"I have cancer."
He slams to the tile floor. His temple slicing against the glass shard from his mother's tea cup as his new reality sets in and cold fear rushes to his bloodstream.
All he can do is lay there and watch his world fade to black.
The last thing he sees is Constance's worried eyes penetrating his own.
III.
The world is a messed up place and a filthy goddamn horror show. Filled with shit, piss, and the vomit that run through the streets. Tate knows a few horrors of the world and wonders if his teaching degree can justify all of the shit he's been put through. Then he thinks of Constance and shakes the thoughts out of his head.
When he was a teenager, and even a few times as an adult, he always looked at Constance as the human reincarnate of the devil. She was a fucked up woman who lived on the bottle and her nicotine addiction. Her mothering skills were barley there contributes. Signing him up for track because he wouldn't go out for the football team, throwing a book of death and suicide in his face and told him to be strong and grow some balls, or when he would cry about a father who never came back after he promised to take him away from all the pain. She'd hit him, her rings scarring up his smoothe flesh, crooning harshly in his ear about how his daddy didn't want him. His sobs being forced down until she left whatever room they were in.
When he was ten years old, he gave up looking at the world with the expression glass half full. He downed the imaginary liquid when he finally ripped a razor blade across the skin of his wrists. He watched the blood droplets contrast against the white porcelain of the toilet as he heard his mother stumbling around drunk looking for him in every other room in the house but the bathroom. It was always a fucked up game that he so desperately tried to end. God hadn't wanted him then, and probably wouldn't want him now. It was just something he couldn't control. No matter how hard he tried.
His temple throbbed as he held the piece of tissue over it to soak up what blood was left. His eyes spotted with black dots and his focus was slightly dull. His head pulsed as he tried to stand up with the help of the rickety chair he sat in.
"Mom? You still here?" His voice was louder in his mind as a new wave of pain washed over him as he grunted in discomfort. No answer was ever replied back to his calls.
Constance wasn't anywhere.
His mother was dying of cancer and she was nowhere to be found after he fainted from the news. He hadn't registered any of it until now.
His footsteps echoed throughout the house as he went to the door to leave. Maybe she'd call him again, or maybe he would call her to see if she remembered who he was. His thoughts were warped and it hadn't hit him yet. Crying wasn't his strong suit and he would never shed tears in front of her again, he didn't care if it made him heartless. It was her who made him endure that as a boy.
"Tears are shed by the weak." Irony fit in Tate's life after watching his mother cry. His mother was the definition of the word. His mother was weak, and it killed him to realize that at a point of her life where she didn't know how long she would have left to shed those tears, of anguish, sorrow and hate.
His mother was dying of cancer and if there was a cure to this horrible illness he would do anything to make her better.
Because Constance is still his mother, and he could never fully hate her no matter what pain she inflicted on him.
TxVxTxV
Violet's hazel eyes stumbled across an older looking house with cracked and broken concrete leading up to creaky wooden steps. She refused to be shown the home, she just wanted to 'move in and get it the fuck over with'. As she put it ever so sweetly. As sweet as a seventeen year old who hates the world could put it. After hours of driving, the Harmon's came to a stop and got out of the car. Vivien entered the home first, eager and happy to finally redecorate it how she wanted.
"You have to be fucking kidding me." she laughed.
"What now, Violet?" her father asked, shoving a box of her belongings in her hands.
"We left our home in Boston for this shit-hole here? Are you insane?" Her words laced with venom and spite as her eyes blazed in anger.
"Yes, Violet, we left our home for this shit-hole because it is absolutely one hundred percent your own fucking fault. No go and help your mother unpack. Now."
"You really are a grade A prick." And she was gone, disappearing through the front door with Vivien smiling at her, Violet muttered something incoherent and undoubtedly rude. Hopefully she would learn to be respectful with this academy deal. With a tuition like theirs, Ben hoped she would come out speaking French and being abstinent, that would be a dream come true, if she even graduated this place.
He hated thinking about her as one of those street rats she hung out with in Boston that would end up not becoming anything in the working world. He knew deep in his heart that would never happen to Violet. He would do anything in his power to assure that as-well.
Even if it meant dragging their family away from everything known and paying a hefty barely affordable tuition fee for a school that they had never even heard of.
Violet may hate him now, but within five years she would be thanking him. At least that's what he had hoped in the long run of things.
He carried the remainder of the boxes inside the house and shut the door behind him. Everything was wearing on him and he hadn't known how to handle it. Hopefully he would learn how to cope before he took it out on his work, and began his long hour shifts again.
VxTxVxT
"So when do I start going to the academy for spoiled rich bitches in Tinsel town?" Violet asked Vivien as she hung a picture frame on her light tan walls of the middle bedroom. It was a little bigger than her old one and had a bay window, which she hated to admit she really liked.
"Violet, you start next week, now stop acting like this. We did this for your benefit."
"Throwing me in so snooty rich bitch academy won't do shit. I had friends in Boston Mom. I won't befriend anyone in this place because I'm not a spoiled princess and we ALL know it. So thanks a lot for moving me here. You guys really know how to make hate my only emotion."
"You don't mean that Vi." Vivien replied looking to her daughter who stood with her arms crossed tightly over her dress covered chest.
"Yeah, I do. I also mean this, You guys are the shittiest parents out there. I really hope you find happiness in my misery, because that's all you seem to make me feel. Miserable. We moved all this way for nothing, and worst of all, it was your own fucking idea. Good going Vivien." Violet ran down the steps passed her father who was shouting something she completely ignored as she ran outside into the cooled down air.
Her converse hit the pavement as she broke out into a sprint, her mind in a whirlwind of emotions she was dreading to be exposed. Her breathing was hitched and she couldn't get enough air into her lungs, it felt as if she was being stabbed as she coughed violently into her hand.
"Are you alright?" Violet turned to come face to face a blonde haired guy looking at her out his car window, a 1960's Mustang. Classic. His hands rested on the steering wheel. Along with his concerned eyes on her face and shaking body.
"Yeah...Yeah, I'm fine, I just thought I'd come out for a run."
"You look like you're going to collapse." he smiled. His dimples sinking into his cheeks. Violet blushed slightly.
"I never said I was any good at running." came her retort. His head disappeared from under the dash, coming up with an unopened water bottle.
"Catch." The water bottle flew through the air briefly before Violet's tiny hands wrapped around the plastic.
"Thanks. How do I know this isn't poisoned?" Violet eyed the lid as he smirked, revealing a set of pearly white teeth.
"You don't, guess you're gonna have to trust me." She smiled before he revved the gas a bit, he started to drive away before she called out to him
"Wait! What's your name?"
"Tate." He called out the window, catching her gaze slightly before turning around the closest corner.
Violet cracked the lid to the water bottle and took a long gulp. The water sliding down her throat soothing the ache that lingered there from the coughing fit.
"Tate..." was all she said before a genuine smile spread across her face.
Who knows, she might end up liking this shit-hole town after all.
Chapter 3 is done! Woo! I would like to thank my lovely reviewers for their kind words of encouragement! You guys are seriously awesome and I love writing this for you all.
I'm looking 4-5 reviews for the next chapter post.
Enjoy! Favorite, follow, review, etc. :)