Frayed (18 page)

I realized a moment later that I shouldn’t have said that.

Amanda’s face had gone utterly blank. And her voice was deadly cold when she said, “How
dare
you?”

Kesley
dragged them into this mess.

Call me a bitch, a monster, for all the things I had done—but was Kesley any better? They didn’t deserve any of this. Least of all Rafe. She snared them in her games because she was afraid. Afraid that her death was going to become an unsolved mystery.

Amanda turned her back on me. And I realized I’d
completely
underestimated her. She had been willing to die for Kesley. How would Kesley have felt knowing that? Such loyalty.

She really had them wrapped around her little finger, didn’t she?

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. It was the best I could do. But it was pitifully inadequate.

“I think we’re all a little bit sorry,” May whispered. Tears shone in her eyes. For me? For Kesley? For all of us?

“You’re
sorry
?” Amanda said. “You murdered your own sister, and you’re
sorry
? Kesley might have done some terrible things but that doesn’t mean she deserved to
die
for them.”

“Ava needs our
help
, Amanda,” Rafe yelled. He ran his hand roughly through his hair. Amanda opened her mouth, maybe about to say something, but Rafe said, “I don’t
care
what you say next to defend Kesley. I. Don’t. Fucking. Care. There is
nothing
you could say that would change what she did to her sister.”

Silence fell. “Easy for you to say,” she snarled.

Rafe’s eyes widened in disbelief. “How has any of this been easy on me? Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re the only one this is affecting!”

Amanda said, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. She’s nothing like Kesley was.”

“You’re right,” I said fiercely. “I am
nothing
like Kesley was. And you know what? I wanted to be. I wanted to be that girl who was talented and pretty and had everything, but she was so, so much more than that, wasn’t she? I never wanted to be the girl she really was.”

“Guys, guys,” said May. “We’re not getting anywhere here, okay?” As she glanced at me, I saw an emotion I’d never seen when people looked at me before: fear. May was actually scared of me. But was Kesley? In those final weeks of her life, had she been afraid of me? Was she worried I would finally snap and…and…do what I did?

If she was, she gave nothing away.

“You’re right,” Amanda said. “We’re not getting anywhere. Yet.”

Something in her words sent a flurry of fear through me. What did she mean? I didn’t have time to look for hidden meanings.

Rafe spoke, and his voice was almost pleading. I’d never heard him sound that desperate before. “Amanda, please, we should think about this properly…”

“
Think
about this?” There was a cutting edge of anger in her voice. “I’ve thought about this ever since the day Kesley
died
. Ever since I went into school that day and saw everyone’s expressions, and I just
knew
.”

“God, please, there has to be another way—”

“I said
no
!” she yelled. Her eyes were wild, fists clenched, and I thought she might hit me, but she only threw a glance at the door. Was she expecting someone? “You’re not backing out now. You just
can’t
. You know I
told you
not to get involved, and you promised you could keep your head. And now…” She drew in a sharp, angry breath.

I hated to ask him. But I did. “Then why…why get so close to me in the first place?”

It wasn’t Rafe that answered.

“Because he just couldn’t help himself,” Amanda said from behind me. I turned. She was standing very close, an intense expression shadowing the features of her face, as if she were shutting off her emotions. “I told him he couldn’t get emotionally attached, that it would only end badly for him, but he didn’t listen.”

Something in her words made me stiffen. “End…badly?”
End badly, end badly, end badly…

It clicked.

I stumbled back, hitting the wall. There was nowhere else to go. Cold dread wove around me, binding me to the spot. The sound of fast-approaching sirens cut through the air, their wailing screech becoming louder and louder with each passing moment.

I shrank back into the corner. “No,” I whispered. “No,
please, no
. Please, I won’t—”

I broke off. I won’t
what
? Hurt any more people? How could I control something I simply wasn’t in control of?

“I’m sorry, Ava,” May said. “But we owe Kesley. We all owe Kesley.”

I remembered what I’d thought at the lookout point. Everything was a circle; it all ended back at Kesley, no matter what. Would this be the end of it all? Would I begin to heal after this?

Could
I ever heal?

I shrank back into the corner, letting my matted hair fall across my face.

“Someone get her outside,” a voice said. I didn’t know who.

“No,” I said, whipping my head back around. I knew what I must look like: eyes wide, damp hair framing my face.
Crazy.
But wasn’t I? I couldn’t let this happen. I was going to do everything in my power to stop it in its tracks. “Kesley wouldn’t want this to happen. She wouldn’t. I know it!”

