Hold My Hand & Jump

She could hide it well, I had to give her that. After years of teaching herself to control her nerves, she was nearly a master at concealing it. She could hide it from everyone else.
She has never succeeded at hiding anything from me.
The more I thought about it, the more incredulous it seemed that Violet and Tony had never met. Given the amount of mutual friends we have, and the amount of time we spend together, not to mention that she’s my best friend and Jaime and Tony are like two inseparable siblings… it was kind of weird, to say the least. The odds of their paths crossing at one point or another by now should have been higher. Now that they had, I was kicking myself for not making it a point to introduce them sooner. Had I known something this adorable would happen, I definitely would have.
They must have thought they were the only ones who could see the glances they were stealing at each other. The one thing that was out of Violet’s control was her cheeks set aflame; luckily for her, the shade of orange the actual fire cast on her face masked it. There was no masking the light in Tony’s eyes, though. It was as if he were seeing actual light for the first time, like he was mesmerized. As cute as this was, the frustrating part was that was all it was. They weren’t speaking to each other, or even smiling. Violet would eye him as he was on his phone; when he would look up, she’d look away, pretending to be on her phone, but his gaze never averted. Other than that, nothing was happening. I was beginning to think this is what happens when two socially inept individuals have the hots for each other: nothing.
Tony’s eyes were fixated on her; this wasn’t a passing glance, he was looking at her as if she were a diamond. Get off your phone! I wanted to scream at her. I counted how many seconds it took for her to realize he was looking at her. One, two, thr – oh, there it goes. You always bite your lip when you’re nervous, dork.
When my phone buzzed, I knew who was texting me. So you’re not pretending. Okay.
“Oh my God.” That was it. That was all she said.
“Yes, dear?” I replied.
She made a frustrated noise under her breath. Apparently, I’m not funny. “You could have at least told me one of them would be cute.”
“Why, Violet, I’m a taken woman,” I responded. “Besides, I know Jaime’s cute, why would I have to tell you?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Violet’s signature eye roll. “Call it as you see it. Did you set this up, or what?”
“No, but if I had seen this coming, I would have.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“He’s not gonna bite you, dork. I promise. Just say hi to him.”
I’ll never know why I take such pleasure in pushing Violet’s buttons. It was just funny to watch her sweat, I guess. As I locked my phone and placed it on my thigh, Jaime softly held my hand and kissed my cheek. “There’s nothing more important than me on your phone, amor,” he joked. “Tonight’s about you too, you know. Be social. Have some food. I can’t eat these tacos by myself.”
I unlocked my phone and discreetly showed him the messages.
He choked on his drink. “There’s one thing more important than me on your phone. Is she talking ab – ”
“Just. Watch. Them.” I breathed.
We both observed the two most painfully shy people on the planet steal glances at each other. After a while, Jaime broke the silence. “This is painful,” he whispered in my ear. “What do you think will happen?”
“Well, it doesn’t look like it,” I answered, turning to him, “but Violet’s already undressed him with her eyes. Twice.”
“Well, that’s rude, she hasn’t even said hi.”
I continued to watch them while Jaime answered a text. “‘There’s nothing more important than me on your phone,’” I mocked, then Jaime showed me the text. “Oh my God.”
It was from Tony, and it read: “This is Violet? The one Ama’s been friends with for years? And you haven’t introduced me before this?”
I had to cover my mouth. This was too good to be true.
“Why haven’t we introduced them yet?” Jaime asked softly, lips pressed to my ear.
“I was thinking the same thing earlier,” I whispered to him. “But now I’ve got an idea.” My body unraveled from Jaime and turned to face Tony. “So, Tony, how is it that you and Violet have so much in common, but you’ve never met?”
Tony looked up from his phone, and his entire facial expression changed. Though it was hard to put my finger on just what I saw spread across his cheeks, the light in his eyes was definitely brighter. “So much in common, like what?” He asked, eyes flickering back and forth between Violet and I.
Violet’s breathing hitched.
“Well, don’t you go to the same college?” Jaime spoke up.
This time, when Tony’s eyes returned to Violet, they stayed there. “You go to Miramar?”
“I do,” Violet said, clearing her throat. “I’m studying arts and humanities. What about you?”
“Oh, I go for music theory,” Tony said in realization. “You and I probably have never had any classes together. I’d remember if I’d seen you before.”
I wanted to scream. This was working perfectly. For Tony, at least.
“How long have you been going there?” He asked her.
“Well, I started in the spring of this year,” Violet answered. “So this is my first year but my second semester.”
We listened to them discuss classes and schedules for a minute longer; I was pretty absorbed in their conversation until Jaime leaned in close and wrapped an arm around me. “You are an evil woman,” he laughed softly, his breath tickling my ear.
“I’m sure Violet will agree with you,” I smiled. I pulled away enough to look him in the eyes. With the light from the fire, and the way he was looking at me… sometimes I wondered how the hell I snagged such a handsome man. I tried to speak, but no words came out of my mouth. Jaime smiled, and pressed his lips to mine. It was as if little fireworks were embedded into his skin, and they went off whenever and wherever he touched me. He was such a powerful kisser; he left me totally weak in the knees. I guess, in a way, he knew how to make me fall for him.
