by Laura Gibson
“How was your date?” Kelly was sporting his signature smirk as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Logan cleared his throat and chuckled, “It wasn’t a date, man. You know that.”
“Dude, I know you’re curious, but you just need to leave it alone.” Ethan admonished Logan, knowing full well the only reason he hung out with Rachel was because he wanted to talk about Phillips. He had been hoping Rachel would open up to him and spill all of her secrets. And although that plan would make all their lives easier, Ethan knew it was never going to work.
Their best chance at getting Rachel talking was Kelly and he wasn’t doing anything so far.
“Hey! Fine, make me the bad guy!” Logan threw his hands up in the air in mock surrender and took two steps back, “Just completely forget about the fact that she asked me to the movie, not the other way around.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t have to go, did you?” Ethan scolded now, it was weird enough having Kelly admit he liked Rachel, but now Logan was being Logan and hitting on everything that moved. He was covering it up with his noble quest of wanting Rachel to tell him something, but they had all seen this before. This was Logan’s nature. He was a nice guy, but a slightly simple creature at heart.
“Are you mad that I was with Rachel today?” Logan wasn’t looking at Kelly, but Ethan knew he was asking Kelly more than he was asking Ethan. From the look on Kelly’s face, he knew it too.
“No, it’s cool.” Kelly responded, “Just wish she wouldn’t push me away so much. It makes the rest of this a lot harder.”
“You said they had reopened the case this summer.” Ethan started, unsure of where the rest of his sentence was going. “You still think the anonymous tip was sent in by Rachel?”
“Or Ryan. Or Melody.” Kelly shrugged, “Any of those three, really, they could have done it, they were all there when it happened.”
“But you think it was Rachel.” Ethan pushed, knowing Kelly didn’t want to have this conversation. He wanted to chase Rachel down and talk to her some more, not anyone else. He could see it plainly in Kelly’s eyes, every moment spent away from Rachel was breaking him apart and he needed to fix whatever was broken between them.
“Yeah.” Kelly met Ethan’s gaze head on, “Yeah, I really do.”
“But she’s pretending like she doesn’t even know who you are, why would she do that?” Ethan asked the next logical question, “If she doesn’t even want to acknowledge that any of it happened, why would she contact anyone about it?”
Ethan saw Kelly’s eyes flicker between frustration and grief, “Because Rachel’s a better person than the rest of them. Even if she doesn’t want to openly talk about it, do you think there’s a day that doesn’t go by that she doesn’t think about it? I can guarantee you if she was being honest she’d tell you how it made her feel.”
“I hate to break it to you, Kell, but Rachel only cares about one thing and those are her achievements, if something were to threaten that, she wouldn’t bat an eye.” Ethan’s tone had turned sour. He hated hearing how Kelly had put Rachel on a pedestal. Rachel, the golden child. The one that could do no wrong in the eyes of their father. She had thrown him under the bus enough times for him to realize that she was very much out for herself, damn everyone else.
“That’s so not true.” Kelly shook his head, “You couldn’t be further from it.”
“Kelly, just because you like my sister, doesn’t mean that makes her some magical creature that can do no wrong. She’s really messed up in the head. I know because she’s my sister.” Ethan was getting angry now, he never liked the fact that Kelly was into Rachel, and now Kelly was parading around the same idea he had been for a few months now. Apparently, in Kelly’s eyes, Rachel was a saint. He clearly did not grow up with her.
“You haven’t even lived in the same house together for ten years!” Kelly bit back, unafraid of the consequences his defense would mean, “She’s not the same eight year old girl you remember. You expect children to understand adults? Or to reason like them? Rachel grew up thinking she had to act a certain way to be loved. You didn’t. That doesn’t make her a bad person. That just makes you different.”
Ethan had no response for Kelly, deep down he knew Kelly was probably right, but it still didn’t sit well with him. Kelly didn’t know Rachel like he did. He didn’t understand that she was very aggressive in her pursuits. That she would stop at nothing to get what she wanted.
But then again, she had been kicked out of Phillips. Had endured the fall out of that and refused to go back. Refused to say anything that would probably prove her innocence. She had allowed them to villainize her in order to protect other people. That was something, wasn’t it?
“Why do you care so much?” Ethan’s face was screwed up in a scowl now. He didn’t want someone to tell him to change his mind. This was the way things had always been, why would they be so different now? Why in the world would Rachel change?
“Because someone has to care about Rachel,” Kelly responded, his tone softening. “Because, when it all boils down to it, she’s completely alone in this mess and someone has to have her back.”
Logan shrugged. “We do, don’t we?”
Kelly looked from Logan back to Ethan, “Do we?”
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was afraid. If he followed this and it turned into a witch hunt, if it turned out that Caleb Bronen’s death was just an accident and not a murder then he would be right about everything right now. Then it would have just been a waste of time. He would have spent time in California surrounded by the two people that couldn’t stand him the most for nothing.
He knew Logan and Kelly were looking for an answer, wanting him to say that of course he would have his sister’s back. Because that’s what family was all about, wasn’t it? But he couldn’t find the words to say any of that. His family had never been that simple. To him, family didn’t mean anything except the people you were obligated to talk to sometimes. There were no warm fuzzy feelings, no sense of camaraderie. They were just people he happened to share a last name with.
