« Everybody is in too many pieces »
Gang of Four


Back in Boston, Violet hadn't been the most popular girl in school, but she'd connected with a few similarly minded students. As cliques went, theirs probably fell on the smug side of the spectrum, but where was the harm in that? They never teased or bullied anyone. They merely reveled in their above-the-norm intellect and superior taste in everything.

At Westfield, she'd known very early on that she only had two options to choose from. She could either start dressing like a Jersey Shore extra, forsake all yearning for knowledge or substance and fade smoothly into the crowd, or she could stand her ground and brace for the fight that was ineluctably coming.

From what she had gathered, her designated mortal enemy was a serious contender. Leah was popular, well-connected, and possibly out of her mind. As soon as word of their dispute had travelled through the school, Violet had been deemed unfit to have her presence acknowledged by the general population. It was a good thing she enjoyed solitude.

A full week went by, then two, without any major incident, and Violet made the mistake of letting her guard down. When Leah finally cornered her in the open-air cafeteria, Violet came completely unprepared.

"What did I tell you about smoking in here?"

Violet's tray went crashing to the ground and before she had time to asses the situation, Leah and her friends were backing in her into a corner

"I'm not scared of you!" Violet shouted as she desperately tried to think of a way out.

"You should be!" Leah yelled back, grabbing Violet by the hair to slam her head forward.

Her forehead connected with the concrete wall just above the arcade. The sound was impressive as it resonated through her skull, but she only felt a dull ache. She was immediately reminded that head wounds tended to bleed profusely as blood started dripping down her face and into her eye.

She fought back like a wild animal until she managed to put some space between her face and the hard surface, but a few vicious kicks to her shin had her dropping to the ground in one fell swoop. Then the slapping and punching began. Her skin was burning, her cheekbone sore.

Violet was jerking her head from side to side, hoping to escape the next blow, when she caught sight of her still lit cigarette rolling away. Her finger skimmed the edge a few time before she finally reached it. Before she could think twice, she grabbed Leah's wrist and firmly crushed the butt on the back of her hand.

"She burned me!" Leah screamed, incredulous and outraged, as more and more students gathered around them to watch and cheer.

Before Violet could take advantage of the commotion to flee, Leah grabbed her arm to keep her in place. Violet gasped in pain as the barely-there scar tissue of her healing cuts ripped open. Desperate to free herself, she reached up with her other hand and clawed as hard and deep as she could into the soft skin she found there. She was instantly rewarded with the satisfying feel of blood and a high-pitched screech.

As she grabbed her bag and escaped, Violet barely had time to take in the three large stripes of red on Leah's perfectly made up face. She didn't wait around to find out what happened next.


Doctor Harmon was beginning to seriously try Tate's patience. If anyone would realize how much self-control it required to sit opposite that arrogant jerk for three hour-long sessions each week without resorting to violence, they wouldn't be so prompt to tag him an unstable lunatic.

At least there was no shadow hanging out with them lately, no ghost from way back when, even though Tate conscientiously flushed his meds.

"You need to help me understand, Tate. I've read your file. You used to be a good student. An athlete. Popular."

Ages ago, he had been all those things, as well as oddly secretive and private for a teenager, or so people said. He'd once jokingly told a friend he was part of a witness protection program and if anyone found out where he lived, if he ever let a stranger in, he and his family were as good as dead.

Tate had been aware of the fleeting nature of his enviable social status. When the charade ended, he wasn't too torn about leaving the cool kids table to join the pariah corner overnight. He accepted being the guy from the freak show family, in all likelihood a freak himself. That wasn't false, exactly, whereas he'd always felt like a fraud as a member of high school royalty.

"I sure was, Doctor. And look at me now. Just say no, right? I should have listened to all the cool ads. That Nancy sure knew her shit."

"Is that why you started using? The pressure was too much for you?"

"Well, they did take the edge off being the perfect son."

Even after his fall from grace, he'd felt better in Westfield than he ever could at home. He knew how to respond to bullies. His mother, on the other hand, had used the situation to strengthen her grip on him with her classic poisoned medicine approach. Cajole and undermine. Praise and demean. There was no right answer for that.

"Do you feel like your mother's expectations for you were too high?"

"Actually, I think she was disappointed that I came out normal. I wasn't born wrong like my brother and sister; she had to make me that way."

"What do you mean by that?"

"She's like a cancer. She takes advantage of all the bad shit you know you shouldn't be doing to take root and slowly kill you. I can't ever break away from her now. I'm so screwed up no high school in the state will take me in. I'll never go to college, never find a decent job. I'm stuck with her for good, just like Addie."

"You could home school, get your GED. Nothing's carved in stone, Tate. You're only eighteen. If you would only-"

Whatever inane piece of advice the good doctor had to offer was interrupted by a knock on the door. A woman stepped in, her face marked with alarm. She had to be the wife. He could see a little of Violet in her still pretty face.

