Frayed (10 page)

She held the dress up so I could see it better. “Thoughts?”

I scrunched up my nose. “Maybe if you were a five-year-old playing dress-up as a princess,” I told her.

Something caught my eye through the mass of clothes, and I reached forward to pull out a black dress of respectable length. Lia snatched it from my grip, casting a well-practiced eye over the garment. “I like it,” she finally said. Then she eyed me over the clothes rack, a gleam in her eyes reminding me why we hadn’t spoken in days. “Look,” she said with a sigh while fiddling with the price tag. “Should we, like, talk about what happened?”

I folded my arms across my chest. “I’ve been trying to contact you for two days, remember? You’re the one who’s been avoiding me.”

“Whatever. I want to know now.”

I sighed, closing my eyes briefly. What was I supposed to tell her without dragging her into the mess of Kesley’s death? I would have to give her a sliver of the truth, I knew, and I stared at her as she waited for me to say something. “They…” My throat seemed to close.

“They
what
, Ava? You know what they’re capable of, and now you’re suddenly best friends with them?”

“I’m not friends with them,” I said. “They just wanted to
talk
.”

“Then why couldn’t
I
be there?” she asked, sounding a bit like a petulant child. She blinked a few times, as though she were holding back tears.

“They wanted to talk about Kesley,” I said finally.

“Oh.” A pause. And then, “What did they say?”

I fixed my gaze on the floor once more, avoiding her sharp eyes. Could I really lie to her face? Oh, they had told me something all right, but how was I supposed to explain that my boyfriend could be a
killer
? That was
not
the conversation for a clothing store. But looking at her, I could see she wasn’t going to back down. I needed to give her something.

“Nothing much,” I said. “They said that she was a great girl and that she shouldn’t have died so young.” That even sounded false coming from my lips.

“Oh please,” Lia said, rolling her eyes. “And you think they’re being genuine?”

I stared at her, uncertain. “I don’t know, Lia. They sounded like it.”

“Come on, Ava. They’ve sweet-talked their way out of so many punishments that I doubt
they
even know when they’re being genuine anymore. They obviously want something from you.”

She was right, as much as I didn’t want to admit it. They
did
want something from me, but in this case, we both wanted the same thing. Did that mean we were using each other?

As I scrutinized the way Lia’s mouth was pinched into a flat line and the muscles tight around her eyes, I was getting a pretty good idea what this was all about. Careful not to hit a nerve, I asked, “Is this even about me anymore?”

“What is that supposed to even mean?” Her eyes widened innocently.

I frowned. “Lia…”

Her eyes flashed. “So maybe you’re right. Whatever, but you know what they did to me.” She turned away, her expression concealed.

And so here we were: the real reason why I’d hurt her so much. A few months ago, Lia had fallen victim to one of their cruel pranks, and now I felt even worse about the situation—because what if Kesley had been involved?

Exams were a big deal for Lia’s parents. They thought that doing well in school would set her up for a lifetime of success. This put the weight of the world on Lia, especially since her interests were centered on the latest gadget released. So she had struck a bargain with KARMA about her upcoming English test. They would give her answers to the test if she vouched for them as a witness at an upcoming hearing, which involved stealing ten cans of spray paint. She’d shown up and vouched for them—and KARMA had given her all the wrong answers.

On purpose.

That had been the last straw for Lia. Ever since then, her eyes turned cold at just the mention of their name. Not only had her phone and credit card been taken away from her, but her parents had filled her time with so much extra tutoring that I rarely got to see her except during school hours.

I focused on the present, on what Lia was now saying. I owed her that.

“I get it, Ava,” she said. “I really do. Kesley was important to you. But it still stung.”

I mumbled an apology, and everything fell back into its usual pattern until she said, “So what’s with you and Jackson?”

I wrapped my arms around myself uncomfortably. “We’re fine.”

She cocked an eyebrow, her expression hardening. “That’s all I get?”

Irritation poked its sharp claws at me. What was she expecting? Hell, what was I supposed to say? That I was beginning to fall for my sister’s best friend and that I had no idea where that left me and Jackson?

