Page 109 of Almost Yours
The line rings three times, and I almost think she’s not going to answer. Then?—
“Rowan?” Her voice is thin, frayed at the edges.
I close my eyes for half a second, grounding myself before I respond. “Yeah. It’s me.”
There’s a shaky exhale on the other end. “I didn’t think you were going to call back.”
“I almost didn’t,” I admit, glancing over at Violet. She’s watching me with sympathetic eyes. “But I am now, so listen to me. If I come out there, it’s not to do what we did last time. That doesn’t work. You know it doesn’t.”
A sharp inhale. “You don’t understand?—”
“No,” I cut in. “I do.”
I pace a few steps, boots crunching softly in the hay. My chest is tight, but not in that panicked, out-of-control way I remember. This is controlled. Intentional.
“If you want me to come out there,” I continue, “that’s the deal. Otherwise, I’ll find you a number, someone local, but I’m not getting on a plane just to watch you spiral again.”
The line goes quiet. For a second, I think she hangs up.
“You’d really come?”
“Yeah,” I say, glancing at Violet again. My selfless, beautiful Violet. She hasn’t moved, but something in her expression eases, like she’s seeing this for what it is. “But only if you’re serious about getting help.”
“I can’t afford?—”
“I’m paying,” I cut her off, voice firm. “This isn’t a negotiation, Melissa. You called me because you need help. This is me helping.”
“Can’t I just stay with you for a bit, wherever you are? Until I’m back on my feet or whatever?”
“We did that once, and that was a mistake.” I keep my voice as even as possible. “Staying with me isn’t on the table.”
Silence, and then?—
“You didn’t seem to think it was a mistake when you were in my bed,” she seethes.
She’s grasping at anything she can right now. I expected that. It’s the kind of hit that would’ve dragged me right back into the same cycle a year ago—guilt, responsibility, fixing what was never mine to fix.
My grip tightens on the phone, my gaze drifting to Violet. She’s still sitting on the hay bale, steady, not flinching from any of this. There’s no judgment in her expression. No doubt.
She doesn’t even realize what she’s doing to me. How she makes this feel possible.
For so long, everything in me was wired to handle things alone. Keep people at arm’s length. Take the hit, fix the problem, move on before anyone got too close to the fallout. That was the only way I knew how to survive it.
But Violet stands in the middle of it with me like my past isn’t something she needs to run from, and for the first time, I don’t feel like I have to carry all of it by myself.
That doesn’t mean I get to make the same mistakes again. It means I do it differently.
Better.
My focus snaps back to the call, my voice firm when I speak again. “That’s not happening, Melissa.”
“So that’s it? I mean nothing to you?” she snaps.
“Melissa.” I pause, choosing my words carefully because I know she’s hurting, and lashing out is part of the pattern. “You were my friend. I cared about you, and I still do, which is why I’m offering to help you now. But trying to manipulate me isn’t going to work.”
For the second time, the silence stretches so long I check to make sure she hasn’t hung up.
“I’m scared,” she finally whispers, and this time I hear it—the real fear beneath all the scheming and grasping.
