I really should be working on my Nano, but this couple keeps pulling at me. How I love them. The instant that Violet reads the message on the chalk board has haunted me. Why was that the trigger? Why did that heart-breaking wail come after those words? And Taissa Farmiga is a goddess who pulled that scene off perfectly. And then I just had to get them back into that bathroom because Evan soaking wet in the tub is delicious. Title taken from Edgar Allen Poe poem 'Alone' it's written below and I think fits Violet's thoughts.
Please let me know what you think. I own nothing and mean no harm.
"I know you're there so you can just come in or whatever."
She picked up the bottle of amber liquid and poured herself another drink, only a little splashed over the rim; she counted that as a victory.
"Are you drunk Violet?"
This she found as spectacularly hilarious and laughed until she very nearly puked all over the island.
"I don't think we've ever used the dining room table. You know as far as dining room tables go it's pretty awesome. But no."
Her finger traced the wet ring left by the bottle.
"We've only ever eaten in here and never for like a real dinner."
The mention of food tightened her stomach and she choked back another wave of vomit.
A good girl would have stopped.
She poured herself another. Swallowed it without wincing; another victory.
"Want some?"
Sliding the glass sans drink across the island she winced at the thought that it might go over the edge. Ever the caretaker Moira caught it just before it slipped over, holding it firm as she took the seat opposite.
"I suppose I could."
This got an eyebrow rise.
"Good for you."
The older woman poured her drink carefully, picked it up gently and shot it back like a fucking royal. More hilarity; so she laughed and laughed.
"I wish I could be that graceful."
All awkward limbs and growing pains a pain in the ass blip in her timeline.
"You will have time to grow into such things."
Violet snorted grabbing for the bottle.
"Will I?"
It was awfully presumptuous to think that she would make it past the age of consent; she knew it and so did the old woman she thought.
Her thoughts continued down the twisted path of twisted words. And the booze made her bold.
"Has anyone ever loved you Moira?"
Once upon a time there might have been a beautiful woman sitting across from her. Maybe the carpets matched the drapes.
"I've been in love before, yes."
This time she didn't have to offer over the bottle, her Dad thought he was so clever hiding it in a planter in the study.
"That's not what I asked."
Eyes meeting across the marble, she tried not to wilt under that one eyed stare.
"I asked if anyone has ever loved you. Like really honest to God loved you for you. It doesn't matter if you loved them back, but has someone stepped up to you and told you those three stupid, fucking words and actually meant them. Because anyone can say them, my parents said it to each other all the time, up until Halloween morning they would blurt it out. 'I love you' 'I love you too', but did they mean it? No, no way, not when he had knocked up that other woman and my Mom kicked him out without considering what that would mean in the long run. I mean did she even consider what that would do to me or to that kid she's so pressed to have. No, of course not, but that's not the point, the point is they said to each other that morning and no they did not mean it."
More words than she had spoken in a month.
She wasn't done.
"So again has anyone ever loved you?"
Impossibly the always pale, wrinkled skin had gone paler at her outburst.
"I don't know."
Not a great answer but she sensed that it was honest.
"That sucks, but maybe you're lucky."
The bottle was down to its last quarter. That made her sad and more aware of the room spinning around her as she flicked her eyes down to her hands.
"I think it has to mean something though, like really and truly it does. Don't you think that who loves you says something about who you are?"
That thought had been circling around her brain for days.
"Smooth love is easy to come by, the kind middle school kids think will last forever. Or the kind you have for that designer that just gets your style. But seriously, real love the kind that just keeps going whether you give it back or not, that's the real shit."
And it was that real shit that she had been wrestling with.
"Some people never get that."
The look she gave the woman across from her was unkind, but then she wasn't feeling very kind. For the first time she had come face to face with that deep, abiding love and it scared the shit out of her.
"If a good person chooses you, sees you, loves you than that says something good about you. If a morally ambiguous person loves you than again it would say you were probably in 95 percent of the population."
Her parents were probably in that 95 percent, she really did hate them both, a lot, most of the time but to be fair they had never claimed to be perfect.
"So to follow your logic, should a bad person love someone, that someone could only be bad?"
She didn't want the logic to go there, tears pooled behind her tightly clenched eyelids. Bad she could maybe deal with, probably.
"Not just bad though, what about an evil person, or a person capable of tremendous evil, what if he tells you he loves you and means it?"
And she knew without a doubt he had meant it, when she had seen it written on the chalkboard she hadn't doubted for a second that Tate hadn't meant it.
That had made it so much easier to swallow that second pill.
"Vi-"
The pity was there, the concern and she didn't want any fucking part of that.
"No, no way, you listen to me. He did it you know, of course you know, you get this house, probably as much as the crazy one next door. You know who he is, you know what he is and he loves me."
The tears were falling freely now. How was she supposed to make sense of that? The only thing, the only person, a suicidal mass murderer has ever loved was her.
"He loves me and he means it, like romance novel-he killed someone to protect me-would do it again if I asked-watch me when I sleep love I just, I mean, you know what he did. God, it's so wrong, so so wrong."
And the scary part the honest to goodness horror story plot line, she didn't care. He had stood at the foot of her bed, his words washing over her, the red rimmed eyes cutting into her and she just hadn't cared that he was dead, died a killer, in the end she was his.
Sliding the slip of paper with his name, his name, back into the book was all too easy; like pushing away the memory of those bloody teens.
So maybe she did deserve love from someone like him.
"Do you love him?"
This time the bottle was pushed towards her, she laughed at the lunacy of what was happening.
Of course she loved him.
"Of course I love him."
He was her Tate.
"The good, and there is something good there, and the evil, I've seen it too. I went to the library you know, met with that teacher who can't walk. He killed all those people when he was alive and I get that he probably, no has killed people while he's been dead, and I wish I could say that it mattered because I know that it should. I get that it's supposed to make a difference that he took all those lives."
Her next drink was directly from the bottle. The alcohol was the only reason the slurred words were ever coming to the surface. Empty it rolled to the edge and neither of them reached for it.
"He's good. He's evil and he's mine."
Moaning she settled her head onto her arms, she didn't fight the tug of fatigue, the drink had made her limbs heavier than she could manage.
"I still want him."
Tate, she would always want him, would always have him. The house would make sure of that.
"Always will."
Always; it wouldn't be fair to him, she could help him cross over, should help him, she knew it, but then she would have to let him go.
"Never."
He was hers.
She felt herself being lifted, her stomach rolling dangerously as strong arms pulled her into a tight chest.
"I've got you Violet."
Of course he did.
"Don't let go."
He laughed quietly.
"Never."
Lips pressed against his neck she willed herself not to puke all over him.
Lolling her head away from his skin she groaned.
"Hang on Vi."
The cool porcelain was a blessed relief against her cheek.
Puking.
So. Fucking. Sick.
Her hair held back. Him. Hers.
Cool and wet on her neck, she fell back against him trapping the cloth between her skin and his shoulder.
"Can't handle your liquor."
He clucked his tongue.
"We'll have to work on that."
She groaned again. Curling into a ball. Not away. Not anymore. Into him.
"I've got you."
And she deserved him.
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.