Katherine wouldn't talk to anybody else except for me. And not at the coffee house--she told Landon to text her my address to meet me there later.

"Mom!" I yelled as I opened the door to greet Katherine. I gestured for her to walk in. She was wearing a sundress with leggings and clutching onto her pocket book with jittery hands. "My... friend... Katherine is over! We'll be in my room!"

"Okay, sweetie!" Mom loudly replied from her room. Katherine followed me from a distance behind me. I closed the door behind me to my room.

"Why did you lie, Katherine?" I asked, getting right to the point. She glanced at the ground. "I would've understood. I wouldn't have told your dad."

"How could I trust you? You're a stranger...and a confirmed liar," she replied. We stood in silence for several moments. "I'm sorry for being a bitch to you. I'm usually not like that...actually, I usually was, but then...um, Carson came along. And he was my better half."

"I'm sorry...for uh, breaking into your house," I replied.

"That's okay," she (surprisingly) said. "It's happened before. It's not like you stole anything."

"Wow. That's..."

"Surprisingly kind? Yeah, I'm just trying to work on...some things. So...what do you want to know?"

"I want to know if you'll help me."

"With what?" Katherine treaded carefully, as did I.

"Find Carson's killer."

"What can we do, Avery? What can his fake girlfriend and former girlfriend do? All we can do for Carson is mourn him." She couldn't remove her eyes from the ground.

"Katherine, I'm not asking you to join the FBI with me. I just wanna help the cops and find Carson's killer."

"No, Avery. You just wanna help yourself. You wanna stay out of jail. I just wanna honor Carson's memory. I just wanna stay out of trouble. That's what he would want me to do."

"Why...why would you be in trouble?"

Katherine's eyes finally met mine, reluctantly darting up from the floor. "He would never tell me...I swear, I don't know about any of them. But Carson had a habit of finding good people doing bad things."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think?" she sneered. "Carson got himself killed. He wasn't mugged or just killed by a random person with a gun. He was killed by someone who he should have never seen doing whatever they did."

"Well, it's my job to figure it out which bastard killed him."

"It's really not your job, though. It's your job to stay out of it until you don't end up in prison. And I don't know if you killed him, Avery. Just being in the same room as you is breaking my heart. I don't know why he wrote your name. Maybe he was in the middle of writing 'Avery Carter killed me' but he died before he could finish. Maybe he was going to say 'Avery Carter, I'm sorry' for whatever stupid reason that my Carson had. Maybe he gave you that box because he wanted to make me jealous, or profess some sort of undying love for you. Maybe I'm the Rosaline and you're Juliet. Maybe I'm forgettable just like Carson was after The Accident. It's not your job to avenge Carson, Avery. It's your job to forget him, just like he forgot me. Just like everyone will forget him. Just hop on the Who The Hell is Carson Harris bandwagon."

"How can you say that, Katherine? How can I stay out of this now? How can you stay out of this? There's no forgetting Carson. This is the probably going to be the most unforgettable thing in our entire lives." I heaved. I had enough lying. "I'm not going to forget the letter that the killer put in the box next to a bloody bullet. I'm not going to forget the picture of Carson's bloody body. I'm not going to forget the phone call of the monster that killed him. I'm not going to forget breaking into your house. I'm not going to forget you. And I'm definitely not going to forget Carson."

"Well, that's what I'm trying to do," Katherine replied. She looked at my bed. "You can keep the bear. There's a reason that I don't have it anymore, anyway." She made her way to the door.

"A harmonica. A peace-sign necklace. A disposable camera. A bear. What does it mean, Katherine?"

Katherine let her hand slip from the doorknob. She rested her head on the door. "It was just shit he won at the fair, okay? It was just stuff he won from claw machines and ball-throwing games."

"It wasn't just that, Katherine. He won it for you. He won 'shit' for you because he loved you, Katherine. Do you love him?"

"I loved him, Avery. Now I'm forgetting him." She opened the door and was one foot out when I said,

"You do that, Katherine. And I'm sorry. People keep telling me that they're sorry for my loss. But I'm sorry for yours," I said. Katherine collapsed in the hallway. I took a step towards her, and then instead darted towards the bed. I grabbed the blue bear and rushed over to the crying girl on the floor. She looked up to me, her makeup staining her flushed face, tears flying all over the place. I kneeled down by her side and pushed the teddy bear towards her. She stared at it for a moment, and then eventually snatched if from me and clutched it close to her chest. I wrapped my arms around her, the way Liam and Dakota did to me, and held her tight as she cried into her bear.

"N-no one...my brothers keep saying they're sorry f-for me, but no one's h-has said that they're sorry b-because of C-Carson. No one k-knows I'm hurting."

"It's gonna be okay, Katherine. Shh, shh." She rocked back and forth on the floor, wailing and crying out for Carson. "It is going to be okay, Katherine. I promise." I attempted to let go of her to fetch her some tissues, but when my body barely twitched she cried out, begging for me to not let go. Katherine had received everything that she had ever wanted. I could only imagine that this was one of the few big hiccups in her life.

"Carson, please...please, Carson. Please come back for your stupid fucking bear," she uttered. "Come back for your stupid fucking bear." I let her cry out all of her pain on my bedroom floor, because this was maybe the one spot where no one would judge her. No one would criticize her for loving the killed boy. "Y-your s-stupid, fucking goddamn piece of shit, bear. God dammit! God fucking dammit!" She wiped her eyes and rid her face of tears. Her voice lowered. "I-I don't know why I said t-those horrible things. I was r-really mad at Carson the last time I saw him. I didn't go to the funeral, because I told myself that it would look suspicious, but it was just because I'm a petty heart-broken girl."

"You're human, Katherine. Your heart is meant to be broken," I silently said. Wow; that was probably a shitty thing to say to console her. But, for whatever reason, it worked.

"Y-yeah...yeah, I guess so. Do...do you think Carson would've forgiven me?"

"He does forgive you, Katherine. I know it."

She laughed slightly. "You sound like you know him better than I ever did," she chuckled, "and I thought I was the only person who knew Carson at all." She suddenly stood. Though her legs were wobbly and her hands were shaky, she emanated some sort of might and determination. "Who do you think killed my Carson?"

I shook my head. "I have no idea."

Katherine huffed. "Okay, sounds good. Let's find out who killed my Carson. And I have an idea of where to start."

"Where?"

"That lawyer that thinks he's so clever. He thinks he convinced me that Daddy sold that man a crap building--it was just kind of fun to see him not remember who I was."

"Who? Pierce?" I asked.

"Oh. Mr. Prescott. I guess...Pierce Prescott. Who's he to you?"

"He's my lawyer."

"Oh. I guess that's something you and Carson actually had in common."

"W...what do you mean?" I asked, my voice wavering. Pierce Prescott, sick son of a bitch.

"During The Accident. He was his lawyer. He defended him. Carson made me meet him since he was so grateful for that man."

"He...he would've told me," I said; not to assure Katherine, but promise myself that, No, he didn't lie, but that's his whole job, oh my god, he lied to me.

"The Accident effected a lot of people. Not just my Carson, but also your Pierce. Your sick son of a bitch, too." She paused and then promised me, "The Accident was the worst thing to happen to this town, whether they knew it or not."

"He wouldn't have lied to me..." He lied. He made me lie.

"Anyone will lie, Avery." Her face was messy but strong. She turned and waved for me to follow her. She clutched onto her bear. "C'mon. To lawyer's house we go."