Thankfully, Aaron’s car was the only one in his drive when I got to his house after walking to get my car. There wasn’t a single person in this world that didn’t lie; it was just that some lies were harmless and others were dangerous. Sometimes, it was hard to figure out the difference. I was going to find out what secrets Aaron was keeping, what lies he had told.
It took me longer than it should have to get out of the car. I had one friend left who, as of right then, I still trusted. That could change soon.
The front door opened, and I knew I had been sitting in the car too long. Aaron had obviously seen me. He stepped onto the lawn, looking at me like I’d grown another head. “Kenz, what’re you doing?” he asked over the sound of my car engine humming.
I turned the key and opened the door. “Sorry, I was in another world.” One where I could still pretend at least one of my friends wasn’t lying to me.
“You OK?” Aaron looked so innocent. He was all angelic blue eyes and blond hair, kind of like a grown up version of the Milkybar kid but without the glasses. I couldn’t imagine him doing anything bad. Ever.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?”
“Sure. You skipped Megan’s last night. We missed you.”
I shrugged, stopping in front of him. “Didn’t really feel up to it.”
He reached out and stroked his thumb under my eye. “You’re not sleeping well either.”
“Do I look that bad?”
“No!” He rolled his baby blues. “Just a little tired and maybe stressed. Come in.”
“Your mum out?”
“Yep, you’ve got me all to yourself. Go on up and I’ll bring chocolate and tea.”
He still seemed like my protective Aaron, and it warmed my heart. “You know me so well.”
I went upstairs to wait for Aaron and curled up on his bed. My phone beeped with a text. It was Blake.
Check his drawers. Text BACKUP if you need me and I’ll fire up the Batmobile!
I shook my head, grinning to myself. He was an idiot. I’d told him that I was going to Aaron’s, this morning. We’d completely made up after our fight and were pretending it never happened. That was fine with me. I didn’t want to talk about it.
I punched back a reply. Catwoman doesn’t need help.
Do you have a Catwoman costume??????
I flipped my phone over and laughed quietly at his latest message.
“What’re you laughing at?” Aaron asked as he walked into his room with chocolate bars stuffed in his pockets and a cup of tea in each hand.
“Nothing,” I replied, sitting up to take my mug. Aaron didn’t have a very high opinion of Blake, so I didn’t want to start our conversation by talking about him. “Thanks.” I sipped my boiling-hot tea, not caring how it burned my tongue, then set it down on the bedside table.
Aaron’s phone beeped. He froze, his face falling before pulling it from his pocket.
Oh God, was he getting messages from the stalker too?
“Everything OK?” I asked.
Grunting as he read the message, he tightened his grip on the phone, his forehead creasing. I wanted to tell him about my text but I was scared to. I…I didn’t really trust anyone right now. But what if Aaron had received one too?
“Aaron?”
He lowered the phone and a smile spread across his face. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry, Kenz. I didn’t mean to be distracted by my phone. That’s rude of me.” Clearing his throat, he took a sip of his drink.
“What’s been going on, then?” I asked. He wasn’t going to tell me who the text was from and I couldn’t really blame him. I was doing the same.
Aaron sat down and scooted closer to me. “What’s on your mind?”
I blinked. Did I look nervous? Afraid? Confused? “Why do you think there’s something on my mind?”
“You’re doing that lost-in-thought thing where you look miles away.”
Now how was I going to ask him what his secret was without it being obvious? “Nothing much. What’s been going on with you? We haven’t talked in forever.”
“I know. It’s been intense with what happened to Courtney and Josh. And Tilly’s birthday is soon.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I miss her.”
“Me too. I just wish we could have sorted things out, so we could’ve been together more than we were argued. I’m not dealing well with never knowing if we could have made it work or not.”
I knew it wasn’t always easy for Aaron to open up about his feelings, so I appreciated his honesty. I felt I had to respect that by being honest too. “Aaron, I don’t want to seem harsh, but you and Tilly were a nightmare. I think if you’d had a relationship when you were both a lot older and had had the time to be with other people, it would have worked. But neither of you were ready for anything serious so young. You can’t beat yourself up about that.”
“No, you’re right. I still love her though. I wished we had that chance to turn us into something more serious.”
“I wish you’d had that chance too. Do you want to do something for her birthday?” I asked. For Gigi’s birthday, I had made a cake and we’d all gotten her cards. It was silly really, but even though they were gone, it seemed important to mark the occasion. They still deserved a celebration, and we needed time to honor their memories.
