July

They had not called. 

For the first few days, Viola had convinced herself that they never would. And then, for the next few weeks, she had convinced herself that it was coming any day. She had wondered if maybe they’d come to Garland, if they’d search campus for her. Search for a hug, for a scolding, for a body to reeducate, for traces of the boy they had raised. She’d waited through April, and through May, and even through June. 

In her heart, she knew the message had already been sent. No call was a call. No text was a text. No taking the two hour drive to Garland was its own kind of signal. 

She’d known that.

By July, it hadn’t mattered. If they were looking for her at all, they wouldn’t find her in Garland.

Emerald Point was much busier in the summer than it had ever been in the spring. There were more tourists, and there were more families, and the boardwalk that had been quiet at night erupted under fireworks every Saturday, families oohing and ahhing from the sand. 

Viola had originally wanted to stay in Garland for the duration of the summer. David was going to be there, and Annabelle would have to be there, too. She thought she could get a job, stay for the few months, and make a little money.

It just hadn’t worked out that way.

But being in Emerald Point had benefits.

Lucy had pitched her parents’ beach house as the perfect place for Viola to practice being Viola for good. For long, long stretches of time, out at Joe’s Tropical Shack, waiting tables, and for the weeks when Lucy’s family was at the house, Viola could only be Viola. Only had to be Viola. Only had that option.

Even now, after months, it was practice. At times, she forgot that there had been a new set of expectations foisted upon her. She found herself messing with the corners of her shirt, and occasionally rubbing at her eye, even as she knew she ought not to. 

Still. Things were easier. Her voice was now the default. Days and days and days of only talking in it, to customers and to Lucy’s parents, did more than the novels and plays by the pond ever could. By the day, it became harder and harder to slip back into her old voice. She could if she really tried. Sometimes she forced herself to in the quiet of her bedroom, just to remind herself that she could. But the voice, the real voice, and the walking and the clothes and the feeling of the world around her, being seen as a woman, was becoming more normal. 

It was almost easy. Sometimes, when she felt worn down by a shift, she absently wondered if she might still like New York. She wondered what it would be like to wander around its narrow streets, cradled by the shadows of tall buildings. She thought she’d like it sometimes. But she never wanted to disappear into it. She never wanted to run. 

This Viola was being carved from the ground up. 

This Viola wouldn’t miss the wig, though. 

Her real hair was long enough that she could go without, but it was easier at the restaurant not to bother. The wig was simple enough, and she still hadn’t had a proper cut. It was all so expensive here, and so she was saving up for the end of the summer. She knew, of course, that it would be blonde. But she could hold on a little longer. There had been other things, a whole wardrobe, that had sucked up her money. Besides, she got great tips with the long, half curls.

She bobbed through a pair of tables, back towards the counter, scribbling down the orders from table eight. She liked waitressing. No one would call it easy, but the tourists tipped well, and her boss was good about the guys who got too drunk and started leering, and she had been able to make a few friends. It was the sort of job where she felt a bit like she was in the trenches, and they all hated the customers more than they could possibly hate each other, so, well, it was easy to have fun. 

Plus, sometimes Lucy would come in and sit at the bar and chat with her if there were lulls. 

Sometimes, it was more than just Lucy. 

Carrie had come once, and she’d spent a whole afternoon getting drunk at the bar while Lucy bitterly sipped virgins, which had made Viola laugh every time she swung by. David had come on days he had off from practice but she still had to work. And today, for the first time, since they’d both managed to get time off from their own summer jobs and hassle their parents into buying them plane tickets, Anna and Margot were here.

But it was Friday afternoon. Friday afternoon, which meant a lot of people coming in early to start the weekend, normally after a long drive. People who wanted to drink, and people who wanted a million orders of overcooked shrimp, and people who looked like they might have already sweat out all the water in their bodies. Viola normally liked it better that way. Normally, the lulls drove her nuts. 

Right now, she wished she were at the bar.

But instead, she was waiting for the meals for table seven, a burger and crabcakes, the latter of which Viola wholeheartedly did not recommend, although she’d never said so to anyone but Emma, who shared most shifts and after work meals with her. They were just so… dry. And it wasn’t a cook dependent thing, either, because it didn’t matter who was running the line on a given night. The crabcakes were dry. Emma would order them, because Emma would have faith, and Viola would smack her lips together, annoyed and dry, and Emma would launch into a defense of the crabcake. 

Viola still sold them with gusto.

It was possible that Viola had always had a bit of eagerness inside her, a bit of chipperness, but the restaurant foisted it upon her more than anywhere else. On her first day of training, the manager training her, a girl named Justine who could only be a year or two older, told her that the customers would tip better if you found the most overwhelmingly pleasant version of yourself, the most pliable. 

Funny too, because Justine was such a nightmare. She watched the punch-cards with the doggedness of a woman who was getting more than an extra dollar an hour, and she always took the best tables. 

But at those tables? Vi had seen her charm the pants off every type. She managed with the old timers, and she managed with families, and she managed with the strung out frat brothers coming in off the beach. 

So Viola had taken it to heart, and she’d found that she really could turn on that sort of charm if she wanted it. Lucy, on the days when she had nothing to do but come sip Diet Cokes through a stay at the bar, always looked like a kind of proud older sister watching Viola work. Or, perhaps, she was just tickled by the way that Viola had found that, if she really dug in and dragged out the ‘h’ at the end of ‘oh, gosh’, the male customers would convince themselves that she was some sort of adorable, virginal girl, and tip her accordingly. 

