AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Initially, I chalked up the appointment of his estranged, barely-legal adult son as the guardian to his, by all accounts, beloved daughter, to a lapse in his meticulously planned existence, perhaps having forgotten to update his will. Until a lengthy discussion with his lawyer revealed the brutal reality. Violet had no other family. My stepmom June, an only child, had already lost both her parents, and any distant cousins were scattered far and wide.
Maybe this was a consideration my clueless father should have factored in before succumbing to a whirlwind romance and starting a new family at the ripe age of sixty-five. A family he conveniently failed to mention during our sporadic phone calls. What kind of fucked up person doesn’t tell their kid they’re going to have a new sibling? And four years later, fate dealt its hand with a massive heart attack while he and June were en route to pick up Violet from childcare. The car struck a tree head on, and in an instant, both of them were gone.
A surge of guilt washed over me as I recalled the moment I posed the question to the lawyer: What would happen if I refused guardianship of Violet? Despite having just learned of her existence, I found myself already deeply attached to my baby sister, a love I hadn’t anticipated. From her light brown skin she inherited from June, to her corkscrew black curls and adorable smattering of freckles, we should have looked like polar opposites. Except, side-by-side, you could tell we were related.
Still, the weight of responsibility pressed heavily upon me. I already struggled to steer my own life, and now I was on the cusp of relocating to LA to be with Colt. Selfishly, I hesitated at the idea of sacrificing my newfound freedom to care for her. Especially when I learned that my dad had left the vast majority of his estate to Violet, to be held in trust until she reached adulthood. Violet would be set for life. Me on the other hand? Apparently after dad’s debts were paid and his life insurance was cashed in, all I’d receive would be enough to purchase the old house I’d previously rented in Jasper. Dad hadn’t seemed to care to recognize how exactly his unqualified and unemployed college student son would be able to afford to take care of his precious daughter until she could access those funds.
Part of me wanted to refuse to become Violet’s guardian purely to spite my dad.
That hesitation evaporated immediately after hearing the only alternative: foster care, with the hopes someone would adopt her as soon as the walls of red tape had been scaled. The mere mention of the words “foster care” sent a chill down my spine. In our time together, Colt had peeled back layers of his past, offering glimpses into a childhood spent navigating the labyrinthine depths of the system. Though he tried to spare me the gritty details, the pain etched into his eyes as he skirted around those years of uncertainty spoke volumes. The thought of knowingly subjecting Violet to that same ordeal turned my stomach. The prospect of her acquiring the same scars he bore, the same wounds he attempted to downplay, was simply out of the question.
In the end, the decision was made for me. The thought of not even attempting to be the person Violet needed was a burden I couldn’t bear to carry. She did nothing to deserve paying for the sins of my father’s shitty parenting.
If Colton were here now, he’d urge me not to be so hard on myself.
Gotta love the irony of that one. My greatest source of support in this situation was absent, precisely because I had pushed him away. Taking in Violet had been a decision influenced by Colt, and I’d given up Colt for Violet.
Still, even amid the chaos, I’d entertained the idea of whisking Violet away to California when the dust settled. Yet, the practicalities of such a scenario quickly extinguished those fantasies. With Colt’s burgeoning music career poised for explosive success, courtesy of an impending national tour once his debut album was released, the thought of navigating the rigors of constant travel with a small child and a husband I barely saw seemed like a recipe for disaster.
Any lingering hopes were squashed during my first meeting with the social worker assigned to Violet’s case. Casey’s stern demeanor served as a stark reminder that my custody was temporary for ninety days. She revealed that permanent custody would be subject to judicial review, a decision influenced by factors such as Casey’s recommendations, my ability to provide for Violet and the stability of her home environment. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but I had no choice but to play their game, for the sake of my sister.
“So, Mr. Scott, it’s my understanding that your husband recently relocated to California?” Casey inquired.
“Yes,” I replied, the weight of the truth heavy on my tongue. “He’s pursuing his music career there. He’s just been signed by a record label and is currently in the process of recording his debut album.”
Casey’s words struck like a hammer, shattering any illusions I had harbored about the feasibility of my petition for full custody while in a long distance relationship. Her blunt assessment painted a grim picture, highlighting the uphill battle I faced as a barely legal adult with a modest income and a same-sex partner that lived across the country. The prospect of instability in Violet’s life compounded by societal prejudices stacked against us, cast a long shadow over my hopes for the future.
