Chapter Two
November 2011
For days Erin had been waiting for the inevitable visit to the library from Tate's new girlfriend, and when the broody girl walked through the door she couldn't help but notice again how pretty the girl was. She definately wasn't a californian girl, definately not from the valley. Slinking around the book shelves, Erin watched as the girl spoke to Mr Carmichael the librarian about the shooting that had resulted in his disability. It always seemed strange to Erin that he had chosen to stay on at the school after what had happened back in nineteen ninty-four, she had no choice whether she could leave or not but if she did there was no chance she would have stuck around. Subconsciously Erin's eyes drifted over to the library door where she had spent her final seconds alive, if she had never shown up that day she would still be alive, she'd be in her thirties, possibly married with children but fate had had other ideas for her.
The girl moved away from Mr Carmichael, their conversation clearly finished and without a second thought Erin pushed a book from the shelf next to her, drawing the girls attention before she showed herself. "I was wondering how long it'd take before you showed up here. Find what you were looking for?"
"What do you want from me? I know...I know that you're dead, I know Tate killed you."
"Shot gun wound to the chest, killed me almost instantly but I lived just long enough to see the pain it gave him." Walking back behind the large bookcase, Erin sat down at one of the tables used by studying students and kicked out the chair opposite her for the girl to take. When she didn't immediately sit down, Erin laughed lightly. "You'll never get the answers you want from him. You're only shot of ever knowing the real Tate is sitting in that chair and talking to me. Take it or leave it." Still the girl didn't take the seat, instead chosing to eye Erin skeptically. "What's your name?"
"Violet."
"Pretty. Well Violet, I've got no where else to go to so what's the real harm in talking to me? It's pretty obvious Tate didn't tell you anything about what he did."
Finally Violet dropped into the seat opposite Erin, the dead girl was right there was nothing to lose by listening to what she had to say. "I thought you were just his crazy ex, trying to scare me off on halloween. Where's the hole?"
The black and white plaid dress she had been wearing the day she died was currently intact, the wound to her chest no longer there; Erin didn't like showing the wound all the time, it was too painful to have a visual reminder constantly on her body. It was bad enough some of the other victims chose to have theirs displayed all the time, in all honesty it made Erin feel a little sick. "I don't always show it, but it was halloween. Seemed fitting, don't you think? Tate needed to see, needed to be reminded of exactly what he had done."
"He's seeing my dad, he's a psychiatrist. That's how I met him."
Erin laughed darkly at Violet's weak attempt of defending Tate, the girl had a lot to learn. "He can't help him. I thought I was helping him and look how that worked out."
"Cut the bullshit," Violet hissed viciously, leaning closer to Erin acros the table. "I googled what happened, I've seen it all. Something, they must have done something. You must have done something to make him do that."
How dare she? Who was this little girl to judge her, or anyone of the other fifteen kids that had died that day? Mirroring Violet's movements, Erin leant further across the table but snatched up her hands and pulled them until the girl could just brush her chest with her finger tips. "Seventeen fucking years I've been trapped here because of what he did, so do not come in here thinking you know anything." Making the gory wound appear on her chest Erin pushed Violet's fingers into it slightly, pleased when she recoiled in disgust. "You want to know what happened? The real Tate? Then shut up and fucking listen."
Summer 1993
Erin pinched the tip of the joint she was sharing so tightly her fingertips began to ache. She was frantically waiting for Tate to show his face, he hadn't been in any of the lessons they shared and he had failed to show up under the bleachers at lunch, where she was currently sat legs jiggling with impatients. Beside her Kevin nudged at her leg, waiting for her to pass the joint back to him.
"He'll turn up soon. He always does Erin." Kevin said soothingly, his attention flicking over to where Erin was staring out at the playing field. "Pass that over. You know I bet he's got detention or something, you know what he can get like." Kevin continued as he eagerly plucked the joint from Erin's hold and took a deep drag. "He'd never cheat on you, he's crazy about you man."
That wasn't what Erin was afraid of, she knew that Tate would never do that to her, but there were sides of Tate that only she got to see and it was those faces of Tate that had her worrying when he didn't show up to school. "It's not that Kev. I think I'm going to go to his house, see if he's there. Cover for me?" But before Erin could get to her feet, the blonde curly mop of hair that could only belong to Tate came into view a little way across the field.
"See, told you."