She was pretty sure she’d seen Margot and Anna giggling at that too today, but whatever. She was getting better. 

“Crabcakes and Shack Burger!” called Dom. He slid the food out and plucked the ticket down. “No cheese on the burger.” 

Viola smiled at him. “Thanks,” she said.

“Working on those nachos,” he said, nodding. “Which other tickets you got?” 

“Nothing that needs to be ready,” said Viola. 

Dom nodded and turned back into the kitchen. 

Two plates, so Viola didn’t bother with the tray. It had taken her a couple of weeks to really get the hang of it, and she still preferred not to use it if she could help it. She was just that much faster without.

She bobbed by a pair of patrons heading towards the bathroom, giving them the smile they expected, and then ducked towards table seven, towards a pair of teenagers on what had to be a date. 

“Crabcakes?” she asked. The girl smiled and raised a finger, and Viola set the plate in front of her. She deposited the burger in front of the boy. “Can I get you all anything else?” 

“Ketchup?” asked the boy.

“Of course,” said Viola. There was supposed to be ketchup on the table, but, whatever. They moved around sometimes.

She started back towards the kitchen, down the aisles, passing tables filled with drunk tourists, past the rare trio of regulars that the Joe’s had, past her parents.

Past…

She didn’t stop.

She didn’t stop, because stopping was the kind of thing that would draw attention to her, and it was the kind of thing that Justine, who was just now depositing menus in front of them, would notice, too. 

But it was them. There was no mistaking them. She didn’t need a double take, because it was them. The balding head and square frame of her father, the peppered brunette of her mother, and the faces that she’d seen for eighteen years. Sitting in a booth, here, in Emerald Point, and for what? 

They’d never had enough money to come to a place like Emerald Point. It had always been out of their price range. Maybe, she supposed, if they stayed inland and then trekked out to the beach during the day, but still…

For a brief, stupid moment, Viola thought that they had tracked her down. That they had figured out that she wasn’t in New York at all, and had tracked her down. Maybe they’d figured out how to do something with her old phone, even though she’d gotten rid of it before she’d even come here. Maybe they’d just been combing through the country, looking. 

But it wasn’t that. If it had been that, Carol Collins would have tried to call her back at least once. She would have driven to campus. She would have sent a fucking text.

She had thought that if she ever saw them again, a chance encounter like this one, her first instinct might be to cry. That’s what people did, wasn’t it? Estranged from their families, cast out? They cried, because they had lost something. That’s what people did. Viola was sure of it. Cry, or run.

Or, when the beach house was quiet and she was sure everyone else was asleep, she had wondered if she might scream and yell. She wondered if, at this exact moment, she might feel like putting her fist through a wall. It had never been who she was before, never been the instinct that she had. She’d been a runner. But everything else had changed, hadn’t it? Maybe now, this version of Viola, would want to pick up a fork and stick it right down into the table.

But now, as she grabbed a bottle of ketchup and started marching back towards table seven, she felt neither of those things. Her instinct wasn’t to yell, and it wasn’t to run, and it wasn’t to cry.

The only thing she wanted to do was stand in front of them. 

She breezed right past them, planted the ketchup with far too much force onto table seven, which caused the boy to jump, and then started back towards the kitchen. There were other tables that needed tending, needed clearing and refills and second helpings of appetizers, but Viola didn’t care. 

She spotted Justine punching something into the register. 

“Justine,” she said, bounding up to the other waitress. “Can I have eleven?” 

Justine frowned. “It’s my section,” she said. 

“I know,” said Viola, “I know, but… well, I’ll trade you for them. You can have the kids at seven?” 

“Kids?” asked Justine, not looking up at Viola. “They’ll tip like shit.”

“You can have both tips,” said Viola. “Eleven and seven.” 

She wanted to go stand in front of them. She wanted them to be forced to look at her. Maybe it was dumb, and maybe it was petty, but they couldn’t pretend that she didn’t exist entirely. They could not pretend that she had never been there at all. She wanted to look them in the eye, to make them see her, to make them see that she existed, to confirm that they felt something towards her. Hate. Love. Loss. Anything. 

She deserved that. She deserved that from her parents. 

“Alright,” said Justine, clearly a little confused. “Yeah, I did drinks, if you want to drop them off.” She nodded towards a beer and a soda she’d left at the end of the bar.

“Great,” said Viola. “Great.” 

Viola steadied herself. 

Was this monumentally stupid? 

God, but they were her parents. 

She walked to the bar, picked up the drinks, and then took the twenty-five paces to table eleven. 

Within five steps, she had a horrible, sinking feeling. She had no plan. She’d made no plan. All she’d done was decide that she would have to look her parents in the eye, that they would have to look her in the eye, and that wasn’t a plan at all. That wasn’t even, like, half of a plan. It was barely an idea. 

But she was already carrying the drinks, and her legs were carrying her, and it was too late. It was too late. She was already standing at the table. 

So she dug. She dug into her bones and found the happy, pliable voice that she needed to find for this. She found the version of herself that could be annoyingly chipper, that could be perfectly lovable, or perfectly hatable. 

Look me in the eye. 

“Corona?” she asked, and her voice did not shake. 

Her father looked up, a finger raised, his jowls a second behind his jaw, then looked back to the menu, and then right back up to her, his eyebrows twice as high as they had been the second before. 

Viola smiled, set the beer in front of him, and then put the soda in front of her mother. “Diet,” she said. 

Her father continued to stare at her. Viola straightened back up, perfectly upright, perfectly prim. She clicked her pen, peeled open her notebook, and scribbled nothingness into the top corner. 