“I don’t know.” Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The conversation fell silent as both Kelly and Logan waited for Ethan to say something else. When it looked like he wasn’t going to Kelly cleared his throat.
“You know, she’s a lot like you, Ethan.” Kelly’s voice was softer. “You’re both hung up on what the right thing is, and every situation being black and white. Right and wrong. You believe the good in people rather than the terrible. Which is why you both became friends with me.” Kelly forced a chuckle. “If you would just stop seeing each other as the enemy, you’d be able to understand that.”
Ethan looked down at the hot pavement and tried to remember why he was so bitter towards Rachel. It was just always the way things had been between them.
She would get everything and he would get in trouble. Story of his life. So why would Kelly think they were similar?
Where in the world could Kelly make those connections?
Ethan shook his head and turned away from his friends, “I can’t do this right now, okay?”
“Okay.” Logan was the first to allow Ethan to avoid his own dysfunction.
But when Ethan looked back up at Kelly, Kelly was frowning. He didn’t want Ethan to back away. Not now, not when everything was about to implode and Rachel would need all the friends she could get to see her through this.
There would be an investigation and Rachel would be questioned. She would stand alone and have no one on her side and all Kelly was asking from him was to act like a brother.
But he couldn’t. There was too much standing in the way for him to admit that Rachel needed him, to admit that he needed to get over his hurt feelings.
“Can’t we just… tell my dad or something?” Ethan wanted to shove off the responsibility onto someone else.
“You know what that would do to her.” Kelly stared at Ethan, “Sh
e would never forgive you.”
“She already hates me.” Ethan glared at Kelly. “Trust me, there’s not much else I can do that would make it worse.”
“She doesn’t hate you.” Kelly shook his head, “God, you’re so bent. Can you for just one second get over yourself? She doesn’t hate you. She’s probably the only person in your entire screwed up family that still believes in what family means. Or what it’s supposed to mean.”
“You don’t know Rachel!” Ethan was shouting now, pushed to his breaking point. Pushed as far as he could go in that conversation.
“And neither do you!” Kelly shouted back. “I was there, Ethan! I know what happened! You’re not the victim here right now so get the fuck over it!”
“Stop pretending like you understand! Your sister is dead, remember? You don’t even know what it’s like having to deal with this!” Ethan knew bringing up Anna was a low blow, but it was all he had left. It just tumbled out his mouth before he had time to think about it.
“I think-” Logan’s calm, quieting voice started but was interrupted by Kelly’s malicious tone.
“You’re right, my sister is dead, so I would have no idea how it feels.” Kelly was nodding, his jaw clenched, eyes set with rage. “Grow up, Ethan.”
Ethan was just glad that Kelly didn’t hit him. He knew he deserved a good slug for that one. Anna was a subject they weren’t allowed to touch, and for good reason.
Kelly was the first to walk away from the group. He walked off down the street and disappeared around the corner of the block.
Ethan tried to tell himself he was just cooling off and when he came back everything would go back to being okay again, but he knew he had crossed a line and he would have to apologize.
Kelly didn’t have a family like Ethan did. Kelly had been raised in a household that loved one another, and he still carried that love with him even if it meant having a hole in his chest where Anna had left the world.
Ethan had only met Anna a handful of times, but he remembered her well enough to know why her death bothered Kelly so much. Anna was just looking for a place to belong and she really ended up getting the short end of the stick.
“You should probably say you’re sorry.” Logan was quiet, afraid of setting off another shouting match.
“Yeah,” Ethan conceded, “I know.”
“I’ll always be here for you man, but you need to stop being so stubborn. You’re really only hurting yourself.” Logan tried the sentence out in a shaky voice.
Ethan nodded, “I know.”
Logan gave him a sad smile and clapped one hand on his shoulder, “Don’t worry, we’ll work on this together. And Kelly will come around. He always does.”
Chapter Nine
Charleston, West Virginia
October 1st, 2008
Rachel
Rachel sat in the restaurant feeling more than a little uncomfortable about the whole thing. She hadn’t really spoken to Ryan since she had met Kelly and she wasn’t sure how she felt about her relationship now. It was a new relationship and already there was too much drama for her to process.
Rachel didn’t have time for drama. She just wanted to exist in the same spot she had always been and not worry about the rest of the world. Was that so terribly wrong?
Rachel cleared her throat and smoothed the napkin on her lap, intent on enjoying herself on this date with Ryan. She liked Ryan. So why did she have to keep reminding herself that she wanted to be there?
Why couldn’t she just take Melody’s word for it and not think about Kelly again? Why did everything seem to come back to Kelly lately? It made absolutely no sense. She barely knew the guy and what she did know should scare her away for good.
According to Melody someone had died because of him. That spelled bad news no matter which way you looked at it. So why did Rachel want to pursue the line of thought? Why did she feel like there was more of a story there? There wasn’t and if there really was, why did Rachel have to find out what it was? It wasn’t like it was going to change anything.
