“Besides, I like seeing Chipper this happy,” he added, and she was grateful that he did what she could not do, steering the conversation away from maudlin and back to upbeat with seven words. So he hadn’t lost his social mojo after all.
“I think Barney was lonely,” she said.
He glanced over at her as she said it, and she feared he thought she was insinuating something else, something not about the dog. She hadn’t been, but how to clarify that without naming the things that sat between them, the things that had rendered them both lonely: his shame, and hers. They had that in common, too.
“I mean maybe he had a dog buddy back at my grandmother’s house,” she hurried to add. “Maybe he’s missing him.”
“Or her,” Micah said. “It could’ve been a her.” This time it was her turn to glance over at him, to wonder if his words had been some sort of hint. He gave her a playful grin, and for a moment he looked like the old Micah, the one she knew only from afar but loved just the same. Though that Micah had never deigned to speak to her, and this one—the broken version—was choosing to keep the conversation going when he’d had every opportunity to go back to playing basketball. Her brain told her not to take this to mean anything, but her heart took it anyway, seizing upon it and holding it close.
“Yes,” she managed to say, feeling momentarily brave. “It could’ve been a her.”
“Lonely no more,” Micah said, his voice so low she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
She was about to ask him what he’d said when she heard Polly call her name from across the street. In response, Barney stopped playing with Chipper and turned his head toward his master’s voice. Quickly, before he could decide to bolt over to Polly, Violet rushed over, grabbed his collar, and snapped the leash onto it. She stood up and faced Micah. “Guess I better go,” she said.
“Wanna bring him back over tomorrow?” Micah asked, and she heard the note of hope in his voice. This was nothing; she understood that. And yet, nothing could become something with time. She understood that, too. Once, that big-ass pumpkin on their porch was just a tiny seed.
“Sure,” she said. “I’m sure Barney would like that.”
He grinned and held up the basketball. “I’ll be here.”
She laughed and turned to go back home, to where her grandmother was waiting in the yard. Barney strained against the leash and the sound of the basketball bouncing resumed, and, away from Micah’s gaze, Violet let a smile fill her face.
Hours later, loud, angry voices woke her. She swam to the surface of consciousness and, groggy and confused, blinked in the darkness, trying to discern where—and whom—the voices were coming from. She sat up and listened harder. For a moment hope flickered inside her. Had her mother returned home? Disappointment quickly replaced hope when she realized it was only male voices speaking. It wasn’t her mother, and it wasn’t Polly. The angry tones continued, coming, she determined, through her open window.
She reached for her nightstand to get her glasses, slipped from bed, and moved silently across the room to where the breeze was making her sheer curtains dance. She’d fallen asleep watching them earlier, recalling Micah’s invitation to return with Barney the next day, rehearsing things she might say to him. She glanced back over her shoulder to check the time on her bedside clock: 12:37 a.m. It was the next day.
She hunched down to get a better view out the window, angling herself so no one could look up and see her face framed there, watching like a creeper. She observed two figures standing in Micah’s front yard, close to the street. The nearby streetlight provided enough light that she could clearly see them both. One of the figures was Micah. The other was Olivia Ames’s brother, Devin, who was supposed to have graduated with Casey Strickland but didn’t because he had stopped going to class after his sister died. Violet realized she hadn’t seen him at school this year and wondered if he’d just completely dropped out. That would be a shame, she thought. Another casualty of that night.
Violet watched as Devin attempted to stand still yet swayed like a tree in the wind. Micah reached out to steady him, a reflex. “Don’t you fucking touch me!” Devin yelled and, as Violet watched, threw a sloppy punch that, thanks to the element of surprise, managed to connect with Micah’s jaw—though Violet could see he’d intended to punch Micah right in the nose.
Micah staggered back, holding his jaw. “You need to go home, Devin,” he said, and as he turned to walk away, Devin tackled him from behind, felling him with ease. Violet winced at the hard thud of his body hitting the ground. Before she knew it, she was running out of her room, down the stairs, and jabbing the alarm code into the security system so she could get out her front door, thinking as she ran about déjà vu and how much this night was like the night Olivia died—the temperature, the time, the breeze—one in fall and one in spring, yet so similar. But in the spring, she hadn’t run out to Micah’s front yard. She hadn’t intervened. And she’d always regretted it.
This much she knew for certain: Olivia Ames would be alive if she had intervened. Devin Ames would’ve graduated as planned and been off at college, not facing off with Micah, drunk and confrontational, there to blame him for what had happened, ready to demand a pound of flesh in restitution. But Devin should blame Violet, too, for being too scared to admit she’d been spying on the party that night, the wallflower never asked to dance, the pitiful Cinderella not invited to the ball. And in her silence, her desire not to be exposed, she’d inadvertently allowed what had happened to happen.
By the time she arrived, Devin and Micah looked like a rolling log of a human, arms flailing and feet kicking cartoonishly. She shrieked, “Stop it!” and scanned the house, expecting lights to go on, for Micah’s parents to run out and help. But the house stayed quiet and dark, not even Chipper barked from inside. The boys continued to roll, cussing and spitting. In desperation, she reached out and grabbed someone’s shoulder—she didn’t care whose—and yanked at it roughly.
Interrupted, the owner of the shoulder looked over with puzzled indignation. Devin Ames blinked at her, and, in the pause, Micah skittered out from under him. Once again two people, they each lay still on the ground like casualties on a battlefield, heaving in unison as they both stared at her like they’d seen a ghost.
“You woke me up,” she said, attempting to explain her presence there, but it came out sounding like an accusation. She wondered what she must look like to them: Violet Ramsey, the madam’s daughter, wearing an old tennis-camp T-shirt and cutoff sweatpants and her glasses instead of the contact lenses she usually wore. She wished she’d just stayed in bed, because now what? Did she just turn around and leave while they watched her go? Demand an explanation as to what was going on?
She had a pretty good idea what had brought this on, though. Today, she knew, had been Olivia’s birthday. They’d mentioned it at school, had a moment of silence in her honor. Devin must’ve decided getting drunk in her honor was an equally good idea and, liquored up, come to Micah’s house to confront him. She looked back at the house and wondered again where Micah’s parents were.