“No. What was that? Why’d you turn away?”
She looked at the floor, embarrassed that I’d called her out. Or she was bored. It wasn’t always that easy to tell what she was thinking.
“Leave it.”
I gritted my teeth. No way was she treating me differently to everyone else after telling me she wanted friendship, that wasn’t right.
“I’m not going to leave it just because you say so.”
“You make me feel again,” she hissed, eyes so dark and wild she looked like a different girl.
It took me a minute to reply. “Why is that a bad thing?”
She laughed bitterly. “I don’t want to. I can’t do it so leave me alone.”
“Tegan, come on, we need to leave,” Alison called from the car. I was too stunned to move. She was fucking with my head and I didn’t like it. I didn’t do game playing or complicated and I wanted nothing more than to be able to leave her alone like she’d asked. But I knew I couldn’t. Whatever was going on Tegan wasn’t an easy person to walk away from.
She didn’t find it difficult at all to walk away from me. She strode towards the car confidently, without a single look back. My eyes stayed on the car until it’d disappeared out of sight. She didn’t peek back once.
Chapter Twelve
Kai
I opened the front door and groaned, rubbing my face roughly. Elle pushed past me, clearly on a mission. That mission being annoy the fuck outta me.
Closing the door, I turned around. She had her hands on her hips and eyes narrowed just enough to show that she was pissed about something. I racked my brain, trying to figure out what I’d done this time. I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head, nothing recent anyway.
“And what can I do for you, dear sister?”
“Don’t, Kai.”
“Don’t what?” Fuck, what has she found out? My days of drugs and racing were over but there was plenty of shit I’d done that my family still didn’t know about.
“I’m sick of you pretending everything’s fine, that you don’t still feel the temptation of drugs and shutting it all out. You stopped talking to us when Isaac died and look why.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I replied, “What the fuck’s your point, Elle? Did you just come here to remind me of my screw-ups? You don’t need to, you know, I remember perfectly well.”
“Tegan.”
Odd explanation.
“What about Tegan?”
“She’s messing you up.”
“God, I’m getting a headache. And how, oh wise one, is she messing me up?”
“You’re secretive and you’re avoiding me.”
“Perhaps because you’re borderline psychotic,” I muttered.
“Don’t make jokes, Kai. I’m so tired of worrying myself sick about you.”
“Then don’t. Seriously, I’m not doing drugs again. Search the house if it’ll put your mind at ease and get you off my back.”
She huffed. “I’m not getting on your back. Excuse me for worrying but after seeing you throw your life down the toilet for so long I get concerned when things start to go the same way.”
“Nothing is going the same way. Tegan isn’t making me want to pop any pills.”
“What’s going on with her?”
“Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes more and moved further into the house. She was staying. “You’re trying to save her when you’ve got enough going on in your own life,” Elle said, sitting down on the sofa.
It was going to take me ages to get rid of her now she was sitting. Still, I followed and sat at the other end of the sofa; ready for a conversation I did not want to have.
“I’m not trying to save her.”
“Of course you are. Why else would you be so consumed with this girl?”
That wasn’t a bad question. I liked her, I did, but there was more to it than simple attraction to a girl that was out of this world beautiful. I couldn’t explain it and I didn’t understand it myself but I was drawn to her, much like the ecstasy really.
“I’m not consumed, Elle. She’s kind of like I was before I got it together.”
Elle’s face lost the hard, pissed-off expression. “What happened to her?”
“Her dad died. She’s not spoken about it but from what I can see they were close.”
“That’s awful. I knew there was something wrong from what I’d heard of her partying but I didn’t know what. So, you’re really not trying to fix her?”
“If it was possible to wave a wand and fix someone else’s problems I’d do it. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. I know first-hand the only person that can really change you is yourself.” Other people helped. Mum found me a good bereavement counsellor when she was training but I was the one that had to do the hard, painful work.
“You really have grown, Kai.”
“Does this mean you’ll back off a bit?”
She pursed her lips. “Umm, probably not. You’re my little brother, and I love you.”
“I love you, too, but I’m twenty-one now. You need to trust that I know what I’m doing, in my life and with Tegan.”