AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Eleven
Violet
The next day dawned vibrantly. The sun’s rays woke Violet up from her fitful sleep. It was as if the sky had decided to brighten in response to her and Charlie’s feud finally being put to an end.
Violet got up, rubbing her eyes. Roo immediately noticed she was awake and came to get attention. She pet the cat absentmindedly as she tried to make sense of everything. It had taken her a long time to fall asleep. She kept turning over everything said in her mind, trying to make sense of it all.
But, in the end, she had finally dozed off with no more understanding than before.
She went to wash her face, trying to get any traces of the more stubborn parts of her makeup from the wedding. Then she checked to make sure Liv was okay in Mexico for her honeymoon. Once she saw the couple was happily in honeymoon land, she started her morning routine.
When she was done, she felt more awake. She opened her purse and checked her gift card stash. She only had one left.
She had been avoiding cooking in Charlie’s house. His kitchen was near his room and was his space. She didn’t want to encroach on that.
One option would be to use her renter’s insurance and continue going out to eat. But she was sick of fast food. One more burrito and she might lose it.
Another was to go into downtown at rush hour to use Liv and Lewis’s apartment. But that would easily add an hour to her commute.
By far, the easiest option would be to use Charlie’s kitchen. They had promised to be friends, after all. Friends asked each other to use their kitchens… right?
But Violet had no idea what a friendship with Charlie was going to look like. And even if it wasn’t Charlie, who she had a complicated relationship with, she hated doing stuff like this. She hated asking for help.
And yet, she had to. Just the thought of rush hour traffic or food from any fast-food restaurant made her want to barf.
So, she was going to ask Charlie for a favor.
She could only hope it went well.
Violet knew Charlie got up around the same time as she did. From the window in the guest room, she could see him leave for a jog each morning at the same time. Violet usually huddled in the guest room and then snuck out while he was gone, but this morning she was going to try to wait.
Violet was nervously waiting next to the dining room table when Charlie got back. He was out of breath from his run, taking his earbuds out and not even noticing Violet was there.
He looked put together. He didn’t look like he had broken up with his longtime girlfriend. But then again, maybe he was hiding it. He turned to her after a moment, doing a double take when his eyes slid over her in the dining room.
“Hey," Charlie said. “Aren’t you late?”
“Um, not really. I usually leave to go get breakfast around this time.”
“Are you skipping breakfast today or something?”
“More like I ran out of gift cards for places.”
“What?” Charlie asked.
“My coworkers gave me a lot of gift cards when my apartment collapsed. I had been using them instead of cooking because I don’t have a kitchen right now.”
“But… you do have a kitchen. It’s right in there.”
“I didn’t know if I could use it.”
Charlie stared at her, and Violet internally cringed.
She needed permission to be able to do things. It had started when her mother had gotten strict on money, and every cent counted. Violet was used to folding herself into a corner and melting into the background. Sometimes it worked, but this time, Charlie was looking at her with the same, strange expression Liv always did.
Liv grew up with a loving family. She didn’t get screamed at for wasting food or leaving a mess. So, to her, Violet worrying so much about being a burden was a weird quirk. She even joked about it a few times.
Violet didn’t know where Charlie would land on it, and this was too sore of a subject for him to rib her on.