“I don’t know,” I said, biting back a sigh. “He deserves a second chance, right? I think everyone does, even if they’ve done something terrible.”

“Do you still love him?”

Her words caught me by surprise, and I found myself thinking about what Rafe had told me. If I thought about it,
really
thought about it, did I love Jackson? Truly? I felt different—stronger—around Rafe. But unpredictable too, and that scared me. Being with Jackson was safe. That I knew.

Was that really love?

I said nothing, and Lia gave me a look that was colder, less forgiving. In the end, I took too long to answer. “You don’t even love him anymore, do you? He deserves
so
much better than you.” And with that, Lia brushed past me without a backward glance. Leaving me alone again.

I stared after her, stunned, as she vanished down the street beyond, her words echoing in my head.

And I wondered: had that been
jealousy
in her voice?

• • •

I left the clothing store feeling empty.

Lia had always been…
Lia
. There for me but only some of the time—when it suited her, not me—and I had the persistent thought that if it came down to her happiness or mine, she would always choose hers.

I shook the thoughts from my mind. We were friends, right? We would get through this. In a couple days, things would go back to normal. They had to.

The gray clouds massing above me suggested rain or maybe, if I were unlucky, even snow. My feet crunched on fallen leaves as the shadows of four girls blocked my path, and I glanced up.

They were all there: Amanda, Riley, Abbey, and even May tagging along behind, hands in her pockets. She paused when she saw me, then made a beeline straight for me. I breathed out a frustrated sigh and repressed a groan.

“We don’t have time for this,” Amanda said in a bored voice when she noticed where May had gone, and her eyes flickered back and forth between May and me.

“We’re going back to Riley’s,” May explained.

“You should come,” Abbey said, a crooked smile curving her lips.

“Oh, hell no,” Riley hissed, crossing her arms.

“Nah, give the girl a chance, won’t you? Besides,” Abbey continued, “there might be more Kesley in her than you think.”

More Kesley in me? God, I hoped not. My stomach clenched.

Amanda’s eyes glinted at that, sharp and beady like a hawk’s. “Fine,” she said, conceding, but her mouth remained set in that same flat, irritated line.

“What do you say?” asked Abbey, who was watching my expression carefully.

“Yes!” May jumped forward before I even had a chance to open my mouth and grabbed my arm, pulling me down the street.

Kesley would have hated this
, I thought.
Hated this.
Others taking control of me, making decisions for me. I used to think it was because she wanted me to become more independent, less vulnerable, but now I knew it was because she liked the control. She’d gravitated toward the closest malleable thing in sight: me. But as I walked alongside her best friends, I decided that tonight, she was no longer going to control me.

The sun had dyed the tops of the trees golden-orange as we followed the main road that curved around Circling Pines High and the cemetery and went deeper into the town’s most heavily populated section. Most of the trees had been cut away for development there, and two-story brick houses obscured the faint outline of mountains.

Riley stopped at one of these houses, kicking open the rusty iron gate.

“Please tell me you have the key to the liquor cabinet,” said Amanda as Riley unlocked the front door. Amanda yanked off her flats and threw them onto the polished floor. Flecks of dirt and mud splattered everywhere. The others followed suit, seemingly oblivious to the mess they were creating. I took off my own pair of faded pink flats but piled them to one side. Neatly. Away from the others.

I looked up to see Riley waggle her eyebrows at Amanda. “Of course I do. My parents leave the things I’m not supposed to touch in the shittiest hiding places.” As if to prove her point, she reached over to the fake potted plant that sat on a carved, wooden table. She took a silver key out from under it.

“Where are they?” I asked. “Your parents, I mean.”

Riley flashed a grin in my direction. “Away. On vacation somewhere.”

“And they leave you here? Alone?” I asked skeptically.

Riley scoffed. “They don’t trust me that much yet. Just ’cause I haven’t been in juvie for a year doesn’t give me free rein over the place. My brother’s supposed to be ‘looking after’ me”—she bent her fingers into quotation marks—“but he lets me do what I want as long as I don’t bother him.”

