Page 31 of Faithful

“What if it leads you to places you shouldn’t go?”

“It already did.”And I’m with the guy who was there the night she died and perhaps now I’m searching for proof that it wouldn’t have made a difference that Kai was there. She would have drowned anyway.

Amelia’s face pales.

“I’m not twelve anymore,” I say firmly. “I deserve to know the truth, however fucked up it is.”

She winces at that, and all her wrinkles suddenly make an appearance, aging her in a matter of seconds.

“She was sick, wasn’t she?” My voice wavers when I release those words, wavers because I don’t want Ava to be anything but her infuriating, carefree, messy self. I don’t want Ava to be broken. But the more I’ve thought about this puzzle and all of its pieces that are now starting to fall together, the more I’m convinced that I was completely blind.

There’s Blake, the boyfriend with the dope hookup.

The boyfriend I didn’t even suspect existed until Kai told me his name.

There’s the string of fights that Ava got into each time things didn’t go her way.

The sudden hair color changes.

The running away from home.

The violent outbursts.

The poems, the ones I found in her bass guitar case.

And then there’s the mysterious conversation–the last one Amelia had with Gavin all those years ago before he drove her out of our lives.

“Say something,” I say, staring at my aunt.

She rearranges her face into an expression of calmness, but her eyes tell a different story. There’s a storm brewing underneath that collected exterior. I know all about it because, just like her, I belong to a family that demands superior skills in pretense. We don’t cave when feelings come crashing at us from everywhere. We put on a mask and push on.

“If I speak now, Dylan”–Amelia smiles curtly, the corners of her mouth trembling–“there’s no going back, no undoing it.”

“You don’t understand.” My heart kicks my ribs, bruising itself. “I don’t want to go back. I want to move forward, but I can’t move forward if I don’t know what it is I’m leaving behind.”

“Alright.” Amelia nods slowly, her eyes dead set on mine. “Before I tell you this, please know I did the best I could, but at some point, it was either Ava or my own family.”

“I’m not here to put blame on you… or anyone else. I’m just here to hear the truth. Even if it’s not all of it.”

“She was troubled, sweetie… your sister. I saw it early on. I brought it up once in front of your father, but he was adamantly against getting her treatment. He was watched very closely then and claimed that he couldn't take any risks. Every single word he said was twisted by the press.” Here Amelia pauses and takes a deep breath, her gaze wandering off to the dark glittering cityscape on the other side of the glass. “There were facts–unpleasant ones–that came to light too. It was hard to say if anyone from his office leaked them or if the magazine investigating your father discovered some of the things from his past he tried to bury, but Gavin refused to talk about any kind of therapy at the time because according to him… if the reporters or the opposing candidate got wind of it, it would destroy his family’s reputation.”

Lying, selfish hypocrite.

I feel a ball of anger growing somewhere in my gut. “And Mom?”

“We talked about it a lot, but Gavin continued with hismental illnesses don’t exist in spoiled, temperamental teenagersagenda.”

“Did you know that my sister was doing drugs?”

Amelia’s eyes snap back to me, wide and worried.

“There was X found in her system during the autopsy. She was high when she died.”

“Oh sweetie.” This is where my aunt visibly crumbles. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t around anymore. I had no idea it’d come to that.”

“I told you I’m not here to blame you. It’s not your fault.”

“Your father made it go away, didn’t he?” she asks.

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