FINCH
Day 15 (I am still awake)
I go to Violet's early and catch her parents as they're eating breakfast. He is bearded and serious with deep worry lines around his mouth and eyes, and she looks like Violet will look in about twenty-five years, dark-blond hair falling in waves, face shaped like a heart, everything etched a little more sharply. Her eyes are warm, but her mouth is sad.
They invite me to breakfast, and I ask them about Violet before the accident since I've only known her after. By the time she comes downstairs, they are remembering the time she and her sister were supposed to go to New York for spring break two years ago but instead decided to follow Boy Parade from Cincinnati to Indianapolis to Chicago to try to get an interview.
When Violet sees me, she goes, "Finch?" like I might be a dream, and I say, "Boy Parade?"
"Oh my God. Why would you tell him that?"
I can't help it, I start laughing, and this gets her mom laughing and then her dad too, until the three of us are laughing like old friends while Violet stares at us as if we've lost our minds.
Afterward, Violet and I stand in front of her house and, because it's her turn to pick the place, she gives me a rough idea of the route and tells me to follow her there. Then she takes off across the lawn and toward her driveway.
"I didn't bring my bike." Before she can say anything, I hold up my hand like I'm taking an oath. "I, Theodore Finch, being of unsound mind, hereby swear not to drive faster than thirty miles per hour through town, fifty on the interstate. If at any time you want to stop, we stop. I just ask that you give it a chance."
"It's snowing."
She's exaggerating. It's barely even coming down.
"Not the kind that sticks. Look, we've wandered all we can wander within a reachable-by-bike radius. We can see a lot more if we drive. I mean, the possibilities are pretty much endless. At least sit inside. Humor me. Sit in there and I'll stand way, way over here, nowhere near the car, so you know I can't ambush you and start driving."
She is frozen to the sidewalk. "You can't keep pushing people to do things they don't want to do. You just barge in and help yourself and say we're doing this, we're doing that, but you don't listen. You don't think about anyone else other than yourself."
"Actually, I'm thinking about you holed up in that room of yours or on that stupid orange bike. Must go here. Must go there. Here. There. Back and forth, but nowhere new or outside those three or four miles."
"Maybe I like those three or four miles."
"I don't think you do. This morning, your parents painted a pretty good picture of the you you used to be. That other Violet sounds fun and kind of badass, even if she had horrible taste in music. Now all I see is someone who's too afraid to get back out there. Everyone around you is going to give you a gentle push now and then, but never hard enough because they don't want to upset Poor Violet. You need shoving, not pushing. You need to jump back on that camel. Otherwise you're going to stay up on the ledge you've made for yourself."
Suddenly she brushes past me. She climbs into the car and sits looking all around. Even though I tried to clean up a little, the center console is stuffed with pencil stubs and pieces of paper, cigarette butts, a lighter, guitar picks. There's a blanket in the back, and a pillow, and I can tell she's noticed these by the look she gives me.
"Oh, relax. The plan is not to seduce you. If it was, you'd know it. Seat belt." She snaps it into place. "Now close the door." I stand on the lawn, arms crossed as she pulls the door shut.