I followed the girls into the living room, which was wide and spacious with a beamed roof. Everything looked so polished and so neat and so…not Riley. I wondered if her room was as neat and orderly as this, but I didn’t ask.

She walked to a glass cabinet filled with gleaming bottles of alcohol. Nerves flipped in my stomach as Riley selected one, then flicked an amused glance in my direction.

“Scared?” she asked, a taunting lilt to her voice as she cocked an eyebrow.

My heart pounded. I was
not
an alcohol drinker. The feeling of not entirely being in control
did
scare me, but I wasn’t going to tell Riley that.

Fearless
, that manipulative, cold voice whispered at the back of my mind.
You said you wanted to be fearless, Ava, didn’t you? Then show yourself you are. Fearless.

Riley tipped an even amount of liquor into plastic cups. I took the cup she offered me, my hands shaking. I saw her eyes flicker down to my fingers, and I know she noticed the shake, but at least she had the grace not to taunt me further.

I drew in a deep breath. Then I pressed the rim of the cup against my lips and tipped it back. The whiskey scalded my throat, burning down my esophagus, and settled uncomfortably in the pit of my stomach.

I coughed and spluttered, fighting the urge to retch it back up.

Amanda laughed.

There was the sound of someone hitting her on the shoulder, and May said, “Hey! Be easy on her! It’s her first time with anything this strong.”

This wasn’t the time to tell her it was my first time with
anything
.

“What about Kesley?” I asked before I could stop myself, swirling the liquid around in my cup. I didn’t look at the girls, not wanting to see their expressions. I wasn’t sure why I had asked that—only, this was what Kesley did, right?

Get drunk, screw up, not give a damn?

“What about her?” May asked carefully, slowly weighing each word.

“I just wondered,” I said with a shrug, “how often she’d do…
this
.”

“Whenever things became too much for her,” May said gently.

“Yeah,” another voice said. Abbey? I didn’t look up. “Remember the time Kesley gave you that vodka bottle? You puked all over my couch. The stains are still there too.”

Oh God. Puking?

My stomach turned over further, and the back of my throat burned. “Can we not talk about puking?” I mumbled. Even the
smell
of this stuff made me feel ill.

Amanda smirked, seeing my discomfort. “How many cups d’ya think it’d take?”

“At least four,” May said.

“No way!” Riley scoffed. “She’s taken one gulp and she’s already looking green.”

“I’ll bet my new sunglasses she won’t make it through three,” Amanda said.

“Yeah?” said May. “You’re on.”

I swallowed, stomach aching.
Fearless
, I thought over and over again like an incantation.
Fearless.
And no more Kesley. Not tonight.

• • •

Back at home that evening, I was looking for my watch. I liked to keep track of time, because who knew how much I had left?

A wink of gold caught my attention from across the hall. And there lying right on top of the piano was my watch. I stumbled over to it but didn’t pick it up. Instead, I pulled the stool out and sat down. I wasn’t drunk exactly, but I felt a certain lightness, a carelessness I wasn’t used to.

I ran my fingers across the keys. Not hard enough for them to make a sound but just enough to feel their cool surface underneath my fingers. I sighed, closing my eyes. For the first time in a long time, I wished
I
had been the one to learn the piano. Music had never come to me easily, and now I wished I’d tried harder. I remembered bits and pieces, strung together in a haphazard, messy way. I could partially play the right hand on Beethoven’s “Für Elise,” though Kesley had taught it to me quite a while ago. Still, my fingers seemed to move of their own accord as, with my eyes still closed, I felt along the ridges of the keys until I found what I thought was the correct first key.

I pressed down. A quavering note hung in the air, high and sharp.

I breathed out a withheld breath and pressed the next note. I think it was right. At least it sounded right. I tried to imagine Kesley sitting there in the worn leather chair behind me, hands over mine as she showed me where to place them next.

Tears pricked my eyes, but I kept going. The melody was so painfully familiar that it made my heart ache, made every bone in my body wish Kesley were here with me to see this. Would she be proud of me now? Giving this a second go? My fingers moved up and down the keyboard, feeling the cool ivory. The melody and its keys were etched into my mind, and I was only half surprised to find I hadn’t forgotten a thing.