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He scrubs a hand over his face again. “And I wanted you to leave me alone so badly. So fucking badly but you never listened. You never left. You never went anywhere. Not only that, you saved me. You went and goddamn saved me and finally, I realized something.”
At this, he gives me a look that I’ve never seen from him. He gives me a look of pure and utter vulnerability. A look that tells me that he’s undone.
And it becomes so hard to stand here.
So I give in and take a step toward him. “What did you realize?”
“You told me that your sunglasses and your cap are crutches, yeah? You use them to hide from the world. I use crutches too, Violet.”
My heart is slamming in my chest now. Slamming and slamming. This was so not what I expected him to say. Not at all.
“You do?”
“Yeah. I hide behind taking care of my son and a boring, dead-end job because it’s easier. It’s easier to provide for him because I should be doing that anyway, and to work a job that I hate than to face the truth.”
“What’s the truth?”
“The truth is that I’ve never really lived. I’ve gone through the motions. I’ve survived, yes. But I’ve never really been alive. I’ve never really had a dream of my own. I never had the luxury to dream a dream. Maybe if my life was different and I lived in a world that was less lonely and selfish, I would’ve learned. I would’ve learned to live, to dream, to want. But I never lived in that world, Violet and I don’t know how to do any of those things. I don’t know if I can. So I used crutches. I hid behind things just because it was easier than to face reality. To face the fact that I’m halfway done with my life and I know nothing about dreams and wants and wishes. But I’m going to try.”
So far, his expression has been lost. Both like a little boy who forgot the dream he had last night and an old man at the end of his life who never got to fulfill any of the dreams he saw.
Because he was living for everyone else and neglected to live for himself.
But his expression has changed now. Somewhere at the end of it, it became fierce and determined.
His nostrils flare and he fists his hands at his sides, as if strength has finally returned in his body.
“I’m going to try. I’m going to learn, Violet.”
“Learn what?”
“Poetry.”
“Poetry?”
He nods; it’s a jerk of a movement. “I can learn to write poetry. How hard can it be? It’s a drunk man writing about his feelings, right? I read a poem once, Anesthesia by this guy. Abrams or something?”
“Thomas Abrams?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
As choked up as I am right now, I get an urge to smile but I suppress it; Thomas Abrams is super famous for his poetry and stuff. “He’s a pretty big deal actually.”
“Who cares? If he can do it, I can do it too.” Before I can say anything else, he goes on. “I can paint your nails too. I’ve done it once, I can do it again. I can hold your hand and walk down the beach with you. Even though my hands are rough and scratched up and I fucking hate the beach – too many people. But I can do all of that. I can learn to do all of that and more, Violet.”
“You wanna learn all of that?”
At last, he takes those final steps and stands right where he can touch me. He reaches out and cups my cheek and I don’t have the strength to push him away or be this mad but calm girl.
I don’t have the strength not to fist his shirt and look up at him as he wipes my tears, which I didn’t know that I was shedding.
“Yes. For you. I’ll learn all of that. I’ll learn to be soft. I’ll learn to be gentle and tender. I’ll learn to dream when I’ve got my eyes closed. Because I don’t think I can live in my world anymore. I don’t like my world, Violet. I want to live in a different world.”
“A different world?”
I realize that I’m parroting his words but I don’t know what else to do when he’s looking at me with such emotions and intensity.
He’s stealing all my thoughts and words looking like he just stepped out of a dream.
My dream.
“Yeah. A world where colors are bright and gorgeous. Where you dance in the moonlight. Where you have a vegetable garden right next to a rose garden. A world where the air smells like strawberries and candies. A world where an eighteen-year-old girl sneaks into the backyard of a man she wants, a man she’s been watching, a man who’s been watching her as well, and steals his roses. A world where she steps on his shoes because she’s so tiny that she can’t get to his mouth and kisses him. A world where she follows him just because she thinks she’s wronged him. A world where she saves him from himself. I want to live in your world, Violet. A world of moon and magic, if you’ll let me.”
