than a trace of the sensitive boy I’d known left in him, if that. But I’d been wrong.
Tristin had been hurting this whole time, and that knowledge made me ache for him. He’d overcompensated by pushing everyone away, but who could blame him? The last couple of years had been hard, but they hadn’t made him hard.
Not really.
He’d built up an armor of steel around his chest, but his heart was still under there, beating as loudly as ever.
It just took until this moment for me to hear it.
Violet gave him a gentle smile. “Probably fifty people saw them feeding me shots. You’re no more responsible than any of them.”
Tristin clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Maybe, but I still could have prevented your accident, and I didn’t.