Anything else that Kevin said was lost on Erin as she was already marching out from under the bleachers at a determined speed towards Tate. Something within Erin snapped when his lopsided grin came into sight. There was no time to count to ten, or take deep breaths, because her hand was already drawn back ready to slap the stupid grin right off of his perfect face. But Tate was quick, quicker than Erin and before her hand could make contact with his cheek he had caught her wrist.
"What the fuck Erin?!" Tate grumbled, fighting to keep his girlfriends hands at bay as she struggled against his hold to hit at him. "Erin! Cut it out."
Erin grunted in displeasure, but she stilled her arms and rest her hands on her hips when Tate dropped his hold on them. "Where have you been? You haven't been in school all day, don't you dare try lie to me and say you have."
Their little spat was drawing quite the crowd of onlookers from the bleachers making Tate feel increasingly uncomfortable. He didn't like people in his business at the best of times, and especially not the halfwits he called classmates. "Do we have to do this here? Can we go somewhere just us?"
"No. No we cannot go 'somewhere just us', I want to know where you've been." Erin was more than aware of the eyes on the two of them, it wasn't an unusual occurance to find the couple arguing heatidly. On more than one occasion Stephanie had asked why she and Tate even stayed together, but she didn't understand. They loved each other, they loved each other passionately, dangerously almost and sometimes that led to tempers flaring.
"Can we go under the bleachers then? I'm fucking sick of those jocks staring at us like we're lepers." Flashing a dazzling smile at Erin that he knew would soften her, Tate took her hand leading her back to their usual lunchtime hangout. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a clear packet, filled half way with white powder. "This is why I was late, remember last night I said-"
"You were making a pick up." Erin interupted feeling her cheeks flush a soft red. She had kicked off for no reason and made a scene infront of a lot of people and all because she hadn't remembered their conversation the night before. "Do you hate me?" Erin asked sweetly, picking at the hem of her sundress.
Pulling her tightly into his arms, Tate smiled into Erin's hair enjoying the smell of her fruity shampoo and the slight musk of marijuana. How could he ever hate her? She was perfect. "Never," He said grin widening. "Who else would be a weirdo with me?"
Grinning back at her boyfriend Erin drank in his handsome face, the shadows from the bleachers above dancing patterns across it. She never wanted anyone else to weird with him or anything else with him for that matter. He completed her. "No one Langdon." Shifting onto her tip-toes, Erin planted a soft kiss on his enticing lips wanting the feel of them to imprint itself in her mind forever.
"You guys make me sick." Stephanie groaned, making a loud gagging noise as she bent over pretending to vomit.
"No one asked you Boggs." Tate snapped sharply.
"Tate." Admonished Erin in a low hiss. It wasn't unfair to say that Tate had strained relationships with pretty much everyone he knew but Stephanie was her bestfriend and as far as Erin was concered he would do his best to be pleasant to her. The drugs weren't helping Tate's moodswings, in fact they were having the opposite effect. As Erin snorted a small heap of cocaine off of the outstretched key and the drug hit her system a pang of guilt washed over her. Was it really a good idea for her to be encouraging the behaviour by partaking? Erin knew the answer was no, but even so she knew when they went back to his after school ended she'd be snorting lines off of Tate's desk.
"Just an observations." Stephanie shot back not missing a beat.
"Fuck you Boggs."
Erin sneaked a quick glance at her best friend out of the corner of her eye. When she saw the disapproving glare on the goths face, her eyes fixed exclusively on the key that Erin had just snorted from, she blanched and turned back to Tate. "Jason Anderson is having a party tonight, his parents are out of town. Are we going?"
Tate's face creased in displeasure telling Erin everything she needed to know. It had been a long shot anyway, she knew Tate wasn't one for house party's but with Jason's parents out of town it seemed like a good excuse to score some free booze and drugs. "It's cool, I can see you're not into it." Erin sighed dramatically, gleefully aware that Tate's resolve would already be slowly dissolving. "It's just I brought a new dress and I was going to wear it to the party. But it's okay, we'll just hang at yours-"
"What kind of dress?" Cut in Tate playfully, offering out another key of cocaine.
Snorting the powder, and rubbing the excess away from her nose with the back of her fingers Erin stepped closer to Tate being sure to press as much of her body as she possibly could into his. Lowering her voice, she looked up at him through her thick lashes, hands knotted in the bottom of his frayed jumper. "One you'll never see without that party."
