Archive of Our Own

Xaden Riorson was sure about most things in his life. 

He was sure about the quiet, sprawling house he just bought out in the countryside of Aretia— the perfect place to raise the family he was sure he wanted.

He was sure he wanted at least one, probably two, maybe three kids to fill that sprawling house he just bought out in the countryside of Aretia.

He was sure about his friends.

Garrick, his ride-or-die since he was two, only to be beaten by his first friend and cousin, Bodhi. And the siblings he never had but got when he entered foster care for a year after his dad died, Liam and Sloane. Then there was Imogen, fiercely loyal with a cutting tongue. She was always one of the few who would never back down when Xaden pushed too hard and he was forever thankful that Garrick made her his wife. 

He was sure about his best friend, the one he’s had for ten years. The one who, despite knowing him for less time than Garrick or Bodhi or all the others, reaches into his soul in a way he never knew someone could. The one who, he was pretty certain, he wouldn't be here without.

Violet. He was always sure about Violet.

He was sure about taking over his father’s business. Even if it never felt like he had a choice.

And he was mostly sure about the woman he was marrying….tomorrow.

But wasn’t that a problem? Shouldn't he be more than mostly sure? Surely he should be undeniably certain about that choice.

Choice. The word left a bitter taste in his mouth. 

He and Catriona Cordella made sense—at least on paper. They’d met when he was fifteen and she was fourteen, back when their parents’ companies were still circling each other, talking mergers and market share over expensive dinners. Somewhere along the way, the conversation had shifted.

From business…to legacy. And then to them.

His dad and her parents had pushed. Not quietly, not slowly—loud enough to make it feel inevitable. And Xaden hadn’t fought it. He’d been a hormonal teenager, and Cat had been beautiful, confident, and a more than willing participant. 

Papers had been drawn up early and quietly. The kind of agreement people like them didn’t question. The kind of agreement that kept the wealth contained. Kept the power consolidated. 

Kept everything exactly where it belonged.

And so it had been decided—long before tragedy ever touched either of them.

Xaden Riorson would marry Catriona Cordella. 

And Riorson Trade would absorb Cordella Development.

But then – tragedy did strike. 

Xaden, whose mom had left years prior, lost his dad quickly to cancer when he was 17. Cat lost her parents when their private jet crashed in the South Pacific a few months later. 

They should have had each other. Should have leaned on something that was already promised, already set in motion.

But they hadn’t spoken since the ink dried.

And now, at twenty-seven, he was set to marry a woman he didn’t understand—someone who didn’t understand him, and had never really cared to.

If he was being honest, he had never really cared to understand her either. But there’s no room for honesty tonight. Not now.

Because their parents had arranged this before their deaths. Their respective boards had voted this through and Xaden had learned to take what he could from their courtship—and call it enough.

Knock, knock , knock

Xaden sets his phone on the side table, next to the cuff links Cat gave him after the rehearsal dinner. Gold initials intertwined, carved into onyx. 

Xaden hates gold.  

Almost as much as he hates the idea of wearing the matching ring tomorrow.

This is just nerves. Catriona is the right choice. 

Maybe if he tells himself that enough, he’ll believe it.

Opening the door, he’s not surprised by who he finds, though he is surprised by who is standing next to her.

As if her very presence soothes something inside him he has never had the courage to inspect, his entire body relaxes in a sigh he didn’t even realize he was holding.

“Quick, let us in. I snuck her in through the service entrance,” Violet, his best friend since his junior year in high school tells him.

Xaden steps aside and lets her in. His best friend, his confidant, his quiet in the storm.

The girl who, as a freshman, stomped her foot and kneed Garrick in the balls because she thought he was giving Bodhi a hard time.

The same girl who turned red as hell two seconds later when Bodhi explained Garrick was just being an idiot. The girl he started calling Violence that day and never stopped.

The one who forced her way into their lives like she’d always meant to be there. Who softened Imogen in ways no one else could. Who went to prom with him as friends and still somehow ruined every other date after that by comparison.

The one who sat on his bedroom floor his senior year, quizzing him on books he didn’t care about just so he could stay on the soccer team. 

The one who knows how he takes his coffee, how he sleeps, how he spirals. Who can read him in a single glance and has no problem calling him out in the next breath.

The one who knows him better than Garrick.

Better than Bodhi.