She wanted to be loved. 

She wanted to be hated. 

She wanted to be something.

“Did Justine give you the specials?” she asked, and this time her voice did shake, just a little. She fought it for control. She ought to have touched up her makeup before this. “We’re doing a two for one on appetizers until six, and our catch of the day is-”

Her father made a sort of incomprehensible noise, one that sounded like he wanted to warn his wife, and also sounded like he wanted to say something to Viola. Viola paused. She couldn’t read his face. It wasn’t… it wasn’t anger. It wasn’t terror either, although she had sort of imagined that seeing one of his sons in makeup, even if what she had on right now was so perfectly professional, would illicit some kind of fear in her father. But that wasn’t there. All that was there was confusion. 

Pure, unadulterated confusion. 

Viola’s mother looked up at him, and her father started to cough. And Viola realized why, exactly, he was so confused. 

“You never wondered what I’d look like, did you?” she murmured, her volume just a little lower than it had been before. She looked back to her notebook, as if she needed to scribble something else down. Really, she’d just needed a second to catch herself. 

Was it possible they hadn’t even considered? She’d known that when they hadn’t called, they hadn’t cared. But… they must have wondered, surely? 

She looked back up, and she found her mother looking at her now. And there was confusion there, too, confusion and… God, maybe Viola just wanted there to be sadness. Maybe she wanted there to be another emotion, one that was deeper than simply surprise. She thought so, though. 

Her mother was searching her, and Viola did her best not to feel overly surveilled by it. She shifted onto a leg, the way she did when she was trying to be playfully impatient with a customer, bouncing a knee. Carol blinked at her.

“You went to New York,” said Carol, and she said it with such plainness. As if, of all the facts standing in front of her, it was the most graspable one. Not that Viola looked as she did, that she was talking as she was, but that she was in the wrong place. 

Viola wanted it to be something more than that, but she knew better. She knew better from the look on her mother’s face. 

“No,” said Viola. She went back to her notebook. “It didn’t work.” She swallowed. “Did you want food?” 

That was not the way she’d been trained to ask for orders. She wasn’t sure, though, if they were going to order anything at all. Right now, all she felt was regret. She wished that she hadn’t done this. She wished she’d let Justine serve them. 

Her father was now deliberately looking down at his menu, as if it made the most sense for him to be reading it. As if that was the thing he ought to be doing right now. Her mother was still staring at her, and her eyes were steelier. 

“This is a wig, I assume?” she asked.

Wig. She’d said wig as if it was some kind of vile word. Viola understood what she meant.

This is a costume, isn’t it?

“I recommend the crabcakes,” said Viola, recapturing the definiteness in her voice. “It’s all good, but the crabcakes are fresh.” 

Carol continued to look at her, and Viola could feel her doing the same thing that Candace had done months ago, the thing she hated. Viola could feel her attempting to strip Viola down to her barest bones, to everything below the lashes she’d lifted up, and below the breasts she’d glued on, and past the dick she’d taped back. Carol was looking at her, trying to see her son, and Viola stood there, staring back, trying to see her mother. 

“We’re all so sorry for you,” said Carol.

Viola felt her insides curdle. 

That did it. 

That did it.

She’d spent full years convincing herself that there was a righteous hammer waiting over her head. And there probably was, in some form or another. A man who would find her existence revolting, revolting and enticing, or an administrator who would think her worth less than the time it took to fix a small problem. A roommate. A TA. Someone’s boyfriend. 

But that righteous hammer was not her parents. 

They had not even bothered to try and save her soul. 

All they were was sorry for her. 

It was its own kind of loss. Was her soul not worth saving? Did her parents never care for her enough to even try? If they wouldn’t expend the energy to love her, to treat her as their daughter, they couldn’t even be bothered to try and save the boy they had once treated as their son?

It dug its claws into her skin and would not let her go. They didn’t care about her. They didn’t care about her even enough to hate her for swallowing their son. They hadn’t even loved Sebastian.

And now, they were here, and they weren’t here to save her soul. She’d given up on that. 

“I’m touched to hear that,” said Viola, still keeping her voice steady. “Are you going to get food, or should I just leave you?” 

Her father looked up. “You work here,” he said, as if he’d just realized what, exactly, was happening. 

“Uh huh,” said Viola.

Carol shifted. “Do they know?” she asked, a stage whisper. “The people here. Do they know that you’re just a boy in a skirt?” 

Viola kept her smile perfectly plastered on her face. Never mind that she was wearing black jeans. It was the whisper that grabbed hold of her. 

Maybe they did feel something towards her. They wouldn’t shout about her, because they couldn’t shout about her. They hadn’t driven to campus, because they couldn’t drive to campus. They couldn’t call her, because calling her would admit to the thing that they were worried anyone might be able to see, might reveal to the world the thing that was worse than anything else. 

That their own child, their own blood, was a pervert. 

They felt shame. They felt embarrassment. And, God, it wasn’t as good as love, and it wasn’t as good as real anger, but it was fucking something. 

It was why the first thing out of her mother’s mouth hadn’t been the quip about the skirt she wasn’t wearing, and it hadn’t been about the wig. It had been about New York. It had been about the fact that she might be recognized, that someone might see their daughter.

They wanted her to disappear.

Viola leaned forward, putting on her own stage whisper. “Would you like to tell them?” she asked. “You can tell them all that you raised me while you’re at it.” She lowered her voice further, as if the next line was a sort of sick secret she could reveal. “That I’m your daughter.” 

