The first month is easy.
She misses him - oh God, does she fucking miss him - but she still has the memories of his tongue between her thighs and the way he had tucked her into the empty curve of his front after he'd cum, how he'd cradled her in his arms like even a sliver of space between their bodies wouldn't do. She remembers how broken he'd looked as he'd driven away, way his lips worked around the words, "I'll wait," like a far-away caress.
She remembers his kindness, his humor, his passion, and it's enough.
The days blur together, threaded with thoughts of him She starts watching reruns of his show with her mother, snacking on popcorn as she stares dreamily at the screen. Her parents think she's developed a puppy-love crush after meeting Tate at the wake, they call it "cute".
They have no idea. It's not a crush. She's in love with him, truly, madly, head over heels. Dumb fucking girly love that's consumed her, eaten her inside out until she feels like little more than a husk with him gone.
She's young, she knows, but this is the real thing. It's forever. Who's to say that love at first sight isn't real? It fucking is, she knows. She feels it, heavy and cloying, a constant ache in the middle of her chest. If Tate asked, she'd marry him in a second. She can feel it in her fingers, under her skin, inside her bones. Even her very soul wants for him, if such things exist. In bed, late at night, she can feel her heart whining for him, a whisper like the beat of a drum.
Tate. Tate. Tate.
She finds herself staring at his house sometimes, questioning if it all really happened or if those pills Leah gave her were something more colorful than codeine. She's got no proof, no love letters (or their twenty-first century equivalent: text messages) to reread for comfort. She doesn't have a picture of them together. There's no trinkets given as gifts to turn over in her hands as a worry stone, no pilfered t-shirt to curl up in at night. Hell, she can't even talk about it with anyone, lest he get arrested or have his career ruined. The only proof she has that he's real, are the love bites on her breasts that fade to pink and eventually disappear altogether. When that happens, she has nothing, only the memories of the way his breath had rasped against the shell of her ear when he'd said she belonged to him.
She remembers what he said about her house, how it's haunted. Pfft. The very idea is ridiculous. Ghosts aren't real. But sometimes at night, while she's lying in bed, Violetthinks she hears children laughing, and she knows that she saw a blonde woman in a dated dress disappear into her basement. She could deal with that, if that's all it was, but there's something else, too.
The voices.
They creep into her head when she's staring out across the lawn, into his empty bedroom. They tell her he used her, that she'd imagined his attraction and devotion. They tell her it was all a game, that she was being foolish, stupid.
It would be enough to make her crazy if she couldn't still imagine his teeth at the edge of her throat Her memories of Tate are what push the voices into silence, and she's happy again, if only for a while.
Vivien's happy to share her crush on the beautiful boy next door with her daughter, cuddled on the couch while the show from his younger years plays. One night, after one glass of wine too many, her mother gazes at the screen and licks her lips dramatically. "He's just so fucking gorgeous," she slurs, grinning dopily at her daughter.
The speed at which Violet's ferocious thoughts arrive surprises her. "Mine," she thinks possessively. "He's mine."
And then instantly she calms, because she remembers he is. He promised.
And for the first month, it's enough.
The second month is harder.
Vivien comes home from the market waving a copy of People magazine. "Violet, you'll never believe it!" she exclaims, shoving the pages into her daughter's hands.
"Mom, I don't care about this shit," Violet tuts, wrinkling her nose and turning away.
"Just look," Her mother presses. "That actor, Tate Langdon. He's in the news!"
That's the magic word. Violet snaps instantly out of her funk. Her eyes sweep over the pages hungrily, searching for his messy hair and dark eyes, heart wedged in her throat. This is what she needs, something to remind her that he's real. When she picks him out of a collage of famous faces, she almost wishes she hadn't.
His new movie is big news, huge in fact, considering the sheer star power concentrated in the film. The supporting actors are well-known, some with Golden Globes and Oscar nominations to their names. The cast seems close, spending nights at bars in the sleepy little town in France where the movie's being filmed. The photos are all candids, snapped by the locals, pictures of the smiling actors, drinking beer and laughing as they hold up playing cards stuck to their foreheads with spit.
