AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I had never in my life done anything simply because I wanted to until I’d stumbled into Aveline. I had consistently obeyed my parents’ every order, from playing piano to taking French—I’d really wanted to take Spanish—to letting them choose where I could volunteer and what I could wear. I was not their daughter, I was their doll. I’d smiled at parties and never forgotten my manners in public, and for the first time, I realized that this was notmylife at all but merely an extension of theirs.
It was time for me to find my own path.
I was getting ready upstairs, my hair and makeup perfected and the last button on the back of my gown placed in its loop, when Avery came bounding in from the other room.
“Violet! There is a man here asking for you. I have never seen him before in my life, and he looks lost. Also his tux is horrendous. It’s like he stole it from a baby or something.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the window, and when I peered down to the yard, I saw Tuck standing there, his hands in the pockets of a tux that was two sizes too small.
I gasped.
“Son of a nutcracker!” I whispered before flinging around and cupping my mouth with my hands. I looked back out the window. “Tuck? Holy mother of pearl.” I stomped my feet, my voice whiney. “Ohhh, Tuck, what are you doing here?”
“Tuck? Who is Tuck? Vi, do you know that guy?” Avery was following close behind me as we bolted from the door and down the back stairs. “Violet Carlton!” she said as she grabbed my arm and spun me around. “Answer me. Who is that?”
I gazed at her and pulled my lips together. “Avery, I can’t explain this to you right now. I’m sorry.”
And I ran out the door to Tuck.
“Tuck!” I whisper-yelled as I looked around to see if anyone else had seen him. “What are you doing here?” My dress grazed the ground, and I knew my mother would be disgusted when she saw the bit of dirt around the edges.
Tuck stood, hands still in his pockets and his head down slightly, looking up at me with his gray eyes. He looked so handsome, even if his tux didn’t fit completely. Seeing him dressed up was a dream.
“Surprising you,” he replied as though it were the most normal answer in the world.
“Okay, I love that, buthere?Tuck, if my parents see you, they will go crazy.” I moved us more into the shadows.
“No, it’s okay. They know. They were fine with me coming,” he assured me, and I watched his gaze move from me to where Avery, Theo, and my parents were coming down the lawn.
“What do you mean they know? Trust me, they won’t be fine with it. They aren’t fine with anything I want, and I can assure you that this will be on the list of things they are very not fine with. Oh no, here they come.”
Everyone approached, and I felt a pit of nausea settle in my stomach. I wanted to bolt. I wanted to grab Tuck’s hand and run as fast as I could, but I stood, frozen, swallowing the bile coming up my throat. I felt dizzy, and as my parents approached us, I saw the tension in my mother’s jaw and the rage behind my father’s eyes that told me everything I needed to know.
They did, in fact,notknow and they were, in fact,notfine.
I grabbed hold of the back of Tuck’s arm and held tightly to his too-short and too-tight jacket, and I closed my eyes before what I knew would be a disaster.
“Violet. Go inside.” My mother’s voice was low but stern. She was holding back with everything she had not to go ballistic on me.
“Mother, let me explain,” I pleaded.
“I will not!” she said with more urgency.
Tuck’s eyes were fixated on Theo, who was looking smug standing next to my father. A look of disappointment filled Tuck’s face, and he dropped his head. “Of course they didn’t know,” he muttered. He raised his head and stared daggers at Theo. “You set me up.”
Theo raised an eyebrow, and my head bobbed from him to Tuck, trying to piece together the situation. “How dare you insinuate that I have ever even met you. I am simply wondering why you are out here speaking to my date alone in the shadows.”
Tuck’s hands balled into fists, and I felt his shoulders press back.
I held on tighter.
It was obvious now.
“Theo, what did you do?” I spat out at him, my words like venom. My brain had caught up, and I realized that Theo wasnota friend at all. He was exactly who I’d thought he had been all along.
“Theodid nothing.” My father finally spoke, and when he did, he took one step closer and placed his hand on the crook of my elbow. “You,however, have a lot to explain. Theo told us how you have been sneaking around to see… whoeverthisis.”
If looks could kill, Theo would have been dead. I was breathing heavily, trying to retrieve my arm from my father.
“Theo has been sneaking out to bars to play the guitar!” I retorted.