She had come here on date with Ryan and she wanted to spend time with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend. Not her boyfriend’s messed up cousin. But the guy she frequently and fondly referred to as her own personal Adonis.
“So, how’s Melody?” Ryan asked, no doubt sensing Rachel’s mind was somewhere else.
“She’s fine.” Rachel smiled, picking at her salad, not feeling an appetite. Rachel sighed, “She needs to concentrate more on her school work and less on the male population, but that’s Melody so…” Rachel laughed as her voice trailed off.
Couldn’t Rachel give herself that same advice? She had never ventured out to try and make friends before, she had always been too caught up in what she could be doing to make her family proud of her and now that she had accidently stumbled into some friendships she had started to let some of her classes slip. Well, not so much slip as she just wasn’t as far ahead in them as she would have liked to be.
Ryan laughed and agreed with Rachel. “Yeah, that sounds like Melody. I can’t believe she’s with Jefferson now. That’s so weird.”
That pricked Rachel’s interest more than the casual conversation they had been sharing up until that point. “Why is that weird?”
“I don’t know, because Jefferson usually doesn’t go for the vapid and shallow type, I guess.” Ryan shrugged, “I mean, he didn’t used to.”
“Well that’s a little harsh to say.” Rachel felt the need to defend her friend. But hadn’t she had the same thoughts before? Wasn’t Melody just a little bit shallow? Yes. But that didn’t make her a bad person. Or any less of a person. So why did Ryan say it like it was an insult?
“Meh.” Ryan made a motion with his hand. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. She dated my cousin for a year before he broke it off with her. I think I know her pretty well.”
“Your cousin?” Rachel frowned, the conversation had come to the topic she wanted to discuss but was trying so hard not to bring up.
“Yeah, Kelly.” Ryan nodded. “She was really into him until he went full crazy on everybody.”
“I met Kelly the other day.” Rachel decided not to hide the fact from Ryan, “When you were with Jefferson.”
Something flashed across Ryan’s face but he smoothed it away, not showing the emotion that wanted to escape. “Jefferson just needed a friend. I figured Kelly could fend for himself.”
“Well he looked pretty normal to me.” Rachel continued, trying to sound as calm about the whole thing as she possibly could.
She didn’t know that Melody had dated Kelly. Why hadn’t she mentioned it? Unless it was something she didn’t want Rachel to know. Unless it was something that was still an issue.
“Well, yeah, he looks alright right now, but he’s probably not the best person to be friends with. He’s got some issues he has to work through.” Ryan was more forthcoming with information about Kelly than Melody was and Rachel decided to try and press her luck.
“Do these issues happen to involve Jefferson?” She took a sip of her water and stared at Ryan for any hint of him hiding something.
“Surprisingly, yes.” Ryan laughed, “They grew up together. If you wanted to find one of them, you could always rely on the other to know where they were. It was just sort of a thing. There are best friends and then there’s Kelly and Jefferson. It could get little annoying sometimes.”
“What happened?” Rachel asked, trying to sound more concerned than curious.
“Kelly’s sister died.” Ryan took a sip of his own water. “Drug overdose, I guess. And then Kelly went off the deep end.”
Rachel felt her frown melt into true concern. How painful that must have been. She tried to imagine what it would feel like if Ethan died and all she could think about was what she would wear to the funeral, “That’s awful.”
“Yeah,” Ryan nodded, his own face showing signs of conflict, “When Anna died, Kelly disappeared. He blamed Jefferson for Anna’s death and no one saw him agai
n for three months. When he resurfaced he was strung out on multiple drugs and his parents didn’t know what to do with him. So they shipped him off here, because apparently being here is better than being there.”
“Why does Kelly blame Jefferson for Anna’s death?” Rachel asked, knowing her luck was running out. Soon, very soon, Ryan was going to stop talking about Kelly.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Ryan stared at his glass of water and let half a laugh escape his lips, “That’s what everyone wants to know.”
“What do you think?” Rachel leaned forward, hoping she would get an answer.
“It’s hard to say.” Ryan sniffed, “I mean, Anna and Jefferson had always had a thing, but Anna was obsessed with Jefferson. Like straight on, stalker obsessed. I don’t know. Jefferson’s a good guy. I don’t think it’s his fault.”
Rachel nodded. “I feel bad for Kelly.”
“Don’t worry about Kelly; he can take care of himself. Has been since forever.” Ryan tried to give Rachel a reassuring smile but she didn’t feel it.
“Still. That has to be hard. Losing your sister and your best friend, I can only imagine what he must be going through. And now that best friend is dating his ex-girlfriend. Talk about drama.” Rachel looked down at her napkin. There was that word again. Drama. Why did it seem like her world was filled with nothing but that lately?
“Eh. Kelly’s over Melody. Really. After everything went down with Anna, Kelly and Melody had a really huge fight and they’ve hated each other ever since.” Finally Ryan asked the question Rachel knew was coming, “Why are you so curious about Kelly?”
Rachel shrugged and tried to play it cool, “He was nice to me, I guess. I don’t know.”
Ryan laughed and gave her one of his dashing smiles, “Trust me, darling, you want to stay away from Kelly, he’s bad news.”
Hartford, Connecticut
