The Strings That Hold Us Together

by Kendra Mase

“I am enjoying this fantastic piece of American culture, my non-friends,” Kellen said. “Oh, so good.”

  “I’m glad that you are enjoying yourself,” Jack said, teeth bright against the low car lights.

  “You should hear me in bed.”

  Definitely Avril’s brother. Katherine looked at Jack, extending a floppy fry toward his face. She had to lean over the milkshake in the cup holder to get close enough to him. She almost second-guessed herself. Why did she do that? She could imagine herself teasing Jack, doing something fun like this a few weeks ago, but now they weren’t together. If they were ever truly together.

  Before she could lean back into her own seat, he opened his mouth to snatch the fry. His face flinched from the salt. “Where did they come from again?”

  “Space. Another planet. For sure.”

  Katherine slumped back in her seat. Jack lifted up the Styrofoam cup in his hand and fed the straw to her lips until she tasted the sweet cookies and cream ice cream. She took a second sip before he put it back in the holder. She could see why Kellen was moaning now. It felt like she hadn’t had real food in days.

  Perhaps she hadn’t.

  Jack kept his eyes steady on the road. He didn’t even notice when she stared at him. How badly she wanted to say thank you but couldn’t.

  When Kellen finished his burger and some of Katherine’s fries, she’d handed them back one by one, his head fell back, snoring softly.

  Leaning her own head against the window, she glanced at Jack.

  He seemed to notice her staring, but made an effort not to look.

  “Truth or dare, Jack?”

  “I thought you said you didn’t want to play?” he murmured.

  She waited.

  “Truth. I wanted to tell you. At first, when I was helping Emilie get set up for you to come, she just kept talking about you. She told me everything about her sweet little niece who sewed just like her and was going to learn the business. She asked me to meet you, be friends and show you around the city so you’d have someone if something did happen earlier than expected. She made me promise, though, on some metaphorical deathbed of hers, that I wouldn’t tell you that she was sick. Sicker than you knew anyway.

  “Of course, I didn’t see you all summer, and I didn’t seek you out. I sort of figured, better off for the both of us. But then you did show up, and Avril knew exactly who you were. I met you. You weren’t just some little niece in the city for somewhere to sleep and a good time. You were you,” Jack drifted. “I did try to stay away. I tried to keep distance between us, but—”

  He glanced at her, unable to help himself anymore. “It literally hurt me every time I thought about it. I told my mom, but she didn’t know what to do either. I even called Emilie trying to get her to tell you around the time she kept getting sicker after coming off her medication, wanting to make sure the shop was set and as ready as she knew how to make it for you. I know I should’ve told you.”

  Katherine didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m terrible at secrets, you’re right. But I’m very good at making promises.”

  “I just feel so stupid,” whispered Katherine when she was sure he was finished. “I’ve been left over and over again, and this time I could’ve had a warning. There were signs everywhere, and I overlooked them all.”

  The amount of foundation over yellowing skin that Emilie kept stocked. Her random trips to visit friends. The spring convention she kept mentioning to Katherine was one she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have come back from.

  “All of it was right in front of me. I was just too hung up on doing my work and making her proud. Too hung up on you. To think she wanted me to be.”

  “What is so wrong with that?”

  “What?” Katherine didn’t understand.

  “That Emilie wanted you to be happy,” Jack said. “Didn’t I make you happy?”

  He did. “Too much.”

  They drove for a few minutes before Katherine swallowed the rock lodged in her throat. “Why does it hurt so much?”

  Jack only had one answer. “Because it matters.”

  “Too much.”

  Chapter Forty

  Katherine stood only a step farther than Jack in the doorway of the ornate riverside townhouse. The castle. Tiny puddles collected at her feet, fed by droplets dripping from the tips of her hair all the way down her back. Her gaze followed Kellen while he carried Avril up the carpeted staircase.

  It was Jack and him that managed to get her out of the ninth-floor apartment at all. She yelled at them the moment they walked in, curled up in the one corner, she screeched for them to leave her alone.

