Frayed

by Kara Terzis

  She just shrugged.

  I said, “Give me one good reason why you’d want to help me. You’re nothing but trouble. Kesley would never have wasted her time with you.”

  From the shadows, Abbey laughed, a cigarette still dangling from her lips. Her eyes had a wicked edge to them.

  “Honey,” said Amanda from beside me, “your sister was nothing but trouble. We had more in common than you probably think.”

  She’s lying. That’s what she does, said a small part of my mind.

  The other part wasn’t so sure.

  “What do you mean?” I said. “She wasn’t… She never would have—”

  “Haven’t you worked it out yet?” Amanda said, her voice harsh. When I just shook my head, she continued. “Kesley, K. Me, Amanda, A. Riley, R. May, M, and Abbey, A.”

  A terrible silence filled the cabin.

  What she was telling me took a long time to reach my brain. At first, I thought I’d misheard her. Because I had to have, right? Everything I’d known—or thought I’d known—was turned on its head.

  Each letter spelled out a member of their group.

  K for Kesley.

  Kesley.

  She was part of their group.

  She’d lied to me. Lied, lied, lied, lied. And her lies were beginning to stack up with each passing day. Wasn’t it ironic that the people standing in front of me right now were more honest than she’d ever been? I felt cheated, betrayed by her decision to confide in them but not me.

  Liar, liar, blond hair on fire.

  Dimly, I was aware of everyone staring at me, but I was too far away, locked in my own mind, to pay them much heed.

  “Do you think she’s going to pass out?” a voice whispered. May?

  With a ragged, harsh breath, I drew myself back to the present and forced myself to act, to be strong. “Tell me everything,” I said, surprising myself at how steady my voice had become with the pain still raging inside me.

  Surprisingly, it was May who answered my demand.

  “She started the group in our second year of high school, I think. She found us one by one, looking for people…like her, I guess.”

  “Like her?” I said, incredulous. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  May just shrugged, saying, “Rebels. People who don’t care whether they break the rules. People who needed to let loose.”

  “She found me first,” Amanda butted in. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, seemingly proud of this fact.

  I narrowed my eyes. “She found you?”

  “I had problems way before Kesley came along, sweetie. She just…heightened them. She wanted to form a group of people who were…”

  “Troublemakers,” I said through gritted teeth.

  The ghost of a smile flickered across Amanda’s face. “Call us what you will, hon. But compared to Kesley, we’re nothing.”

  Another blow. I forced myself to say, “She was nothing like you.”

  “No,” said Amanda softly, “you’re right. She was worse. Way worse. You don’t get it, do you? Everything we did, she did—we took the blame for it.” She took a step forward, and it felt menacing. “And you wanna know why? Because she didn’t want her perfect, golden reputation tarnished.”

  “No, she didn’t. You’re lying. You have to be.”

  Amanda’s heated gaze flared with sudden hate. “God, Ava, don’t be so blind! Your sister was a stinking, cowardly, pathetic excuse for a human being! She didn’t care about any of us. She used us as a distraction, nothing more.”

  But a distraction from what?

  “She wouldn’t do that to you,” I said, shaking my head. Then added, more to convince myself than the others, “She wouldn’t. That’s not the Kesley I know.”

  “Maybe that’s not the Kesley you knew,” May said quietly, “but that’s the Kesley she was.”

  “Shut up!” As soon as the words left my mouth, I got my wish. A tightly coiled silence filled the room, squeezing the breath from my lungs and tightening the tension in the cabin that was already stretched to the breaking point. It took a few moments for the inferno of rage inside me to dull down to a blaze. When I spoke again, every word shook. I didn’t even care. “If my sister was such a bitch to you all, then why do you want to help me?”

  “Because she’s dead,” snapped Amanda.

  The bluntness of her words cut through me. Ever since Kesley’s funeral, people had been dancing around those words as if they feared my reaction. Oddly, Amanda’s words seemed to ground me, and something slotted into place in my mind.

  “You think Kesley was killed because she created KARMA, and you think one of you might be next.”

  It wasn’t a question, but May responded anyway. “Yes.”

  “Can you blame whoever killed her?” I asked, feeling a stab of vindictive pleasure at the hurt that flashed across May’s face. She shrank back into the shadows once more, invisible. She looked frail, diminished, and for the first time, I noticed the circles under her eyes. As if she hadn’t been sleeping much.

  Well, I thought, that makes two of us.

  And I still didn’t feel the need to apologize to her.

  Amanda took over the reins. She seemed unaffected by what I’d just said, not that I was surprised. “That’s not the point, okay? We want to know who did this to Kesley so it won’t happen again.”

  “But who else knew?” I asked. “I didn’t, and neither does the rest of Circling Pines. She was never questioned by the police, never sent to juvie.”

  “If we knew,” said Amanda, looking at me as if I were an idiot, “we wouldn’t be talking to you right now, would we?”

  I met her gaze unflinchingly. “I’m not saying I believe you,” I said. “But if you hated the way my sister treated you, then why didn’t you just stop?”

