Tate was sitting with his back against the wall beside Violet's bedroom door. He was drawing on the side of his black converse shoe with a red sharpie. A "V" that he filled in to be a red triangle blurred into the black canvas material.
Dr. Harmon had left after their appointment. Vivian had left with him. Addy was inside Violet's room but he knew she could keep a secret. Still he felt this paranoia seeping in and making him feel guilty.
He let himself acknowledge that he wanted something bad enough to work for it and that scared him. He wanted to be sane even at the risk of failing and having to acknowledge he was a lost cause. He wanted to get better, to have the rapids in his mind stilled. But he wanted Violet. He wanted to get better for her.
It was her voice that brought him there. The hallow softness that's dipped in irony. The sweet voice cussing and criticizing… He found more and more that she possessed certain things that he needed and couldn't get anywhere else. It was… annoying.
When he promised he'd leave her alone he meant it but maybe his mind knew it was a lie all the time. Because here he was, outside Violet's door. He seemed to end up there a lot when he was just walking. Like there was some default auto pilot that would always bring him back to her.
Tate's thoughts raced back to the rank smells of the cafeteria food being chomped and slopped down by cattle. Gunshots, screaming, blood and echoes of shoes running on linoleum floors, followed by bleak emptiness. He hit the side of his head with his fist. How could he be made up of all the same things as everyone else and come out all… wrong? Too much crazy and not enough sugar, spice and everything insignificant.
He thought of Violet and felt himself calming down. Maybe it wasn't kind to put her in his thoughts but he was greedy. Violet was sweet, she trusted him and that was interesting to Tate. He wanted to tell her things and he didn't know if he wanted to tell her just to see her reaction –like when you're sitting in class and want to scream just to see what people will do- or if he wanted to tell her so that she could tell him it was ok. She would still want to hold his hand and kiss him. He knew that she didn't like people to think she was weak. Maybe he could use reverse psychology, Hey Violet, I bet you'll be too scared to be my friend once I tell you this…
That was the real fantasy. The things he had described to Dr. Harmon about his daughter, those images kept him up at night. Thinking about the way she smelled, it was a wave of different things. A light caress of shampoo, hand sanitizer, figs, laundry detergent and cigarette smoke. He could get lost in it. But the real fantasy was her still wanting to do those things if she knew the truth. All the things he had done and the emptiness he felt and continues to feel. Just because you don't deserve something doesn't make you stop wanting it. He wanted Violet the way a guilty man on death row wants one more day. And then another. He was greedy.
No. If he could just hear her voice. That was all he was there for today. If he could hear her, then he'd walk away. It would be better for everyone. That's what you were supposed to be worried about, right? Everyone's best interest?
He heard Addy ask if she was a virgin and Violet answered with a scoff.
"Of course, aren't you?" It was a straight answer and at the same time her sarcastic tone made it completely ambiguous. It was the mock indignant way an adult might answer a child who asked a question like Do you believe in Santa? And the adult would say, tongue-in-cheek, Of course, don't you?
It made Tate smile because he knew that she was. The quiver she tried to hide when he touched her told him so. The shocked way she stared at him the first time he had taken her wrist. He knew that she was but he still felt his jaw clench. He had sudden images of faceless boys touching Violet with clumsy eager hands and he could feel himself slipping.
Violet was surprised by how much fun she was having putting on Addy's make-up. It was also putting the make-up sets she had to good use. Violet didn't wear much, maybe lip gloss or mascara sometimes and she never did anyone else's. It was something she had seen girls do in movies and never really thought about but it was comforting to be close to someone. She wondered if Addy would want her to pin her hair up but Violet looked at the long black curls and thought they looked pretty down.
She was going to walk Addy out but when they got to the backdoor something made her turn around. She felt a tug in her stomach like she had forgotten something. Tate was standing by the kitchen watching them. She wondered how she hadn't seen him when she walked by but he looked surprised that she looked back and saw him at all.
Violet turned to make up an excuse to Addy about why she had to go back but Addy was already walking out the back door, obviously in a hurry to show off the make-over. Violet walked back towards Tate. He was holding the tips of his sleeves in his fingers and was hunched like he was trying to make himself smaller. Violet smiled at how much he looked like a little boy then. Mischievous.
Occasionally she would see a flash of the pain Tate was hiding. A lightning bolt suddenly illuminating a vast, dark landscape and then hiding again in the night. If you blinked you could miss it. But when she looked at him now it was all over his face.