Better than Liam.

Better than anyone.

Better than the woman he’s marrying tomorrow.

And here she is, at 10pm the night before his wedding, proving her worth all over again. 

Because she brought Sgaeyl.

She didn’t ask for permission, didn’t check if Xaden wanted her there. Violence just knew he would need her there. And she knew he wouldn’t say it out loud. Knew he wouldn’t ask.

Knew he'd need something solid in a room that felt anything but real.

“I cannot believe you brought Sgaeyl,” Xaden says, but there’s no real disbelief in it. His voice is softer, something dangerously close to relief as he moves to the foot of the bed where Sgaeyl has already claimed her spot.

He crouches, running a hand through her dark brown fur. “Hey, girl. Missed you,” he tells her as he snuggles his nose deeper in her fur. 

“I can’t believe Cat picked a hotel that doesn’t allow dogs,” Violet says, dropping onto the bed like she belongs there, like she always has. She takes the exact spot he’d just vacated. 

Then she shrugs, glancing at him.

“Actually,” she adds dryly, “I can.”

Xaden had only asked for two things for their wedding: Violet to be in his wedding party and Sgaeyl by his side. 

Cat denied both requests. Xaden, though, wouldn’t let up and eventually, Cat agreed to allow Violet in the wedding if Sgaeyl wasn’t, and vice versa. One or the other, not both. 

Xaden never mentioned it to Violence. 

“Leave it to you to find a way around that. Didn’t bring Tairn?”

“Ha! He didn’t want to see you, but was pretty pissed that I took Sgaeyl,” she tells him as she takes two mini vodkas out of her pocket and hands him one, “you should have seen them, though, all tangled up together in Tairn’s bed.”

“I brought Sgaeyl’s bed to your place,” he tells her matter of factly. 

Violence just rolls her eyes, “yeah, well you know how those two are. Attached at the hip.”

Violence tips her bottle up to him, "Cheers to..." she pauses and tilts her head slightly, "to us." Xaden taps the side of his plastic bottle to hers, and then loses himself in the burn as the vodka slips down his throat. 

Xaden tosses the bottle in the trash and smirks at her, snuggles closer to Sgaeyl. Now’s as good a time as any to ask the question he’s been dreading. With a deep breath he just rips the bandaid off.

“Thanks for keeping Sgaeyl while Cat and I go on our honeymoon.” He takes a chance to look at her and regrets it immediately; her beauty always took his breath away. But there's no place for those thoughts tonight, so he continues, “since she and Tairn are so connected, what if Sgaeyl just stayed with you from now on?”

He can’t look at Violence now. He heard the intake of breath, he heard her curse Cat under her breath. He can’t look at her eyes, knowing they’ll be more green than blue, maybe even amber like they do when she is furious. 

He doesn’t think he can handle that tonight.

There’s always been something about Violet. Not just the obvious things, though he’s noticed her beauty and the way others gravitate towards her, the way he's always gravitated towards her. The way she walks into a room like she’s daring it to underestimate her. The way she feels everything too much and pretends she doesn’t feel anything at all. The way she says his name when she’s annoyed—Xay-den—like it’s a damnation and salvation all into one.

Violence was more than that, she fit. Like she was the missing piece to a puzzle he had lost years before he knew he would need it.

And then there was that summer…right after he had graduated from college. Right before expectation became duty, before board meetings and contracts and decisions he couldn’t ignore forever.

Everyone had left for the summer— jobs, European internships, summer vacations— Violence had taken an internship at the college’s archives but had nowhere to stay. So he offered up his family home.

Of course he did. Because she was his best friend. But that summer…felt different. Charged. Primed for lightning to strike.

She’d stayed at Riorson House for nearly three months. Long enough to leave pieces of herself behind in ways neither of them ever acknowledged.

They fell into a rhythm that felt…dangerous… felt safe. A rhythm Xaden wanted to keep.

Mornings that started too early because she insisted on opening every curtain in the house. Afternoons spent arguing over nothing—music, books, whether liking pickles was a personality trait—and nights that stretched too late, both of them refusing to be the first to say they were tired.

They learned each other in quiet ways. Ways you only learn by quietly observing. 

She hated tomatoes with a passion that didn’t make sense, but loved ketchup. She loved cucumbers like they were their own food group, and drank red wine even when it was too hot for it, just to prove a point no one else cared to refute.