Carol’s eyebrows inched higher. “Our daughter,” she repeated. 

Viola leaned back away and returned to a normal level. “I can just put in the crabcakes,” she said. “Or, like, you can go, if you want.” Her voice sounded so perfect then. It always sounded perfect, but just then, it sounded like honey on her own ears, sounded so identical to the one she’d always wanted to have. “Whatever you want.”

Her father shifted in his seat. “We’ll go,” he said, firmly. 

Viola looked back to her mother. She was still planted, as if she wanted to say something more. And there, there was the anger. There it was. Planted beneath the shame, overpowered by it, but Viola could read it. She’d only had eighteen years to practice.

“The drinks are on the house,” said Viola, stepping back from the booth. Her father was already sliding out. 

Carol stared. Her hand had taken to her hair now, pushing through it, completely uncharacteristic, completely uneasy, and Viola would have focused on her unease more, except Viola was captured by the color of it. 

Streaked with gray, yes, and that had started to catch her off guard the last few years, seeing her mother age, but almost entirely brunette.

Carol stood, following her husband’s lead.

“We’re all so sorry for you,” she repeated, as if it was supposed to mean something to Viola this time. 

“Thanks for coming to Joe’s,” said Viola. 

And she turned on her heel and started marching back down towards the kitchen. 

Her mother. Who she’d inherited so much from. The fucking novels, and Viola had just served her a Diet fucking Coke, and there was the fucking hair. The fucking hair. 

Her heart was buoyed by anger. She didn’t look back at them, because she knew they were watching, and she swung her hips, because Fuck. You. Mom. And then, she turned down towards the cashier’s station, where Justine still was, because it had only been, what, a minute? Two? 

“Eleven’s clear,” she said, cleanly. 

She didn’t bother to wait for the scolding. She heard a little of it, a little of Justine’s indignation, but whatever. Fucking whatever. She picked her way straight to the bar, where the three girls were sitting, chatting and sipping on a set of virgin cocktails. She’d inherited other things. Other things from other people. She’d inherited inflections and style and, by God, she could inherit more than that. 

They looked up, and their hair bounced. Anna caught her eye and raised an eyebrow.

“Hey,” she said. 

“Tonight,” said Viola. “I want to dye it tonight.”

Lucy frowned. “What?” 

“I’m done looking like her,” said Viola. “I’m not waiting until I make enough for a salon appointment. We’re doing it tonight.” 

She didn’t want the brunette hair. She didn’t want to be her mother’s daughter. She wanted to recreate herself. She wanted to choose, to become, to not be what she had been ordained to be by God and heaven and that stupid fucking punnet square. 

More than anything, she wanted to look like the people who loved her.

 

* * * * *

 

They went back to the Dollar Tree. She’d need to bleach it, and then she’d need to dye it, and then she’d be a blonde. A messy, fucked up kind of blonde, one in desperate need of a haircut, but, God, her hair would be blonde. 

She was familiar with the Dollar Tree now, having spent enough time in it over the last month. And she’d walked by the hair dye a couple of times. Lucy had always talked her down, told her that it would be better for her not to, that she really ought to see someone professional. That way, it would all be even, and it wouldn’t come out mustard yellow, or platinum, and she could get her hair styled at the same time. 

And she would. At some point, she would. At least the styling part. Her hair was long enough now that she could easily fashion it into a bob, or something like it, and she was going to. 

Right now, she just needed to dye it. 

Margot recommended a box of dye she’d used before, a fact that offended Lucy a little, but relieved Viola. She really didn’t want to have to think. She just wanted to do, and she’d never realized how many different boxes and shades and bottles there would be. She’d never looked too closely before. 

At the other end of the aisle, Anna was studying another set of boxes. Viola picked out the box Margot recommended, then waved Anna over. They all head to the front together, supplies in hand.

“Oh, hey,” said Margot, pointing towards the little rack where she’d picked out her phone before. “That’s Vi’s phone.” 

Anna rolled her eyes, looped her arm into Viola’s, and pulled her closer. “Don’t go getting any ideas,” she muttered. 

Viola managed to laugh. “I’m already texting David,” she said. 

They checked out, and by the time they were speeding down the road, the bag filled with things to bleach, things to dye, conditioner to set, and a massive tub of ice cream, she really had decided to text David.

He’d been as busy as he’d always been. When he’d first talked about football, about how it felt like a job, she hadn’t really understood. But now, after two months of trying to navigate around his schedule, especially when she threw in her rotating one at work, she got it. It was a job. Fuck, it was worse than a job. He was on seven days a week in some form or another.

But they did navigate the schedules. He’d come to Emerald Point for a night, or she’d borrow Lucy’s car and head back to Garland when she was off. Mostly, they just lay around. He was exhausted from practice, and she was exhausted from her own kind of practice, and it was nice to just sit in a room with David. Beyond the obvious physical benefits, which far exceeded Snapple Lids, he calmed her. It was so easy. 

 

Viola: what are the chances you could come here for the night?

 

David: Aren’t the girls in town?

David: I wouldn’t want to get a reputation as a party crasher

David: I’ve already talked too much shit about cam

 

Viola: they are but they wouldnt care

Viola: youre kinda cool so its fine

 

David: Oh my god I’m kinda cool

 

Viola: focus up

 

David: It’d probably be late but I could maybe swing it

David: That okay?

 

Viola: yes!

Viola: its been a long day

Viola: and im doing something dramatic

 

David: Uh oh

 

Viola: good dramatic!