His eyes turned serious and filled with pain. “I’m going to get high and reminisce about the good old times.”
“Get high?” Get high as in… No. Aaron didn’t do drugs. Or so I’d thought.
“Come on, Mackenzie. You’ve never done it?”
“No,” I replied. He had. Obviously.
“Such a good girl,” he muttered under his breath but loud enough for me to hear. “Well, you’re missing out. It’s very good when you don’t want to give a shit about anything.”
I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d pulled his jeans down and peed on the floor. We never really spoke about drugs, but I didn’t do them, so I assumed none of my friends had either. Aaron was open about drinking and, unfortunately for the rest of us, sex, so it didn’t come as a shock that he’d admitted it—just that he did it.
“Did Tilly do drugs too?”
“Sometimes. I have some weed if you wanna give it a go.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I snapped, snatching my arm away as he reached for me. Standing up, I spun around. “I don’t know what your problem is, but don’t bring me into it. I’m not going to sit here and get high with you, especially with everything else going on!”
“All right, all right,” he said, raising his hands above his head. “I just thought we could cheer ourselves up.”
This wasn’t the Aaron I knew. He didn’t use drugs. What he was doing now was completely out of character. Maybe you don’t really know his character. Was he high now? His eyes looked fine, but I had no idea what was going on inside his head.
“If you want to cheer me up, be the Aaron who makes me laugh and feeds me chocolate.” I shook my head. “Look, I’m going. Call me when you want to do something other than get high.”
Aaron didn’t follow me as I left his house. I didn’t even care that I hadn’t found out his deep, dark secret that could make him want to kill Josh and Courtney. There was something wrong with him if he thought I was going to do drugs with him.
I got in my car and slammed the door, taking all my frustrations out as I pounded on my steering wheel. It took only a few seconds for my stomach to free fall. Aaron did drugs and we were all drugged at the cabin. Weed wasn’t like Rohypnol, but if he was doing one of them, he could surely get ahold of the other.
Without thinking about where I was going, I drove straight to Blake’s house. I really needed his snarky comments. I used to absentmindedly go to Kyle’s if there was something on my mind, but now it was Blake’s.
I rang the doorbell and waited. As soon he opened the door, I pushed past him. “Come in,” he muttered behind me. Ignoring him, I walked upstairs to his room. His mum wasn’t in again, or if she was, I didn’t see her. Maybe she was still at the hospital with her brother. Blake’s footsteps following me were all I heard. Not even more sarcastic comments. He must’ve been tired.
“He’s on drugs!” I said, dropping down on his bed and throwing my hands in the air.
“What? Aaron?”
“Yep. Weed.”
“I hardly think that’s a confession of the year.”
“He does drugs, Blake.”
“I wouldn’t paint weed smokers and Rohypnol users with the same brush.”
I’d thought the same thing, but…still. It was suspicious. “Do you smoke weed?” I asked.
“No, but I know it’s not exactly on the same level as what we were drugged with.”
“Yes, thank you. But doesn’t that mean Aaron would be able to get ahold of Rohypnol?”
“Anyone can get ahold of anything.”
“I couldn’t. I wouldn’t even know where to start! What do you do, hang out on a dodgy street and ask whoever looks like a criminal to sell you drugs?”
Blake’s dark eyebrows rose and his mouth dropped. “OK, promise me you won’t do that. Ever.”
“Why? Is that how you do it?”
He laughed from deep in his belly and shook his head. At least one of us finds it funny.
“No, that’s how you get yourself raped or murdered, little miss innocent. Seriously, your naivety is worrying.”
“Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to score drugs.”
He laughed again and flopped down on the bed beside me. “We need to move on,” he said, shaking his head and grinning so wide he looked like a bloody cartoon. “So now you think it was Aaron?”
“That’s not what I said,” I replied defensively.
“It pretty much is. You think he can score Rohypnol. You’re considering the possibility he killed Courtney and Josh, aren’t you?”
“I don’t like you anymore, Blake.” He didn’t bite back, knowing that was untrue. “I don’t know what to think,” I replied, sitting cross-legged on his bed.
He looked up and his blue eyes were icy and intense. “Mackenzie, stop fighting so hard and open up your mind. Distance yourself from your feelings.”