Her favorite color was purple, but she never admitted it out loud because people assumed it—and that alone was enough to make her stubborn about it. 

She hated violets, but loved her name. 

She told him how her mom was furious about her English degree, that she’d wanted her to pick something more “practical” which meant, something that paid well. But she knew her dad would have been proud. And Xaden held her while she cried about her dad, the same way he held her three years prior when he died of a heart attack. 

And Xaden told her things he had never shared before. Things he had never put to voice, even in therapy. Violence was his therapy. 

He told her about his mother leaving. About the stupid, stubborn part of him that thought she’d come back when his dad died, like she might care about his grief and fix what she had already broken.

Xaden told her about the day he saw her again, by accident, walking casually in downtown Aretia hand in hand with a little boy who looked no more than 11 years old. Another behind her holding the hand of the man she left him for. She was happy. Whole. 

With a new family that had nothing to do with him.

He hadn’t meant to share any of it. But with Violence, the words just…came. Easy. Unrushed. 

And Violence, she didn’t try to fix it. Didn’t soften her words or his hurt or turn it into something easier to hold.

She just sat there beside him, shoulder pressed to his, and stayed.

Most nights ended the same way.

Curled up on opposite ends of the same couch that somehow turned into not opposite ends. A shared blanket. Her head on his shoulder. His arm draped over her like it had always belonged there. Like it would always belong there.

There were moments—too many to count—where it shifted.

A look that lingered too long.

A joke that wasn’t really a joke.

The night the power went out and they ended up sitting on the kitchen floor, candlelight flickering between them, her leg hooked over his like it was nothing—

He’d thought, All I have to do is lean in and take what’s mine.

And just when he was about to lean in and touch his lips to hers, the lights flicked on like some sick joke and the spell was broken. 

Xaden never tried again. He learned, in that moment, that Violet Sorrengail was no longer a calculated risk he wanted to take. No – she was the risk he couldn’t afford to lose. 

So when he reconnected with Catriona nine months ago—for the first time since he was fifteen—and the boards revived the merger, pulling out the agreement their parents had signed eleven years earlier…along with the undeniable fact that Cat had grown into a smokeshow—he didn’t hesitate. He threw himself in headfirst.

Because that’s what was expected. For the company. For his father’s legacy.

And expectation has always been easier than choice.

He moved into her penthouse two months after their first date, because his was “too small” and didn’t have the amenities Cat “needed.” He bought her a ring two months after that. It all happened so fast, he often wonders what he missed, or if he skipped out on something important. 

“I’m sorry but what the actual fuck did you just ask me?” 

Violet’s voice, furious and curt, cuts through Xaden’s reminiscing and centers him in reality. The reality that he’s marrying Cat. The reality that he’s handing over his dog like she isn’t the center of his whole world to the only person he would trust his world with. 

Xaden clears his throat, eyes firmly on anything but Violence, “Cat doesn’t want Sgaeyl at the new house…”

“Xaden you cannot be fucking serious right now? Please tell me you told her where she could shove it?”

He runs his hands through Sgaeyl’s short fur and takes a glance at Violence. Her eyes narrowed on him, amber shines bright. He found Sgaeyl a few years ago when he popped into the older dog shelter to get out of a sudden downpour. There Sgaeyl was, sitting with the front staff, judging him to within an inch of his life. He took one look at the dark brown doberman, with her piercing blue eyes, and knew he wasn’t leaving without her. They’ve only ever spent a handful of nights away from each other, all of them coming within the last nine months.

“Violence, you know she’s allergic,” he mutters, not even believing it himself. 

“Bullshit, Xaden and you know it! She was at Liam’s house for hours and never once had an allergic reaction, even after she used Deigh’s blanket!”

Xaden shifts on the side of the bed, “I know Vi, I fucking know, ok?” He can’t help but let the frustration out. The frustration he’s been holding on to all day– hell, for the last nine months if he’s being honest. “But what the fuck am I supposed to do? She’s my wife!”

“Not yet she’s not,” and Xaden hears the plea that’s in Violence’s voice.