Once we remembered that we were in the presence of others, which personally took me much longer than I’d like to admit, we stopped. He held my face in my hands, keeping me close to him. “You know I love you,” he breathed.
“As I love you,” I grinned, kissing him again.
“Eww, PDA!” One of the boys mocked. Soon the yard was filled with whistling and shouts of ‘Get a room!’ We laughed, and Jaime made a comment about Vic’s height or something. While they bantered, I looked over at Tony. Violet wasn’t there.
I scooted a little closer to him. “Where did she go?”
He looked up from his phone. “She went inside to get some more food.”
“Oh,” I said. That’s something else she’s really good at, I thought. Avoiding conversation. “What’d you guys talk about?”
“Bunch of stuff. She’s really interesting,” he said, putting his phone away. When he looked up at me, he raised an eyebrow. “I know you know why we haven’t met before.”
I was taken aback by his boldness. “Care to enlighten me?”
He looked down and laughed nervously, showing this was all in good humor. “No, you knew we went to the same college and we both go to local shows and all of that. You just suck at introducing people.” Our eyes met again. “Where have you been hiding her?”
I was at a loss for words. “Oh my God,” I said with a hand over my mouth.
Tony rolled his eyes and looked down again; every time he did that, he just fiddled with his phone, his thumbs moving in circles over the dark screen. “Well, anyway,” he said softly, his gaze meeting mine once more. I figured it was an anxious habit, to look up and down and up and down again; Violet did the same. “Thank you,” he smiled. “I don’t think I could have gotten the courage to say hi to her.”
“Someone had to do something, man,” Jaime added.
Tony rolled his eyes. “Man, I just know when someone’s out of my league.”
“Oh my God,” I said again like a broken record, still unable to uncover my mouth. “I gotta go inside before this gets any cuter.”
Both Jaime and Tony laughed. “We did good, amor,” Jaime called after me.
“Violet is not going to think so,” I muttered to myself. The kitchen light was on when I walked into the house, and I laughed, figuring a fairly flustered Violet would be in there.
She was; her face flushed red when she saw me, and there was murder in her narrowed eyes. “Where do you keep your knives? I have to kill you.”
“Oh, Violet,” I laughed. “You wouldn’t kill your best friend, would you?”
“For feeding me to the wolves like that?” She whispered, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, you’re dead to me.” She gave up searching through the drawers, then snapped back toward me. “Seriously, do you realize how terrifying that was?”
“Why the hell was that terrifying?” I grabbed a soda from the fridge and hopped up onto the counter. “Why do cute boys scare you so much, babe?”
Violet mimicked my actions, sitting on the counter opposite me, and rolled her eyes. She could put a patent on that eye roll. “You’re talking to someone who can’t even answer the phone sometimes, Amabella. No, cute boys don’t necessarily scare me, although I must admit that he’s a looker.”
I snorted at her comment, and mocked what she said earlier. “‘Call it as you see it.’”
“Oh, shut up,” Violet scowled. “Anyway, cute boys don’t scare me. It’s just… you know…” She was silent for longer than her usual conversational pauses. “I don’t know.”
“What, what is it?”
Violet looked up at me, and her demeanor had completely changed. “Anything more than a conversation with a boy I don’t know does. And…” She rolled her eyes again, and blushed. “I actually had an intelligent conversation with him. You know, the kind that makes you wanna keep talking to the person. And find more things to talk about.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
I marveled at how animated she became at this point, how her eyes lit up as she spoke. “He seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, and I admit I was hanging on to his every word. He kept it interesting, kept asking me questions and making me want to answer his. Plus, I don’t know how you knew it, but we do have a lot in common.”
“Like what? What did you talk about?” I leaned forward, my elbows digging into my thighs. “Tell your best friend everything.”
“Well, he does early morning classes and I do late night classes, so that’s why we’ve never seen each other.” She hopped off the counter, her sneakers hitting the tile with a dense thud, and reached in the fridge for a soda. “He asked me if I’m eventually going to get my bachelor’s degree, and I said if I do, I think I’d want to double major in art and liberal studies.”
“Liberal studies?” I asked. “Are you talking about SDSU?”
“Yeah, he asked that too,” she chuckled, sitting on the counter again. “That’s what I’d need to do to teach at the elementary level.”
“Oh, okay, I was just confused for a second. I think Vic used to go there, it’s a really good school. Anyway, continue.”
“He seemed so intrigued that I wanted to teach art, he thought that was really cool. And I said, ‘what about you, what do you want to do?’ and he just went on and on about music. He’s been playing guitar since he was 15, and he’s been in a few bands. He said all he wants to do is play music, and he looked so happy talking about it.”
“That’s why he and Jaime get along so well,” I interjected. “They’ve been in a few bands together, actually.”
“Oh,” Violet said, nodding. “Interesting. Anyway, he seemed a lot more interested in what I had to say, which was kind of weird to me. I’m not really used to that.”
