by Kara Terzis
“Like what?” I said with a smile.
“Like this.” And suddenly his lips were at my neck, sparking hot trails where his mouth touched. Something inside me shattered, and I let go. I pulled him close, curling my hands around his collar, and wrapped my legs around his waist. At first, his lips were gentle, but as I sighed into his mouth and slipped my hands into his hair, I felt his arms tighten around me. His warm hands caressed my face—each touch leaving an icy heat behind. He leaned back—just a little—to speak. His hand still rested on my cheek.
“Better now?” he asked, slightly breathless.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Better.”
He pressed a tender kiss to the right side of my face. Always the right. Never the left, the scarred side.
That bothered me more than I let on.
Chapter Six
I woke on Monday with my stomach in a bundle of nerves.
It took me a whole two minutes of staring at the sunlight-striped ceiling before I remembered why. Amanda would be waiting for me today—and she’d want revenge. She wasn’t the sort to forgive and forget, and after what I’d done to her… I considered pleading illness, but my mother would see straight through that in a heartbeat. Besides, what was the point of running from things?
It’d all catch up with me eventually.
I showered, dressed in a pale, high-collared dress with tights, and hesitated at the mirror. I was not a brazen person. I hid behind a curtain of hair and avoided eye contact with people who passed me. But today? Today was different. I was different. Braver somehow. Instead of letting my hair fall over my scars, I tied it into a ponytail.
I paused before leaving my room, snagging one of the blue ribbons I rarely used in my hair. This was the start of a new Ava.
A strong, fearless one.
“Strong” and “fearless” weren’t words that came to mind when I thought of myself. What was so different about today? I looked into the mirror—really looked—but only saw the same girl I saw every other day.
“You’re up early again,” said Mom as I entered the kitchen. She had an apple in one hand, a phone in the other, and hadn’t even looked up when I came in. She was scribbling something on a piece of paper, brows narrowed in concentration.
“No,” I said, glancing at the clock. “You’re just late.”
“Oh yes. Dammit,” she added, glowering at the paper on the table.
“What’s that?” I asked, moving closer.
“Kesley’s old piano tutors called… They said they found some things of Kesley’s in the practice room. You know,” she added, looking at me, “old music sheets and small things like that. I thought you’d want them.”
I did. I wanted them more than anything.
Fighting to keep my voice even, I asked, “Can I have the address?”
My mother hesitated. “Ava, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” I shot back, feeling those treacherous tears sting my eyes. Did she think I couldn’t handle it? “They’re just things,” I said, slightly calmer now. “I-I just think it would be nice to have them.”
My mother breathed out a sigh, but eventually, she relented. “Fine. Just promise me you won’t be late for school.”
I rolled my eyes and took the address off the table. “I won’t.”
She seemed to look at me properly for the first time since I entered the room, and she said, “You’ve done something different with your hair.”
I paused. “Yeah. I thought I’d try something different for once.”
“I like it,” my mother said softly. Tears shone in her eyes. “You look like Kesley.”
• • •
The music shop was cold, dusty, and shrouded in darkness. A slice of sunlight fought its way through the filth-covered windows, but apart from that, it seemed to be a rather undesirable place to take lessons. I was ushered through the rows of overpriced gleaming instruments to the practice rooms by one of the shop assistants who barely looked at me. She unlocked the door to the one Kesley used and left me there. I stared into the unlit room for a few moments before I reached for the light switch and flicked it on.
A bag lay on the closed piano with the name Kesley stitched across the front. Music sheets spilled out, the yellow-orange of the dim light highlighting the dust. I stood there, paralyzed, for a few moments.
Perhaps my mother had been right.
Perhaps I was not ready for this.
Tears burned in my eyes. I did not let them fall. It seemed strange that something as small as a few personal items had such an effect on me. Maybe because these meant something. I reached into the bag without realizing it, letting my hands run through the sheets of paper. Their titles jumped out at me: “Moonlight Sonata, Movement One,” “Für Elise,” “Marche Funèbre.” Their titles brought back a swell of memories, of sounds that used to fill our house. I swiped at the tears falling from my eyes and dug deeper into the bag. There were a few other things—like an empty perfume bottle. When I held it close to my nose, it still smelled of jasmine. Of sorrow.
More tears prickled my eyes. I ignored them.
And there, right at the bottom of the bag, was a notebook. It was designed like a piano: white, with black keys stretching the length of the book. A pang of something shot through me, but I flipped the notebook open, teeth gritted. It felt somehow…wrong, morbid, to be going through a dead girl’s things. Most of it, I was disappointed to find, was blank, but as I flipped to the center, a flash of color caught my eye. A phone number. I stared at it for a moment—but it didn’t look familiar.
I fumbled for my phone and dialed the number.
My hands were shaking so badly that I needed three tries to get it right.
The number rang. And rang. Just when I thought nobody was going to pick up… “Cam’s self-defense lessons. How may I help you?”
Self-defense? I hit End Call and sank to my knees.
Never once had I heard Kesley express an interest in self-defense. So why did she have a number for it written down in her notebook? Something Rafe had said crossed my mind.
