Tate knew what Ben would say to Violet if, three years ago, she'd asked him why Tate had lied to her.
Because he's a psychopath. Because he's a goddamn liar. Because he's a monster.
Why did anyone lie to anybody? There were a million reasons and none of them were good enough. Tate had created so many lies that they had come together in a web and he had gotten stuck in it. Three years later, he was still stuck. He was starting to think that there was no way out. You imprisoned yourself and you stayed imprisoned for the rest of your life. Or afterlife.
After a moment that seemed to go on forever, Tate fell down onto the floor after her. While she cried, at first, he kept to himself, stayed in his own little space, didn't intrude into hers. This was like a movie he never wanted to see again. It was like somebody had rewound everything and he was under the house again, standing in a dank crawlspace with Violet's body rotting and Violet, the real Violet, crying, and him trying to say the right thing and make it better.
The realization had hit him, after Ben had died, that it was impossible for him to make it better. He couldn't fix this.
"Because you didn't know. You woke back up and you didn't remember and I didn't know how to say it." Finally, carefully, he reached out to touch her hand. It was the first time in three years that he'd touched her and the tears were there then, just like before.