Page 92 of The Devil Wears Tartan

Moira’s face has gone pale. She folds her hands in her lap and squeezes them together. “Kenzie, please listen. What happened to Chris is not your fault. It has nothing to do with you.”

That small, starving part of me is desperate to hear more, to gorge itself on what she’s saying, but the rest of me knows the meal is an illusion, just cardboard and sand in my mouth.

I shake my head. “You don’t understand.”

“So help me to.”

She lifts one hand like she wants to touch me before letting it drop back in her lap.

I could wrap my fingers around hers. I could pull her close. I could let her in like she’s asking, but I already let her in once, and this is where it’s gotten us.

“I’m scared to trust you again,” I murmur.

Her face creases with pain, but before I can explain myself, before I can tell her it’s me that’s holding me back and not just what she said onstage today, the door below us flies open and the chatter of the lobby fills the stairwell as Catherine Stewart steps inside.

Her low-heeled boots click-clack on the floor as she strides to the base of the staircase. The clamour of the door swinging shut behind her reverberates against the painted cinderblock walls.

“There you are,” she says, her tone cool as her eyes laser-focus on me.

My spine straightens on instinct, my shoulders squaring and my chin lifting just like she taught me.

If you carry yourself like this, no one will ever question you. No one will ever know anything is wrong.

That’s what she told me when I got dropped off late to my second competition ever and she found me crying in the bathroom because I was too scared to walk into the warm-up gym an hour after everyone else. She picked me up and put me together. She taught me what to do when the world is falling apart.

“We need to talk.”

She doesn’t even look at Moira, but I can’t find it in me to call her out on it. I can’t even find it in me to look at Moira myself.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

There are so many versions of me now, all colliding with each other here in this stairwell, and there’s no way to tell which Kenzie is real—or if any of them have ever been real.

“Kenzie.” Moira’s strained murmur is just one of dozens pulling me in as many directions. I turn my head just enough to catch sight of her. “I...”

I notice her hands flex in her lap. Catherine taps her heel against the floor as a few otherwise silent seconds tick by.

Moira takes a shuddering breath before she stands.

I don’t call out as she takes a slow walk down to the doorway. I sit there staring at her tartan-swathed back. I don’t stop her when she leaves, but as soon as she’s gone, something in me snaps. Something breaks loose.

A jagged, gasping sob forces its way out of me, and I crumble forward to drop my head between my knees. I hear Catherine climb one step and then another one before she goes still. I can see the tips of her black leather boots waiting for me.

I wrap my fingers around my shins and squeeze hard before straightening up.

“You’re hungover.” It’s not a question, but I still nod. Her face is an impassable mask as she looks me over. “What happened?”

I stare down at my legs, at the smooth black fabric outlining muscles carved by relentless hours in the studio. I try to conjure up what I can of last night, but most of it is a blur.

“My mom went to bed early.” My voice comes out robotic as I keep my gaze pinned to my kneecaps. “I was...I was thinking about my step-brother, and how I never should have signed up for this scholarship with everything going on at home, and...and it was all too much. For once, it was too fucking much.”

“So you got drunk.”

I expect more harshness in her tone, but there’s no emotion in her voice at all.

Just like mine.

“I don’t know what made me do it. I hardly ever drink. I’ve had this half-finished bottle of vodka lying around for forever, and after one shot, I did another, and then...you get the picture.”

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