by Amy Brent
“Get out of my house!” my dad yelled again.
I cringed at how loud he was. The noise level would have been so much worse in my studio than it was here. But then again, the closest neighbors were at least an eighth of a mile away.
“Okay,” Cole said. “I’ll go, but I’m still going to be there for Violet and for my child. I will do right by them. You have my word.”
He kissed my cheek and then showed himself out. Part of me wanted to grab onto him and make him stay because maybe I did need a little moral support here, but I knew my parents would never listen to me if he was still standing there. If he still stood in their home.
I knew then that was the end of their friendship. It broke my heart because they had been friends for so long, and now, here I was, ruining their friendship by getting knocked up. But I loved him. I loved him so much, and I couldn’t help it.
“How the hell could you?” my mother started to say.
I looked at her. “What Mom? What did I do now?” I was tired of the way she made me feel.
“You slept with a man that’s old enough to be your father, not to mention a serial womanizer. Or the fact that he’s your dad’s friend. I know his reputation, and I don’t even know how you could want to be with someone like that, let alone be reckless and get yourself knocked up by him!” My mom was starting to yell, and I cringed. I felt like a child, not like an adult, and I hated it.
She was making Cole out to look like some sort of evil person. It wasn’t fair.
“He’s not a serial womanizer,” I said, sticking up for him. Even though I was still upset at what he had done, I felt I couldn’t just stand here and let my mom attack him this way. He deserved to have someone stick up for him.
My mom’s eyes filled with tears, and as she began to speak, I could hear her voice crack. I didn’t understand why she was being so dramatic. I guessed that was just her thing, though. She always freaked out. Even over the smallest of incidents, she would lose her shit.
I remembered a time when I was five years old. Our housekeeper, Marie, had given me a cup of grape juice. My mom specifically lectured me on how not to spill it on my white dress because then it would be ruined and would have to go in the trash. She went on and on about how she had special ordered it for me and that it would completely break her heart if I ruined it.
I promised her I wasn’t going to spill it, and then as I took a sip, a very small drop slid down my chin and landed right on the top of my dress. It was minuscule and more than likely; no one would even realize it was there. But my mother lost it. She took the cup from me and poured the rest down the sink. She told me I couldn’t have juice or nice dresses ever again because I wasn’t responsible.
“I had plans for you,” she said.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down and choose my next words carefully, but it was hard.
“You had plans for me?” I asked her. “What the fuck does that mean? What about what I wanted?”
She looked at me as if I was dumb and didn’t actually know what I was saying.
“What you wanted was not best for our family,” she said, her voice still raised more than it should be.
Her sentence knocked me off guard. I didn’t know how to respond to that without telling her to shut the fuck up. Because it was bullshit that she could even think she had the right to plan my life out for me. I wasn’t a child anymore, and I desperately wanted her to know that.
“Now who will want you? You’re the girl that the billionaire knocked up. Do you really think he will stay with you when that baby gets here? You think he wants to be tied down? You think he is going to stick around and play happy family with you? No, he isn’t. Wake the fuck up, Violet. And get your shit together.”
“We are in love! He will stand by me, Mother!” I yelled back at her. I was tired of being treated like a child. I wasn’t a child, and she was really making my blood boil. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I didn’t want to have to deal with any of this. I just wanted to go home and hide under a rock. I wanted to hide away from the world.
My mom laughed, and I clenched my fists. I was getting so angry. I knew it wasn’t good for my baby, but why would my mom care? It’s not like she would want to make sure my unborn child, her grandchild, was okay. She just wanted to belittle me. To make me feel like a child she could control again.
My dad was staring at me. I could feel it. I wouldn’t turn to look at him because even out of the corner of my eye, I could see how disappointed and sad his eyes were. Why would I want to look at him and remember him looking at me like that?
They were treating me as if I had just committed some sort of crime. Like I had just murdered someone and told them about it. I had never ever been in trouble with the law, and I had always been very obedient. I had always listened to both of them and followed their strict rules.
Cole had been gone for just fifteen minutes, but I wished he was still there. I couldn’t handle this, my parents and the way they were treating me. The housekeeper brought my dad another brandy. I didn’t think he needed another drink, and I was not sure I wanted to stick around to see how he was after that one.
“How could you do this to your father?” my mom asked. The question knocked me off guard. It made my blood boil. I did not even look at her. I walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. I grabbed my purse from the coat rack and walked out of the front door without pausing or looking back. I didn’t need this. I didn’t need them. I kept thinking how I could do this with Cole. We could do this on our own, and we didn’t need their condescending voices breathing down our necks. We just needed each other. We needed to have faith in only each other.
It was dark, and I had no real way home, but I didn’t care. I needed to walk. I needed to clear my mind and try to get my feelings under control.
