Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
It hurt my heart not to be in contact with them, not to share my new home with them, not to send my grandmother photos of the outfit I wore to the first day of classes—she had wonderful style and followed fashion week like it was the Super Bowl.
I hoped with everything in my heart that my grandmother would believe my mother. That I wouldn’t be forced to lose almost all of my family in one fell swoop.
Again, the ache of that prospect, my inner turmoil over Elden and everything that happened in France was swirling inside of me as I partied and commenced my first week of classes.
They were tough. I shouldn’t have expected much else considering I was taking the maximum amount of courses and majoring in architecture at an Ivy League school, but I’d been a little spoiled with the European approach to learning and life in general. Everything was slower there. There wasn’t that frenzied urgency to be the best, the idea that there was only a certain amount of places at the top, and if you paused, if you made time for rest, then you’d forsake that spot to someone who wanted it more, someone who hustled harder.
Again, it was a good thing because the less time I had to think the better.
I had not heard from Elden since I told him to lose my number, and him not calling meant he was respecting my wishes. But still, when I went to sleep, it was fantasizing about him turning up at my door—in the rain because it made it more dramatic—while declaring that he couldn’t think without me then carrying me into my room and claiming me.
That did not happen.
But the rain did.
A torrential downpour—apparently, a record amount for the area in one hundred years—began just as I was driving home.
The anxiety began the second the first rain drop hit the windshield, and was an absolute wreck by the time the downpour was in full effect. It was hard to breathe, my fingertips numb from my ironclad grip on the steering wheel. My vision blurred.
It was one of the worst attacks I’d had, most likely made worse by all of the emotions I’d been ignoring the past weeks. Had it really only been … eight weeks since my life changed so completely? Though a therapist might not agree with me, I was proud that this was my first mental breakdown.
From somewhere faraway, my phone buzzed, and on autopilot, I pressed answer on the car’s screen.
“Are you driving?” the voice rumbled through my car, battling against the hammering sound of the rain and my sobs.
I could suddenly feel my fingers again, and I could breathe underneath the weight on my chest, his voice floating into all those chaotic places and creating a state of calm.
“Elden?” I hiccupped. Even in my current state, it felt nice saying his name. I hadn’t even let myself think it. I’d been trying something different.
It hadn’t been working.
“Yeah, baby, it’s me,” he said, his voice gentler than I’d ever heard it.
“Why are you calling me?” I asked, my heart rate slowing further as the road came into more stark detail, though I still couldn’t see more than the distortion of taillights.
“Are you driving, Violet?” he repeated, voice still gentle.
I nodded, focusing on the road but also on the tenor of his voice. Things got slower. The world no longer seemed like it was going to implode.
Then I realized he couldn’t see me nodding. “Yes, I’m driving,” I told him. “I had a full day of classes and I forgot to eat and my roommate said she really felt like burritos from the good Mexican place,” I babbled, letting my grip loosen a tad on the steering wheel.
“You see, there’s a Mexican place that’s fifteen minutes closer to our house where we go to in a pinch, but if we’re really stressed or just super hungry, one of us always goes to the good Mexican place.” I took a deep breath. “We have a rotation,” I continued. “It was my turn today.”
At some point during this tirade, my heart rate had almost completely returned to normal, and I didn’t feel like I was about to die.
“How far from home are you, baby?”
Again, his tone was even, deep, moving through the air like honey, smoothing itself over all of my ragged edges.
It was only then that I realized he was calling me ‘baby.’ He had no reason to call me ‘baby.’
I was not his baby. He told me that I was nothing to him the last time I saw him.
But he was calling me. It was raining.
I blinked away my tears as realization dawned. He had been watching the weather forecast, so he knew it was going to rain today. And he called me. Because he remembered what I’d said about the rain.