"Landon, I swear to God, if you walk home and don't get your ass in this car, I will never talk to you again," Dakota spat. Landon shrugged, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and kept walking down the driveway. Mr. Summers had (thankfully) gone inside and wasn't there to witness the altercation.

"Sounds good to me," he grumbled.

"Landon, get in the car," I ordered. I jogged up to him and halted him by shoving my hand onto his chest. "Right. Now."

"Avery, I--"

"Landon, I don't care what's wrong. I don't care if you came to smoke with Hunter, or came to piss everyone off, but I am going to be so disappointed in you if you don't get into my car so I can drop you off at home."

He stared at me. He looked like he was about to cry. "Okay, Avery. Okay." Dakota shoved past the disgruntled Landon and made her way into my car. I longingly glanced at my overworked car. You don't deserve this awful treatment, Car.

Landon clambered into the back and sprawled out on all three of the seats. Dakota rolled her eyes. "You're seriously in trouble, mister," she said as we closed the car doors.

"I know, Dakota. I know." I glanced behind me as I backed out of the driveway. My eyes automatically shot down to Landon's curled up figure. I noticed that his eyes dodged away to avoid mine, and that he had buried his face into his arm. I turned on the radio so that you could faintly hear the music. I realized after a short while that Landon was softly crying.

"Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you."

It had taken Landon a couple of minutes to compose himself and exit the car. He had mumbled a farewell as the door slammed shut. Dakota had requested to go to the graveyard with me, but I had asked if I could do it alone. She had complied, like she always did.

I dropped her off at her house. She squeezed my hand and watched me drive away, soon a speck on the road, merging with all the others.

It took me a while to find her. Despite the relatively small town, the graveyard was quite expansive. If you squinted, it looked as though it rolled across the entire horizon, engulfing the golden sky with lamentation. Crosses and rounded gravestones decorated the green, luscious grass as mourners shed tears or perhaps checked their watches to see if whatever funeral they were attending was over.

Katherine was a couple rows in, sitting crisscrossed on the grass. She perked her head up at me and smiled. "Hi," she greeted.

"Hey, Kat," I replied. "Your dad was worried about you. He texted me to see where you were."

She nodded. "Yeah, sounds like him. Matt was here earlier, so I got Matt to tell him. He probably just got home a little while ago. Were you guys trying to call me?" I nodded. "Oh. I left my phone at home. I didn't want any distractions. Sorry."

"Don't apologize, it's fine." I glanced at the tombstone. A statuette of Virgin Mary looked down on Lynn Summers. The tombstone read:

Lynn Summers
November 22 1972 - December 25 2012
Mother, Wife, Dreamer

"He wanted to buy something more 'extravagant' for her, but Matt knew that she wouldn't want anything spectacular." Katherine patted the figure of Virgin Mary and added, "It doesn't matter how big your tomb is when you're not around to see it."

"Mind if I sit down?" I asked. Katherine nodded.

"She would've liked you, Avery."

"Really?"

"Yeah. She liked the type of people who were quiet. But not quiet like they had a secret to hide. Quiet like they were listening."

"Thanks," I replied. "I bet I would've liked her, too. She probably would've despised Landon, though." Katherine laughed and nodded in agreement.

"Daddy was a lot different when Mommy died," Katherine said, cradling her legs close to her chest. "He eloped with his work to cope with everything. That's also when Matt found out he was good at painting, and Hunter got onto the middle-school basketball team. When I started taking meds to feel better."

"Can you tell me about her?" I inquired, attempting to shy away from the subject of Katherine's medication. I knew that she loathed talking about her condition.

Katherine looked into the sun and then shielded her eyes. "She was quiet, too. Really quiet. But when the boys were gone, she would brush my hair until it was silky-smooth. She would start to laugh and say she was jealous of my hair. Then she'd hum a song."

"What song?"

"Something new and different, every single day. She made sure that it was a song that I didn't know so that we could learn the lyrics together. The last one that she sang to me, though--that was one everyone knows."

"What?"

"'Here Comes Santa Claus.' It was the day before Christmas. The day before she...uh...yeah, the day before she died."

She killed herself on Christmas. They must hate the holiday.

"You wanna know what the last thing she said to me was?" I glanced back at Katherine. "'Go open your present, sweetheart. I've got a big one under the tree just for you.' So I ran downstairs, and there was this big present under the tree. And I was about to open it when I heard Hunter scream. I thought that maybe he had tripped down the stairs like he had a couple months ago. But it wasn't because of that. it was because Mommy wasn't waking up."

We sat in silence for a few more moments. "What present did she get you?" I asked in a hushed tone.

"Don't know," Katherine replied with a shrug. "I was too pissed at her to open it. It's sitting in the attic somewhere, I think. Daddy couldn't bring himself to toss the thing out."

"Maybe you should see what it is."

"I can't. I'm still too mad at her." She glanced at her mother's grave. "I come every year to wish her a happy birthday, and I come every Christmas to yell at her." I noticed that there were tears welling up in her eyes. "It's hard to forgive someone like that, you know? Someone like her. Someone like Carson."

"Why Carson?" I crawled over until I was touching shoulders with Katherine. She rested her head on my shoulder. "He didn't...he got murdered, it wasn't his fault."

"Maybe not. Maybe it was. We'll never know." She looked up at me. "Wanna know who I think killed my Carson?"

"Who?"

"Wait...you first--no, wait, we'll say our guesses together. Ready?"

"Ready." I squirmed in my seat, as I really wasn't sure who the murderer was.

"Three, two, one:

"Mister Prescott," Katherine declared.

"Xander Masefield," I decided.

"Do you really believe that?" Katherine inquired. I shook my head, and then widened my eyes at Katherine's answer.

"Why do you think Pierce did it?"

Katherine shrugged. "He's not a good person, Avery. He's a liar. And he knew my Carson."

"That doesn't...that doesn't prove anything. He's trying to defend me from killing Carson, Kat. He wouldn't do it."

"He's defending you because he got assigned to you, Avery. Not because he's your friend."

I shut my mouth. I didn't want to believe her, but I guess Pierce was right. I can't believe in anybody. I can't trust anyone.

"Are you ready to go?" Katherine asked, gradually raising from the ground. She reached her hand out for me to grab. I took her head and jumped up from the dirt. I wiped my jeans free of grass and dirt.

"Ready, I guess." I turned to Lynn Summers's grave and waved a goodbye. "It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Summers." Katherine smiled, heaved, and began walking ahead of me. I realized that she didn't have a car, so she must have walked to the graveyard. It was a long walk, too. It was at least a twenty-minute car ride.

She must've had a lot of time to think.

Katherine hopped into the passenger's seat, but before I could follow suit and let the engine roar to life, I stopped dead in my tracks. A sad, pathetic little slab of a tombstone sat by its lonesome on the wet grass.

Rory Masefield
January 24 1961 - November 25 2009

Masefield..., I thought, and then said the name aloud. "Xander's dad," I theorized.

"Avery, let's go!" Katherine called.

"Coming!" I replied. I jogged to the car and left Rory Masefield and Lynn Summers sleeping behind me.