The Failing Hours

His barely perceivable, choked out “I-I’m sorry,” is the last thing I hear as the door closes behind me.

Zeke

“So dumbass, how’d it go?”

Unfortunately for me, Oz is snacking at the kitchen table when I come crashing through the front door, so I have no privacy. No time to brood. I do my best to bypass him, but he’s cunning and annoying, blocks the hallway with a formidable, boxed-out stance he probably learned in sixth grade basketball.

He leans against the doorjamb to the hall when I try to wedge past.

“So?”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Zeke.” His tone demands attention, so I lift my head to look at him, his entire demeanor changing when he sees my face.

“Jeez, man. What happened with Violet after I left?”

I meet his eyes, swallowing the lump in my dry throat. “She doesn’t think I’m a nice person.”

Shit. It’s one thing for her to say it, but it’s another entirely repeating those fucking words out loud myself.

It actually hurts.

Sebastian Osborne’s insightful gaze roams to the pile of Violet’s things that I collected from Barbara, her boss, after she fled the library an entire twenty minutes before her shift was over. The crap I dumped next to the front door.

“What’s all that stuff?” Oz meanders over to the purple stack, giving Violet’s lavender laptop a poke and fingering a notebook that’s sticking out of her backpack.

The backpack she left at the library when she ran out in a fit of tears.

I might be an insensitive prick, but I will never forget the look on her face. The devastation. The sheer and utter—

“Stop touching it,” I snap at my roommate, who’s pulling a notebook out of the backpack.

“Whose shit is it? Did you bring someone home?”

“No, of course I didn’t bring anyone home.”

“Then whose shit is it?” Hungry, he abandons Vi’s stuff in pursuit of food, dumps his empty plate in the sink so he can rifle through the kitchen cabinets with two empty hands like a scavenger, even though he’s going to pull the same damn shit out of the fridge he eats every damn afternoon: bagel, butter, and cream cheese—the only bready carb he allows himself to eat in a day.

He plugs in the toaster. “Humor me with an answer.”

“No one.”

“Is it Violet’s?” He pins me down with a stare. “Just admit it. All that shit is purple for fuck’s sake.”

I hesitate, using the long stretch of silence to prepare oatmeal. I’m starving too and could go for a snack, so I add a cup of steel-cut oats and water to a bowl, pop it in the microwave. Let us sit in silence for the two minutes it takes for the water to boil.

“Yes, it’s Violet’s.”

The microwave dings and I take the hot bowl out.

“What’s going on with you two?” Oz asks innocently, yanking the fridge open with so much force the bottles in the door shake. He peers inside and asks, “Did she forgive you for being a giant prick?”

“No.”

He raises his brows. “Really? I thought maybe—”

My head snaps in his direction, eyes glaring, and I snap, “What’s with the twenty fucking questions!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Parlay dude. Time the fuck out.” He has his hands up in surrender. “I’m asking because you were a dick today, yet suddenly all her shit is by the front door. Christ almighty, give me a break.”

Is what Violet meant when she said I don’t let people in? Jesus, how did everything in my life get so fucking out of hand?

The steel-cut oats barely go down my throat when I swallow, so I take a chug of water. Count to five to gain back some of my self-control.

“Violet forgot her stuff at the library after…” I force away the memory of finding her crying—no, sobbing in one of the library study rooms. It isn’t something I’ll soon forget, pushing through the door and having those joyful eyes turn on me with despair.

“After you treated her like she wasn’t becoming the most important part of your life?”

“Yes.”

After I did exactly what Jameson warned me not to do: ruin her.

I ruined Violet.

I put the tears in her eyes.

The tears in her eyes were mine.

Her bleeding heart was crying them for me, I goddamn know it.

Because she loves me.

Despite me.

Fuck.

As always, Oz’s perceptive and shrewd observations are correct; I shouldn’t have sat there today and treated her like she hasn’t become the most important part of my life.

God dammit he’s a fucking good friend; maybe he really does give a shit what happens in my life.

I stare down at the cold, hard Formica countertop, studying the pattern on its surface as Oz studies me, stuffing his face with the never-ending goddamn bagel. He stops chewing to swallow, then stuffs his face some more, earnest eyes silently watching me.

“Why…” I start to ask. Stop to clear my throat. “Why are—”

He raises his brows when I cut myself off, unable to get the words out.

I try again. “Why are you friends with me?”

Wow. Asking that fucking sucked.

His brows are still stuck up in his hairline. “Are you being serious right now?”

“Yeah. We all know I’m an unrelenting asshole, so why the hell are you friends with me?”

That bagel is paused halfway to his lips. “You want me to be perfectly honest?”