May and Abbey both flinched.

Amanda leveled a glance my way. “You were right before, you know. About Kesley using us, ’cause I guess in a twisted way she was. But I don’t care about that, Ava. She brought me out of a place I couldn’t get free from. I owe her so much. We promised Kesley we’d bring her death to justice.” She walked forward and grabbed my arm, her grip like iron, and tried to pull me from the room.

I held back with all the strength I could.

I looked around the cabin until I met Rafe’s eyes. He was watching with an expression I couldn’t decipher as Amanda tried to haul me outside.

“Was
everything
a lie?” I asked him.

His lips parted in surprise. Just a moment ago, fear had curved through every syllable I spoke, but now my voice was calm.

“It was real, I swear,” he said softly. I sucked in a breath of the cold night air that wafted through the open door. “But I can’t protect you, Ava. You have to go to the police—”

“No!” I yanked my arm from Amanda’s grip. “Rafe—you said nothing was going to hurt me. You
promised
me!”

The sirens were deafening now. The windows reflected the blinking red-and-blue lights, the glass turning purple where they threaded together. The unified sound of slamming doors came from outside. The shouts of policemen sounded warped and distant, like I was hearing them from underwater.

All four walls of the cabin felt like they were closing in on me, threatening to swallow me whole. There was only one thing left I could do, even though every particle of my body screamed against me, willing me to turn away from all this.

I was a weak person.

I strived for the easiest, least frightening way of getting through life. I didn’t take risks. I didn’t do foolish things. I sought comfort from my sister when she was alive and from Rafe when she wasn’t. But in that moment, I did the bravest, strongest thing I’d ever done.

I stepped outside into the waiting arms of the police.

This, Kesley, is how our tragedy ended. With snow drifting outside and piling against my barred windows.

Time passes strangely when you are in a mental hospital. At the beginning, everything was a blur, but as the days lengthened into a month and then two, my life settled into a routine.

I woke. I took my medication. I saw my therapist.

My mind was split, tainted by crimes that would never wash away. No matter how many apologies I uttered, no matter what drugs they hooked me on, she’d always be there. Lurking like a black shadow, waiting, waiting. Waiting to uncoil herself from my mind. That bitter girl who’d stood up to you for those awful things you did to me, the one who lured you to the lake to choke you.

Margo, they’d said her name was. Such a pretty, innocent name. But all she had been was a suppressed emotion. A cold, coiling fear that had blossomed into defiance. And with that defiance had come a spark that caught fire and destroyed a life. Your life.

Margo was brought out during hypnosis and psychotherapy, where my psychotherapist encouraged us to coexist. To fuse together. It was never about destroying her—as much as I wanted her gone. Margo was, for better or worse, a part of me.

I was told later that Margo confessed to killing Kesley not only for the things she’d done to me but also because she’d been getting close to the truth about Margo. Margo had taken root in my mind and wanted to stay there.

My therapist suggested I try painting again. She thought that, like writing this letter, it might help purge some of the terrible thoughts in my mind. She told me it could be used as a safe way for Margo to let herself be heard.

Eventually, I was allowed visitors. That was the hardest part. Our mother—I can only think of her as Diana now—came first. A case had been opened against her, and she had been found guilty of child neglect. She was allowed to see me with strict supervision after entering a plea bargain, pending my therapist’s and my own approval.

She’d perched on the edge of my bed and stared at me the first time, not speaking. So I did. “Why did you lie for her? Cover for her? I don’t understand.”

She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything.

“She hurt me,” I said. “Your daughter. In more ways than one.” I could feel the anger rising again, but I shoved it viciously down. If I got angry, the orderlies would come and restrain me. They’d done it before, when I first came here. I didn’t remember any of it, so it must’ve been Margo.

When the anger came, she came with it.

“I’m sorry,” Diana said, and tears dripped steadily down her cheeks. “I thought… I didn’t realize how bad things had gotten, Ava. Not until it was too late. I didn’t think it would amount to all this.” She waved her hand around my room a little hopelessly. “So many times, I thought of…of doing something—but what could I do? Go to the police? They would have taken you and Kesley away from me. You know I always wanted children. Always. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get pregnant. I just couldn’t. So I chose foster care. Then I found you and Kesley, and you were perfect. And then Kesley…she did that terrible, horrible thing, and I just…I didn’t know what to do. How was I to choose between my children? What was right and what was wrong? It all stopped before your seventh birthday. I thought maybe, maybe with time you would forget. You were so young. I’m sorry, Ava. I’m so sorry.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “sorry isn’t good enough.”