"What?" She was surprised by the anxiety in her voice.
Tate pointed to the basement and walked in behind her, closing the door. She was too distracted to tell him no one else was home. She waited for him to reach out to her but they just stood on the small cement square at the top of the steps.
"Your dad doesn't want me here anymore." She felt Tate's voice more than heard it.
"Yeah, I know. So?"
Violet had felt a certain, them and us thing with Tate that made her feel safe. Except when he had this smirk in the corner of his mouth like there was something he was keeping from her. It made her think of the mother from peter pan. Wendy's mother had a kiss no one could ever get except peter. It was her special kiss for him. Violet had felt like no one could penetrate their little bubble except the smirk and she had been determined to get it. Now she wished it would come back. The grave expression wasn't what she wanted.
Violet folded her arms over her chest. Her feet felt heavy and her body swayed so she pressed her back into the cold wall.
Tate picked up her hands and she felt hot electric sparks shiver down from the nape of her neck. She looked up into his eyes. They were dark and melting and she had to look away. Her eyes always went down to her feet but right now that only showed her how close they were and that it would only take a half step to close the distance between them.
"I need your dad to help me."
"Why?" Violet said it suddenly and wondered if she didn't sound like a stubborn child.
Tate didn't smirk or smile. Instead she felt him there, completely real and opened. When he finally spoke his voice was low, deep and serious. "I am… fucked up." He smiled a little to excuse such a cliché term but then shrugged.
"Everyone is fucked up. What makes you so special?"
"If I don't try I'll just be lost forever."
She could feel the insecurity in his voice and it stopped her from making another sarcastic comment. At that moment she wished more than anything she could take it all from him but he didn't share his pain. It wasn't hers to take.
"Lost isn't a permanent state." Violet said. "We won't let him know you're here." She could hold his eyes even though the liquid heat behind them made her heart feel like it was tumbling down a steep hill with a rock bottom. But the flash was over. He framed her face with his hands and kissed her. A wave of reassurance swept over her every muscle like a chemical release from her brain. Every move he made was so deliberate and confidant. She pressed herself against his body. He had quieted her worries for now and any fears she had had dissipated like smoke into the air.
"We should do a séance down here tonight. It fits the mood." Tate said while he tucked her head under his chin.
"Ugh." Violet remembered it was Halloween. "My parents have been trying to get me in the decorating mood. But it's all totally fake, just to sell this place."
"My mom used to go all out for Christmas." Tate nodded like he understood the irritation. "I always took the baby Jesus from our nativity scene and replaced it with a snickers bar to see if anyone would even notice."
"Nice." Violet smiled.
They both turned their faces to the door. Someone walked by. Through the yellow, distorted glass Violet couldn't make out the shadow but the footsteps seemed feminine and easy like the maid's way of walking.
"Will you meet me here at midnight? Tonight." Tate asked. Half his face was shadowed and the other was only vaguely lit by the light coming through the mustard yellow glass.
"Yeah." Like she had any choice at that point.
Tate kissed her again. His hands pushed up the sides of her waist, under her shirt and she welcomed the rough feeling of his hands against her skin. She let him push her harder against the wall and she put her hands in his hair.
The sound outside the door was coming back again and Violet moved to pull away but Tate only moved to kiss her neck and turned her slightly away from the door. It took everything she had to stop him but somehow she managed.
Violet smiled and walked away first, closing the basement door behind her so they wouldn't be seen walking out together. It was the second time they kissed in that basement and she decided that if it happened a third time she'd demand they go on an actual date.
Violet smiled to herself as she walked back upstairs. What would an actual date for them consist of? She couldn't imagine it going over in the normal dinner and a movie fashion. It wouldn't be normal but something told her Tate would still make it special.
She mulled the conversation over in her head. Everything that was said and wasn't said. It was silly but she couldn't help but feel disappointed. When they were together she isn't thinking at all, just reacting and then after he's gone she's left worrying over every syllable.
After the first kiss she had allowed herself to be stupid about Tate. That's what it was but she had decided that she deserved this one guilty pleasure. And she made herself focus on the feeling of his hands on her bare skin. She'd fight to keep that feeling even if it meant they had to sneak around her parents.
A pang of guilt tried to push its way into her heart but she denied it. Violet could be greedy. She picked her wars carefully because she knew that once she decided to let her heart want something she couldn't change her mind. Tate needed help if he thought he did and she didn't want to get in the way of his treatment but it was out of her hands now. She was going to keep that boy.