“Vi—”

“Are you happy Xaden? Truly happy?” Violence lets the words hang before she continues, "Because if you are, then yes, I’ll take Sgaeyl. Of course I will. But Xaden—”

“Don’t Vi, please fucking don’t—”

“Why not? I’ve sat back and bit my tongue for nine months– hell, longer. I’ve sat and watched you give more and more of yourself to a board that could not care the fuck less about you. I’ve watched as you dated the blond cheerleaders, the Instagram models, I watched as you paraded girl after girl in front of me all while waiting in the background for you to—”

Xaden catches his breath, he has never wanted someone to finish a sentence more. But when she doesn’t continue, when he looks at her and she can’t look him in the face, he moves to sit beside her. She turns to look past him, as she worries her bottom lip, eyes wide like she can’t believe what she just said. Like she can’t believe what she’s contemplating saying next. 

Sgaeyl follows to sit in between them, like a barrier so he won’t cross a line he can’t recover from.

“Waiting for me to do what, Violet?” He only ever uses her real name when it means something, when it matters. And it matters that she finishes that sentence. 

She looks away from him and Xaden is pretty sure she wipes a tear from her cheek, “Waiting for you to make a choice. To finally see me," she leans into his space, not enough to touch but enough for him to notice, "Is this truly your choice? Is this really what you want?”

And isn’t that the question he’s been asking himself? The question he has seen in Garrick’s eyes; the one that Liam has asked him in every possible way since that first disastrous double date Cat and him went on with Liam and his husband, Dain. 

But he knows that isn’t what Violence is actually asking. And he needs her to spell it out. 

“Violet, what are you actually asking me, the night before my wedding?” And like a reflex, he takes her hand like he’s done anytime the two of them have had serious conversations. Why should tonight, the night before his wedding to another woman be any different?

She finally looks at him, her eyes swirling with emotions– blue, green, and amber colliding in a beautiful storm –and just when he thinks she’s not going to answer, just when he thinks that the moment has passed, Violet speaks.

“Don’t marry her. Don’t choose her ...choose me,” the last words are let out in a low whispered breath, like she can’t believe she’s saying it. 

Silence engulfs them like the calm before the tornado hits. Violet sits, worrying her hands in her lap, what does she want him to say? What is she hoping will happen next? 

And Xaden? He just sits there, watching as her eyes gloss over with tears she’s too stubborn to let fall. He watches as her breathing comes short, and quick. She’s losing what little control she had. 

She’s not scared of what she said. She’s scared of what he’ll choose. 

She took the first step. She was braver than him. She was always braver than him. 

And now he wonders, can he be brave? Because, for the first time since he went on that first date with Cat, hell, since the first time he set his eyes on Violet, he’s finally willing to admit to himself what he’s been denying.

He doesn’t want Catriona Cordella. He doesn't want the dozen or so women before her. 

He wants Violet Sorrengail. 

But he can’t have her. 

He can’t just walk away from all this now. He’s in too deep. The merger is all set to finalize on Monday, while Cat and him are off to Necker Island in the Caribbean. 

The wedding is paid for.

The guests are all here.

The food is prepared and ready to be served.  

The DJ. The rentals. The list goes on and on…Reality comes crashing down. 

He missed his chance. He was a chickenshit and never crossed a line that was meant to be crossed and now…

Now, he’ll miss Violet Sorrengail for the rest of his life. 

When he doesn’t speak, Violet rises from the bed. She crosses the room to the desk in the cramped two-queen hotel room he’s been given—while Cat stays in the penthouse they’re supposed to share tomorrow.

As husband and wife.

The thought turns his stomach.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner, Violet?”  the words come out loud and harsh. He’s not sure why he’s angry, or if he’s even angry. “Fuck, the night before my wedding, really?” His hand is in his hair tugging before he can stop himself. 

Self-preservation is a thing. 

She scoffs then sniffles and takes a tissue off the box on the desk, “Because I’m a fucking idiot apparently.” 

Xaden can tell she’s trying to hide the tears, trying to prevent them from falling. Trying to keep herself together, to not break completely in front of him.

Something in his chest twists hard.

He wants to move. He wants to cross the room and pull her in and tell her she’s not an idiot. Tell her she never has been, tell her she’s the only person in his life who has ever made sense without trying.

He wants to tell her he feels it too. That she’s not the only one standing here too late saying things they should’ve said years ago. That he’s the idiot. He’s always been the idiot. He’s the one who let it get this far. The one who never crossed the line when it was right in front of him.

The one who—

Loves her.