  Abbey laughed from the shadows, and it was a cold, black sound. She said, “We tried. A couple times. But Kesley had a way of making you see things her way. And what was the point anyway? She made us feel…together. Like we had a place. Like we were actually worth something.”

  Amanda said softly, “And besides, Ava, who would’ve believed us? Say we did tell someone about Kesley and what she’d done. It’s a criminal’s word against hers. Who would you believe?” My silence gave Amanda all the answer she needed. “Kesley was twisted but smart. She knew that either way, we had no choice but to go along with what she wanted.”

  That didn’t sound like Kesley, not at all. Not my Kesley. Not the protector, not the one I knew and loved with my entire heart.

  My gaze searched the four girls. They were all watching me, as if waiting for something. I realized I was twisting my hands together, and they were slippery with sweat.

  “Okay,” I said a little breathlessly. “You want me to join you.”

  Abbey’s eyebrows shot up, but beside me, Amanda looked satisfied. “Yeah,” she said. “Something like that anyway. We want you to help us.”

  I bit my lip. “I don’t know…”

  “Look, honey,” said Amanda. “You haven’t got much of a choice here.” She took another cigarette and motioned to Abbey, who passed the lighter to her grudgingly. One she’d lit up, Amanda took a long drag, and smoke billowed from her mouth.

  “Give her a choice,” May said. “She deserves that at least.”

  Amanda cast her a flat look.

  “Well, of course she doesn’t have to do anything,” Riley said in a low drawl. “But, Ava, she was your sister. You owe it to her to find her killer.”

  But for whose benefit? Mine or theirs? Her gaze was steady as she looked at me. “You know she’d have done the same for you.”

  Would she have?

  The thought passed through my mind unbidden. Surely, Kesley, my sister, my protector, would have done what I was doing for her? But this, this, opened up a whole new a
lley of questions—ones that made me question her. How could I honestly say she would still protect me after the things I’d just learned?

  “I have eyes, Ava,” May whispered, her voice low and urgent. “I see the looks people give us. Give me. What if someone discovered Kesley’s involvement in what we were doing? What do you think would have happened to her?”

  I dropped my gaze, staring at the floor. What she said made sense, even though part of me—a large part of me—didn’t want to believe it. And that wasn’t even the worst part. None of them cared. None of them sought the closure I did. All Amanda, May, Riley, and Abbey wanted was to make sure they wouldn’t be the next target.

  So where did that leave me?

  They were staring at me, waiting for an answer. I glanced around at them and realized I didn’t really have an option. Amanda was right. If I didn’t join, she was going to find some way to obliterate all happiness from my life, and May was staring at me with such an imploring expression that I spoke before I realized I’d made up my mind.

  “Okay,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”

  • • •

  Apparently, I’d earned enough trust not to be blindfolded on the way back. Not that I could have said where their cabin was anyway. The highway pretty much looked the same the whole way to me. Trees and asphalt.

  Circling Pines was quiet when we arrived. The leaves lay lifeless on the ground, a wind rattling though the trees and lifting my hair. The truck screeched away as soon as Amanda let me out of the vehicle. School was out and had probably been for some time. I made my way to campus anyway, knowing that if I didn’t, my presence in detention was going to be missed.

  I walked through the corridors in a daze.

  I wanted nothing more than to lie in bed, staring at the sunlit-striped ceiling, and digest what I’d found out. A tiredness that hadn’t been there this morning lingered inside me.

  A teacher was already present when I pushed open the detention door.

  She looked over her thick-rimmed glasses, glanced down at her list, and jerked her head to the array of waiting seats. At least half of them were filled with very bored-looking students, who were chewing gum or scratching profanities on desks. “Nice of you to join us, Miss Hale.”

  I said nothing.

  A few students raised their heads, but I managed to get to the other side of the classroom without too much unwanted scrutiny. A dark-haired figure caught my attention, sitting just outside the teacher’s view at the far side of the room. When the teacher stood up to shut the door as noisy students passed, I took that as my opportunity to slide from my seat and join Rafe.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” he said, his voice low.

  “I have detention.”

  He arched an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, so do I. Apparently smoking on school grounds is against the rules. Did you know that?”

  I didn’t for a second believe he thought smoking on school grounds was allowed. “I thought you’d stopped that.”

  Rafe shot me a “get real” sort of look. He said, “So where have you been for the past day?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, fumbling over my words. Why hadn’t I figured out an adequate excuse by now? “Just places.”

  “Places? That’s funny.”

  “What?” I snapped.

  “None of KARMA was here today either.”

  I felt my cheeks fill with heat, but I kept my expression stoic. “So? They’re not here most days,” I said.

  “But you are,” he countered. “You’re always here, no matter what.”

  “Look,” I said patiently. “It really doesn’t matter.”

  “Was this about Kesley?”

  I just stared at him, silent. What should I tell him? Was it possible that he already knew more than I did? But it was too late—my silence was enough of an answer for him.