"Ben? I'm sorry to interrupt, but it can't wait. It's about Violet."

"It's alright; our time is almost up for today." Doctor Harmon turned on his mercantile smile, the same one he always summoned at the end of a session. "I'll be seeing you on Wednesday, Tate."

"Sure. Don't worry," Tate replied, putting on an equally phony grin, "I'll see myself out."

Just as well. He'd been dying to explore the attic, where he and Beau had spent so much time hiding away from his mother when they were little.


"Violet! In the kitchen!"

Well, shit. Violet had hoped to slip in undetected and to get a chance to change into a shirt that wasn't stained with blood before facing her parents.

Both of them were waiting for her, her mother sitting rigidly while her father was propped against the fridge, his foot beating furiously to an imaginary rhythm. Everything about that scene had her insides screaming 'Run'.

Violet had never been a troublemaker. A smartass, a pain in her parents and teachers' backside alike, sure. But nothing in her short life had ever warranted that kind of homecoming party. She'd tried her hand at shoplifting and hadn't been caught once. She looked too sweet, too innocent, no one ever suspected her. She smoked pot on occasion but if her parents ever suspected it, they'd never said a thing. Even the epic hangover she'd suffered after raiding the family bar, back when her parents couldn't exchange two sentences without pitching up in volume, had gone completely unnoticed.

Her parents were so distracted by their never-ending drama she sometimes thought she could drop dead without either of them noticing. She was sick of watching her mother pretend to have forgiven her dad when her resentment was still cropping to the surface, and of him feigning not to notice.

"Where have you been?"

Violet opted to keep her mouth shut. She'd missed both English Lit and Geography but the thought of sitting in class all afternoon with her bloodied forehead and her shattered dignity was inconceivable. Instead she'd sat idly in the least fancy coffee shop she could find, trying to bend her mind around her ridiculous situation. The more she wallowed, the more inextricable everything felt to her.

"We got a call from the principal's office this afternoon," Vivien continued. "You might as well tell us your version of what went down right now."

"My version's probably the same as theirs," Violet replied, crossing her arms against her chest. "Except I was only trying to defend myself. They've had it out for me from the start. Every chance they get, they start something. It's not my fault!"

"Then why didn't you tell us? We could easily move you to a different school. There are lots of really good private schools right here in this neighborhood."

"I'm not running away. I'm not scared of them."

"Isn't there another way to convey that sentiment than to scar a poor girl's face?"

"That 'poor girl' was trying to put out a cigarette in my mouth!"

"This is not you, Violet. You don't get into fights. You don't act like an idiot without thinking about the consequences."

"I'm going to make this clear," Ben Harmon cut in, "you're going to have to swallow your pride and apologize to that girl, her parents, and whoever else would like to see you grovel, until that incident's behind us. You're looking at a suspension!"

"Or what? What are you going to do, make me move across country and lose all my friends? Oh, wait," Violet scoffed.

"This is not a joke, this is not something to be taken lightly," Vivien said levelly, her hand on Ben's arm instructing him to keep quiet. "The girl's parents are talking about pressing charges."

"Are you kidding me? She barely got a scratch. It was nothing. It'll probably be healed by next week."

"It doesn't matter," Vivien replied. "I was told to expect a call from their lawyer. We can't afford that kind of trouble right now. Not when your father's practice is barely off the ground."

"How is that my fault? His practice was doing just fine in Boston. A little too well, if you care to remember, which is exactly what got us here in the first place."

"Violet!" Ben interrupted, a clear warning in his voice.

"What? It's the truth! And instead of working things through, you just moved your problems somewhere else and everything's the same, except I hate it here!"

Vivien bended her head and closed her eyes for a good 5 seconds. When she sat up straight again, all benevolence and saint-like patience, Violet braced herself for the familiar I know how it feels bullshit. She could deal with admonishments just fine, but forced sympathy always gave her an urge to rip something to shreds.

"Believe it or not, I was fifteen once, too," Vivien said softly. "I understand how things look from your perspective. I know you feel lonely and you're having a hard time finding your niche here. But in a few months time, you'll be laughing about your rough start here with your new best friends. When you turn eighteen, you can-"

"I don't want to listen to you anymore," Violet exclaimed, louder than she had intended, startling both her parents.

Her legs felt heavy as she ran upstairs. In her room, she yanked off her blood-stained top, slammed her iPod in its dock and put on appropriately pissed off music, loud. Only then did she consent to wipe the tears of anger and helplessness that had been rolling down her face.


She'd barely had time to dry her tears and put on fresh clothes when she heard the expected knock on the door. Violet let out an impatient sigh. She didn't trust herself to resume the conversation yet, she felt too raw, too unnerved. Besides, she really needed a cigarette.

She turned down the volume a few notches until her voice had a chance to cover Kathleen Hanna's fury.

"Not now, mom. I want to be alone."

"It's me. Open the door."

"Tate?"

