Tate moved quickly, pulling his boxers over the bottom half of his torso and crawling into the front seat, rolling down the window and glaring into the `sudden brightness of a flashlight. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, his pupils focussing and refoccusing until he could just barely begin to make out the sillohette of a tall, slender man leaning against the side of his car. "Can I help you?" he asked, still trying to descern the features behind the shining light.

"You sure can, young man, by telling me just exactly what you think you're doing."

For some reason, this set him off. Tate didn't like being told what to do, didn't like being called out on his wrongdoings. Being Bens "son" for all intensive purposes had inflated his ego, made him seem almost invincible in his own eyes. Anymore, it seemed to him that no one was above him. He was unstoppable.

"What do I think I'm doing? I think I'm trying to fuck my girlfriend and you're a real douche bag."

And even though Violet knew that they were both in deep trouble, all her mind seemed to register was the fact that Tate had refered to her as his girlfriend. She watched in awe as he flung the door open, shielding his eyes as he storemed towards what she assumed must be a police officer prepared to blow their cover. She knew what this meant, knew that Ben would have her new stepbrother's head - and his genitals - if they were caught in this compromising position. Violet knew she should have been afraid, yet she couldn't seem to shake that jittery feeling in the pit of her stomach: her excitement at the idea that maybe, just maybe, he wanted her just as badly as she wanted him, that he was willing to risk so much raging against those who offended her. As long as his anger could stand as a sign that he wanted them to last longer than just one night, she couldn't bring herself to care.

The man with the light seemed to falter, stepping quickly away from Violet's furious lover and dropping the arm which supported the flashlight, shielding his face from Tate's impending fist. There was about to be a brawl and, as Violet stumbled over the center console, she realized that it had all gone too far. What had she been thinking, comign out here with a boy that she hardly knew? Endangering his life for one wild night in the backseat of a suped up sports car? It was all madness and the weight of her decisions fell heavy on her shoulders as she pulled her long sweater around her naked body and tumbled over the driver's seat and onto the pavement.

"Stop it, Tate!" she howled, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him roughly backwards. "Tate!"

He didn't stop, kept stalking towards his victim until the intensity of the moment was broken by a breathless chuckling as the offender stumbled to the ground. He got louder and louder until he was laughing uncontrollably, stopping both teenagers in their tracks. The tension relaxed away from them, melting into the atmosphere of the night.

"Tate, it's just me, man. Chill out."

"Travis?" Tate questioned, squinting his eyes again as the anger faded from his vision, allowing him to see clearly for the first time since the moment this unexpected visitor had pounded on his window. "Man, what are you doing here? You scared the living shit out of my girl. Damn it, Travis. Give a guy a heads up next time you decide to go storming in on me like that."

"Sorry to interrupt your...thing." he offered, his eyes traveling over Violet's half-clothed body with curiosity. He wondered what it was his friend saw in the tiny, mousy-haired girl. He stared for a long moment but Violet never wavered, meeting his gaze with distrust and guarded agitation. Who was he and why was he sizing her up? It wasn't any of his business who Tate was with, or maybe it was. Maybe they were best friends. In all honesty, Violet had no idea and she suddenly wasn't sure about anything anymore.

"Yeah. My thing. Sure, Travis. What are you doing here?"

"I was taking a short cut through the parking lot and I saw your car. Things seemed to be a little too shaky, if you know what I'm saying. I figured, when am I gonna get the opportunity to scare the shit out of you like this again? But then, with you, I probably would, huh, Tate? I mean, what number is she? 35?"

"No. Shut up, Travis. You're not funny, you know."

Thirty-five? Violet cringed. What had she done? More importantly, who had she done? She may have been a little wild, but she wasn't desperate. Being used was worse than anything, worse than using her body to get what she wanted or using substance to giver her body what it wanted. Being used by Tate was even worse than that.

"Whatever, man. It's your business. You got a room here?"

There was a long pause before Tate answered, his thoughts processing at snail speed. There were too many things about Travis and him that Violet wouldn't understand. She wouldn't understand his past, the way he had used women and used Travis and used her father to get what he thought that he wanted, whatever it was that seemed to fill that void deep in his chest that never seemed to go away. He had coked himself up and let girls down a little less that easy all for the sake of sanity, to chase away the demons that plagued him, and Travis had been his most trusted wing man. But none of that seemed to matter anymore because it was all behind him now. None of his efforts had amounted to anything until that night, until that one glorious moment of silence and clarity when there was nothing but the breathlessness of this beautiful girl heaving beneath the weight of his body. She had answered so many questions, but how would he answer hers?