Fuck. The thought comes without his permission. He can’t fucking love Violence. He just can’t.

He loves Cat.

He loves Cat.

He has to love Cat.

He fucking hates Cat.

Well, hate might be too strong a word.

But fuck—he can’t be feeling like this the night before he’s set to marry her.

He’s spiraling.

And the one person who’s always been able to stop it, to pull him back from the edge of his own thoughts... the one person who has always known how to steady him, to drag him out of this—

is the one currently causing his downward tilt.

“Fuck. I’m sorry, Xaden. I shouldn’t have come,” She doesn’t stop. Doesn’t breathe. “But I knew you’d need Sgaeyl, and then I saw you here, with your tux hung up like tomorrow is just…normal. And then Liam told me Cat only agreed to me being in the wedding if Sgaeyl wasn’t here and you agreed to that and that just, fuck.” She drags in a sharp breath, but it doesn’t slow her down.

“I’m sorry. I know you love Cat. And I know you want to marry her. I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t do something you don’t want to do. That no one could make you do something you didn’t want—” she stops abruptly at the foot of the bed he’s still currently sitting on, cutting herself off in the process. Violet seems to be processing what she’s saying after the words have vomited out of her mouth.

But he doesn’t love Cat, not in the way he loves Violet. Not in the way he should love Cat. He doesn’t want to marry her. Those are the things Xaden should be saying, those are the things he wants to say. But his mouth is dry and his lips won’t move. 

Her voice cracks slightly, but she powers through it anyway.

“I just… I wanted you to know how I felt before you were a married man. And now I’m just rambling, so before I say anything else and completely ruin our friendship, I’m going to leave.”

She’s pacing the floor, eating up the space between the beds like a dragon guarding its eggs. Her brown hair, that was braided in a tight braid down her back with its silver tips poking out of the elastic, is now loose and messy with how much she’s played with it during her confession. Another breath—too fast, too shallow. She stops at the foot of the bed, shoulders stiff, eyes locked on Sygael and then she takes one deep breath, like she’s grounding herself in quicksand. 

“Liam is picking Sgaeyl up around six tomorrow so they can sneak her out before the hotel gets busy. I’m so fucking sorry, Xaden. I shouldn’t have come.”

She says it all without stopping. Without giving him space to respond. And that’s how he knows—he’s not the only one coming apart at the seams.

He just manages to shift his weight, finally getting his feet under him, finally ready to say something, anything—

But she’s already gone.

The door slams shut with finality. Like your favorite book that ends with the love interests never finding the way back to one another. 

“Fuck,” he breathes, staring at the empty space. 

And then it’s just him, his thoughts, and Sgaeyl. He takes the spot Violence had just vacated and thinks over her last words. Her scent, vanilla and citrus, still clings to the sheets, soft, restrained. It doesn’t overwhelm. It never did. It stays at the edges, never demanding attention, exactly like the woman it belongs to.

He thinks about the last ten years he’s known Violet and all their little interactions. The flirty behavior he always chalked up to just who she was. The way he would always bring her coffee, always iced because she never drank it hot. He doesn’t know how Cat likes her coffee. He can’t even recall if she likes coffee.

How he would never bring coffee for any of his other friends, how he knew things about Violet he didn’t know about Cat. 

He runs his fingers through his hair. He knows he should try and get some sleep. 

But sleep doesn’t come. Not in the way he needs it.

By the time the light comes filtering in, Xaden assumes he’s gotten an hour, maybe two of sleep. Every time he managed to doze off, he dreamed of hazel eyes, not brown. He dreamed of running his hand through thick brown locks that lost their color at the tips, not the black hair he should have been dreaming of. 

This last dream was by far the worst: him at the altar, Violet walking toward him instead of his intended.

It’s the one that won’t leave him alone.

The one that follows him into the shower. The one he replays absently as he pats Sgaeyl’s head when Liam comes to take her.

The one that he thinks about while his groomsmen converge in the room to get ready, to get him ready. It’s the dream he’s thinking about when his phone buzzes.

Violence is calling. 

“Hey, Violence” his voice cracks slightly on her nickname. He hopes no one notices, but the arched eyebrow of his best man, Garrick, says he noticed. 

“Hi,” she says on the other end and Xaden tries to pretend he doesn’t hear how raw her voice sounds, like she’s spent all night crying. He tries to ignore the pit in his stomach that emerges as the image of her crying herself to sleep wedges itself in his mind, uninvited. 