Her sour mood lost to curiosity and Violet cracked the door open. With a grin and a finger up to his mouth to shush her, Tate stepped inside without waiting for a formal invitation.

Tate took in her reddened eyes and the fresh cut on her forehead and his grin faded instantly. If Doctor Harmon or his stressed out Mrs. were responsible for that, there would be hell to pay. She looked so defeated that his fists instantly tightened with rage on her behalf.

"What happened to your face?" he asked, brushing her hair away from her temple to get a better look at the wound. "You should put a band-aid on that."

"It's nothing," she replied, batting his hand away. "I just kicked some high school skank's ass. Three of them, if you must know."

"I didn't peg you for the street fighting type."

"That's actually my best fighting asset. No one ever expects me to hold my own," she replied evenly, her face still morose. "What are you doing here?"

"Taking your mind off things. You look like you need it."

"It's just my parents being jerks."

"Come on. There's a place I want to show you."

"I don't think I'm supposed to go out."

"That's what backdoors are for," Tate replied, rolling his eyes.


It didn't seem to occur to her to ask where he was taking her or why she should follow. They walked in silence the whole way to the isolated beach where he used to come to retreat from the world, and they found the place as deserted as ever.

Violet sat next to him in silence and for a while, they settled for enjoying the soothing sound of the waves rolling one after the other.

"Well, that's one point for Los Angeles, I guess," she said, her face registering the tiniest hint of pleasure.

"Why did you move here?"

She turned to study him for a moment, as if to evaluate how much she should say. He understood the sentiment. They'd only saw each other twice before and neither encounter had been particularly friendly. But they were on the edge of something, there. They could either skip the superficial and talk about things that really mattered, or exchange pleasantries, go home and never see each other again. There was no other option; she was smart enough to understand that.

Her frown eased away suddenly and she turned back to face the ocean.

"My dad had an affair. My mom literally caught him in the act. One day she came home and she found him in their bed with a student half her age."

"That's horrible. If you love somebody you should never hurt them."

"I know, right?" Violet paused to light a cigarette. "The worst part is, the girl he'd been seeing turned out to be a complete psycho. She started calling days and nights, leaving creepy voicemails for my mom about how her and dad were made for each other and shit like that. She even broke into our house once."

"Did you kung-fu her skanky ass?"

"I wish," Violet chuckled. "But there was no need for that. My parents got a restraining order and things sort of died down. It was all very anti-climatic."

"My father had affairs, too," Tate said, slouching back on his elbows. "I don't know if my mother ever knew, but I saw him with the maid once."

As a child, he hadn't understood what was happening, but the scene was still carved in his memory. The young woman had seemed to be sobbing. To this day, he couldn't tell for sure if what he'd witnessed had been a moment of passion or an act of violence.

"Where is he now?"

"No idea. He bailed when I was six and I never heard from him again. He could be cheating on someone else right now, or drinking mojitos on a beach somewhere. Or, you know, rotting in the ground. I don't know. My mother went crazy looking for him for years. She wanted to make him pay, but she never found him. I guess she decided to make us pay instead."

"I'm sorry," Violet offered, looking contrite.

"I don't blame him for wanting to run away from the wicked witch," Tate amended, letting his head fall back. "I just wish he'd taken me with him."

Violet nodded gravely before turning back to stare at the ocean. The silence between them was comfortable enough that neither of them felt the need to fill it.

"I thought forgiving meant starting over with a clean slate," Violet finally said. "But everything's poisoned now. Everything's a test that my dad keeps failing at. The worst part is that they're always pretending that they're fine, I hate it. At least when they were throwing things at each other, they were being honest. I can't breathe when I'm near them. They make the air toxic."

I know a thing or two about that, Tate thought, but he kept his mouth shut. He didn't want to spoil the moment by letting Constance pervade it.

"I just don't understand how my dad can ask people to talk about their true feelings all day long when he's the king of all hollow bullshit when he's with us."

"Well, if it makes you feel better, I don't think he's that good a psychiatrist."

When she laughed, Violet's face became almost childlike, with her round cheek and her dancing eyes. It was good to know he could make her look like this. All kinds of therapists had advised him to start by setting small goals for himself.

"Are you feeling better?"

"I guess I am."

"Cool," he said, getting to his feet and reaching for her hand. "Come on. We should head back before your parents notice you're gone."

They were silent again all the way back home, but the air felt lighter around them. Night was falling and he found he liked the look of their long shadows walking side by side under the streetlights. It had been a long time since he'd enjoyed being outside at all.

Tate didn't offer to walk her to the door, knowing his presence could only stir more trouble for her if her parents had noted her absence. But before he could walk away, Violet grabbed his sweater's sleeve.

"Hey, Tate? I'm glad you didn't pick up a better shrink."

With another infantine smile, she pushed the gate open and disappeared, while Tate summoned the will to walk back to the house next door where Constance was waiting for him.


To be continued.