Light, prolonged
春分 [21] / [33]
"Did you see how Ed dealt with her? That was too rough, like dragging a spoiled animal,"
Cynthia told him.
"Too much,"
she added, sipping brandy.
"It was indeed."
Alexander replied uncomfortably. Violet acted terribly, that was true, but the way Ed treated her wasn't right.
"How was she when you were dating her?"
she asked.
He sat there for a moment in quiet reflection. Now that he thought about it, he never actually told Cynthia the exact circumstances of his break-up with Violet. She had the gist, he was sure, but all of the bullshit that happened between the start of their relationship and its ignoble end that led up to the final crescendo was something he never really talked about. He didn't want to.
"She was great," he told, half-truthfully,
"in the beginning.”
It was the truth. At the very outset of the relationship, things were fantastic for a couple of weeks, then the shit-show began.
"We just weren't right for each other," he added,
"Do you think Ed would do something wrong to Violet?"
After a short silence, Alexander asked her. Frankly speaking, the scene of Ed dragging her out of the bar was haunting him since it occurred.
"What, you worrying about her?"
Cynthia answered rather sharply.
"It’s just . . . "
he sighed.
He didn't love Violet anymore. Not with an erotic love, but weirdly, she was like a thistle in his heart. He knew that Violet was loitering around him since their break-up. If she were happy and out of his sight, he wouldn't be bothered like this. No matter how he hated her, he couldn't help thinking about her sometimes, and wonder why she kept rejecting her own happiness and peace.
"You know how I got to know her at first, don't you?"
Alexander asked. Cynthia nodded while sipping brandy.
Alexander's memory
A few years ago, she was the victim of a case which Alexander took on. Her stepfather brutally beat her up almost everyday, and her drunk of a mother didn't give a shit. As Violet reported her parents in a desperate bid to escape the house, Violet's parents were arrested and sent to jail. Violet didn't have any siblings or relatives, so she was completely alone in the world. The authorities sent Violet to an orphanage. But she kept running away from the place.