Viola: actually now that i think about it it might not be that dramatic

 

David: Oh

David: Yeah lmao

David: Why long day?

 

Viola: ill explain when you get here

Viola: but the short version is my parents came to the resturant today

Viola: actually thats kind of the long version too but

 

David: Oh shit

David: I’ll be there soon

David: Are you alright?

 

Viola: in good company

Viola: (im fine)

Viola: (better than i thought id be)

 

David: Okay

David: Have fun

David: Follow instructions

 

Viola: i always do

Viola: (margots taking the lead)

Viola: ill send you pics if you dont make it in time

 

David: Aw I sorta wanted to be surprised

 

* * * * *

 

No shower. Margot had said that the oils made it better, at least out of the box, to bleach, and so no shower. No shower. All the prep they needed to do was the bleach itself, and then the dye, and they’d be ready. 

Lucy had insisted they do it in the downstairs bathroom to avoid the smell clogging up the bathrooms most of them would be showering in. So, the four of them decamped there, and they started. 

It was funny. When she’d come in the spring, she’d really barely entertained the idea of dyeing her hair. And now, now, it seemed such the obvious thing to do. It had felt that way at the end of the semester, too, but the money had been the issue, and she’d sort of just decided that it could wait. There had been so much else to do. And, given the cost, why not wait until it could be done perfectly?

Only now did it seem urgent.

Those reasons, the practical ones, had not needed to be. Being blonde for the fall, for an outfit. They were good reasons. Great ones, even. But Viola had always been a girl who needed to be pushed a little. She was getting better at that, really, working on it, becoming someone who didn’t need to be shoved into things she wanted to do, who just did them, but it was still deep in her sometimes. There was still a timid girl inside her. Even for things as simple as dyeing her hair. 

But this reason, this reason, one not based even slightly in practicality, not based even a little in anything other than need, was the one that pushed her.

There had been so few people who had stood with her unwaveringly, who she knew would. All of them, every single one, happened to be someone she hadn’t known even a year ago, happened to be in one of her classes, who happened to teach one of her classes, who just happened to be. They hadn’t been her parents, nor her brother. They’d been chance.

But they loved her, didn’t they? They loved her. 

She wanted to be so fucking blonde. 

And they had made themselves that way, too. They had made themselves that, and there was nothing to stop her from staring in the mirror and making herself that way too, disobeying the laws of parentage, becoming something else entirely. All it took was a bit of absolutely foul smelling cream, and some time. 

“Drinks while we wait,” called Lucy. She’d left them briefly, but returned with four seltzers. Viola and Margot, both in the middle of applying, hands definitely not in a state to be consuming anything, frowned at her. Lucy shrugged. “Two for me and Anna.” 

“You know,” said Anna, accepting the drinks, “the smell is kind of growing on me. It’s like… it’s like gas stations.” 

“Uh huh,” said Margot. She was pulling on bits of Viola’s hair. 

“You know, smells so bad that it smells good?” 

“Yes,” said Margot, “I got it.” 

“See, in the salon,” said Lucy, “you’d be able to drink, because Daisy would have done all of this herself. Like, it would have been totally fine.” 

Viola gave Lucy a look. “I’m nineteen, Luce.” 

“Yeah, but Daisy’s not going to card you,” said Lucy. “Like, you’re not going to get arrested for drinking.” 

“If you want to loan me two hundred dollars next time, be my guest,” said Viola. They were so right about the expense of all this. Looking had made Viola queasy the first time. The box, at least, was reasonable, even if it didn’t come with a cut. “God, I wish I knew how to cut my own hair.” 

“Absolutely not,” said Lucy.

“No way,” said Anna.

“Crime,” said Margot. 

Viola gave a performative sigh. “God, I wish I could afford a stylist.” 

“That’s real,” conceded Margot, tugging on her hair again. “But don’t you dare try to cut your own hair. That’s, like, literally the worst idea in the world.”

“I wish I had a rich boyfriend,” said Viola, and Margot tugged her hair again, this time harder. “Ow.” 

“Sorry,” said Margot, sweetly. “Instinct.” 

Viola laughed. 

David, of course, was not rich. Not really. Not yet. But if everything went to plan, if the fall came and went without disaster, without injuries, without all of that? Well, the draft was in the spring, and he was good enough.

They’d started doing these things online, where these guys wrote articles about him. Sometimes they’d pretend they were drafting, and they’d count out all the picks in order, saying who each team should take. 

And David? David was on all of them. There were, like, rounds, where each team got one pick. And he normally went high. She’d count sometimes to see how many quarterbacks went in front of him. There was always this one guy from Washington, and then there was a mix. But David was always one of the first five quarterbacks. Like, at least one of the first five. Sometimes he was number two. 

She’d asked him about it one night, because it seemed so foreign. To have yourself ranked like that, stacked up, so explicitly rated. David had shrugged. He’d shown her another page, one of him from high school. That one had been even more insane, because the random guys online had done that when he was, like, fifteen. It had ranked him against all the other fifteen-year-olds in the country, given him stars, listed him out as a number. 

Weird. He’d said it was weird. 

And more than anything else, he’d said it was weird to not know where the rest of your life would revolve. Wherever drafted him, he’d have to go. Houston, or Cleveland, or New York. Somewhere, somewhere he didn’t choose. 

But, flipside, he’d always said, was that it was all he’d ever have to do for work. As long as his body held, he’d go play football, make a hundred million dollars, and be done with it. 

They’d never talked about what she would do. 