As she spoke, a tremor rippled through me, jolting me out of the fog of denial I’d been living in. I had convinced myself I didn’t have to choose between Violet and my relationship, but now faced with the harsh reality of the legal obstacles in front of me, I faltered. Which, come to think of it, I’d probably known from the very beginning, considering it had been five days since I learned my dad died and I hadn’t sent Colt a single message.
I would never get over Colt. He owned half of my heart and it would always be his. But, if I could love him from afar, see him achieve everything he’d ever wanted and know it was only possible because I let him go, then maybe I could live with my decision. If I told myself the lie often enough, maybe one day I’d even come to believe it.
My biggest regret lay in the cowardice with which I had handled our breakup. Whenever I relived our hurried phone call, where I brutally broke his heart and ended the conversation before my resolve faltered and I begged him to come home to us, I felt physically ill. Ending things with Colt at all would always have broken me; to not be able to hold him as I heard him shattering on the other side of the country was excruciating. Breaking my promise to never leave him tore at my soul, knowing it would wreak havoc on his attachment issues. But if I had divulged the truth, I knew Colt would have dropped everything to return to Missouri and help me raise Violet. Sacrificing my own dreams was something I was willing to do, but I couldn’t live with Colt giving up his dreams for me. His producer’s words echoed in my ears. Music was his lifeline, his one constant, and his talent deserved to be celebrated on a global stage. His star burned too brightly to be contained by the confines of our deadbeat town.
Still, every night I relived the sound of his bewildered voice, tinged with panic and abandonment, pleading with me not to leave him. It haunted me, hearing how I’d destroyed his trust in both me and humanity with a single lie: “Marrying you was a mistake.”
I might as well have said I’d never loved him at all.
God, I was such a fucking asshole. The weight of my actions bore down on me like a crushing wave of guilt, drowning out any lies I’d told myself to justify them. In the end, it didn’t matter that I had made this decision for Colt if I had managed to destroy both of us in the process.
Tears welled anew as the ache in my chest intensified, a relentless reminder of the void left by my other half. The need to hear his voice, if only for a fleeting moment, overwhelmed me. Like a masochist, with shaking hands, I searched my music app for Colton Ray, knowing he’d already added a few songs to his profile as soon as he’d been signed to stir up interest in his upcoming album. My heart skipped a beat when I discovered his debut single had dropped only hours ago.
“Shattered Soul.”
The title alone sent a shiver down my spine, but it was the raw, unfiltered pain in his voice that pierced me to the core. Every note, every lyric, a poignant reflection of the anguish I had inflicted upon him.
As if the universe was mocking me, I realized that Violet had fallen silent, her previously agitated state replaced by a sense of calm for the first time since she’d arrived. It was as though she too could sense the weight of our shared sorrow, finding solace in the haunting melodies that echoed through the speaker.
Certain it was a fluke, I switched to an older song, one that had once been a testament to our happiness. As the familiar notes filled the air, Violet’s eyelids grew heavy, her breaths steadying into the rhythm of sleep. It was a cruel irony, her tranquility juxtaposed against the turmoil consuming me.
Unable to bear the suffocating pressure of my own remorse any longer, I silenced the music. Only to immediately be met with Violet’s ear-splitting scream. Cursing my lot in life, I relented, allowing the melodies to once again envelop us in their bittersweet embrace.
So, that first year as a parent became a relentless cycle of listening to Colt's devastating songs, the only thing I found that lulled Violet to sleep, each heartbreak ballad a painful reminder of the love we once shared. With every note, I found myself drowning in regret, longing for the days when we’d been together.
Despite the ache that consumed me, I couldn’t bring myself to reach out to him. Colt deserved so much more than the broken man I had become. He deserved someone who would stand by his side through thick and thin, not a pathetic person who lied to the love of his life and told him what they had meant nothing.
For his music spoke volumes, each song a testament to the depth he’d once felt for me. It said that what we had together was everything. And I knew enough to read between the lines: Colt himself now felt like he meant nothing.
21. “Dial Drunk”