“Maybe one day,” she said softly, “it will be.”

I hoped she was right.

What she did—did that make her a terrible person? Or just a broken, confused person? She could have gotten you help. She could have done something instead of watching me suffer. She didn’t have to turn her back and pretend that nothing was wrong in her fairy tale life, and she didn’t have to live in denial. But life, I realized, wasn’t made up of rights or wrongs—only choices that define who you are. Decisions were blurry, often contorted with personal emotion. You might have been the one to start it all. But Diana let it happen.

And I will always, always resent her for that.

I find myself taking a lot of comfort in books. They help to quiet Margo. Besides, books have always kept me company in a way people couldn’t.

After the arrest, there was enough evidence for the police to search my house. Hidden under the floorboards beneath my bed was a box of things I had no recollection of putting there: clothes, newspaper clippings, bloodied pieces of rope, watches…and that note I’d found hidden in the piano. Margo had put it there, I now understood, when I “passed out” or switched personalities.

She’d been the one to plant evidence against Riley too.

Lia came soon after my therapist thought it would be beneficial to reconnect with old friends, but she only stood awkwardly at the door and looked at me as though I were a ghost. She’d come hand in hand with Jackson. He could barely look me in the eye without flinching.

They haven’t come again.

I don’t blame them. How must it feel, finding out you dated a killer and had no idea about it?

And Kesley… I know how it feels to think you know someone, only to have what you thought was true turned upside down and inside out.

My only other visitor is Rafe. I didn’t want to see him for a long time, and it was even longer until my therapist helped me understand that avoiding him wasn’t helping me. “You can run away from your problems,” she’d said, “or you can face them head-on. It will never be as bad as you think it will.”

So the next day, when Rafe came, I let him in.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hey.” It was hard to get the word out.

“Can I sit?”

“If you want.” I watched him take a seat on my bed. I was sitting in the old, moth-eaten chair in the corner of the room, my legs curled underneath me, with a book in my lap. I found it hard to look at him. But Rafe had his bright-blue eyes focused carefully on me, watching. Perhaps to see if Margo was there. She wasn’t.

The longer I took the medication and the more psychotherapy I had, the less I felt her, so to speak. Sometimes, in times of stress or vivid emotion, I felt her lying curled up somewhere in the back of my mind like she was sleeping. Other times I’d wake from a terrible, breathless memory, and I could feel her like a physical presence, telling me to do bad things. When that happened, I closed my eyes and focused my breathing until she fell away. Now it is happening less and less.

That first time Rafe came, things were strained. No, more than strained. How could I ever forgive him for what he had done to me? I told him, “I don’t know why you’re here.”

For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he said, “Because I care about you.”

“If you cared about me, then you would have just told me the truth.”

“If we told you what we knew, what would you have done?” Rafe said, and I looked up to meet his eyes. They were sad, conflicted. I thought about what he was saying.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

“Yes, exactly.” His words were blunt, but his voice was soft. He stretched out his hand as if reaching for mine, but I flinched, and he dropped his hand. I looked away as he said, “I’ve told you this before, but Kesley was like a sister to me. I would have done anything for her. Anything. But once I found out what she’d did to you, Ava… God, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t want to believe any of it. I didn’t want to believe she could do something so terrible. All I wanted was the truth and for you to begin to heal.” He blinked away tears. “And I didn’t believe what she’d done—not fully—until I saw Margo that night.”

“Do you think she loved me?” I whispered. “At all?”

“I don’t know, Ava. I don’t know.”

I said nothing to that. Just cried.

He’s come every day I’ve been allowed visitors since then. The good days and the bad. Sometimes, Margo was so present in me that I couldn’t remember those days, but he did, and on occasion, I caught him looking at me with an almost haunted expression in his eyes. I still couldn’t truly find it in myself to forgive him. Not yet anyway.

But he cared for me, and I cared for him.

One day, when my mind was plagued with flashbacks and emotions buried deep, deep, deep in my mind, Rafe came into my room. Without saying anything, he knew it was a bad day.

He reached for my hand, and this time, I let him take it.

So that’s it, Kesley. Our story splayed out in a notebook in front of me, but I think we both know it doesn’t end here. Will it ever end? Maybe, maybe not. Because I know that even at my last breath, all three of us will be there: you, me, and Margo.

Right until the very end.

Love eternally,

Ava.