One night, she’d watched this video of people on draft night. And these big time players, players like David, had family and friends and girlfriends with them. And the quarterback would get up when his name was called, and everyone would cheer, and he’d hug his parents, and he’d high five his friends, and he’d kiss his girlfriend. And then, they’d all go live in Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

Maybe. Maybe she could go live in Green Bay. Maybe for David.

That was setting aside all the rest of it. All the issues that came with her dating him.

It was a long ways off, though. A long ways before she could do something like have her hair professionally done, or at least professionally dyed. And that was fine, because she was actually pretty happy sitting in this chair, letting Margot pat the gunk on her head. 

“Okay,” said Margot, sitting back. “Okay, set the timer.” She ran the faucet, then stuck her gloves under the water. “God, it smells terrible.” 

“Like a gas station?” asked Anna. She held out a seltzer, and Margot, snapping a glove off her hand, took it.

“Like a laboratory.” 

“Mmm, laboratory,” said Anna, and Margot grinned at her. 

Viola ran her own hands under the water. Then, she accepted a seltzer. “Does it not smell like this in the salon?” she asked.

Lucy shook her head. “Oh, it does. It’s just… well, it’s such a calming atmosphere.” 

“Ah, well,” said Viola, glancing back in the mirror, trying to see if she could already spot the light in her hair, “I think the downstairs bathroom is nice, too.” 

“Remember to tell my mom that,” said Lucy. “She’s desperate to renovate.” 

They waited. And when the timer buzzed, she washed free the dye, letting it all drip into the sink, and returned to the mirror. 

And there she was. 

There, with hair nothing like her mother’s. And when she had toweled it dry, it shined lighter than it had ever before. And when Anna, Margot, and Lucy crowded her in the mirror, giggling and grinning, it was that much harder to see the difference between them.

 

* * * * *

 

They’d decamped to the beach. The beach, busier now than it had been in the spring, full up on families, on people drunk and warm and happy. They hadn’t bothered with a fire, and instead were just lounging around an oversized lantern that Lucy had found in the garage. 

They’d brought their own drinks, slung over Lucy’s shoulder in a little cooler, enough for about two apiece. 

Viola found herself curled up against Margot, watching the sea roll. 

“Big day,” murmured Margot. 

“Yeah,” said Viola. The waves were so beautiful tonight, so serene. Had they always been? They rolled like thunder, then arrived ashore weightless.

“I just want to tell you,” started Margot. Her voice was even, tentative. Viola turned a little to get a better look at her. She was biting her lip. “I, well… I want you to know that I would never let Cam… If it came down to something like that, you know, I’d make sure it was okay.” Margot was speaking faster now. “I mean, I don’t know exactly what I’d do, but I’d do fucking something, alright? It’s not lost on me that he’s, like, this sort of big complicating factor for you coming back, and I don’t want you to overthink him, right?” She swallowed. “He’s really… he’s really a good guy. I think he’d be fine.” 

Viola took her hand. “I know you would,” she said, gently. 

“Really?” asked Margot. “Because, you know, I… I just am sorry.” 

“He hasn’t done anything to me,” said Viola, “except be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She frowned. “He’s just very much a guy, you know? And I was… well, I was worried about David, too.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Anna roll her head to the side, as if to say completely different men, but Viola ignored her. 

“I know,” said Margot. She closed an eye. “I just… I wish my boyfriend hadn’t known spring-you. Makes him meeting fall-you all scary.”

“Me too,” said Viola. Bridges to cross. 

“But I won’t let him do anything to hurt you. And I don’t mean… I just mean, he’s not going to make your life harder if I can help it,” said Margot. “Ever.” 

“I know,” said Viola. “I know, Margot.” She smiled at her. “I know.” 

Margot propped a hand back in the sand. “You’re okay?” asked Margot. “I mean, about today. I know you’re not like… like okay, or whatever, but, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” said Viola. “Yeah, I think so.” She wasn’t really sure. There was a ball sitting in her chest, and it had the answer. Lighter, maybe. Maybe it was that this was finally something akin to closure. Viola wasn’t sure she really believed in such a thing, but maybe. 

But maybe the ball was filled with pain.

“It’s okay to not be okay,” said Margot, softly. “We’re… I don’t know. I’m just sorry, I guess.” Margot’s head dipped onto Viola’s. “I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah,” said Viola. 

“We love you,” she murmured. 

“I love you guys,” murmured Viola. “You’re… I love you guys so much.” There weren’t perfect words for it. Instead, Viola plucked a strand of her hair, pulled it out, now a perfect bottle blonde, and held it next to Margot’s.

And Margot laughed, flopped her head down on top of Viola’s, the giggling shaking the top of Viola’s head. “Am I going to have to be blonde forever?” 

“Have to be?” asked Lucy. She snapped out of whatever conversation she’d been having with Anna. “What do you mean have to be?” 

And they stayed there for a long time, swapping in and out drinks, watching the waves come in and in and in, heavy in the water, soft on the sand. Anna filled them all in on how annoying her older sister was being at home, and Margot talked about her job managing kids at the camp, and Lucy talked about the boy she’d met down on the pier, Blake. And all the while, the sea rolled. 

And then, David was coming over the dunes. 

Viola unfolded herself from Margot and smiled at him. 

He looked tired. Worn out. He looked like he’d had the kind of day that she knew he had all the time now, with ridiculous counts of exercise, of lifting things, of running, of throwing balls. But he was smiling. 

“Hey now,” said Anna, as he walked up, his feet sticking in the sand. “Who invited you?” 

