When Doom Found Violet novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Happy Anniversary
Violet buys the Camaro her husband always wanted, finds him in bed with her cousin, drives off in it, and a speeding car runs the red light and hits her.
I pulled into my own driveway at four in the afternoon with a thirty-thousand-dollar muscle car and a bow the size of a beach ball.
It was our third anniversary, and the car was for my husband.
He had stared at this exact model for two years.
I had caught him with it open on his laptop, on his phone, even on the back of a magazine at the dentist.
For one year I had poured drinks at a bar three nights a week after teaching all day, and he thought the money was going into a baby fund.
I never corrected him.
I stuck the bow on the hood and stepped back to look at it.
My phone buzzed with a text from Kent, sent at noon.
"Feeling awful, babe. Went home early. Don't worry about dinner."
His name was Kent, and I felt bad for him.
Then I felt happy, because a sick husband would be home to see his present.
The front door was unlocked.
"Kent?"
The living room was dark and quiet.
I walked down the hall with the car keys still in my hand.
I opened the bedroom door slowly so I wouldn't wake him.
My cousin Marcy was on top of my husband, in our bed, with nothing on.
His gray work phone lay on the nightstand where it always charged, the one he never let me touch.
It buzzed once on the wood.
Kent turned it face down with one hand while the other was still on her hip.
I stood there with my mouth open and couldn't make a sound.
Then the words came out on their own.
"You do look sick," I said. "It must be terminal."
They both jerked around.
Marcy squealed and dragged the sheet over herself.
Kent fell off the side of the bed hunting for his boxers.
"Violet, baby, this isn't what it looks like."
"It looks like my cousin is in my bed, Kent."
"Vi, let me explain."
I turned for the door.
He caught my arm in the hall and I yanked it free.
"Don't touch me."
"It was an accident," Marcy called out, clutching the sheet. "Honestly, Vi. It just happened."
"An accident?" I said.
I looked at her, the girl I had sat beside at every family dinner since we were six.
"Every time the family called you a mess, I said you were just young."
"Every time my aunt said you'd never amount to anything, I said give her time."
"Even when my own sister said you were a liar, I told her she was wrong."
Marcy stopped squirming.
"I defended you because I thought you deserved a chance. Now I know they were right about you."
Her face crumpled.
I didn't care.
I turned back to my husband.
"Happy anniversary, honey."
His eyes went empty.
He had forgotten.
I walked out the front door in my work flats and he came after me, tugging his shirt over his head.
I went straight to the Camaro and ripped the bow off the hood.
Kent stopped on the lawn.
"Whose car is that?"
I stared at him.
The woman he loved had just walked in on him, and the first thing he asked about was a car.
"Mine," I said.
His mouth fell open.
"It was supposed to be yours," I said. "Happy anniversary."
I got in and shut the door.
"Violet, wait. Don't do this."
The engine started with a growl that shook the seat.
I put it in reverse and backed out over the edge of the lawn.
He ran alongside for three steps and then stood in the street with his hands on his head.
My phone rang before I reached the end of the block.
Kent.
I declined.
It rang again.
I declined that too.
I drove with the tears running down my face and no idea where I was going.
I only knew that I wasn't going home.
An hour later the calls had turned into texts and the texts into a long red column of notifications.
I turned the phone over on the passenger seat.
I'm divorcing him.
I said it out loud to the windshield and my voice didn't shake.
It was the only certain thing I had left.
I pushed the gas pedal down and the Camaro leaped forward on the empty county road.
My phone lit up again and buzzed itself across the seat.
"Just stop!" I shouted.
I looked down at the screen for one second.
When I looked up, the light ahead was green.
I drove into the intersection.
A set of headlights burst from my left, much too fast.
It was a big black SUV, and it wasn't slowing down.
It ran the red light without even braking.
I had time to see it grow and nothing else.
The crash threw the Camaro sideways and the seat belt cut into my chest.
My head hit the door frame and the world went white, then dark.
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