by Laura Gibson
When they were finally safe, finally out of Rachel’s hearing range, Ethan spoke up. “I almost told him everything.”
Kelly swallowed and kept his eyes on his feet. He knew what Ethan was talking about; he just didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t his place. But then again, it might be.
“You know? I mean, I was walking into the fuckin’ room and everything and I almost told him.” Ethan’s anger and frustration was getting the better of him and Kelly let him work it all out in his mind before urging him to keep talking.
“And what was that upstairs anyways?” Ethan was glaring at no one in particular now. “Like what the hell? Obligations? She’s not obligated to do anything! They kicked her out! They didn’t want her around anymore, she’s not obligated to them at all!”
“But that’s not the way she sees it.” Kelly’s voice was softer as they sat down on the sofa in the basement.
“Well she’s wrong.” Ethan sounded almost offended Rachel’s feelings didn’t match up with his own.
Kelly shrugged and crossed his ankles, leaning back into the sofa, imagining what life would have been like if he had met these people at different points in time.
If he didn’t know so much about Rachel, would he still be drawn to her? Would she still be that perfect, beautiful idea in the back of his mind? Or would he not even bother to understand her?
Kelly cleared his throat but said nothing. It wasn't time to speak yet.
“I’m going with her.” Ethan grumbled, turning on the TV, switching it away from the news that was now interviewing a student Kelly didn’t recognize.
Kelly gave a sideways glance to his friend but didn’t say anything. Ethan was in one of his moods. He may not always agree with his father, but they shared the same temperament.
After some time of watching mindless television with Ethan, Kelly got up and walked around the back of couch, waiting for Ethan to say something, to ask him where he was going. But not one word was uttered from the brooding man and Kelly left him to stew alone. It had been a hard day.
Kelly found his way back upstairs, back to Rachel’s room, back to the moment he wanted to reclaim as theirs.
He reached up and let his hesitant hand knock, as if even knocking was a question.
“Come in.” Rachel called out and Kelly felt the knob turn in his fist.
She looked at him like she wasn’t surprised to see him there. But why would she be? It had always been the two of them.
“Can we talk?” Kelly asked, staying close to the door, giving her space.
He could see Rachel think it over before she nodded, “Have a seat.” She gestured to her empty desk chair, but he slid to the floor right next to door, he wanted to be near her, but only just.
“I’m sorry about Melody.” He croaked out.
Rachel looked down at the clothes she was putting in her suitcase. “Me too.”
“I should have said something.” Kelly let the words fall out of his mouth, unashamed of his admittance. He could have said something. He had that right.
Rachel was silent for a moment before responding. She turned, her fingertips lightly touching a yellow blouse, “Me too.”
“But you were just protecting Phillips.” Kelly pointed out, hoping it would relieve some of the guilty tension in the room. The guilt that was his.
Rachel nodded, her blue eyes met Kelly’s, “And who were you protecting?”
Kelly wasn’t afraid of any truth he might reveal. He had already sworn himself to Rachel the very moment he had ever laid eyes on her, “You.”
Rachel didn’t look away and so Kelly held her gaze as long as he could before the honesty became too much for her.
She went back to packing and he went back to just watching her, connection severed once more.
“Will you come with me?” Rachel’s voice was the quietest he had ever heard it. She swallowed, “Back to Phillips, I mean, will you come with me?”
Kelly knew his answer right away but he let the question hang in the air, unsure of what it meant for the two of them.
“Of course,” he half-whispered. “Of course I will.”
Rachel let herself smile at him, “You know, you and Ryan have the same eyes.”
Kelly hadn’t spoken to his cousin since the incident and now he didn’t know how he felt about Rachel connecting the two of them in such an intimate conversation, but he went along with it.
Kelly smiled back, “I’ve always been kind of jealous of Ryan.”
“Don’t be.” Rachel was walking across her room then, getting something from her closet. “Ryan has his own issues to deal with.”
Kelly stood and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest, “But he had you.”
He saw the faintest hint of a blush on Rachel’s cheeks and he smiled. She was flattered, even though she might never say it.
“I don’t think that was ever anything really concrete,” Rachel began to dismiss the old relationship, shifting through the shirts hanging in her closet.
“I would have made it something concrete,” Kelly whispered, moving away from the wall, putting nervous hands in his back pockets. He wasn’t afraid, but damn was he nervous.
Rachel stopped what she was doing and looked at Kelly but before she could say something he was stepping towards her, one hand lightly touching the side of her face. “I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, Rachel Gunn.”
Their faces were inches away now and he could hear her breathing, could smell her lavender perfume, could see her nervous heartbeat in the delicate contours of her throat. “I promise,” he whispered, leaning in closer, letting their lips barely touch.
But in an instant Rachel was pulling away, stepping back, looking at him with an expression he had yet to witness.
“Kelly.” She put her hand on his chest as she spoke in a whisper, “I can’t think about this right now.”
Rachel didn’t look nervous or upset. If anything, she looked more at ease than ever before. “I have to finish packing.” She stepped around him, going back to her suitcase. This was a different side of Rachel. A different part.