“We are just about finished up here, pictures are at 3. You’re still getting here at 2, right? Still having a drink with us?”

He sees Liam shift in the corner of his eye and looks in his direction. Suddenly, Liam finds his husband’s very straight bow tie needs fixing. Liam knows something,

“About that…”

“Violence, whatever you are going to say– don’t. You better fucking be here. I can’t do this without you.” And he means it. He cannot go through with this wedding, with this marriage, if she isn’t by his side. Even if there’s a part of him that knows her being there will make the vows he needs to say harder, making this all more painful, especially after last night’s epiphany.

She sniffs and lets out a muffled cry, “I can’t watch you do this. I’m so sorry Xaden, but I….I just can’t stand there and watch you marry someone else. I know Cat never wanted me there in the first place and after last night…” she curses under her breath, “I can’t say I blame her.”

Xaden feels the tears forming in his eyes. He can feel the burn coming slowly up his chest. He is powerless to stop it.

The sound that comes out is one he’s never heard himself or anyone else for that matter make. He can’t stop the tears now that they’ve started. 

And he doesn't want to stop them…he lets them fall for ten seconds, then twenty, then thirty. Then he stops. 

He made his choice. 

He is marrying Catriona Cordella. 

He is letting Violet Sorrengail go. 

He has to. 

He should start now.

“Ok.” That’s all he can manage. Because what else is there to say?

“Ok,” is all she can manage to say back. They stay on the line for a few, silent minutes. Then he hears the line go dead. Violet Sorrengail hung up on him. 

She’s gone. Out of his life, forever. He knows that as certain as he knows the sky is blue. 

The rest of the day is a blur. 

He knows Liam, Bodhi, and Garrick said some encouraging things when he got off the phone. He knows he put his tux on and his bow tie was correct. He knows Dain handed him a beer and then a few shots with a look that said he was more disappointed in Xaden than he was happy for him on his wedding day. 

He knows he took some photos with his groomsmen. He knows he walked down the aisle to the song Cat picked out.

He knows this. He doesn’t remember any of it.

And he knows he is standing at the altar with Garrick right behind him, Bodhi and Liam following. He knows he is waiting for Catriona to walk down the aisle. And he knows, Violet should be here. But she isn’t.

Violet Sorrengail isn’t at Xaden Riorson’s wedding. 

Because Violet Sorrengail was never meant to stand behind Xaden Riorson while he took his vows.

Violet Sorrengail wasn’t supposed to watch Xaden Riorson while another in white walked towards him.

No, Violet Sorrengail was supposed to be standing in front of Xaden Riorson while he said his vows to her.

Violet Sorrengail was supposed to be the one walking towards Xaden Riorson in white. 

Xaden knows this too. 

When Catriona makes it to the front, her sister gives her away. Xaden isn’t sure when she got there, he doesn’t remember her walk towards him. He doesn’t remember her sister placing her hand in his. 

He takes her hand in his. Xaden is on autopilot. 

He knows this too.

When Catriona says her vows to Xaden, it feels all wrong.

“Repeat after me,” Tercaurs, Catriona’s uncle and number one supporter of this union, says to Xaden when it’s his turn.

Cat hits him in the rib. He clears his throat, but it’s too dry, too tight. 

“I, Xaden Riorson, take Catriona Cordella to be my lawful wedded wife.” Teacarus' voice sounds like it’s underwater. Or maybe it’s just Xaden who’s in over his head. 

With a deep breath Xaden begins, “I, Xaden Riorson, take you Violet Sorre—” he stops mid sentence as the crowd gaps. Liam and Bodhi suck in their breaths, while Garrick tries to cover his laugh with a cough. 

Cat freezes, the world around him goes deadly silent. Frightfully still.

But Xaden moves.

He doesn’t regret the name that almost slips out. He doesn’t apologize for it. He drops Cat’s hand. He takes a step back.

“I have to go.” 

And he runs—- he runs from the altar, not caring who is following him. 

Not caring about the shocked sounds of horror coming from the blurs of faces he passes. 

Nor does he register the yells from the woman in white. 

He just runs. 

Runs to his room where he left his wallet and keys. 

Runs to his car.

Because he’s not running from anything.

He’s running to her.