The Basement Door

The darkness was real.

She didn’t consider it at first; she pushed it from her sight if it came too close. She didn’t want to believe, she didn’t want to believe. His eyes were too bright, too human, too pure. They reflected off of hers and looked almost like a child’s. No one could be so dark, no one could be so cruel. There was no such evil. She wasn’t a believer, but she was now and the thoughts and the pain and the scars and the memories were burning into her skin, one by one like the slicing of a dull knife, forcing her blood to spill.

Five hundred, seventy eight point three days. But who was counting?

Violet is.

It will get easier. Everything will be better. The hush whispers of her mother told her, day in and day out. It will get easier. Everything will be better. It will get easier. Everything will be better. It will get easier. Everything will be better. It will get easier. Everything will be better.

Bullshit.

It may have been easy the first month. Maybe even the second. Time passed in soft lulls, ticking with a chime as Violet spent all of her undivided attention to her family, because there was no one else. The other spirits stayed away, they hid in silence and were just shadows in the corner of her eyes. He stayed away.

Go away, Tate.

Go away, Tate.

Go away, Tate.

Go away.

Three months, four, five, six and so on. It was never easier. She thought it was. She forced it to be. But underneath her cold skin, she felt what used to be. She could imagine her warm blood passing in her veins, her beating heart and the blush under her cheeks. She remembered when he touched her, the feel of his fingertips against her neck, she could feel everything. His lips against hers, his hips pressing down. She could remember everything. But he was so dark. How could she not see it before? He tore her family apart, ripped everyone from her side and pounded them down to nothingness because that’s all he knew how to do.

He did everything with no remorse, because he knows no other way.

But he loved her. Unconditionally. He loved her in his own sick way.

And as the time past on, the burns of his flame were diming. The blisters were fading into more scars on her heart and time was healing her. The memories were still there. They were always there. He shot, he cut, he murdered, he raped. His darkness was blinding. But his light was even brighter.

She had mentioned his name once. Only once. And it was as if the gates of hell had opened in that house, her father screaming and pushing and angry and sad and crying and her mother silent with the baby in her arms.He will never be what you want him to be. He kills. He takes. Psychopath. Killer. Crazy. Insane. Darkness. He will never be what you are. He will never be for you. I will not let it happen.

But they did not see the light they so callously turned away from. He was all of those things, Violet was sure of. But they didn’t see his other side, the side that was more prominent, and the side that Violet knew like the back of her hand. He was her broken puzzle piece. But her mind was still torn. And so the days she could not think of anything but him, she would sit across the basement door. She knew he was down there. She knew he was hurt. She knew he was torn, just as she was. And so badly she wished it would open and there he would be. She wanted to forget. She wanted to cut the memories away. She wanted him. She wanted nothing but him. He was all she wanted. He was all she had. But she never opened the door.

She never opened it.