Kelly nodded and headed for the door. That’s where they were going to leave things for right now, and that was alright. He didn’t need her to return the feelings; he just needed her to know they were there.
As he left, he lingered at the door, wondering if he should say goodbye or not. He turned to look at her one more time and smiled when he saw she was still looking at him.
“Thank you, Kelly.” She said at last, “I’m sorry.”
“No problem.” His smile was broken and he knew it, “Don’t worry about it, Rachel. I’ll always be here.”
Chapter Twelve
Phillips Academy
Charleston, West Virginia
October 9th, 2008
Jefferson
It seemed everyone had been talking about Kelly lately. A regrettable fact that couldn’t seem to be remedied by just ignoring the blight on human civilization. What a disgusting little parasite.
Jefferson swallowed and watched Ryan inhale before passing the blunt to Caleb.
He never really cared for recreational drug usage, but he didn’t mind it either. Just never partook. Never wanted something else to alter his thoughts. They were all he was. Without them, who would he be?
Such a curious question. Without thoughts, do people cease to exist? Could a memory be no more than a passing wisp of imagination? When someone died where did their thoughts go? What were the last things that ever crossed their minds before they passed away into nothingness?
Jefferson swallowed and licked his lips, he cleared his throat and thought about bringing the subject up to his friends, but their simplistic nature was one such that he knew they would never understand what he was trying to say. No one ever did.
Except for Rachel. With her too blue eyes and her innocent naivety that seemed to catch everything and nothing all at the same time.
Isn’t that why he kissed
her? Because she had promised not to kiss Kelly, not because she knew what sort of a man Kelly was, but because she understood what it meant to Jefferson.
Not many people knew what sort of falling out Kelly and Jefferson had and rarely got the truer impact on Jefferson’s soul the day they told him Anna hadn’t made it passed the ambulance ride. But somewhere, he knew Rachel could see it. She saw it and she accepted him.
Jefferson felt himself smiling with the thought of that. Someone accepting him, what a wonderfully novel idea.
Melody was a nice girl, always had been, but her wild ways were more Kelly’s type and Jefferson knew, if given the choice, he’d prefer Rachel.
Jefferson looked at Ryan and Caleb, smoking and talking, sharing. Bonding. He had tuned out their conversation and had no desire to tune back in. He’d much rather have company that ignored him than company he’d have to interact with.
Jefferson took his phone out of his pocket and looked down at Melody’s number displayed across the screen. He’d have to reply to the text message sooner or later. But he couldn’t get passed the words written there. The words that could mean a number of things.
Jefferson looked at Ryan and squinted. What made him so desirable to Rachel? They clearly were two very different people. Ryan didn’t care about school, or grades, or public appearances. He rarely would be found striving for a higher education and had all but begged Jefferson to help out with selling the answers to several tests at Phillips.
If Rachel had known about any of these things she probably wouldn’t have looked twice at Ryan.
But Ryan was Jefferson’s friend, so he let it slide. He didn’t mind taking a backseat for the time being. He knew it would happen sooner or later; Rachel would notice on her own and then he would be there and she would notice him. It was all just part of the plan.
Jefferson thought back to Anna and wondered what her plan had been. Did she have any plans? Does a junkie have a soul?
Jefferson looked at Ryan and felt about asking him that very question but decided on a better question, one Ryan wouldn’t be able to answer with a laugh and a shake of his head. “What do you think it feels like to die?”
Ryan looked at Jefferson, remembering he was there. Caleb scratched the corner of his mouth and laughed nervously.
But Ryan wasn’t laughing. “I think it feels…” He said the words slowly, like he tasted them on his tongue.
“Do you think you could ever kill someone, Caleb?” Jefferson asked, his voice flat, still holding eye contact, never breaking.
Caleb was still nervously giggling, trying not to think about the questions coming from Jefferson. Caleb was an idiot. Jefferson looked back at Ryan. Challenging him. For what, he wasn’t altogether sure.
“I think that if it were life or death, sure.” Caleb cleared his throat again, “I think I could.”
“But what if it wasn’t life or death?” Jefferson thought back to Anna. Lying there, needle still in her arm. Skin too white to even really be called skin anymore. She wasn’t a person so much as vehicle for something else to drive around. Once you allow something to control you, you cease to be. Sure wasn’t life or death for her. She was heroin.
“What, you mean just murdering someone?” Caleb was frowning. A deep frown. Jefferson had a struck a nerve in the less than sober delinquent.
“Not murder.” Jefferson answered, “Murder would imply something more nefarious. What if it just happened?”
“Jefferson, killing someone wouldn’t just happen.” Caleb pushed passed the haze he was trying to think through.
“But what if it did?” Jefferson persisted, “How would you feel?”
It clicked behind Caleb’s eyes, like Jefferson knew it would and he sighed, “Anna’s death wasn’t your fault, Jefferson, you’ve gotta stop believing that.”
Jefferson raised an eyebrow. “I never said Anna.”
“But you’ve been thinking about her ever since Kelly showed up.” Ryan answered rather insightfully. A surprising turn of events.