“It’s a mystery,” said David. He came around the circle and flopped down next to Viola, his arm immediately coming to rest around her back. “Hi.” 

“Hi,” said Viola, and she nipped up to kiss him. It was so good to see him. Here, tonight, on this beach, after everything, but always. Any time. 

“David, I’ll have you know that we have a very strict no boys allowed policy in the house,” said Lucy. 

Disappointingly, David retreated from Viola’s lips to answer. He smiled at Lucy, then shifted to make himself a bit more comfortable on the sand, splaying his legs in front of him. “I’ve noticed you’ve got this thing about making sure the pair of us don’t kiss,” he said, nonchalantly. 

Lucy grinned and shrugged. “If you two were more subtle about it, it wouldn’t be a problem.” 

“Well, this might keep happening then,” said David. “How are you all? Anything I’ve missed?” Around her shoulder, she felt him touch, just for a second, the end of her hair, and Viola giggled. 

Anna shook her head. “No.” 

“Quiet night,” agreed Margot. “Oh, do you want a drink? We’ve got spiked lemonade and seltzers. And, um, I guess if you’re-”

“Hang on,” said Viola, because now it seemed like they were going to push him not to say anything, too. 

“A seltzer sounds great,” said David. “As long as I can stay the night.” 

“Sure,” said Lucy, nodding. “Fine, I guess we can break the rules just this once.” 

“Now, hang on.” 

Margot passed David a seltzer.

“Thanks,” said David. He popped it open, touched, very briefly, the end of her hair again, and then said. “So, how was your flight, Anna?” 

Viola spun and glared at him, mostly joking. “You are morally obligated to tell me if you hate it,” she said. “You are morally obligated as my boyfriend, David, to tell me if you hate my hair.” 

David laughed, slid his arm down around her waist, and pulled her towards him. “I like your hair, Vi,” he murmured. “You look great.” He kissed her again. 

She let him for a long second, then put a hand on his chest and pushed him back, shaking her head. “Good,” she said, almost laughing. 

“My flight was great,” said Anna, as if the whole thing hadn’t happened at all. She nodded towards the drinks. “David took the last one, so I’m going to go grab some more.”

Margot shook the sand out of her palms. “I’ll go with you. I need to pee.” 

And Lucy took one look at David and Viola, snorted, and jumped to her feet. “We’ll be back,” she said, as if she didn’t issue that warning, the pair of them might forget that they’d been there in the first place.

“Okay,” said Vi, immediately sinking backwards into David. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, his hands settling around her belly, his chin on top of her hair. They watched the retreating girls together, their hair bouncing over the dunes. Viola could feel David’s eyes. “Be straight with me, David.” 

“I like your hair,” said David again, and she could hear the smile. “And if you ask me a third time, I’m still going to like your hair.”

“And what if I ask you a fourth time?” asked Viola, sweetly. 

Teed up. 

“Well…” said David.

Viola spun and pushed him back into the sand, laughing. She knelt there, just a few inches above him, and then kissed him. Then, she pulled back. “Say you like my hair.” 

“I like your hair,” said David, pliantly. 

She nipped him on the lips. “Do I need to ask you a fourth time?” she asked. 

“The answer won’t change,” said David, smiling. Then, he sat up, and Viola had to readjust some as his torso came level, her now firmly in his lap. 

“Good,” said Viola, softly. She kissed him again. Gosh, even now, he looked so tired. “I’m sorry for making you drive all the way out here.”

David shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous.” 

“How was practice?” she asked. 

“Lots of ball throwing,” murmured David. 

She shifted on his lap. She could feel him stirring. “Don’t they know you’re already good at that?” 

David laughed. “You’re right. You’re right. I’ll tell coach that we’re all set in the ball throwing department, and they can shift me over to other positions. I’m all set there.” 

“See now, why didn’t your coach think of that?” asked Viola. 

“I’ll tell him to hire you,” said David. 

They kissed again, and this time Viola pressed her whole body against his. The beach wasn’t that busy. It was too busy to have sex, yeah, but it was not too busy for her to run her hand straight down his chest, feeling every bit of him as she went. It was dark enough so that no one would see that. It was quiet enough that no one would hear it. His own hand went down her back, and she cooed. 

“Not here,” said David. “And… and not yet.” She allowed herself to roll her head to the side, to get a better look at him. 

“Boo,” she whispered, and David smiled. 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he said, softly, “but I’d be an asshole not to ask.” 

Right. The reason she’d asked him to come down in the first place, the whole point of this. Her parents. Her… shit, was it even right to call them her parents at this point? People still did that, didn’t they? 

Yes. 

She was almost certain that the answer was yes. 

That ball was still knotted in her chest from today. She could feel it, coiled and tense and ready to explode, and she’d wanted to ignore it for as long as she could, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know exactly how she felt, exactly what this meant. It had been there since the day she’d called, the day they’d never called back. 

But the ball was weight. 

“It was a lot,” she said, finally. “I mean, it was almost nothing. They just… they pretty much left as soon as I came to the table.” David pushed a bit of hair away from her face. “I didn’t even… I don’t know. It was a fucked up family, wasn’t it?” 

“Sure,” said David, nodding. “Sure.” 

“Even then,” said Viola. “I guess I’m just… everything feels unfair sometimes, you know?” She shook her head. “Like, they’d have loved me if I had always been their daughter.”

“Probably,” said David, softly. 

“And, God, I don’t know. It’s weird. It’s weird, because, shit, I don’t even know why I’m upset. I knew this already. I knew it already.” 

