Ordinary Tradgedy
A/N: I couldn't concentrate on my larger projects a few nights ago and my restlessness produced this. Please enjoy. And review, if you so desire. I love Violet because I identify with her and so I wrote this, exploring some of the more human themes in such a supernatural show.
The most tragic moment in Violet Harmon's life wasn't when she finally made the decision to swallow all those pills. No. That moment was merely an after-effect. The last link in an already tarnished chain.
Nor was it the time she faced herself in the bathroom mirror and first imagined what it would be like, exactly, if she chose to end it all. What it would be like to take that razor to her throat instead of her forearm. What it would be like to watch the blood flow, rich and crimson, over her throat and onto the floor, staining everything in its path. No. Those images, conjured up by her tortured mind, merely floated to the surface after being suppressed for so long.
And it definitely wasn't the day she first met Tate Langdon. Tate. The blond haired boy who's emotional mess nearly rivaled her own. The blue-eyed devil she mistook for an angel. The boy whose love and lust she both craved and shunned. No. If anything, Tate's presence may have lengthened her life. By days, merely, but those days, with their spots of happiness, of the endorphins young love produces, were enough. Enough to keep holding on just a little bit longer.
No. None of these moments were what drove Violet over the edge. None of these seemingly significant events had any effect whatsoever on how the rest of her short, pitiful life played out.
No. The moment that finally, but surely, sealed her fate occurred on a day just like any other...
Ben Harmon; father, husband, psychiatrist; had just finished with a shower. The week he had was exhausting and his lingering fatigue showed in his neglect of the stubble on his cheeks.
Standing in front of the mirror in the master bath, he rubbed a spot clear in the steam and proceeded to liberally apply shaving cream to his face. He then picked up his razor and began shaving. However, as he moved down the left side of his face, he noticed the increased drag on his skin that usually signaled the blades were beginning to dull. Since he just started, Ben decided to change the blades now before finishing the job as it would allow him to achieve a closer shave.
Rummaging around in the toiletries bag where he usually kept this sort of thing, he came up empty handed. 'That's odd,' he thought to himself. 'Surely I didn't use up the whole package already.' After a few more minutes of fruitless searching, he decided to call on his wife for help. She always seemed to be able to find whatever he was missing.
"Hey, Viv," he called, poking his head out of the bathroom door. "Have you seen my razor blades?"
Violet, who had been in her room this entire time, froze when she heard her father's voice. She had been sitting cross-legged on her bed, pouring over an anthology of birds and secretly wondering why Tate found them so fascinating. But now, the book slipped out of her limp grasp and thudded to the floor. Her heart squeezed in anxiety and adrenaline coursed through her bloodstream, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. She heard her mother's murmured reply, in the negative of course. She didn't know - couldn't know - that it was Violet who knew where Ben's razor blades had disappeared to. Didn't know that she had been pilfering them for weeks, months, nearly a year now. To help herself. To deal with the pain in the only way she knew how when her father was a psychiatrist who pretended he left all his problems at the office.
Violet sat on her bed, heart racing, head pounding, as she waited for what she assumed would come next. Her father would turn the question over to her, the only other (living) occupant of the house who could have any idea where the missing razor blades had gone. Her mind drew a blank at what she would tell him when he surely came to ask her. Would she tell him the truth and finally ask for the help she had needed for so long? Or would she lie, say she had no idea, and sink deeper into her own personal despair?
The idea of telling the truth tasted sweet and forbidden on her tongue and made her heart race faster and her palms sweat, almost more than when Tate kissed her in the way that only he could. She took a deep breath, and then another, her mind slowly ticking over this new idea. The more she thought about it, the calmer she became. It was like finding a soft place to land after falling from a great height. Like coming home, weary from a long journey, to finally sleep in your own familiar bed.
Her heart slowed, her mind cleared, and she felt ready. The moment of clarity she thought she would only get after she had died had come while she was still among the living. And what's more, a trickle of emotion began to bloom in her chest. At first, she didn't recognize it, long had it been absent from her life. But eventually she came to realize that it was hope. Hope mixed with relief. Her father was going to save her.
As she settled into these new emotions, she realized something was not quite right. Things were not going according to how she had imagined them. She listened hard, afraid she had missed something in her reflections. But all she heard was the sounds of her mother preparing dinner drifting up from the kitchen, and the sounds of splashing water coming from the bathroom. Her father had gone back to his grooming routine, chalking up the missing razor blades to yet another thing gone wrong in this house. Her father was not coming to save her.
And that was the most tragic moment in Violet Harmon's life. The moment she realized, without a doubt, that the darkness, not her father, did indeed have a very tight hold of her.