My whole life, people told me I should feel so lucky to have parents who cared about me, but if only they realized that my parents only ever truly cared about the image I set up for myself. Anything I did wrong was never discussed at home other than, “Do you understand the sort of reputation you are building for yourself? Do you understand what the tabloids are going to say?” It was endless lectures on how to do the right thing, or how I can make choices differently to be a good adult.
All I ever wanted was the type of parents I could talk to. I saw my friends in high school had that. They were close to their parents. Their parents were open books. I envied them. I had people tell me they wished they had my perfect life. But I wished I could have shown them what really went on behind closed doors.
I walked, and I walked until I couldn’t walk anymore. But by that point, I was standing outside of Cole’s house. I hadn’t realized I was headed this way until I was already at the front door. I wondered for a second if he was even here. Because there could have been a chance that he went back to New York. He could have gone back to his penthouse. But we were in the Hampton’s. So there had to have been a chance that he would still be there.
I rang the doorbell and waited. It took him thirty seconds to answer the door. And when he did, I practically leaped into his arms. I felt relief flood my body. But that relief quickly turned into sorrow and all I wanted was for him to hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay.
“Violet, what happened? Why are you here?” He pulled me into his arms tightly.
But I couldn’t respond. I was too busy sobbing. The sounds of my cries filled my own ears, deafening me. I couldn’t even think straight. I just wanted to waste away and forget that tonight ever happened. I wanted to get away from everyone and everything.
He pulled me into his house and closed the door behind him. I tried to get a grip on my emotions, and I tried to calm down so that I could talk. But I just couldn’t seem to do that. He didn’t tell me I needed to stop crying. Instead, he soothed me, making me feel better and telling me that no matter what happened he was here for me.
Chapter 27
Cole
Violet was crying in my arms, gripping me hard, like if she were to let go, she might just fall to pieces like a broken vase. Her makeup was smeared from her tears. I helped her walk over to my couch, and we sat down together. I wanted her to quit crying so she could tell me what was going on and what happened after I left. But she continued to cry, and I figured it was best to just let her.
She must have walked from her parents’ house to mine. There were no signs of any car dropping her off. She looked exhausted.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You’ve got to tell me what’s wrong.” I held her close to me, feeling her body shake against me. Her body heat was rising, and I knew it was from how upset she was.
I was growing a little concerned about our baby. How much stress could a mother endure without hurting the child? How much stress was too much for the baby? These questions rushed through my mind while I waited for her to answer me. Or for her to at least calm down. But her body continued to shake.
I didn’t ask any more questions. I just let her be. I let her have her moment and figured she needed it. I knew it wasn’t good to force someone to not have any emotions. Which was something that I figured her mother did to her often. The woman was very cold-hearted, and I knew they were never close.
I regretted telling her parents because of the stress it now put on her, but I figured she would have been just as stressed if I wouldn’t have told them. If they wouldn’t have known who the father was or that we were in love. That would have also put a lot of stress on our relationship. Maybe so much so that we would have never lasted.
She took a deep breath. I grabbed her a tissue off the table in front of us, and she used that to wipe away the wetness on her face from her tears. She was starting to calm down, and I was hoping we could talk now. I repeated my question for her.
“What’s wrong, Violet?” I asked. “Tell me. I’m a great listener.” I wiped some of the hair away from her gorgeous face.
She took another deep breath, her body trembled, and she looked at me. Her eyes were red and puffy from her hysterics. “Why did you do it?”
I cocked my head to the side. It was a small and simple question, yet I didn’t know what she meant by it. “Do what?”
“Tell him. Tell them. My parents. Why did you tell my parents?” The sentence was barely out of her mouth when she began to cry all over again, and guilt rushed through my body. I had done this to her. I had caused her to be this upset.
I tried to explain it to her as nicely as possible. “Because I didn’t want any more secrets. He needed to know. They deserved to know the truth. I think our lies and half-truths have already done enough damage. We didn’t need anymore. Especially with a baby on the way.”
I grabbed her face in both my hands. I needed her to understand that I wasn’t trying to hurt her. I needed her to know that I was doing this for both of us. That in the long run, things would work out and be okay. We just needed to get through this rough patch, and we would be okay.
She didn’t respond. She just cried harder. Her body shook from the sheer power of her sobs. It seemed like the harder I tried, the more she cried. Another wave of guilt swept over me as I desperately tried to think of something, anything, to say to make her feel better. To make her realize how much I really did love her.
“Violet, I love you. I want to build something between us. I don’t want there to be anymore destruction because of lies. Don’t you get that?”
