Unthinkable (Tate Langdon)

009

Warning: strong adult language.

October 7th, 1993.

Evangeline had been battling a constant state of the butterflies since the moment Tate had said those three enormous words - I love you.

Being with him felt almost magical, mystical somehow. It was as though she had a personal sun shining in the sky at all times, making the world radiant just for her benefit.

Her mother, when sober, had always insisted that whatever seemed too good to be true almost certainly was, but Eve was beginning to doubt that pearl of wisdom strongly.

Tate was too good to be true, every identifiable aspect of him perfectly matched to her, but it seemed he very much was real.

Tate and the things he made her feel were yet another box to tick off the list of things her mother wouldn't understand, not that she'd so much as inquired as to who her daughter might be seeing, those days.

She had yet to see any other side of Tate than the boy who would move mountains to see her smile, and so, things were nearly perfect in every way.

She had no way of knowing how soon that would change or what that would come to mean.

It wasn't until that cool fall day in October that she realized there was something more unbalanced to him than gorgeous dimples and a goofy sense of humor.

She tugged her purse higher up on her shoulder, the leaves crunching under foot as she tromped down the path that led to their meeting spot in the woods.

The beach had long since grown too chilly for her tastes, sitting by the shoreline almost cold enough to evoke memories of fall in Seattle. The woods were still not by any means warm, but there seemed to be less wind beneath the canopy of trees.

As she made her way down the path, something made her stop short.

"Bitch. Stupid, ugly bitch!" Tate's voice shattered the silence of the woods, accompanied by the grunting sound of some sort of impact.

"I hate you. I hate you. I fucking hate you," he screamed, his voice strained and unfamiliar as it ripped from his throat.

Eve peered out at him from behind the brush, eyes wide as blue moons, as he brought his fist down hard against the solid tree in front of him again and again.

She was frozen for a moment as she watched the vulgar display of unadulterated rage, moved only by the impetus of the sight of his bloodied knuckles.

"Tate?" she hadn't meant for his name to come out as a question.

He froze then, too; his posture contorted oddly, his body tensing like some sort of a wild animal at the call of his name. He did not turn around to face her.

"What are you doing?" she asked cautiously as she made her way closet to him. She placed a hand on his shoulder and gently guided him around to face her, gasping at the sight of his expression.

His cheeks were ruddy with tears, dark eyes red-rimmed and angry. His blonde hair clung to his forehead with sweat and his fists were clenched into two bloody, arthritic balls.

"God, Tate," she whispered frantically, lifting his hands up to examine the damage he had caused. "What happened?"

He did not answer, his mouth set into a hard and thin line as his eyes looked far away. There was something truly terrifying about the near deadness in his gaze, something that shook Eve to her core.