  “Please, just don’t fucking touch me.” Avril’s voice sounded small, yet still held as much bite as it ever did.

  Kellen still reached for her. Trying to lift her off the floor, the moment he tugged, she screamed. Kellen’s eyes widened as much as the rest of us as he looked toward the door.

  “Where the hell is he? Huh, Aves? Where the fuck is this asshole? I will raise hell, meet Satan himself, and beat this motherfucker!” Kellen’s voice burst through the walls.

  Someone was bound to call the police.

  Katherine looked from the door back to Reed again. Maybe they should.

  Without a word, Jack brushed up behind the two of them and made his way inside. He said something to Kellen or Avril or the two of them. All Katherine could see next was Avril being lifted into his arms.

  It was hard not to notice the tears streaming down Kellen’s face. He didn’t move to wipe them away. They weren’t ashamed. He wasn’t. Neither was Avril, as she kept her gaze straight ahead, one step at a time. She waited for the car door to be opened before entering the Jeep as rain pounded down on them. Reed climbed in on one side of her, Kellen the other, where she tipped over into him.

  Settling her in his lap, Kellen brushed her long, knotted hair away from her temples. Pieces turned into thick dreads from being so long unbrushed or washed from anything but the drops of rain it caught. The strands looked dull, like the fire had gone out.

  “Why, Avie? How did you let this happen, love?”

  Somehow, she looked even smaller than Katherine had ever seen her before, cradled in her brother’s arms when they got back to the house. It was as if she could fade into him.

  Without questioning it, Katherine followed. She took her time up each step, feeling Jack’s eyes on her as she went. By the time she got to the top of the stairs, she could already hear Avril’s voice, sharp and direct.

  “No. No!” Avril batted away Reed’s hands, sending the little white pill across the room. “Get the hell away from me.”

  “Aves, please. Just take it. It will help you sleep.”

  “Get away from me,” she repeated, but she was crying now. Avril shook her head at her best friend, if only so the tears would disappear toward her hairline.

  Reed placed the water glass aside and leaned closer. With a sigh, his forehead nearly pressed against hers. They looked at each other, eye to eye, where tears seemed to jump between the two. They spoke in whimpers.

  “You know I won’t take it,” Avril sputtered. “I don’t want to take them.”

  “I promise you you’ll be fine. They’re yours from last time when you hurt your back, remember? I will be right here. I would never let anything bad happen.”

  Avril only stared at him, eyes half shut.

  “I can’t. Not now.”

  “Please? Just one.” Reed poured another pill out of a nearly full prescription bottle. He extended it toward her. “For me? There you go—thank you. Take a big sip of water.”

  Reed smoothed down the big puff of curls on Avril’s unkempt head. The bright red looked dark and dull, as if it hadn’t been washed in days, weeks. Once she drank the full cup, the glass clattered over on its side.

  She didn’t or did not care to notice. “Where’s Kellen?”

  “In the other room, getting cleaned up. Just like you, darling.”


  “I’m tired.”

  “You should rest.”

  Avril’s deep breath shook when she let it back out. It sounded like glass rattling in her lungs. “I haven’t seen him in so long.”

  “I know.” Reed gave her a peck on the forehead. The act was almost brotherly, but not quite. “Katherine?”

  Reed turned toward where she stood respectfully, still in the doorway. She was far enough away from them still, so that Avril wouldn’t even have to know that she was there. She was far enough away from the action for Katherine to believe she could still walk away from these people and Jack and everything else if she needed to. But like the rest of them, Reed wanted to break that.

  He gave her the type of understanding look that said he knew more about her than nearly anyone else ever did before them. “Can you help me?”

  Katherine could not bring herself to answer. She only closed Avril’s bedroom door behind her. The last time she had been inside, they were playing dress-up. Cleaning out a closet to start a new life that turned out to nearly end them both. By the time she got to the bed where Avril gave her hotness ratings for each article of clothing she had tried on months ago, Reed was already attempting to peel away Avril’s sweater. Underneath, another fitted shirt rode up, stuck to what looked like paint.