“God, Ava, she sounded scared. She wasn’t making much sense either. She only told me something strange was happening and that she needed to speak to me.” Only a few days later, her body washed up on the banks of Lake O’Hara, rope wrapped around her throat like some sort of macabre necklace.
So what was the normal, logical thing for someone to do if they thought they were in danger? Learn how to defend themselves.
Little good it had done.
A doorbell tinkled from somewhere in the shop, and I flinched. Then shoving everything back into the bag, music sheets and all, I swung it over my shoulder and left the music store. The ice-cold air outside was almost welcome. It bit angrily at my face, and a vicious wind tore at my hair.
I wasn’t upset anymore; I was angry.
Livid.
I couldn’t help but feel…betrayed. Kesley had known something, something important. And she hadn’t told a soul.
I walked to school in a haze, hardly noticing as the streets of Circling Pines swept by. I hadn’t even realized I’d reached the school gates until I walked right into someone. “Sorry,” I said without looking up.
“Oh, hey—Ava?”
My head jerked up so fast that it cracked. It was May—Jackson’s older sister. They looked remarkably similar, both favoring the gentle green eyes of their mother and the sharp features of their father. Her hair, the same shade as Jackson’s, brushed against her shoulders and softened her angular chin. She cocked her head to the side, rather like a bird.
She pulled out her earphones, curling them around her phone, and grinned at me. “Look. I just wanted you to know that you pulled a brilliant stunt on Friday. Seriously. I don’t think anyone’s stood up to Amanda like that since Kesley.” Her grin, if possible, became even bri
ghter.
I offered May a tentative smile. Out of Amanda’s group, May was the only one who’d shown me the barest semblance of compassion.
“But she hates me, right?”
May just grinned wider. “Oh yeah, she does. That’s the best part. I mean, it’s not hard to get Amanda angry about something, but she doesn’t expect it to come from someone like you.” Someone like you. Right.
My brief flicker of irritation was whipped away when a girl with store-bought auburn hair stepped out of the crowd. Her mouth was carved into a permanent scowl, and she would have been pretty—beautiful even—if she smiled more often. Her eyes, while stunningly amber, were marred by a frosty edge that somehow took their beauty away. They swept over me with a dismissive glance. “Come on,” Amanda said to May as if I weren’t there, “you’ve wasted enough time with her.”
May threw an apologetic glance over her shoulder as she walked away.
It almost made me feel bad for her.
Riley, the cropped-haired girl, turned back to me. Her body was tense, as if she were poised for a fight. “You know what they say,” she said, her voice low and dangerous. “What goes around comes around.”
Karma. The word flashed through my mind unbidden.
May and Riley vanished into the crowd, leaving me with an ice-cold feeling that embedded itself in my bones. Perhaps May was okay with what I’d done to Amanda—but Riley was another story altogether.
“Just ignore them,” said a voice from behind me. “They’re all talk and no action.” I turned to see Lia standing there. Her hand was clenched around the handle of a leather handbag, her skin paling. Her gaze was focused on the swelling crowd and just as cold. Lia liked Amanda’s group about as much as I did. A small smile twitched onto my face, though it was humorless.
“I’m not so sure about that,” I murmured. “Riley seemed pretty sincere about getting back at me.”
Lia lifted her shoulders in an elegant shrug. “Whatever,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “They’d have to get through me first anyway.” She glanced at me, some of the frozenness in her eyes melting as she regarded me. I smiled—a real smile—as she looped her arm around mine and pulled me farther onto the school grounds. People milled around us. A few of them glanced up at me as we passed, but no remarks came my way for once.
“Everyone’s heard about it, of course,” Lia continued as we wove through the crowds.
I sighed in dismay. “Great. That’s exactly what I want.”
Lia laughed. “That’s the spirit, eh? At least you got a good punch in.”
Thankfully, Lia said nothing more on the subject and instead started talking about this season’s fashion—but I wasn’t paying attention. Over her shoulder, I could see Rafe leaning against his locker, eyes fixed on the two of us. Heat flushed my cheeks. Sure, I was used to attention—the looks, those awful pitying looks—but there was no pity in those blue eyes. There was an intense, calculating edge to his expression, something I wasn’t entirely comfortable with.
Still, I didn’t look away.
Girls were admiring him from all angles, attracted to him like bees to a flower, but Rafe paid them no attention. Unusual for him, to say the least.
Lia didn’t take long to notice that my attention was focused somewhere else, and she twisted around to see what had caught my gaze. Rafe half smiled, half smirked when he caught both of us looking and walked away.
I’d stopped walking now. People pushed past us, but neither Lia nor I moved. I felt my cheeks warm with color. Why had I been caught looking at another boy—least of all Rafe—while I had a boyfriend?
I heard Lia groan from beside me. “You haven’t been hanging around with him, have you?” She really didn’t have to ask me that; I heard the answer in the disapproving pitch of her voice. So I just shrugged and looked away.
“He’s nicer than you think.” Why was I defending him?
I wasn’t looking at her, but I could clearly imagine her rolling her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Did you see the way he was looking at you? It was creepy, like he knew something you didn’t.”
