Jessica Sorensen - The Probability of Violet and Luke

Just in case what?

Just in case what?

Just in case what?

The words echo inside my head over and over again until suddenly I’m seeing Preston’s face in the memory, the one where I’m in the basement and he’s yelling at Mira Price while she sings and sings and sings. So clearly. But is it just because it was suggested or did I finally put the pieces together.

“No! My mom never did drugs… they were good people…” And to me, the six year-old with beautiful dreams, they were. They were perfect. And I want to remember them that way. I want to erase everything he said, forget I ever heard it, but I can’t.

“I’m not saying they were bad,” he tells me. “People that do drugs aren’t necessarily bad people. They just made some bad choices and your mother cleaned up her act. She just struggled to erase her past.”

Like mother like daughter.

“Violet, I’d need to ask you some more questions about Preston and what’s been going on while you’ve been living there with him.” A pause. “It’s important in order for us to track him down.”

I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t see. Everything is spinning, round and round and round. All mixed up. All wrong. I can feel the truck pulling over as I gasp for air. As soon as it stops, I drop the phone seat, open the door, and fall out of the truck onto my knees. Gravel splits open my knees and the palms of my hand as I dry heave, gasping for air my lungs won’t give me.

Adrenaline overload. One I didn’t cause. But one that feels like it’s going to kill me. And honestly, I wish it would.

Luke

She’s scaring the shit out of me. She won’t talk. Will barely move. I have to lift her back into the truck. Once I get her inside and get the door shut, I climb in the driver’s side then pick up her phone off the seat, which has been ringing since she dropped it.

“Hello?” I answer, my arm moving around Violet as she lowers herself down onto the seat and puts her head on my lap. She clutches onto my jeans, still not moving, barely blinking as she stares ahead into nothingness as if she’s completely and utterly lost.

“Who is this?” someone asks on the other end of the line.

“Luke… Price.”

“Oh…” He sounds uneasy. “This is Detective Stephner. Is Violet there with you?”

“She is but she can’t talk right now,” I tell him, smoothing my hand over her head, which seems to be helping, her breathing settling just a little bit, but her eyes are still so hollow. “What exactly did you say to her?”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you that.” He pauses. “Are you guys back in Laramie yet?”

I glance at the road in front of us. “No, we’re headed back now and are about halfway there... why?”

“Well, I would suggest turning around and taking Violet with you to stay somewhere just for a few days,” he says. “Just until we can get some answers about someone.”

I continue to run my fingers up and down Violets cheek and she nuzzles into my touch. “Does this have anything to do with my mother?” I ask quietly.

“You need to talk to Violet. That’s all I’m going to say,” he replies in a formal tone. “Have her call me as soon as she calms down.”

“Okay,” I tell him then we hang up and I put the phone on the dashboard and stare down at her; her head on my lap, her eyes so full of fear. “Baby do you want to talk about it?” I ask, fighting to keep my voice even. I don’t want to push her, but I’m desperate to know if this has to do with my mother.

She shakes her head and closes her eyes as my fingers brush through her hair. “No, not yet.”

My hand pauses in her hair. “The detective… he said maybe it’d be better if you stayed away from Laramie for a bit.”

“Okay, you can leave me on the side of the road.” She’s not joking either. In fact, she sounds hopeful that I’ll do it.

I’m not sure how long I stay parked on the side of the freeway, trying to figure out what to do—where to take her. Back to Vegas? I don’t want to do that, don’t want to go back to that kind of environment. There’s only one other choice, one I have to swallow up what little pride‘s left, before I take out the phone and dial my dad’s number. He answers after two rings and I sputter it out before I back out.

“Hey, I need another favor.”

1 day later…

Luke

My dad lives in the section of town San Diego where the streets are lined with tall, slender townhomes and the streets are sloped and lined with trees. The air smells like the ocean and by the time we arrive there, it’s veering toward the next night, the sun setting, the sky painted orange and pink.

Violet barely spoke the entire drive and only moved when she got out to go to the bathroom. I took the opportunity to call Kayden and get coaches number so I could talk to him about missing the first week of practice.

“You know he’s weird about that shit,” Kayden had said, reminding me just how much I might be screwing up my perfect schedule that I’d worked so hard to maintain.

“I know,” I’d replied. “But it is what it is… I can’t make it there.”

“Can I ask why?”

“Remember when you beat the shit out of Caleb and you told me something along the lines of you were doing it because someone hurt Callie so badly? And you did it without a second thought, even if it meant your own life was going to get screwed up?”

“Yeah…” He was confused and a little uncomfortable, mainly because we don’t talk about this kind of stuff.

“Well, I’m not beating anyone up or anything, but someone needs me right now and I really don’t give a shit about football or school at the moment,” I’d said. “Only her.”

He’d paused. “Is it Violet?”

“Yeah.”

Another pause and then he’d said, “Tell coach it’s a family emergency. I did that once and even though he was pissed, he let me off the hook.”

“Thanks man,” I’d said then quickly had to hang up because Violet had returned from the bathroom and I didn’t want her to hear what I was doing and try to convince me otherwise.

“I bought some skittles,” she’d told me as she return to the truck and that was the last thing she said for the last five hours, eventually falling asleep and not even waking up when we arrived at my dad’s house—I had to carry her inside.

“I’m worried about her,” I tell my dad as I go back into the kitchen after I’ve taken Violet to the guest bedroom and laid her in the bed. I don’t want to leave her alone too long, worried that she’ll do something reckless, like she tried to do back at my uncle’s with the window incident.

I’m standing in the kitchen with my dad, tired, in desperate need of some sleep and food. I called Seth on the drive here and asked him if my dad could wire some money to his account and then if he could withdraw it and leave it in Geraldson’s mailbox per an agreement I made with Geraldson a few minutes earlier.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever will help,” he’d replied and then being him he had of course pressed for more details, which I promised him I’d tell him later if he did the favor.

It was sort of strange that I asked Seth for help. A year or so ago I would have asked Kayden to do it, but I guess things change. Seth knows some of the shit that goes on in my life too—not all but some.

“How long has she been like that?” my dad asks, sitting down on one of the barstools with a mug of coffee in front of him. It’s so strange seeing him in person again, since it’s been about a year since the last time I saw him and the first time I’ve seen him since I gave him some insight about what are mother did to me and to Amy after he left. Even a year ago, he seemed like a stranger, but he even looks different now than I remember. A little more aged, thinning brown hair, more wrinkles, thicker in the waist, but healthier—a stranger that I know and feel uncomfortable around. Thankfully it’s late enough that Trevor is in bed. I haven’t had any time to prepare myself to meet my dad, let alone his husband.