The Psycho and the Angel

Please don't cut vertically

Tate's POV

She saw me! Oh my god she saw me! And she recognised me I swear she did. Oh shit...

Normally I'd have been flirty or sassy or rude or SOMETHING, but when I saw her, I didn't know what to do. I mean what the fuck was I thinking, just lamely greeting her and then skulking off? Idiot, Tate! 

I had turned the corner out of the corridor with Dr Langdon's office, hoping to lose her following gaze as she surely tried to place where she'd heard my name before. Then I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Where was her sister? She didn't know... maybe I could get to know Violet.

I looked both ways to check nobody was coming before taking the stairs silently and two at a time.

I ducked my head around my bedroom door. No sign. She normally locked it anyway though. Then I heard a short hiss of pain come from the ajar bathroom door. I peeked inside to see Violet staring at her now bleeding wrist, her back to the door. So I opened it fully, quietly shutting it behind me. I turned to peek over her shoulder at the red blood trickling from her wound.

"You're doing it wrong," I said.

She gasped and turned around to face me, eyes open in shock as blood trickled from one wrist and the other hand had a sharp grip on the razor blade.

"If you wanna kill yourself, cut vertically," I supplied, matter-of-factly.

Maya's POV

It didn't take long to explain psycholinguistics to Dad because he already knew exactly what it was.

When I eventually excused myself, I headed out into the corridor, eventually reaching the bottom of the stairs. I looked up. The bathroom door was locked. That could only mean one thing.

It's not like I haven't tried to stop Violet... it's just that she doesn't wanna hear any of it. So I usually just shut my trap and sit in her room with a first aid kit for when she's finished. I'd talk to her, y'know? Not about the cutting, because then she wouldn't talk, but about other stuff. The new house would be a start... maybe even the basement... or the attic.

I padded softly up the stairs, not wanting to attract any attention to myself. I stopped silently outside the bathroom.

Then I jumped.

I heard a voice.

That wasn't Violet's.

"If you wanna kill yourself, cut vertically."

I could tell by his voice it was that patient of my Dad's... Tate, I think his name was...

Wait...

Tate?

OH MY GOD, TATE!

The one Chad told me about.

Ghosts can be visible!

I mentally slapped myself for not walking around the house with the information at the forefront of my mind at all times. I backed away from the door and into Violet's room. The moving men had been with our furniture while we were at school. Boxes covered Violet's bed, so I tried to neatly place them around the edges of the room, leaving the bed and the majority of the floor free for when she came back.

Then I saw it. Sitting at the top of one of the boxes. The first aid kit.

I took it out before gently placing the last box down and sitting on the bed. Waiting.