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My songbird appears around the corner with Violet, and the ground comes back under my feet. I hurry forward, taking in everything about her.
She’s wearing the same clothes. Her purse is on her shoulder. Her glasses are missing, I don’t know where.
Her eyes are puffy, her lower lip indented with teeth marks.
I open my arms, and she collapses into them. I’m not entirely surprised when she starts crying. She feels small like this. Her shoulders shake, her head stays tucked into my chest. My shirt soaks up her tears.
“We went to see her father,” Violet says. “And it triggered…”
“Did you know about the hot chocolate?” Melody’s voice is ragged. She curls her fingers into my shirt, but she doesn’t lift her head. “Is that what you were trying to get me to remember after I said I missed my mom?”
I shake my head. “You didn’t say that to me.”
She’s quiet. Then, “I thought it. I thought,I miss her. And I hoped she was a good person. Why did it only take seeing my dad’s face to remember that she really wasn’t?”
I don’t have an answer for that.
“Did you talk to your dad?”
She shudders.
“He tried to apologize. But I told him that I remembered him slamming my face into the wall—”
“That’s what got him arrested,” Violet adds quietly. “Although not what kept him in prison, apparently.”
I narrow my eyes. He had an ulterior motive, to see his daughter, then? I hug her tighter, resting my chin on top of her head.
“Melody didn’t talk to him.” Violet frowns. “She left as soon as he said sorry. I asked him what his deal was, but he just laughed and shook his head. He said he wanted to see his daughter without the contempt in her gaze.”
I hate him.
I stroke Melody’s hair. “He manipulated you. It was a power play for him.”
She draws back long enough to meet my eyes. Hers are tearstained, and I brush my thumb across her cheek. Collecting the wetness.
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
I sweep my thumb along her cheek again, for no other reason than I want to.
“Yes,” I agree. “But I do it because I love you. Not because I hate you or want to get back at you. I gave you the hot chocolate because I wanted you to remember the timeIgave you hot chocolate. And then, you told me about what your mother did to you. Not your dad, your mom. Who used psychological warfare to make you hate your body.
“While I love your body. And your voice. You and I had consensual sex. I told you I wanted to keep you—”
“I’m not keepable.”
My heart stops.
“That’s not a word, Professor,” I whisper in her ear.
She turns her head and kisses me, and I can’t tell if it’s because she’s starting to remember these moments like phantom sensations or if she just wants to kiss me. Because there’s nostalgia here that unexpectedly soothes my frustration and my need for answers.
In another life, we’ve talked about what we want to do with our lives, and our parents, and a million things between. I’ve stared at her red lips far too much. Gotten hard in some uncomfortable places. Fell in love between lines of her lectures.
It’s only right that we repeat ourselves, like history, until we fall again.
Well. Untilshefalls again.
I’m already there.