  Katherine narrowed her eyes on it. Reed did not seem to notice.

  “Oh, Kit,” Avril murmured her name a few more times. It sounded slurred. “One hell of a shit show tonight, huh?”

  Was she drinking? Katherine mouthed.

  Reed’s eyes widened. The thought hadn’t occurred to him. Either way, whatever sleeping meds he gave Avril were taking effect.

  Katherine gave Avril a pained smile. She kneeled down in front of her and Reed, finally, since they left the apartment building, took a step back.

  “I am going to help take off your pants. Is that okay?” Katherine asked.

  Even Avril’s laugh, low and cracked, sounded wrong. “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

  Without any other discourse, Katherine got to work. She slipped her fingers carefully into the waistband of the sweats Kellen must have put her in before they left. At the light tug over her hips, Avril flinched. Waiting for any complaint that never came, Katherine slipped the soft gray cotton over Avril’s calves. She handed the limp fabric to Reed.

  “Gentle, gentle, so gentle,” Avril continued to muse. “You wouldn’t have made it anywhere in Ash till we found ya.”

  Trying to ignore the string of her words, Katherine could not help herself. She looked back at Reed. He shook his head at her. Don’t listen to her right now, the motion seemed to say.

  Lifting her knees from the plush rug, Katherine returned to stand before Avril. “Arms up.”

  With a huff, Avril did as she was told, lifting her elbows partway. Better than nothing. Each arm removed from its respective sleeve, Katherine took the bottom and lifted. At the sudden yank, Avril made a sharp gasp.

  The shirt free, Katherine could fully see the paint that trailed up Avril’s lower back. Splotches of dark purples and yellow expanded the longer she stared.

  “Did he do this?” Katherine’s voice asked the dreaded question before she could decide not to. She tried to bring back Avril’s attention, slowly slipping. “Avril. Did he do this to your back?”

  Reed just stood, gaping at the damage.

  “An accident is all. Stop. I’m fine. Always fine.” Avril’s eyelashes fluttered.

  Katherine took the fresh cotton shirt from Reed. She managed to pull it over Avril’s head before she sloped to the side. Reed and Avril took the ends of a blanket, layering them over her prone body. She was so small beneath them.

  It was only then Katherine realized her hands were shaking. She did not know why, the mixture of fear and sadness and anger brewing black in her bloodstream.

  Careful not to jolt the bed, Reed led Katherine back out into the hallway. The house was eerily quiet.

  “Thank you,” he nearly whispered.

  Katherine couldn’t accept the words. “I should have known. I was there the other week and I saw her—I should have known.”

  “No. Don’t you think that, darling.” Reed reached out to place a hand on her arm. “Avril is very good at making the world see what she wants them to see. And if she doesn’t even fully know what is in front of her. No one would’ve questioned her. Not even me.”

  He didn’t see her that night, though. Half naked when she answered the door. She was screaming at Katherine when she told her to go. Pleading. And yet Katherine was far too caught up in herself. Her own grief and the lies she had been fed.

  “I am just glad we got her into bed and convinced her to take something to get some rest.”

  “Right,” Katherine said. “She is still afraid, isn’t she? She didn’t want to take the pills.”

  “I wanted to take her to the hospital,” Reed said, confirming she was not wrong to wonder. “Kellen thought it would only make her worse. I agree. You know about her mom, right?”

  Of course. Katherine couldn’t help but remember what Avril told her about her mother, trying to piece it together like a strange puzzle that didn’t quite fit. The bathroom floors. Mental illness. The beautiful brooches are still sitting in Katherine’s coat pocket. The pills.

  “She won’t admit it, but Avril is terrified of being like her mother. And now—”

  “She walked right into mommy dearest’s footsteps,” Kellen finished.

  Chapter Forty-One

  When Jack stared through the door, he knew why he’d thought he loved Avril for so long. She was strong and fierce and didn’t take anyone’s shit. Maybe, like Kit, he too wanted to be like her. More like the both of them, from the moment he arrived in Ashton.

