Missed

Chapter 5 - "I like birds, too."

"Halloween!" my mom shouted, bursting through the door. Oh, right, so it was actually three days since we'd placed the jack-o'-lantern outside, then.

My parents always wanted to do something "as a family" on Halloween. As you can guess, I didn't.

"Mom, I'm not going anywhere with you and dad," I said. No way. Last year, we went to a small music gathering type thing in the park, and I just knew that people knew there was something different about us. Was it the fact our skin tones were just slightly too pale? Probably. The year before that, we went to visit my grandpa before he passed. I was always kind of jealous of my grandpa. His death was peaceful - yes, it was in a hospital - but still, it was peaceful. In his sleep, and he moved on. He wasn't trapped.

"Please not this year. I can't." I pleaded.

"Violet, please-" she began.

"No, I'm not going. I don't want to go."

This argument carried on for about fifteen minutes, until she finally agreed that I could stay here.

"Fine, stay here. But honey, please talk to us. Please, I am begging you, please talk to us. I know that things have been.. horrific. I know that everything has changed, but we have to accept it now. This is who we are." I had no idea if she knew that I still thought about Tate. The last time he was even mentioned or referred to in a conversation between me and my mom was when she held me after I had told him to... you know.

"I know, mom. I'm sorry, I will."

She smiled. "Well, me and your father are going out for a walk later. Nowhere special, just the park."

"Alright. Have fun."

She left.

I wouldn't though. I lied. I wasn't going to just "talk" to them about Tate. He had destroyed us and ruined our whole family. To be honest, he was the reason why we were all dead. How would they react if I just brought it up? No. I quickly dismissed the thought of even mentioning him to them.

-

A few hours later, after my parents had left, I looked out of the window. I could see Moira leaving, and I'm pretty sure I saw Nora - but I'm not sure. No sign of Tate though. I looked down at my dark camo green coloured dress and saw all of the creases. I patted it down and grabbed a brown cardigan. Throwing it over me, I walked (very fast-paced, by the way) down the stairs and through the door. As I walked out of those black, creaking gates, I should have felt a sense of release- a sense of freedom. I didn't. We were still trapped in that house. In 10 hours or so, we would be back. We weren't free from it, and I doubt we ever would be.

I didn't know where I wanted to go at first. I paced and paced outside of the gates of the house, and finally decided to go to the library. The only reason I knew where it was is because I was talking to Constance about it about two years ago. She visited sometimes, but I hadn't seen her in a while.. to be quite honest, I didn't want to. I walked down the grey, stony pavement and headed towards the library.

When I got there, hardly anyone was in there. The librarian smiled at me as I walked past her desk, and to be honest, I don't know if I managed to smile back. I walked towards the back of the library and sat down at the table, my fingers running against the indents of pen and pencil on the surface of the white table. I sat there for a while, but then decided to actually read something.

I got up and walked down the aisles of the library - walked past the history books, the science books, the fiction books, the non-fiction books - until I returned to my seat and found a book in the section behind me entitled "Music Through the Ages".

The book was.. pretty. The base of it was black  and it had a white title, a nice font of course, and the rest of the front cover was plastered with pictures of iconic musicians - from Elvis Presley to Marvin Gaye - from David Bowie to The Ronettes - from The Beatles to Diana Ross. I opened it and flicked through - I wasn't really into many genres, my favourite being alternative rock and grunge music.

I continued flicking through the pages and ended up on Nirvana. I admit, I didn't think of him right away. As my tired eyes scanned the pages, I heard his voice in my head.

"Got any Kurt Cobain on that thing?" It startled me so much that the chair jolted backwards as my body pushed against it. I was angry. So angry at myself. And him. I hit myself on the head and muttered "stupid." Oh god, was I the one going insane now?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Opening them, I stood up and picked the book up. Spinning around, I took a few steps and scanned the book titles that were on the shelf in front of me, and placed the book in the correct area. 

I turned back around and went back to my table, and I saw a book on there. Considering I had left the table empty two seconds ago, I don't know why there was a book on there now. I looked around and there was nobody else in here. Just me.

As I went closer, my eyes widened. It felt like my heart stopped all over again.

His voice. His voice was in my head again. "I like birds, too. They can fly away when things get too crazy, I guess." It was the book. It was the book about the birds. The book that I had been flicking through night I died.

The book that I had been reading when Tate told me he loved me.