That in itself wouldn't be upsetting. She's thrilled to see him happy, that he's finally going to get the recognition that he deserves, that his castmates seem to adore him as much as she does. What makes her heart bottom out is the picture of Tate cuddled close to the actress playing his love interest, holding their beer mugs up to clink for the camera.
She's a rising star, the new IT girl, not famous for partying or dating another celeb but for her acting chops alone. She was nominated for an Oscar when she was thirteen, continued acting as she worked her way through Yale (where she graduated Magna Cum Laude), and has gone on to make all the right choices as her career has progressed. And if that wasn't enough, the cherry on Violet's shit sundae is that she's absolutely fucking gorgeous, with blonde hair, green eyes, and breasts that would spill out of any man's hands.
She's perfect. In every goddamn way.
And she's young; twenty-one.
(Violet knows how Tate likes 'em young.)
She looks down at her own chest, eyeing the nearly flat expanse inside her shirt wearily. Violet's never suffered from low self-confidence but this is enough to give her a complex. She's beyond threatened. What does she have that can compare? Nothing. She's a nobody, some teenager that he'd met at the most emotionally trying time of his life. He was vulnerable and she was there, a distraction. Hardly the best way to start a relationship.
It wouldn't be so difficult if she could just talk to him. If she could hear his voice, she'd feel a hundred times better. He'd reassure her that the beautiful, famous, brilliant, not to mention critically acclaimed, actress meant nothing to him. Then she could stop worrying and they could have phone sex and plot every little thing they were going to do to each other the second his plane touched down in L.A.
She races home every single day to check the mailbox, hoping for a letter at the least. He doesn't have her phone number, but he has to know her address, right? Fuck, she'd settle for a postcard. Every day her hopes crest on her walk home from school. Every day she winds up disappointed.
The memories of their bodies pressed together don't burn so bright, anymore.
And those voices, - the voices of fear and doubt and self-loathing - they get louder every day.
By the third month, Violet's lost faith all together.
She spends hours locked in her room, trolling gossip blogs and searching for any tidbit from Tate's movie that she can find, a hermit gone mad. They're nearing the end of filming now, and the word on the set is that Tate's hope for Oscar buzz isn't unwarranted. The people closest to the film say he's incredible and that this role is going to make him a household name. The film will be in post-production for awhile, but the press blitz has already begun. The producers have high hopes and have lined up interviews for the cast, eager to get the film and their new star into the limelight as soon as possible.
She watches each and every interview. She hangs on every word, listens to his drawl, the boyish excitement evident in his voice. He's overjoyed to be getting recognition and his sincerity as he discusses how he believes in this project and the director drips from every single word.
The camera loves him.
So do the reporters.
And based on what she's seeing on the internet, everyone wiht a pulse is catching Langdon Fever too..
He's famous, full blown famous, she thinks one afternoon, and realizes then that she must be nothing more than a notch in his belt.
She's stopped checking the mailbox for letters weeks ago. A letter's not coming, she knows. She still wants to believe that he's waiting for her, but the conviction that was so strong before is hanging by a thread.
Her last hope is her birthday, even though she never told him exactly when it was. He's got an assistant now, someone that could google her or lurk her facebook or hire a fucking private investigator to find out the specific date. She's praying that he'll send flowers or chocolates. Hell, she'd even settle for that damn postcard she wished for a month ago. She just wants some acknowledgement that she's finally legal and that they can start their relationship, for real, the second she walks out of her high school for the last time.
Her eighteenth birthday dawns bright and sunny, in perfect contrast to the storm raging inside. Her parents surprise her with cinnamon rolls for breakfast, but she can't find it in herself to eat. She accepts their offer to take her to Disneyland for the day only because she hates the person she's become - the kind of girl that waits by the phone for the guy, like some pathetic sap, like she's worthless without him. Fuck that.
Fuck that.
That's not who she is.
And that's not who he fell in love with, if it's even love at all. Right now, she doesn't think it was. She thinks she was a distraction, a game, a toy.
But a small part of her still hopes she'll come home to a dozen roses on her doorstep.