She looked at me, and something flashed in her eyes. In an instant, the tears were gone, but her eyes were now piercing through me. She was looking at me as if I were the last person on the planet she wanted to see, and I felt a piece of my heart break again. Things had just been going so good between us, and now I could feel that I was on the verge of losing her once again.
“But I didn’t lie to them!” She yelled at the top of her lungs. “I told them that someone at work is the father of my baby. That’s true. Someone at work is the father of my baby.” She was so angry, so hurt. “I wanted to be the one to tell them. I wanted to sit down with them and calmly talk to them. Without you there and before the baby got here. I was going to tell them, but you didn’t let me.” She sounded like she was getting more and more furious with me.
But she just wasn’t realizing what I was trying to tell her. We couldn’t have these lies in our relationship. Not even the white lies. They were sometimes the worst out of all the lies.
“Don’t you remember the little lie that you told me?” I asked her. I needed her to remember that there had already been some pretty big lies, so a white lie wasn’t going to be any less damaging.
“You already forgave me for that!” she yelled.
She wasn’t understanding. Maybe the age gap was really starting to show. She was still so young and naïve. She thought that lies were the better option. But I knew that was wrong. I knew that any sort of lie could be very damaging. I was growing frustrated with her not listening to me, and I didn’t think before I spoke.
“You’ve got a pattern of behavior. Are you going to continue to lie our entire relationship? What kind of a role model will you be for a child if you continue to lie like this all the time?” But as soon as these words left my mouth, I knew I had fucked up.
I didn’t have time to process it before her hand came in contact with my face, but I figured I had pushed it a little too far. I had crossed the line with what I had said, and therefore, I deserved the slap. The sound echoed through my living room. I put my hand up to my cheek. It was a good one, and I was sure there was going to be a red handprint there.
I watched her as she slipped onto the floor in a crying heap. I got down beside her and placed my arms around her. I picked her up with the full intention of taking her upstairs and tucking her in. I wasn’t going to try anything. She obviously needed some rest. I started walking toward the stairs and then she told me to stop. So I did.
“I want to go home,” she said between sobs. I put her down, and we walked out of the house and over to my town car.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
She nodded her head.
“Please just stay here, and we can talk in the morning,” I said. “You’re just tired and need some sleep.”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I need,” she said. “If you don’t want to take me, I can walk.” She started to walk down my driveway.
I grabbed her gently by the arm. “Okay, I can take you home,” I said.
I called my driver who had been in the house. I told him not to worry about driving us. I was going to do it myself.
I helped put Violet into the car. “Do you want to go to your parents’ place or yours?” I asked her.
“My parents,” she said.
I nodded my head at her and then drove on toward her parents’ house. It wasn’t that far away, but the car was filled with a deep silence. One that was killing me. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to figure everything out, and I wanted her to know how sorry I was, but I just couldn’t figure out what to say to her.
She had her head pressed into the window and was looking outside at the world. She was still crying. They were small, almost silent sobs, but I could just make them out. The way the street lights shone on her slightly shaking body also helped give it away.
I hated that she was crying so much. I wanted nothing more than to take her pain away. The pain that I caused her. I wasn’t going to blame this on the hormones like some men might. I was ready to take full responsibility. She wanted to tell her parents herself, and I took that from her. I shouldn’t have, and now everything was completely and totally fucked up, and I was probably about to lose the best thing that had ever happened to me.
I reached my hand out and placed it on her lap. But I quickly took it back when she turned her body more toward the door and away from me. She didn’t want me to touch her, and I got that. I didn’t like it, but I had to respect it.
When I pulled up outside of her parents’ house, she got out and went ins
ide. Neither of us said anything at all, and I instantly regretted not just grabbing her and making her stay in my car. Making her stay here with me until we figured things out. I was madly in love with this girl. And things were all fucked up again.
Was it possible that our relationship was doomed? Could it have been doomed from the start? I was her dad’s best friend. I was old enough to be her father, and here I was, knocking her up and falling in love with her. Maybe our relationship was never going to be stable. Things might not work out for us and that honestly scared the shit out of me.
I drove back to my house. My big, empty mansion in the Hampton’s. The place I just had to own. The giant house on the beach that would tower over everyone else’s. The one I just had to have. The one that now made me feel even more lonely.
I pulled into the driveway and went inside. I walked up the stairs and went right into my bedroom where I laid in my big, empty king-sized bed. I laid there for hours thinking about how bad I had just fucked up and how much I had hurt the one person that actually meant something to me. How could I ever make this right? Things between us had been so up and down.
I thought about calling her and told myself that maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe some time apart might do us some good. Then I thought about last week when we were both hurt and apart. But we figured it out. We made things work out. But here we were, fighting again. My head was so confused, and my heart hurt more than it had the last time. A sinking realization dawned on me that that might have been the last time we talked to each other. The last time we saw each other.