David shifted, nodding. “It’s different in person,” he offered.

“Yeah,” said Viola. “Yeah, I guess.” She swallowed. “I just keep thinking, you know? All those years. And I don’t want them to try to send me somewhere, and I know they can’t, and it’s not like I want them to out me to everyone or something.” She swallowed again. “I just… I don’t understand.” She felt the tears coming again. “I don’t understand why I wasn’t worth that? You know, I thought… I thought they’d be mad at me, at least. That they’d try to save me. Fight me. I thought I was worth that to them.” 

 She hadn’t actually cried today. After seeing them, she’d been so pumped full of adrenaline, and then she’d immediately launched into a task, and now she was here, and everything else was gone, and all of a sudden, she’d remembered. Remembered that she wasn’t even worth the fight. That she wasn’t worth tears and shouting. And, yeah, it was better than not knowing, but fuck, was it better than not knowing? Was it better than not knowing anything at all? 

There were tears now.

She sobbed into his shoulder, and his arms tightened around her. Body wracking, slow sobs, shaking as much as she could into his body, her eyes constant with tears. 

It had been different when she’d cried before. It had been from the not knowing. It had been from the uncertainty. It had been with the possibility, the glimmer, the feeling that maybe everything could be okay. That maybe she had been wrong. Maybe her parents hadn’t cut her away for no reason at all. 

Those had been longer, softer tears, but these came hard and they came fast. It all poured onto his shoulder. And he just held her. For a long minute, he just held her.

They felt like relief. The tears felt like relief. Saying the words, putting them into the world, felt like a kind of relief. 

And then, when she started to slow, he kissed her on the top of the head, and said, “They’re awful, Viola. They’re awful for that.” 

She nodded, tears coming slower now. 

“And,” he said, softly, “you have people who will never, ever do that to you. They’ll never do that to you.” Viola didn’t need to look up to know he was indicating the house, the girls. “And I won’t. I mean that. I mean, you know, even if it didn’t… fuck, I just… I will be there, if you ever wanted me to be.” Viola nodded again. “You are worth more than saving, Viola.”

She knew that. She knew that. 

It soothed her to hear.

“I know,” she murmured. 

He brushed at the edge of her cheek, pulling a wet strand of hair away. “And, if you want really, really bad fill in parents, my dad and mom would be happy to accommodate. You can have all of the annoying, awkward family dinners that you ever wanted.” 

Viola half laughed at that, her voice still locked a little into the tears. “What an offer.” 

“Sara would love an ally,” said David, and Viola managed to come off his shoulder. He smiled at her. “Seriously, she’d love someone who wasn’t going to build me up all the time at one of those things.” 

“One of those things,” sniffed out Viola. 

“They feel more like events than family dinners,” he said. He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I love you, Viola Collins.” 

Viola leaned back, half smiling. “I love you, too.” 

She stayed there, stuck in his arms, allowing herself the comfort of it. Her head, his shoulder. It would be okay, wouldn’t it? Someday, it had to be okay. 

The tears had made her lighter. She could feel that in her bones. Not weightless, and not without the pit of sorrow. Not without fear. But lighter all the same. 

She would live. 

They didn’t need to be her blood. She didn’t need them to be her blood. She could be loved anyway. She was loved anyway. 

“Come on,” she said, unfurling herself from his lap. “I want to put my feet in.” She reached out a hand and helped David to his feet. 

They walked down, through the parts where the sand was dry and shifted under their steps, down to where it was wet and solid. And then, down to where the water pooled, just a little, at ankle depth, ebbing as the waves came in. 

“Are you still thinking about names?” asked David, cupping her hand in his. 

Viola nodded and smiled. “Maybe,” she said. She liked Viola. She did, really. But sometimes, she’d considered nicknames. Just for the people she loved. Just for the people who loved her. Something that she’d decided on.

“Frontrunners?” asked David. 

She shook her head. “No.” She paused, the remnants of a wave swirling at her feet. “It’s all logistics now, isn’t it?” What she called herself, what she labeled herself now, would have to be on top of the girl who was already here. She had once wondered if she could fill the name Viola, had seen it as a vessel to inhabit. Something to bring to life. This name, the next, would warp to fit her. There was already life in Viola. “Everything I have to do now is just logistics.” 

David squeezed her hand. “I guess so.”

“Housing and name,” she said. “And… and classes.” She smiled. “It’s school stuff.” 

David laughed. “Back to school shopping for a new name,” he teased. 

“Slightly complicated logistics,” said Viola. “Extremely slightly complicated logistics.” 

She knew it would be hard. She knew it would be painful, as painful as today sometimes. But this path was easier than anything else. It led to her life.

“Extremely slightly complicated logistics,” repeated David. He squeezed her hand again. “The water is a little cold.” 

Viola shook her head. “Just for a minute.” 

She wanted to stay in it. She liked the feeling of the water swirling around her ankles. More than that, she liked the feeling of the water shifting the sand beneath her, tearing away little bits of the beach, spitting out new bits. She liked that she could feel the waves rebuilding the ground exactly where she was standing, changing and changing and changing, and she liked that it all pulled right from beneath her toes. 

She liked that she could feel South Carolina being reborn beneath her feet. 

So they stayed there, the waves rolling, the water pulling, the sand disappearing. They stayed there until Viola was certain the girls would be back when she turned, up on the dunes, their eyes on the sea, their blonde hair billowing in the summer wind.

And when Viola finally turned, sand pulling from beneath her heel, her blonde hair billowed, too.