The *** House

Tate spluttered wordlessly for a moment. He appeared to be a sort of fish out of water, opening his mouth and promptly closing it again, all the while his eyes were wide and troubled. "It can't be done," he said finally. "We're all stuck here, Ainsley. You can't die once you're already dead."

"Find a way," I begged.

"I've been trapped here for twenty years. Most of that time, I've been alone and miserable. If there was a way out, I would have found it a long time ago. You're just going to have to accept what's happening to you. Besides," he added, turning his face away sadly. "I can't lose anyone else."

"You could come with me," I proposed. "We could go down like Romeo and Juliet."

"You aren't listening," Tate's tone bit at me. He was growing frustrated. "There is no way. You and I are trapped here in this miserable life forever. Everyone here hates me, and you're making more enemies by the minute. At least we'll be hated together."

"I never wanted this," I ground my teeth together. "I didn't ask to breathe my last breath on a property that would hold me captive. I never in my wildest dreams hoped to be a ghost."

"You think I did?"

"You knew about this house. You were living here, and you were associating with Nora. You knew exactly what was going to happen when you got gunned down that day. You planned on staying in this house."

Once again, Tate looked as though I had hit him. I buckled under the guilt that his expression burdened me with.

"I'm sorry," I croaked.

"You're not, though," he argued. "You meant what you said."

"But that still doesn't mean that it was appropriate to say it. Just like last night. I shouldn't have freaked out so bad when you said that I was like you. You're right; we're both sick. I really am sorry. I'm just so confused and upset. I don't want to be like this."

Tate reached out carefully, looking as if it wouldn't completely catch him off guard if I lashed out in a violent rage. When I didn't react, he pulled me close and let me rest my head against his chest. "I know," he said. "I'm sorry too. I should have told you when it first started happening. But I knew that you wouldn't believe me, and I couldn't risk scaring you away. I like having you around. If you turned on me the way that Violet did, I couldn't bear it."

I bit the tender flesh inside of my cheek to keep from speaking my mind again. Violet had had every right to break up with Tate. If I'd been in her shoes, I probably would have broken it off even earlier. Maybe when she was still alive and could flee, she should have done just that. But she didn't seem to regret her actions, and I was hardly in any position to judge. I couldn't imagine being without Tate. Even if we could never be anything more than what we were right then, it was better than being alone.

"Why can't I just be dead?" I sniffled. "Why couldn't that guy have finished me off on the street? Or even tossed me into Constance's yard instead? If I'd never even met you, I wouldn't feel so guilty about wanting to be free. I'm just so tired. I'm tired of living this way, you know? Knowing that everything I knew before is gone; it's so hard. And now, even everything that I knew about myself is wrong. I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore."

"Let me help you," Tate said in a hushed tone. He was almost using his voice as a lullaby. "We can face the terrors of this place together."

I didn't want to push him away anymore. All of his past didn't mean anything. He was different now, and he was choosing to look past my current unstable state of mind. I had been trying for months to forget all of his crimes, and I had failed. I had thrown them in his face while he was trying to comfort me. I couldn't afford to do that anymore. It was clear that he was the only one that was going to stand by my side no matter how awful I became. It truly made me wonder about who he had been before he had died. Why would anyone want to support a basket case like me?

"You were better off with your first impression of me. You know, when you didn't want me here. You would have been safer that way."

"Safer?" Tate scoffed. "Trust me, safety has nothing to do with this place. It's an illusion that we use to make ourselves feel better. No one here is safe from the others that hide in the shadows. And how could you ever think that what's happening here is affecting my safety? They hated me before, remember? If they're going to lash out at me because you're sick, then let them. I'm more concerned about you. Do you feel safe?"

I almost didn't want to admit just how safe I felt with Tate. It seemed ludicrous that I was so comforted by his presence. I should have been scared of him. I should have been hiding from him ever since Patrick had even mentioned some of Tate's past. But I just couldn't. I couldn't face this house without him, and I was ashamed that I wanted to be free so badly. Here he was trying to help, and all I was doing was plotting a way to try and leave him alone again. How much would it hurt him when he inevitably caught me trying to kill myself?

I nodded. "I feel safe, Tate. I'd feel safer if you chained me down or something, but under the current circumstances I'm about as good as I can be."

I was wrapped up in the warmth of his arms, and I truly did feel like the rest of the house couldn't get to me. He didn't appear to be particularly muscular, but something about his grip proved to me that if it came to a fight, he could hold his own against pretty much anyone. I guessed that he would have had to; how else would he have been able to overpower Chad and Patrick in order to kill them? Tate was my safe haven. He rested his chin on top of my head. I cuddled into his side like he was a cocoon. I was completely protected in his arms.

"Ainsley?"

Both Tate and I lifted our heads in surprise. Violet was standing in the doorway, picking awkwardly at the sleeve of her beige cardigan. Her eyes were only on me; she wasn't giving Tate a spare glance. I sat up straight and felt Tate's arms fall away from my body, leaving cool patches of skin behind and making me shiver.

"Can I talk to you?" Violet continued timidly. Her blonde hair fell over her face as she shifted her gaze downward, toward her feet. She didn't want to be here.

"Yeah," I agreed. As I got to my feet, I cast a look back at Tate. He looked confused, but he smiled brightly when he caught me looking. He was really good at that. I knew that he wasn't happy, but his face would never betray his true emotions. He was a human mask.