  I was saved from speaking when the teacher noticed our whispered conversation. “Is there a problem here?”

  I didn’t even look up and instead let Rafe answer for us.

  “All good,” he said. I could imagine the charming smile that he flashed at her, dazzling her into not reprimanding either of us further.

  The moments trickled past so slowly that I had to wonder whether our teacher had disabled the classroom clock. I cast Rafe sidelong glances every few minutes, but he didn’t seem interested in saying anything else. He drummed his fingers on the table and looked out the window.

  I traced my eyes over the sharp line of his jaw. Was it wrong to want to run my fingers along his jawline when I had a boyfriend? I fiddled with my hair and looked away. Of course it was.

  I told myself to focus on something else, something that wasn’t Rafe, so I stared at the backs of the chairs instead, reading the words carved there. One in particular caught my eye. A love heart was drawn there with two names written inside: Jackson and Kesley.

  After all I’d learned today, why was I even surprised?

  I was out the door before I could think things through. I heard the teacher call after me in a loud, authoritative voice, but I paid no heed as I rushed through the corridors, my tears making it hard to see.

  In the bathroom, I splashed water over my face.

  The cold helped clear my mind. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe someone had put the heart there as a joke. Maybe what I was thinking couldn’t be true.

  All I had to do was collect my thoughts and I’d go back there…right? But that was proving difficult as the reality of the situation sunk in.

  I wiped a hand across my face, feeling the roughness of my scar, the wetness of my tears.

  Kesley and Jackson.

  I was sick of this. Sick of it. Everything I had ever thought about my sister was crashing down around me. How could I live with someone for sixteen years but feel like I didn’t know her at all? Keeping secrets, I realized, was a bit of an art.

  One wrong move, like choosing to sit near that chair, could unravel them all. And I couldn’t help but wonder: what would I think of her when I’d unwound them all?

  I only looked up when someone touched my shoulder.

  It was a gentle touch, but it still made me flinch like I’d been shocked. “Sorry,” Rafe said quietly. I wondered what in particular he was sorry about.

  What had he seen?

  The look on his face told me he’d seen enough. I meant to tell him to leave, but instead, all that came out was, “This is a girls’ bathroom.”

  “Yeah, I can already feel my masculinity falling.” A beat of silence. And then, “I’m sorry. I had no idea. Kesley never told me.”

  “I guess there were a lot of things about my sister I didn’t know.”

  Rafe met my gaze in the mirror, his eyes blue and warm. “Everyone has secrets,” he said. “Some are just…bigger than others, I guess.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “And what are yours?”

  “You still believe I harmed your sister?”

  “I just found out Kesley may have had an affair with my boyfriend. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  He shrugged. “Fair enough. Trust is complicated. I get that.”

  “Tell me then,” I said softly.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Your secrets.”

  “Oh well.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Promise not to laugh?”

  I was intrigued now. “Yeah, sure.”

  “You remember first grade, Valentine’s Day?”

  I scrunched up my face, trying to remember. “Not really.”

  Rafe shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Mrs. Steep made us send a valentine to one person in the class.”

  “Yeah, and…?”

  “I was way too chicken to sign it with my name.”

&nbs
p; My brow furrowed. “So…that’s it? That’s your big secret?”

  He laughed, and the sound echoed off the bathroom walls. “No, not entirely. I’ve never told anyone who I sent it to.”

  “Who? Oh, Kesley?” How was this supposed to make me feel better?

  A smile twitched on Rafe’s face. “No, Ava, I didn’t. Am I going to have to spell it out? I sent it to you.”

  I didn’t need to be staring at the mirror to know my cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. “Oh. Oh. Me? You sent your first-grade Valentine to me? Why me out of everyone there?”

  Rafe tilted his head to the side as if he were thinking, eyes twinkling. “I thought you were pretty. Long blond hair and all,” he said.

  That stung. “Were? As in I’m not anymore?”

  I thought it was strange he would say something like that. That was the year everything started. My parents dying, being brought up in foster care, and…well, that was the year of the accident too.

  You tended to stand out when you were the only kid with half her face burned off. The scars had been red and angry back then, instead of dulled like now. No one had said it, but I knew what they’d been thinking.

  What happened to your face?

  Rafe’s smile turned into a grin. “No, that’s not what I was saying at all. I just didn’t think it prudent to say so while you still have a boyfriend.”

  The mention of Jackson made my stomach curl in. “Well,” I murmured, walking to the door, “by the end of the day, I’m not sure I will anymore.”

  • • •

  The moment I was released from detention, I texted Jackson.

  He replied instantly, asking if I wanted a ride home, and I stood there, just outside the school gates, staring at the message. Did I? I needed to talk to him about what happened, but a part of me—the weak, cowardly part—still wanted to forget everything I’d seen.

  But I couldn’t do that.

  I needed to know the truth, however bitter and horrible it was. Besides, who said there wasn’t a logical, non-cheating answer to all this?

  But even I couldn’t fool myself into believing that.