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“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.
My vision cleared completely.
“Why are you calling me?” I whispered.
“Why haven’t you eaten all day, Violet?”
I frowned at the road in front of me. “How do you know that?”
“You told me, before explaining the difference between the Mexican places.”
I let out a sigh. “I’ve been busy.”
“You shouldn’t be too busy to fuckin’ eat, baby,” he grunted.
“You shouldn’t care,” I snapped. “Don’t even get me started on the things you shouldn’t be doing. Riding a motorcycle without a helmet … recipe for a brain injury if you don’t die immediately. And smoking. Like, who smokes anymore? Yes, it may look cool, and you pull it off like a bearded, biker James Dean, but the lung cancer is not cool or sexy.” I sucked in a deep breath. “And don’t call me baby,” I added as an afterthought.
There was a long silence on the phone, and I feared for a moment that he’d hung up. Anxiety crept up my throat.
“How far are you from home?” he asked, obviously choosing not to argue with me at this point.
I let out a dramatic sigh.
“Ten minutes, maybe less if I go a little faster.”
“Don’t drive any fuckin’ faster,” he ordered.
Something skipped inside of me at the firmness of his words, remembering when he’d demanded I take off my dress.
Though I liked to think I was in the driver’s seat of my own life—and right now I was literally in the driver’s seat—something inside me relaxed when Elden took control.
I let off the gas just a little.
“Are you going to hang up now?” I asked in a small voice, terrified that I’d lose him.
“No, Violet,” he replied firmly. “I’m gonna be right here until you pull up to your house.”
Something inside of me relaxed. No, everything inside of me relaxed.
The rain battering the windshield was the only sound for a long time. “Are you afraid of anything?” I finally asked.
There was a small pause before he answered. “Besides somethin’ happenin’ to you?”
My heart skipped, and I did my best not to latch onto that