“I tried that already and it doesn’t work. You’re distant. Why can’t you just tell me what happened?”
“I’m distant, not an oracle,” he replied dryly. “Anyway, I’ve told you what I think, and you continually dismiss my theory.”
“Because you think it’s Kyle!”
“Well, now I think it’s Aaron.”
His response gave me an instant headache. “But…” I whispered, trailing off, trying to search for the words to defend Aaron.
“But you think so too, don’t you?”
“I think if he was into that whole weed scene, then maybe. He still loves Tilly, or what he thinks is love, anyway. Whatever’s going on, he’s seriously messed up right now,” I said.
“Why did you say it like that, Mackenzie? You think there’s something mentally wrong with him? Like a breakdown?”
“No. But Aaron and Tilly weren’t good together. Not for longer than a few weeks. Everything ended in an argument and them breaking up. I know they both liked each other, or they wouldn’t have kept going back for more, but I don’t think they were in love.”
“Is that motive enough, then?”
“Is anything motive enough? People kill randomly because they enjoy it or because someone looked at them a funny way. That’s not the important part. If Aaron killed Courtney and Josh, it was driven by revenge or jealousy about their relationship, which have always been strong motives.”
His smirk was back. “Maybe you should be a judge or—”
I clicked my fingers in front of his face and said, “Stay with me.” We didn’t have time for him to go off on a tangent. “You think Aaron, so I think we should look into him more.”
“I’m a little hurt that you’re using me.”
“Using you how?”
“You think it could be Aaron too, so you’re using me as an excuse to drive down that road, to collect evidence. You’ve dismissed everything else I’ve said or told me I’m an idiot, but now you agree—”
“I haven’t dismissed everything,” I said, playing with my fingers. He was right though: we both thought it could be Aaron, and though I couldn’t quite bring myself to admit it out loud, I was using Blake’s suspicions to stand in place of my own.
“New rule,” he said, lifting his hand. “If you’re going to use me in the future, it will only be when we’re both naked.”
I stared blankly. “I knew you were no gentleman, but that is pushing it.”
“Baby, you won’t hurt my feelings.”
“No, but I’ll hurt yours when I’m left frustrated and complaining about your lousy performance in the sack,” I deadpanned. He lunged for me, making me yelp in surprise. “Blake!” OK, that wasn’t supposed to happen. I saw his room tilt as he pinned me to his bed and held my wrists up over my head.
He was on top of me and all coherent thought flew out of the window.
“You’re being mean. And you’ve cruelly insulted me and mocked my performance, which you know is off the charts since I remember vividly the way you reacted to my every touch last time.”
Last time and first time. That night meant so much to me and not only because Blake had made sure it was all about me. It was the first time that I’d been with someone since the abortion. He was the first person I’d trusted since Danny.
I laughed breathlessly from beneath him. He was both too close and too far. “Thanks for the offer but I’m busy.” I tried to say the words evenly, but they probably came out in a frazzled rush.
“What part of that did you take as being an offer? Clothes off, Mackenzie.”
I pouted as the fire in my lower abdomen burned out of control. “See, that is why I know you’d be rubbish right now. How unsexy is it when someone tells you to take your clothes off like that?”
“I kinda like it.”
Yeah, I kind of did too, but he didn’t need to know that.
“That’s only because you’re a man.” Lie, lie, lie. I squirmed. “You kiss a woman and remove her clothes as you go. You can have that tip for free. Let me know if it works,” I replied, pulling my arms to try to get him to release me. “Come on. You’re heavy and we have things to do.” I frowned and looked up at him. What was taking him so long to make his move? “Hello?” I called to his perfect imitation of a statue face.
“You might have something there,” he whispered in reply and lowered his head.
My heart thudded against my chest.
Oh sweet Jesus.
He was going to kiss me. No amount of obsessing over my friends was going to stop me from returning that kiss. This was for me, for us, and I think both Blake and I needed it.
“Blake!” Eloise shouted from downstairs. Her footsteps thundered up the stairs. “Blake!”
Blake spluttered a string of swearwords and pushed off me.
His mum calling him right when things were heating up felt like I’d just done the Ice Bucket Challenge.
Eloise burst through the door just as I’d gotten a grip on myself and sat up. “He’s dead,” she sobbed. Her knees gave out, and she collapsed to the floor, gripping the door handle. “Pete’s dead. He’s dead.”