A History Of Violence - Violentine AU

Chapter Eleven: The Back Seat

"Your dad's pretty cool." Violet said, putting on the pair of shorts she slept in.
"He's great right? He used to be super protective of me, just shows he cares I guess." Clementine shrugged.
She pulled back the bed covers and jumped onto the mattress. Violet changed into a baggy T-shirt and joined her.
"Sorry to ask, but where's your mom? Did they divorce or something?"
Clem was silent for a moment, staring into the wall with her brow furrowed, seemingly in deep thought.
"She uhh... she's dead."
Violet internally berated herself for being so stupid, she now felt like a complete asshole.
"I'm so sorry Clem, I didn't-."
"My dad is too."
Violet had no idea what to respond with, her mouth hung open in confusion.
"When I was eight, my parents took me on a drive. I don't remember where we were going, I just remember seeing the car coming towards us swerve into the wrong lane, and our car going over the railing and ending up in a ditch."
The brunette paused, swallowed and continued her story.
"When I woke up, I was upside-down, bleeding from the head." She reached around to the back of her head, pointing to a spot hidden by her thick, curly hair.
"It was... dripping down from my head and soaking into the fabric on the roof. I saw my parents, and I hoped they would wake up soon, that they'd get me out of the car and call the ambulance. They'd take us to the hospital, fix us up and we could just go home. Deep down, I knew they were dead. I don't know how, I just... knew. There weren't many people on the road, so I was in that ditch for, I think three hours, before Lee came and found me. He saw the broken barrier, stopped his car and climbed down to help."
Clem took a long, shuddering breath in.
"He stayed with me at the hospital, and not long after, he adopted me. I guess he didn't trust anyone else to keep me safe or something." She almost chuckled at the statement.
"I used to have these really bad episodes. I'd hear something, or smell something, and I'd be back there again, upside-down in the car. It would happen all the time, after a few years of therapy it sort of calmed down. I don't get them now thank god, but I still can't sit in the back seat of a car."
Violet sat up in the bed, she looked forlornly at Clementine. She could tell from her tone that telling the story hadn't been easy, it obviously brought back painful memories.
"Clem..." she placed a hand tenderly on Clementine's cheek, caressing her face.
Clem put her hand on top of Violet's and smiled weakly.
Violet took a deep breath.
"When I was a kid, my mom worked a bunch of jobs to make ends meet, I guess it wasn't enough because we lived in a trailer. But when she was at work, I'd stay with my grandma. I used to just watch cartoons in the den, and she'd sit behind me, knitting or some shit."
Clem shifted, sitting upright as well and paying attention.
"Grandpa had died that year, and grandma wasn't the same afterwards. She was always just, sad. She cried a lot, I didn't get it then. But uhh, one day I was in the den watching TV, and grandma left the room and came back with a .22 rifle."
Violet could hear her voice becoming croakier as she went on, feeling a tightness in her throat.
"She... leaned it against her rocking chair and pointed it at her chest. She couldn't reach the trigger, but I guess she knew that. She used one of those tacky wooden backscratchers with the little hand on the end, to push in the trigger."
Violet cleared her throat, despite how long ago it all happened, it still made her uncomfortable to recall the events of that day.
"I heard the gunshot, but I didn't turn around. I was too scared to look, I knew if I turned around and acknowledged what I knew was behind me, it'd make it real, and I didn't want it to be. So I just kept watching fucking cartoons. When my mom came home, she asked my why I didn't call the ambulance, and I said 'it wasn't like grandma was going anywhere'."
She uttered the last part with disdain, spitting out the words of her younger self.
"I didn't get it, I didn't understand how that sounded, what the implication was, I was a kid. My mom figured, 'my daughter's a psychopath, she's someone else's problem now' and shipped me off to a fucking 'special' school the next day. 'Ericson's Boarding School For Troubled Youth.'" Violet scoffed.
"I didn't speak to anyone for years, hell the therapist could barely get a word out of me. I had no friends until I met Louis, Marlon and Brody."
"Jesus, Vi. I'm sorry that happened to you." Clem said earnestly.
"I'm sorry about what happened to you too. I didn't tell you all that just to compare trauma. I could tell it was hard for you to tell me that, to remember it. I guess it's... shit... a testament to how much you care, and I wanted to do the same for you. But... I just, I care about you Clem, so fucking much, and I don't ever want to see you get hurt."
She breathed deeply, in and out. Clementine took Violet's hand in her own and looked into her green eyes.
"I love you, Violet." She whispered, a soft smile appearing on her face.
Violet's heart jumped, her mouth hung open slightly in surprise. It took her a moment to process what had just been said, that was the first time Clem had told her that.
"I love you back." She finally said, once initial the shock had worn off.
Clementine held a hand to Violet's cheek and kissed her, Violet closed her eyes, melting into the kiss. Clementine eventually broke off the kiss and nuzzled her face into Violet's chest, lying down and cuddling her side. She shuffled slightly onto her side, embracing the brunette and resting her face near the top of Clementine's hair. She could smell the scent of her freshly washed hair and the citric perfume she always wore. Violet closed her eyes and smiled uncontrollably. It was funny, little moments like this with Clementine were her favourite, they were the ones that were ironically the most memorable for her. Just the two of them curled up together, warm and secure in their partner's embrace. A series of soft pecks on her neck and collarbone were the last things Violet felt before falling asleep.