Violet Turner doesn't seem to be a rule-bound person, but she is. She has three rules that shape her life or perhaps her life had shaped them. But she follows them without regard of the conditions, without consideration of all the reasons to break her own rules. And she damn near shatters when someone around her does. Addison's case, it shakes her into so many pieces, she isn't sure she'll be able to find them all, isn't sure she'll be able to piece them back together again, isn't sure that there's enough glue in the world to hold her together. She just doesn't understand how that girl could tell such a horrible lie, especially when it is bigger than just herself, bigger than she could have imagined. How could a woman tell a lie that made the truths of other women seem false? How could she lie so easily about something that is so hard to tell the truth about?
Anyone could hear it in her words, should they listen carefully enough. And Addison, she does. She hears the brokenness in Violet's voice and she knows that maybe her client's lie is worse than she'd imagined. Maybe, it has affected Violet in ways she didn't know. Then Violet tells her, tells her that one of her rules is never to lie about rape and Addison wants to take everything she's said back, erase her client, her case, the horrific lie from Violet's mind because she can see sorrow on Violet's face, in the creases of her forehead, her knitted eyebrows, her down-turned mouth. And for a second, she sees fear before Violet musters a flat, unconvincing smile and pushes Addison away.
And maybe she won't talk to Addison, but she has to talk to someone because she can feel her history echoing, creeping up to haunt her once again. She wakes in a cold sweat that night and lies awake through to the morning, clutching her phone, but never finding the courage to dial the number of the one person who could save her from this downward spiral of fear and anguish.
Her heart nearly beats out of her chest when only a week later, she gets a phone call from Kara Wei, her best friend through college and some of the worst times of her life. And she remembers the way Kara had helped her say everything she needed to before she shoved everything so deep into the dirt that she didn't think (and God, she hoped) that she could never dig it back up again. But the earth had shifted, and it was rising. It was rising despite all of Violet's efforts to push it back down again.
And then it was right there, forming a lump in the back of her throat as it mingled with Kara's betrayal, her utter disregard of the friendship they once had, her choice to put herself above all else. She doesn't want to cry, but how could she keep it all in? How could she keep it buried when it isn't dead, isn't gone, but only undesired, only desperately hidden, but never ever forgotten?
She shows up at Cooper's doorstep teary-eyed and shattering, splintering. And he pulls her into his arms and she thinks that it is a very safe place to fall apart because he'll be there, he'll be there to put her back together when it's over. And so she follows him inside and sits on his couch. And God, she's iced over cold, but she manages to speak and she tells him everything. She tells him that in college, her ex-boyfriend broke into her dorm and sexually assaulted her; she tells him that no one believed her, no one except Kara, who has now betrayed her. She doesn't have to tell him about Addison's case because he knows, he understands, and now he soothes. He promises that he won't let anything happen to her, not again. And she's beginning to feel like she's mending, he's mending her broken pieces with honeyed words and superglue-strong promises. And she fucking loves him, she does, but she remains tight-lipped because she knows that he loves someone else and at least he's here. It doesn't matter because he's here. And as long as she can hear his breath and feel his heart beating in his chest, everything will be okay, she'll be okay. And she wants to tell him as much, but instead she thanks him for listening.
He'll always listen to her and be there when she needs him, he's made that promise before. And he has never broken a promise to her. And now she makes a promise to herself, a rule. Rule number four: always be there when your best friend needs you.
She's not really one to break her own rules, so she bites her lip to keep from kissing him and lets him hold her together better than glue ever could.