“Anna’s death was a misfortune, but I don’t blame myself.” Jefferson concluded. “Kelly blames me. And I blame Anna. And I’m sure her parents blame the person that cooked it for her in the first place. But I don’t blame myself.”
“Have you tried to talk to Kelly about it?” Ryan was looking for a more human reaction from Jefferson, but Jefferson didn’t feel anything.
He knew he should. Some sort of shift or pull to really prove he was a human being, but he didn’t feel any of it. He felt removed. Like someone else was supposed to be sitting in that orange chair, having that conversation, feeling all the emotions he knew existed but Jefferson couldn’t bring himself to even fake it anymore.
He looked down at the text message from Melody again and sighed.
‘K told Rachel about Anna.’ was all it read, but Jefferson knew there would be more later. More things to say and to explain away. More things that would just cloud Rachel’s judgment of him.
‘I guess I’d better talk to her,’ he finally responded, hitting the send button before standing up and leaving. He didn’t even bother to finish the conversation at hand or try to explain himself.
Life was a chess game and he was about to put Kelly in check.
Agoura Hills, California
June 11th, 2010
Ethan
Ethan and Logan sat on the futon in the basement, the one he had assured his father he would love forever if he was allowed to keep it.
The silence was oppressive and reminded Ethan all too much of why they had come here.
Kelly had told them Rachel had put a stop to people doing bad things at Phillips. Had turned them in and made sure they wouldn’t able to continue with their small crimes against the school.
He told them about the ruled accidental death of Caleb Bronen and how they had recently reopened the case file because someone sent them an anonymous tip. He said Rachel knew how Caleb died and didn’t want to talk about it. Kelly told them about how Jefferson terrified Rachel into silence, emotional terrorism as it were. He told Ethan and Logan everything they needed to know so they would come here.
But the way Kelly’s face looked when they announced they found a body on the news left Ethan feeling uneasy. Not once in the entire time they were upstairs did Kelly look like he was surprised.
Rachel was shocked, knocked senseless by the news. But Kelly wasn’t. He stood there like a statue when everyone else was trying to figure out how to tell Rachel and then he was on his way up the stairs, going to get her. To show her, his face never changing.
Ethan always knew there was more to the story than what Kelly wanted to tell them, but just what had exactly happened at Phillips? And why wouldn’t Kelly come out with it?
“Dude, what if Kelly murdered that girl?” Logan asked, looking at Ethan, posing his question like a secret. A secret he was ashamed of.
Ethan blinked once and mulled the idea over in his mind. Was Kelly a killer? Did this Melody Jeffords do something Kelly didn’t want others to find out about? Was she a part of the secret he was hiding?
Ethan scratched an earlobe and cleared his throat. No. The simple answer was no. Kelly might be secretive, but he wasn’t a killer. He couldn’t have done that. But that didn’t mean he didn’t know about it.
“I don’t think so.” Ethan breathed out, “I mean, I think he knows something, but I don’t think he killed her.”
“It just gives me the creeps.” Logan said, leaning back on his elbows, “Did you see his face?”
Ethan swallowed, everyone had seen his face. Everyone standing in that room saw the non-reaction. He knew. He had to have known.
Ethan didn’t know whether to be relieved or upset that Rachel had no idea. She should have at least known that Melody had been missing for the past two years. You can’t just cut people out of your life and never think about them again. Or he couldn’t.
Ethan tried to imagine walking away from someone and never speaking to them again. Neve
r having anymore contact whatsoever. He shivered, that wasn’t something a normal human being should be able to do.
His thoughts brought him back to what Kelly said before they left Hartford.
“Jefferson messed Rachel up pretty bad.” Kelly wasn’t looking at either Logan or Ethan, his eyes were hidden by his signature shades and Ethan was trying to wrap his mind around what Kelly had just told them.
“I think if she hadn’t left when she did, he would have been the death of her.”
That was when Ethan punched Kelly in the gut. It was a satisfying punch and Kelly didn’t even fight back.
He only did it because he was angry Kelly had let two years pass by before saying anything. Keeping this kind of secret about his sister and never uttering a breath. Not one single word.
Now, that sentence seemed like a promise more than a prediction. Is that what happened to Melody?
“What do we do now?” Logan was looking towards Ethan for leadership. All three of them decided it was their obligation to see this out to the end before they left Hartford and now Logan was just posing the next logical question. What do they do?
It wasn’t like they could demand answers from either Kelly or Rachel, both of them were so tight lipped about the whole damn thing it would be easier to shit gold than get them to talk.
Ethan shrugged, “I don’t know. It’s not like they’re telling us anything.”
“Well, we don’t have to wait around for them to get their shit together either.” Logan’s voice was more certain now. “We could find out for ourselves.”
Ethan swallowed again. That’s true. They could do that. They could dig and dig until they discovered the truth. But what would they find? That thought scared Ethan more he wanted it to. He didn’t want to find anything. He just wanted to know that his sister was okay. He just wanted to know she could walk away from this and be fine. But what had really happened at Phillips?
Ethan looked at Logan, “Like what?”