I followed closely behind Violet as she hurried up the stairs. She ducked into her bedroom and closed the door behind me. I sat down on the chair in the corner, and Violet faced me. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked upset. I'd never seen her like this.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

"I just talked to my dad, and he told me everything."

I frowned. "Isn't there such thing as doctor-patient confidentiality anymore?"

"You're not really a patient. And I don't know if a ghost can still be considered a doctor. I mean, he told me that Tate is a psychopath, but that was after he was dead and I had already broken up with Tate. So does that count? I don't think it counts. Tate kind of crossed every boundary that a patient possibly can, so I think that the whole doctor-patient relationship was kind of null," she rambled.

I held up a hand. "Slow down. I just found out about all of this, too. Apparently I'm only reverting to this other personality when I'm around somebody I really don't like. So you should have nothing to worry about. I hope. Wait," I shook my head slightly, trying to align my jumbled thoughts. "Tate's a psychopath?"

"Yeah, he doesn't feel remorse but he can fake it really well, or something like that," Violet waved a hand lightly, pushing aside the topic. "But I want to talk about you. Did you really attack Nora?"

I pursed my lips together nervously. "I don't know. Tate says I did, and I don't know why he would lie about something like that. Why would he agree with people that want him to suffer unless it were true?"

She folded her arms over her chest. "But you won't attack me? Or my family?"

"If I haven't yet, then hopefully I won't. The consciousness that I'm living in right now really doesn't want to see anyone get hurt. Especially you. You're my friend."

Violet sat down on her bed, her shoulders slumping forward in relief. "Good. If you want to keep talking to my dad, I can help you. He seems to have taken a bit of a liking to you. He told me that you're a good kid in a bad situation. He used to just scream at me about Tate, so at least you know that he thinks you're better than Tate is."

"Am I really better than him, though? He might have done some things before, but I'm doing them now. How does that make him any worse than I am?" I inhaled slowly, trying to hold myself together as I voiced my deepest worries.

"You don't mean to," she reasoned. "The Ainsley that I know wouldn't hurt a fly. So what if you freak out sometimes? We all wish that we could every now and then. You just happen to have a really good excuse for it."

"I want to find a way out of here," I whispered. I knew that she could hear me, but she didn't give any indication that I'd said anything interesting. "I want to die. For real. I can't hurt anyone that way."

"It's impossible," she replied after a lengthy silence. "I slit my wrists for awhile after I was dead, but I didn't actually know that I was already dead at the time. And Mom and Dad kill each other every time a new family moves in, just to scare them away. I'm talking about gutting each other alive. It's pretty gruesome. If there was a way out, someone would have figured it out by now."

"That's what Tate said," I scowled down at the floorboards. "But if I figure it out, and I leave this place forever, I need you to do me a favour."

The look on Violet's face told me that she knew that she would regret agreeing to my request without knowing the conditions first. "What do you need?"

I looked up at her with tears in my eyes. "I need you to make him understand that it's not his fault. I didn't do it to leave him. I love him. I'm doing this to save him. And to save you, and everyone else here. I don't want to hurt him. It's not because he compared my illness to his. Really, it's not about anything that he's done. It's just because I need to be completely confident that I won't hurt anyone."

"You can tell him that stuff yourself, you know."

I shrugged. "I know that he won't listen until it's too late. He'll be so adamant that I'm being foolish that he'll ignore it all until I'm gone for good."

Violet's eyes took on a strange glow then. It was as if she were really looking at me for the first time. "You're really serious about this, aren't you? Are you that unhappy here?"

I was taken aback by her odd phrasing. "It has nothing to do with being happy. It has to do with what's right for everyone here."

She shook her head. "You're not getting it, Ainsley. Tate is in love with you. He looks at you the way he used to look at me. Trust me when I say that that's a good thing. He isn't as angry when he has someone to love. He's more under control. You're helping everyone by just being here. And if you're only attacking people like Nora or Patrick, then who cares? Everyone else here wishes they could hurt those people. Come on, think this through. Talk with my dad a few more times before you really decide to try and end it all. Talk to Tate about it."

I hadn't really thought about whether or not I was changing Tate's behaviour. I knew that he wasn't stealing things from corpses to give to me like he'd done with my necklace for Violet. But he hadn't actually given it to her, and maybe that meant something. And I really didn't mind this house most of the time. Maybe Violet was right. If there was anyone in this place that had proven themselves to be trustworthy, it was her.

"Okay, fine. I'll try it your way for a month. If I still feel this way, I'll start figuring out how to exorcise myself from the house."

Violet smiled widely. "Great. Go back downstairs, Tate's probably freaking out. I'm going to go talk to Dad about having sessions with you. Meet me back up here first thing tomorrow morning, okay?"

I nodded, hurrying out into the hallway. "Deal." I rushed down to the study, where Tate was still sitting in the sofa. His hands were folded in his lap, and he looked distracted. "What's got you looking so sad?" I teased.

His head snapped up and his dark eyes peered at me cautiously. "Why are you so chipper? And what did Violet want? She's not going to... you know... help you, is she?"

"In a way, she is. She's trying to talk Ben into having regular sessions with me so that I can try and work past whatever it is that's going on. She's helping me feel comfortable enough to stay."

"You're not going to try and kill yourself?"

I tried to give him a reassuring grin. "If all goes according to plan, I'll be yours forever."