Yes, there was. I just didn’t know what yet.
“Anyway,” Lia said, pulling me deeper into the crowd. “Want to go for coffee after school?”
“Sure.”
“Jackson coming?”
I cast her a sidelong look, wondering why that mattered. “Yeah, sure. I’ll ask.”
• • •
Rafe was sitting on my bed when I got home. And if that weren’t creepy enough, he’d drawn the blinds, shadowing everything in semidarkness. A dusty, yellowed guitar rested in his arms, its strap frayed, worn from love. Watching him there, holding that guitar, made my heart ache.
“If Kesley were still alive,” I said, “she’d kill you for touching that.”
A flicker of something passed over Rafe’s features, followed moments later by a crooked smile. “You’re probably right,” he said.
I let my bag fall to the ground. “Rafe, what are you doing here?”
His smile didn’t slip at the sudden coldness in my tone. He glanced up briefly. “Hi to you too,” he said, plucking at the guitar strings. He played a familiar melody I couldn’t quite place.
Indignation flared. I said, “What are you doing here? And how the hell did you get inside?”
Rafe flicked a finger up, a gleaming silver key ring hanging there. “Kesley told me where the key was,” he said. “Under the mat.”
I made a mental note to hide the spare key somewhere else.
“So,” said Rafe, “I see you’re still in one piece.”
I breathed out a sigh. “Yeah, for now anyway. Riley was giving me the death glare this morning.” I sat down on the bed beside him, legs crossed and acutely aware of the close distance between us. I couldn’t look at him, so I just stared at my pale hands. “Was there something you wanted from me, Rafe?”
“What?”
“You broke into my house for a reason,” I said dryly.
His shoulders lifted into a shrug. “I had the key. So technically, I wasn’t breaking in.” Then he looked at me and said, “I wanted to see you. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
I felt my mouth twist. “What, one sister’s gone, so you’re moving on to the other?” Rafe stopped plucking the melody to angle a look in my direction. Shame prickled through me at the thought of what I’d just said. I stared down again at my fingers, which I had been knotting together subconsciously.
“You’re upset,” he said gently. “But that’s not what I’m doing here.”
“I’m sorry.” I wished I hadn’t pulled my hair up this morning. Now I didn’t have anything to hide behind. I was exposed, vulnerable.
Rafe touched a strand of blond-brown hair that had fallen across my face.
“I like your hair like that,” he murmured. “It makes you look more like Kesley.” More like Kesley. I looked away.
“Am I just another Kesley to you?”
Rafe straightened, his brows pulling together. “That’s not what I meant. Not at all. You just seem…different. Stronger. More like how I remember you when we were kids.”
A thrill shot through me.
“Thanks, I guess.” I fiddled with the hem of my dress, then stood up.
I dragged my backpack over to my study desk and began to pull out books, piling them neatly into stacks. “As you can see,” I said, unnerved that he could be so comfortable right now, sitting on my bed and plucking on the guitar, “Amanda hasn’t gotten to me. Yet. So you can leave.” I moved over to yank open the blinds, and afternoon sunlight spilled through the windows.
Silence for a moment. And then, “You didn’t go to Kesley’s grave today.”
It wasn’t a question, but I replied anyway. “No, I didn’t.” I paused for a moment, then asked, “Rafe, how did you know I
do that?” Had he been following me too? Like Jackson? Though I suspected my mother had asked Jackson to keep an eye on me.
Rafe looked at me. His eyes, sharp and calculating, were narrowed slightly. “You’re not the only one who visits Kesley’s grave,” he said. He didn’t elaborate, but I didn’t need him to. I silently lowered myself onto the bed beside him again, and we let our grief wrap itself around us. Gray and heavy.
The melancholy guitar notes filled the room, and I listened for a few minutes. “I never knew you played the guitar,” I said softly, as if I were unwilling to break the paper-thin atmosphere the music had created.
I wasn’t looking at him, but I heard the grin in his voice. “There are many things you don’t know about me, Ava. Music just happens to be one of them.” He shot a sideways glance at me. “I could teach you if you wanted.”
“Okay then, man of many talents. What else don’t I know about you?”
A flicker of surprise creased his forehead, but it vanished so quickly that I could have imagined it. His face had smoothed back into a blank mask; the moment had already passed. “What do you want to know?” His voice was guarded.
“What exactly did Kesley tell you the night before you came back?” I stared at him, my gaze unflinching.
Rafe ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I was talking about myself. Not Kesley.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“I’ve already told you. She never told me what was going on. She said she needed me to come back to Circling Pines and that the situation had changed. I don’t…I don’t know anything else.”
“But you came back to Circling Pines after she died, right?”
“Yes.”
“Kesley died over a month ago. So what have you been doing all this time? And what did she mean when she said the situation had changed?”
Rafe shrugged. “I worked at the gas station near the highway for a while. Caught up with schoolwork. Enrolled back in high school. And if I knew more about what Kesley said, so would you.” He answered my questions with ease, but he wouldn’t look me in the eye.