"We do have a room." Tate said, reluctant. He needed to get rid of him. "We're kind of the middle of things, Trav. Could we maybe do this later. You know, I'm sort of trying this new thing where I don't share my women." He cracked a smile, giggled at his own half-joke, but Violet didn't think it was funny at all. She was not one of his women.

"It's alright." she huffed, wrapping the sweater tighter around her chest to more sufficiently cover the top of her breasts, the skin there still glistening with the sweat of her exersion. Her night had gone from a dream to a nightmare all in a few minutes time. Now, Violet was fuming. "You two clearly have some catching up to do. I know how you girls like to dish about hook ups so I'll be going. Thanks for the ride, brother. I'll see you at home."

She stormed away, her bare feet shuffling painfully over the uneven asphault. Pieces of gravel dug into her heels and she winced. Tears welled in her eyes, though she held them back with the precission of a veteran supressor of emotion. This wasn't the first time that Violet had been hurt and she was sure that it wouldn't be the last because there was an edless line of guys like Tate, people like her mom and her father, who would use you and abuse you and leave you to suffer alone, isolated and doomed to face the damage that they had inflicted. Violet was on round three already and she didn't think she could stand to be abandoned again. Love wasn't real. Happiness wasn't real. The only thing that was real was utter disapointment.

"Violet, wait!" Tate called after her but Travis stopped him.

"Dude, wait. I scored some great stuff over at the bar off 16th. Forget the bitch. She's done for tonight, anyhow. Let's go hang in your room, throw a couple back, do a few lines...what do you say?"

"No." Tate hissed, pushing his friend in the shoulder. "I don't want to tonight. I'm busy."

Travis paused, holding onto Tate's arm for just a little bit longer before he said the words that would end their exchange for the evening. "Because of this skank? Come on, Tate, bros before hoes. She's not even that hot, dude. I mean, we could always go pick up a couple other girls at the-" but Travis didn't get out another word before Tate's first collided sharply with his perfectly sculpted jaw.

"I said I'm busy Trav. And she is not a hoe." Tate walked away, his shoulders rigid, his muscles tensed as he chased after the girl who he was almost certain that he loved. She was everything he had ever wanted, his idea of perfection, wrapped neatly in a small, strange packaged that seemed to fit him idealy. "Vi!" he called out, catching up to her by taking big strides, his bare feet hardly registering the soreness of his soles. "Vi, wait!"

She kept walking for a second before abruptly spinning on her heels, her face betraying her hurt with an expression of vicious resentment. "No! No! No, more! I am done being lied to by people like you! I am done being pushed and pulled in every direction just so that people can tell me that none of it was real, that everything is some stupid game. I never win, Tate! I never win. I am the loser. I am the one who ends up broken, do you get that? I mean, Jesus Christ, Tate, do you even know why I'm here?"

Tate could feel her heart breaking, feel the pain tearing from her chest as she told him exactly what she thought, what she felt. She was honest when it came to Tate and he appreciated that, appreciated the way that she seemed to be able to bear her soul to him with no shame. She was the most free person he had ever met in his life and even though he thought he might have blown all his chances of ever having her, he liked the way she told him the truth. "Why are you hear, Vi?" he croaked, letting his own emotion seep into his words.

"I'm here because...because my mom killed herself. She killed herself because...I guess it was part me, part losing her baby, part all of the fucked up men that did a number on her because my dad left, because he was on in lala land skrewing Constance and playing Daddy to you. My life was an incredible nightmare, Tate, and I was running away from it as fast as I could. I wasn't enough for her and, God, it was hard trying to be something that I wasn't. I just gave up. I should have been different. I should have noticed. I should have tried to be something else. I should have been home that night. If I had been, maybe she'd...maybe she'd still be here. I don't know, Tate. The point is is that I have been through enough so please spare me the antics and just give it to me straight. If you wanna play games with me, you better think twice. I'm not ending up on the losing side, not anymore."

He raised an eyebrow, questioning what she was trying to tell him. "Is that a threat?"

"It's...I don't know."

Neither one of them spoke for a long time as the words between them settled in. Tate knew that this was different than anything he had ever been involved in before. With Violet, he felt a sense of responsibility, a sense of commitment that he had never felt before. He couldn't hurt her and he didn't want to. He wanted her to be happy, wanted her to feel the way that he felt whenever she touched him or laughed at one of his jokes. He wanted her to be whole. But could he give that to her?

"Violet, I'm sorry..."