Wish You Were Gone(53)
“Are you okay?” Alexa’s hand was on her back and her face tipped into view.
Kelsey managed to nod, then cough, spittle flying from her lips.
“That was a bad one, huh?” Alexa asked as Kelsey tentatively stood up. She turned into her friend and they found themselves in an awkward hug, Kelsey gripping the back of Alexa’s sweater for all she was worth. “You scared the shit outta me.”
“I hate him, Alexa. I hate him so much.”
“I know,” Alexa replied. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” She pulled back and looked Kelsey in the eye. “Hey. Kels. Look at me. He’s gone. He can’t fuck with you anymore, all right? He’s gone.”
Kelsey nodded—though she wasn’t so sure about that—then sat down on the grass, but then, suddenly, she was crying. Huge, fat sobs that just came and came and came. Alexa put her arm around her as Kelsey tried and failed to get ahold of herself. She was so goddamned sick of crying. Why did he do this to her? Why had he made her this way? Then, all the way across the quad, another door opened and out strolled Willow. Kelsey sucked in a breath at the sight of the older girl. Willow had driven to school that morning. Willow could get her out of here. It didn’t matter that they’d barely spoken lately. They were practically family.
Willow moseyed toward them, all combat boots and blue eyeliner. It was only third period. There was no way she was supposed to be out here. But then, neither were they. Willow paused in front of them and kicked Kelsey’s sneaker with her toe. Not lightly.
“What the fuck are you crying about?” Willow demanded. She was obviously still pissed about what happened after the cast list went up.
“Her dad just died, asshole,” Alexa replied, fabricating an excuse on the spot, as the best of best friends do.
Willow laughed. “Please. You hated the guy. That’s not why you’re crying.”
“I didn’t hate him,” Kelsey said thickly. “He hated me.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “Oh, boo freaking hoo. Some of us never even had a father to hate.”
Kelsey glared at Willow for a suspended moment, daring her to say another word. If she did, she was going to launch herself off the ground and tear her fucking throat out. She could do it, too. In her current state, she could do anything.
Then, her eyes fell on Willow’s hand. Her thumb was crooked into her pocket, and on her finger was a gold filigree ring.
“Is that my mom’s?”
Willow shoved both hands fully into her pockets.
“What? No.”
“Why do you have my mom’s ring?” Kelsey demanded, standing up.
“Whatever.” Willow yanked the ring off and threw it at Kelsey. It bounced off her chest and way too close to a grate in the walkway. Alexa dove for it and stood up to hand it to Kelsey. “I was going to give it back anyway,” Willow added.
Kelsey fumbled with the ring and shoved it on her own finger. “What the hell is the matter with you? You haven’t taken enough from my family?”
“Shut up,” Willow said. “And you’d better not tell your mother or Hunter about this.”
“Are you kidding me? They should know there’s a thief walking around our house,” Kelsey shot back.
Willow’s eyes flashed with fear, but then she relaxed. “You’re not gonna tell.”
“Watch me.”
“If you tell them, I’ll tell everyone what I know about you,” Willow said. “You wanna risk that?”
Kelsey glared at her.
“What’s she talking about, Kelsey?” Alexa asked.
Kelsey licked her lips and looked sideways at her friend. “Nothing.”
Willow laughed. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
“Stay out of my mother’s room,” Kelsey said through her teeth.
“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” Willow replied. Then she turned and walked away.
“What the hell was that?” Alexa said. “I thought you guys were friends.”
“Please.” Kelsey sniffled, looking down at the delicate ring on her pink-from-the-cold finger. “She doesn’t even know what that word means.”
LIZZIE
Emma placed Lizzie’s vegetarian baked ziti in the preheated oven, then popped open a bottle of white wine. Willow had gone straight upstairs to Hunter’s room, where they were now playing some ridiculous online game that involved guns and dance-offs. Lizzie did not understand how her intelligent, creative daughter could spend time numbing her brain out like that, but it wasn’t a habitual thing, so she let it go. When she and Hunter had first met in grade school, it had been Minecraft they bonded over, and she sometimes wondered whether the two of them had anything in common outside a love of all things pixelated.
“So, I talked to the estate lawyer yesterday,” Emma said, pouring out a generous helping of wine for herself and another for Lizzie. “For about five seconds.”
Lizzie took a long sip of her wine and then placed her glass down carefully on the counter. She started to pull out plates from the cabinets, while Emma went for the napkins and cutlery.
“Only four,” Emma told her. “Kelsey is going over to a friend’s after rehearsal.”
Lizzie distributed the plates around the kitchen island, wondering if Emma and her family ever used the huge, sunken dining room at the back of the house. The furniture in there was all Lexington antiques. The table alone was probably worth a fortune. Yet she’d never seen the family gathered in there, or even seen a picture of a special event put on in the dining room. Even for birthdays, they all gathered around a cake or a pie on the kitchen island or outside on the patio by the pool.