The *** House

"You look tired," Violet commented as I sat down in the chair in her room. I picked up a decorative cushin and tossed it lightly onto her bed so that I had enough room to comfortably curl up into a ball.

"I am," I sighed. "I don't know what's going on with me right now. I want to be with him, and that alone scares me. I shouldn't want to be with him when I know what he's done. When I think about all of that stuff, I want to be sick. My stomach ties into knots and I think that I'm not going to make it. But then he'll smile at me, and I kind of forget. I completely lose sight of how despicable he is, or how I should be completely revolted by the idea of him. Everything just feels wrong to me right now."

Violet nodded softly. She stared down at her fingers, inspecting her nail beds. "I know exactly what you mean. It was the same for me when I learned about the school shooting. But somehow I got over it. I had all but forgotten about it when Chad told me about the rape."

I paused, caught up in something she'd said. "Chad told you that? Patrick was the one that told me. Those two are only here to start shit, aren't they?"

"Tate murdered them, Ainsley. Whatever they expose about him is kind of justified, wouldn't you say?"

I shrugged. "I suppose so."

"You know what? I don't really know that much about you," Violet said suddenly, looking a bit troubled by the truth of her own statement. "All we ever talk about is Tate or me. Tell me about you. What was your life like before you wound up here?"

I chewed the inside of my lip. I'd put so much effort into not thinking about my life that the idea of openly discussing it now made me uncomfortable. But still, she was right. I knew so much about Violet by now that it really wasn't fair for me to keep her in the dark about myself.

"Well, I was the youngest of two kids. I was really close with my older brother. He had already finished his rebellious phase when I started mine, and so even when the rest of the world had had enough of me, he stuck by me. I know that my death hit him really hard. I was still kind of in the middle of that awkward, angsty state of mind when it all ended. I know that I put my parents through a lot, and I really regret that now. I wish that it didn't end that way. The night that I died, I went out to see a horror movie with a couple of friends. We decided that it would be really funny if we ate some pot brownies before we went in. I wasn't supposed to be here that night. I was supposed to go home with them, but I was high and I was freaked out, and I just took off by myself. I mean, I don't think that I deserved to die because I was being stupid, but I definitely didn't think my actions through."

Violet looked truly sympathetic. "Believe me when I say that you can never hurt yourself as much as I have. I hate knowing that I killed myself. My body is hidden in a crawl space underneath the house; the world doesn't even know that I'm dead. But enough of this death talk. I want to know what you were really like."

I shrugged. "I don't know. By all accounts, I was really an awful person. I was quiet and angry, but when I was confronted I turned into something of a bully. I was really kind of mean to a lot of people. They're probably dancing on my grave. But it was more of a defense mechanism than anything. In middle school I had a really rough time keeping friends, and I had been hurt by a lot of people that I trusted. So by the time I was in high school, I aimed to hurt everyone else before they could do the same to me."

The air in the turquoise painted room fell silent. I hadn't even told Tate these things, yet I couldn't seem to hide them from Violet. I felt like she was looking out for me. I actually felt like we were friends.

"I never got that vibe from you," she said carefully, testing the waters to see how I was going to react. "I would have never put you into the mean category. I definitely wouldn't peg you as a bully. I would have guessed that you were more of a victim."

"There weren't many people that brought out that side of me. Usually I kept to myself or hung out with one or two people. But when someone tried to tell me off or bring me down, I lost my head a bit."

"So it was more in self-defense, then?"

I hesitated. I could recall one particular instance where I'd gotten into a fist fight because a girl wouldn't stop singing off-key under her breath. She had been an innocent girl, and there was absolutely nothing threatening about her. She had just irritated me. And I had exploded in the schoolyard. Others had cheered me on, and I had felt empowered. I had won the fight, but she had probably never raised a fist before in her life. "Sometimes," I whispered after a lengthy silence.

Violet seemed to pick up on my subtle shift in emotion. "Hey, we all do stupid things in high school. There's no shame in it."

I picked at a hangnail, pulling at the skin until a droplet of blood sprang forth. "Most people get to seek redemption from the people they've hurt. I have to assume that they forgive me. I don't like that feeling."

"I know where you're coming from with that one."

Violet and I played a few card games to pass the afternoon. We turned to lighter topics of conversation, and I felt better. I had sworn only days before that Tate was the only person in the house that I could trust. After everything had been exposed, however, I began to doubt that fact. Violet was the only one who really had my back. I knew that Tate would never purposely hurt me, and I firmly believed that he had changed his ways, but there was always a nagging voice inside of me that warned me against depending on him too much. I needed to establish other relationships in the house just in case things were irreparable.

When night fell, I headed down to the study. Tate was already there, and he smiled pleasantly upon my entrance. He had been extremely agreeable lately. I knew that he was attempting to suck up, and even though I hated that fact, it still felt nice when he looked that happy to see me.

"How was your day with Violet?" he asked brightly.

"It was fine," I replied as I crawled onto the couch next to him. "I had a nice time. Every now and again I just need to talk to a girl. It's just a bonus that she was born in the same decade as me."

Tate frowned, and distaste pulled his eyes down. "There's nothing wrong with being born in a different decade."

"Who is president right now?" I shot.

"You won't know that information by the time the next election rolls around," he reminded me. "It doesn't make us any different."

"If you can name one of the Spice Girls, I'll let this go forever."

"Are they chefs or something?"

I laughed. "Not exactly. They were this British pop group from the late nineties. To be honest, I'm kind of surprised that no one brought their music or posters into this house. They were so ridiculously popular that it's not even funny."

"So why is it important that I know who they are?" His ehyebrows pulled together as he tried to figure out what I was getting at.

"You don't need to know stupid information like that. That's not what I meant at all. I just wanted you to understand that sometimes it's nice to talk to somebody that grew up in the same era that I did."

Tate draped his arms around my shoulders and gently pulled me against his chest. He rested his chin atop my head, and I could hear his rhythmic breathing. "I get it," he murmured. "I'm glad that you have someone who understands the world that you knew. I would like to have someone like that. But you're all I have in here anymore."

"I'm not going anywhere," I assured him.

"Do you think that you'll still feel that way in a hundred years?"

I didn't even bother to humour him with a positive reply. "I have no idea what will happen in that time. I might be head over heels in love with you, or I might find myself living in the trees outside just so that I can stay away. You can't even be certain that the world around us will still exist. It's stupid to speculate on what might be. It's much better to take it day by day."

"I love you." His words came out hushed and muffled, as his lips were lost somewhere in my hair.

I had told Constance before that I had thought I was falling in love with Tate. But was I actually there yet? I had only known him for a little over a month now, but when you only get to speak to a handful of people, relationships kind of get sped along. I had never told anyone that I loved them before, and the prospect frightened me. And even if I felt it, it just seemed too soon for me.

Instead of saying something of the equivalent to him, or saying anything at all, I pretended that I hadn't heard him. Maybe I hadn't been meant to hear, since he'd whispered it in such an odd way. I was touched by his words, but I just couldn't bring myself to repeat them. It would do no good if I just mindlessly spoke those words; I had to feel them. If we started off this next step with another lie, something bad was going to happen.

So I simply closed my eyes and stretched out my legs a little. I let out a yawn and cuddled into him, signalling that I was ready to go to sleep. Tate hunkered down and seemed to be settling in for the night as well, but I didn't know whether he believed that I hadn't heard him or he was simply accepting the fact that I wasn't ready to say it back.

It wasn't like I needed to say it right then, anyway. I had eternity to come to terms with the way that I felt about Tate.