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“Jay, you’re soaked! Let me get you a towel.” I drip water by the front door, a new pattern of mine apparently, as I wait for her to reappear with a towel.
Charlie shows up then disappears into the bedroom. He reappears a moment later with a clean set of clothes. “Here, put these on.”
The lights flicker and go out as I’m standing in Hannah’s entryway.
Charlie and Hannah laugh, but I can hear the strain in Hannah’s laughter.
Since it’s pitch black in the apartment, I peel my clothes off and change as Charlie stumbles around, trying to find where he left his phone.
“Ouch! God, we should never have put that end table there,” he tells Hannah.
She’s too busy laughing to help him.
Finally, Charlie gets a flashlight on his phone going, and we sit on the ground in the living room. It’s the furthest from any window that we can get.
“Jay, what happened?”
“I talked to Violet’s mom, but she?—”
“Oh, I should have told you as soon as you walked in. She called me a few minutes ago. She was headed back to her mom’s. She didn’t realize it was a tornado, apparently, and I think it kind of surprised her. She should be home safe soon.”
The relief that cuts through me is almost overwhelming. She’s not out of the woods yet if she was still on the road. But as of Hannah talking to her, she’s safe.
“I hope it’s soon. It’s bad out there. Really bad.”
Hannah leans into the light so that her eyes glow ghoulishly. “Why do you care so much about her?”
I nod, running a hand through my damp hair. “She’s… a good worker, and I don’t want her to get hurt because she left her shift early. If she had just stayed at The Rusty Oak, then?—”
Hannah interrupts me. “No, if anyone else had left, you wouldn’t have driven to their mom’s house to check on them.”
“Well, I also don’t have my sister breathing down my neck about my other employees.” I reach out and attempt to poke Hannah, but she dodges my finger, falling into Charlie’s lap.
They start giggling and teasing each other, and I look away. I don’t want to be here. I want to be at The Rusty Oak with my employees. Or at least know that Violet is okay.
“So she just told you that she was going home, but not that she made it?” I ask Hannah after checking my phone. She must have seen that I called her if she was talking to Hannah, but she chose not to respond to me.
I don’t blame her after the way we left things, but I wish she would at least text me and tell me that she got home safely.
“Um, let me check.” Hannah squints at her screen for a second. “Oh yeah. One minute ago, she texted me and said—” The howling wind cuts Hannah off as it bangs something against the side of the apartment building.
All of us make faces. This is not a little storm.
Hannah finally finishes what she was trying to tell me. “She said that she’s good. Home. With her mom. They’re safe.”
I hang my head forward, trying to figure out what it means that Violet didn’t text me. Does it mean she never wants to speak to me again? I don’t think I could move on without some sort of closure.
But then again, the relationships in my life aren’t up to just me.
CHAPTER 28
VIOLET
My mother stirs on the couch. The room is so dark without any lamps turned on that I didn’t even see her there, huddled up under a blanket. I switch on the lights so she can see me better.
Her leg is propped up on pillows, like a good little patient. She looks up at me with a worried expression. “Are you okay, Violet? I started to get worried about you. Did you see I called you?”
I had multiple calls from multiple people, but I’d only had time to talk to Hannah before I started driving home as quickly as I could.