“What else did he say? You gotta give me more than that.”
She pursed her lips in frustration at me, but continued anyway. “He asked me if I’d always wanted to be a teacher, and I said that no, I haven’t, but I don’t think there’s anything else I really want to do. There’s nothing else I’m willing to pursue a college degree for, you know?”
“Hey now,” I warned, pointing a finger at her. “You know what you want to be, you just don’t think you’re good enough, which is bullshit.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever… anyway, he talked me into telling him what that was, and I said I wanted a job that focused more on art, not necessarily teaching art, but I just didn’t possess the talent. Ama, I swear, he looked right at me and said, ‘I doubt that.’”
I covered my mouth again, as shocked as I was earlier. “Oh, that’s why you came in here because you almost shot through the sky when he said that.”
“He has the cutest smile and I can’t handle it,” she said, her hands covering her face. “I had to come in here and collect myself.”
“You’re doing such a good job,” I laughed quietly; I stopped, however, when she pulled her hands away from her face. A storm was brewing deep inside her mind, I could tell, and it darkened her features, dimming the light behind her eyes. “Sorry, I was kidding.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that,” Violet assured me quickly. “No, but you see what I mean? He’s somebody that I want to get to know a little bit more.”
I let my jaw hit the floor. “And that doesn’t scare you?”
Violet shrugged. “Like I said. It all scares me. Every goddamn thing in this world scares me.”
“Can I let you in on a secret?” I asked, and Violet nodded. “He asked me where I’ve been hiding you.”
Violet didn’t speak, she just put her face in her hands again.
“And he thanked me for starting the conversation because he feels like you’re out of his league. He didn’t know how to talk to you otherwise.”
“Is this real life?” She breathed, barely audible.
“So I’m sure he wouldn’t mind getting to know you a little bit more, either.”
That’s when the Violet that I, unfortunately, remembered all too well began to show through again. “This is what I’m talking about,” she sighed, pulling her hands away from her face enough to speak clearly.
“He’s nothing like the last one. I promise you that. I wouldn’t let him anywhere near you if he was.” I stopped because it looked like I wasn’t getting through to her. I decided to just let her have her anxious rant.
“Let’s pretend that he likes me, okay, and say it’s because I’ve piqued his interest so far. We start to talk and he finds out all the shit that’s wrong with me, finds out I’m not interesting at all. I don’t want to keep shutting myself off but I can’t let someone in again, I – ”
I took Violet’s hands and rubbed the back of them softly with my thumbs.
She sighed and hung her head. “I don’t even want to take a chance. We had a ten-minute conversation and I’m already expecting the worst – that’s how bad the worst was. I don’t even want to take it any further than this.” She was silent for a moment, then laughed softly to herself. “I mean, I do, but I don’t. Does that make sense?”
“It makes perfect sense,” I whispered.
Violet hung her head again, eyes locked on the floor. “I guess I’m just scared he’ll think I’m crazy like he did.”
The fire of anger boiled my veins, but the icy sting of guilt and concern for my friend kept me at room temperature.
Violet scoffed at herself, and rolled her eyes but I knew it was her way of saying, ‘sorry, I’m annoying.’ After more than five years of friendship, Violet was easy to read. She found it incredibly difficult to open up to people without feeling like she was bothering them. I found it difficult to get through to her that this is what I was here for.
“Babe,” I said softly, squeezing her hands to get her to look at me. “I know it’s scary for you. I know what you’ve been through.” Violet closed her eyes, not needing a reminder. “But I know that you want more than this. You want more than the same old routine, day in and day out. You think you’re too weak but I know you’re not.”
“Ama, don’t give me that, I – ”
“I’ve seen the kind of person Tony is.” I wasn’t even going to bother with what she was going to say. “He’s got the gentlest soul, and he’s a good person. He wouldn’t be Jaime’s friend if he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be my friend if he wasn’t.” Violet nodded her head to say ‘I hear you’ but it was clear that she wasn’t convinced. “Hey, look at me.”
Violet lifted her head, a paragraph of doubt written by anxiety on her face.
“If there’s anyone I trust you with, it’s Tony. And you know how easily I give out my trust.”
“Yeah, you don’t. To, like, anybody.” Violet laughed softly.
“So do you think you’re a little less scared now?” I asked, smiling at her.
She smiled back. “I’m actually a lot less scared. How do you do that?”
“I’m magic,” I winked. “So do me a favor, Violet. Don’t overthink it, just do it. Do what you feel would be best for you. Because after all, nobody knows what that is more than you.”
“Yeah, but the second person would be you, so I’ll take your advice,” she smiled, pulling me into a hug. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said softly. “You know that’s what I’m here for. And if it’s any consolation, just know that if he hurts one hair on your head, I’ll most be likely on the run from the law after I’m done with him.”
“If he’s been friends with you for a while,” Violet whispered, “I think he knows that.”
“I hope so,” I laughed. “Now go talk to him some more, I love counting all the different shades of red you turn.”
“Why am I friends with you?” She whined, but she followed me out to the backyard anyway.

Notes