  Everyone wanted something that never existed.

  He stared at Reed as Avril’s number one braced himself against the kitchen island. It took long enough for them to get her settled, and then again when she tried to get back out of bed, but now the house was quiet. It might’ve been the quietest it ever had been with so many inside its walls at once.

  “Reed,” Jack started.

  He put up a hand, eyes closed. “Don’t.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “What did I just say?” Reed grit. He shook his head as his hand dropped. His dark eyes were rimmed in red when they opened to look at him again. They looked painful.

  “It’s not your fault, man,” Jack tried again.

  “I should’ve known. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  Jack knew what he meant. All this time in the past few months when she was in and out of the city—was she ever really gone? Or were there just moments she came back outside, grasping at something she thought was slipping through her fingers?

  She let it all go.

  For that fucker.

  “She didn’t want you to,” Jack said, coming up next to him, though they both kept their voices low. He ran a hand through his hair, catching himself in the hallway. “It was all me. I fucked up. I fucked up big time when I told you that I would take care of her.”

  Bitterness and salt stuffed the back of Jack’s throat as he felt Reed’s sorrow. He swallowed his own to make room.

  “I told you I would make sure that she didn’t get into anything bad. I should’ve known that something was off, that she didn’t feel the same way anymore,” Jack said, remembering the conversation they had years ago when Reed started to pull back from the scene, wanting to do something different.

  He wanted to make his own sort of passion that wasn’t attached to hers.

  “Just say it.”

  The space between Reed’s eyes creased. “Say what?”

  “I told you so,” Jack offered. “That I’m exactly the kind of person you said I was in the beginning. Someone who attaches and disappoints.”

  “You remember that?”

  “I remember a hell of a lot more than I wish I did, Reed.”

  Reed huffed through his lips. “Y
ou are a lot of things, Jack. But, one thing you are not is someone who disappoints. You made her happy, Jack. From that night you led our escape from that party, I saw that look in her eyes. You were like this shiny new idea she wouldn’t be able to leave behind.”

  Jack licked his lips as Reed took a deep breath.

  “Even if you’ve been a pain in my ass, you took my place when I needed to get away and see the world and mess up my own life a little. You were the only one who called me when they realized she was gone for too long and something wasn’t right. I even had to contact her agent and PR person who then asked me why she wasn’t posting online as often as she used to be anymore.”

  Jack watched him take a deep breath as he stood back up, heading down the hall back to the stairs.

  “You’re a lot of things, Jack,” Reed said, shoulders slumped. “But you’re not a disappointment. Whether or not you think so.”

  Opening his mouth, Jack shut it again, not sure what else to say for once.

  How Reed seemed to know exactly what he was thinking, he also didn’t know.

  “We’ll figure this out. None of this is what was supposed to happen. It’s not right, but Queen will be alright. I will make sure of it. She’s been through worse.” His jaw clenched, tense as Reed began a sort of imaginary list in his head. Jack couldn’t imagine a time where it must not have been full. “Maybe I’ll send her to another city with her friends for a while, or see what she wants to do after I contact her old therapist and somehow convince her to go to the doctor for her back which should be an adventure in and of itself.”

  “How is it?”

  “Her back?”

  Jack nodded. He heard the screech Avril made from upstairs as Reed and Kit got her down to rest. He felt the tenderness of skin flooding his senses as he lifted her off the ground and into his arms with Kellen back at that fucker’s apartment. If that guy did something. If she couldn’t dance again—Jack didn’t know what Avril would do.

  He had quite a few ideas about what he’d do.

  Reed paused and looked at him, again seeming to know his exact line of thought. “From what I could see and get out of her—my bet is that it’s a lot worse than she’s trying to put it off as. If I had to try and walk her out of there myself, I’m not sure what would have happened. But now, we’ll figure it out. She’ll get to the doctor that fixed her back up the last time she tweaked it a few years ago. I’ll call him in the morning. You, though?”