When she stumbles up her porch that night, sunburned and sleepy, there's nothing to greet her. No flowers, no present, no birthday card - not even that stupid fucking postcard.
Nothing.
She climbs the stairs wearily and wrenches open her laptop, basking in the soft hum and the glow from the screen. She checks her facebook, smiling at the chorus of insincere "Happy Birthday" greetings from her classmates, and after checking her email and waging an internal war for the hell of it, she finally gives in. Her cursor hovers over the US weekly site that she had embarrassingly bookmarked three weeks prior. She scrolls endlessly, but sits up straighter when she notices a new video has been posted, an interview of Tate and his female co-star taken on the red carpet of a Paris release party for another film.
They're all smiles as they talk about their gig, the challenges of shooting a war movie, and how "incredible it is to work with such talented and wonderful people." Their bodies are close, too fucking close, and it makes Violet's stomach twist.
Then the bomb drops.
"And how do you two get along?" The interviewer teases, gesturing to the pair with her free hand. "Is there a budding romance on set?"
Tate and his co-star look at each other and grin. She makes an obnoxious kissy face and he laughs.
"Nah, we're just good friends," Tate assures the interviewer.
"Best friends," his co-star confirms, smiling warmly. And then he drapes an arm around her shoulder, and because she's a fucking life-ruiner, the girl snuggles in and leans back into his chest.
Violet can't watch anymore.
She slams the screen shut and wipes at the angry tears that she hadn't noticed pooling in her eyes. Friends. Best friends. What bullshit. Their body language couldn't have screamed the opposite any louder if it tried. Of course he was fucking her. Why not? She was gorgeous, and she was famous, and he could fuck her and kiss her without worrying about ruining his precious career. Violet had never meant anything to him, nothing at all.
What a fucking joke.
The voices sneer in triumph. See? So easily replaceable. A movie star, physical perfection personified. How could you ever hope to compare?
Easy, she thinks. I can't.
Her eyes settled on the stack of envelopes next to her laptop. Acceptance letters from colleges all over the United States - Boston College, the University of Texas at Austin, NYU, University of Miami, and of course, UCLA. No college or city had sounded particularly enticing, so she'd yet to confirm a choice. However, in the last three months, UCLA had moved to the top of the pile.
Her heart heavy, she picks the letter up off the table, neatly tears it into confetti, taking a sick pleasure in the deed, and throws it into the trash.
When it's little more than confetti, she releases a ragged sigh.
She feels like she's forty fucking years old, not eighteen.
Well, fuck that. Not tonight. It was still her birthday for another five hours.
She angrily strips out of her clothes, flinging them in various directions around her room. With a choked sob, she digs through her closet until she finds the shortest pair of shorts she owns. She doesn't bother with a shirt, just ties on her bikini top. It's not like she has to follow a dress code down at Joanie and Mark's bar.
Snagging her phone, she lets her fingers fly over the keys. When she's done, the message reads:
Going to Wine Cellar. Come buy me a birthday shot.
She stares at it for a minute and then, resigned, sends the message to every guy she knows and, so she doesn't look like too big of a slut, a few of her female friends too.
She hopes that by the time she stumbles home, she's fucked in every sense of the word - too fucked to remember that she ever met the famous, charming, infuriatingly beautiful movie star Tate Langdon.
If Violet hadn't been so upset, she would have watched the video more closely. If she had maybe talked to him since he left or if his co-star hadn't been so gorgeous, maybe she wouldn't have been so angry - angry enough to slam the screen closed the second Tate had wound his arm around his beautiful co-star's shoulder.
If things were different, if she hadn't been living in a house that magnifies your worst fears and feeds on your self doubt, then she would have watched the video for just five seconds longer and she would have seen it.
When Tate had drawn his co-star into a brotherly hug, the underside of his hand had flashed in view of the camera for a brief moment.
If things would have been different, she would have seen the heart, complete with an exaggerated V with a teeny-tiny H in the middle, permanently tattooed into his palm.
A/N: Thanks for reading!
Only one chapter left. Again, Paige and I would like to thank you all for being so wonderful throughout this entire fic. You're too good to us!
Uno mas!