Watching Edward Scissorhands, Violet couldn't help but be reminded of Tate. Johnny Depp's dark, tortured eyes. This misguided boy with the brutal hands, who touched the girl so tenderly.

Travis seemed to sense it, and he scooted a bit closer to her, placed his hand high up on her thigh. He nuzzled into her neck and his soft hair brushed her throat. She felt a spear of desire low in her belly.

Over the years since they had become friends with benefits, Travis had come to understand that Violet wasn't always herself. He always knew when she was feeling low. He always knew when the darkness was rushing up within her and he shone his light on it, scared it away. He knew when to use his slow, sexy smile or, when it was warranted, his long lean body. Both were equally effective.

"Want to get out of here? It's been a long time since I've been in a high school. We could explore."

She smiled at him, let him pull her up and take her out of the auditorium. She could sense the teenagers watching them, the girls especially. Wondering how a girl like her was holding the hand and the attention of such a handsome, older man.

High school had always been hard. She'd always been a loner, not quite fitting in with the popular kids or the goth crowd. She'd been somewhere in between. Now, she felt the girls' jealous eyes on her, and felt a low sort of pride.

Travis led her out into the hallway, not looking at her, and surprised her by grabbing her arm, turning her, slamming his hips into hers up against the lockers. She gasped in a breath and locked her hands around his neck, lifting herself up, rocking her pelvis toward him and her legs up around his waist. She smelled his breath on hers, sweet from the pumpkin juice punch they'd had at the refreshment table. She could focus on Travis's hands on her hips, the long, hard, perfectly curved length of him surging up against her, the heat of him. She felt herself smiling. She wasn't quite herself with Travis. She was something a bit sexier, a bit older, and it made her feel like she was pulling herself out of the grave she'd dug herself after she'd wished Tate away. It made her feel more like 25 than 16, and best of all, it made her forget for a few moments.

She felt Travis's lips on the bruises on her throat, soft and fluttering, and she remembered Tate kissing her there. Sudden tears burned behind her eyes and slipped beneath her lids because the kisses were so similar and so different. Tate's had been a sick sort of apology.

Travis had never asked her about her bruises. He'd never batted an eye when she'd come to him the day after a session with Patrick, covered in bruises nearly from head to toe. He'd done the same as now, kissed them, almost with reverence, and his sweetness, his goodness, made her ache.

She felt his hand on her face, his thumb brushing the tears away again.

"Don't be sad, chickadee," he said, for the second time that day, and she looked up at him, grateful to him, for him. Without Travis, Violet might have lost her mind, might have succumbed completely to the darkness.

For an instant, she was so glad he was here, so happy he had taken her away from that house of doom and suffering, that her heart seemed to swell in her chest.

Then she heard a door slamming shut with a bang that sounded all too much like a gunshot, and startled, she looked down the hallway. There was no one there.

Travis drew her face back to his and kissed her lips, softly. "I've got another surprise for you," he said, and Violet forgot about the sound of the door slamming, surrendered to this brief happiness she had been granted.