The brief excursion into the hot June afternoon has made my skin clammy; a bead of sweat rolls down my chest, and I can feel the hair on my crown frizzing.

The thought of Eli Kane seeing me like this, is the cherry-shaped turd on top of this absolute shit sundae of a day.

I went to Cindy's home to seek information about her, and comfort. That old adage about the familiar being comforting to us and something something. Yet so much has changed in ten years, I am not even sure why I was there in the first place.

Cindy didn't change. She remained a mystery to me, an unsolvable enigma.

I'm not sure who else I could, or should call at this point to learn more about her.

Perhaps Ethan? Her former crush?

There are only two problems with that scenario.

One: The only person from my past I want to see less than my father is precisely Ethan, the high school bully.

Two: I'm a pussy.

I stare at my phone like it's a grenade.

"You okay, Rhi?" Eli brushes residual sweet crumbs from his lip with his thumb. He looks almost the same as he did ten years ago: same piercing eyes, same sun-streaked frizzy hair that falls just behind his ears.

Yep. He looks the same, but better, while I think I'm braless under the first ratty T-shirt I could find. At least I managed to get a shower this morning.

I have been standing under the blast of the showerhead for almost ten minutes, working out the knots in my hair with a conditioner that smells like violets and probably costs more by the ounce than white powder heroin.

Looking at his boyish profile as he is driving, I can't help but remember the moment when I lost my virginity with him.

His bedroom.

I'm eighteen, my legs shaved with surgical precision, quaking as Eli runs his hands down my sides, tugs at the waist of my jeans. I'm in my brand-new red bra, because i'd read in some stupid magazine that the color red triggers lustful feelings in men. Back then, Eli, at nineteen, was practically a man to me.

Eighteen felt like a perfectly acceptable age to lose it, and my hot classmate - slash - quarterback a perfectly acceptable person to lose it to.

A chipmunk skitters across our path and disappears through a crack in the stones on the sound of the road.

The sounds around the lake dissolve as Eli's house comes into focus.

I remembered the first time we became really good friends, not just acquaintances. My mom was too busy with running her gardening project, and Victor was too absorbed in work-sleep-repeat to breathe down my neck much.

At the time, Cindy was like a cat, skittering out of the room when she sensed me nearby. I didn't understand why but I assumed it had something to do with her cheerleading practice.

When Cindy was happy — which seemed like almost all the time before our senior year — she spread her joy around like it was sunshine. Every other emotion, though — fear, sadness, and loneliness — she'd kept them locked up.

Eli, on the other hand, was more than content to be around me. He decided that the right thing to do was be with me, and he wouldn't stop until I relented.

I remember I was rebelliously washing my cereal bowl one Saturday morning, when he bounded into the kitchen of the Carmichael manor skidding to a stop as soon as he saw me.

"Hey. I let myself in. What are you doing?" 

I feel my face redden. "Cleaning up after myself?"

"Want to go for a run?"

"Like, on purpose?" I never ran unless someone was chasing me, or if Gaffney High required it for me to pass gym class.

"Yeah, why not?" Eli zips his fleece up to his chin. "It's a beautiful day."

It's not like I have anything better to do. He scolds me when I come back into the kitchen wearing my Vans, telling me they are terrible for my feet. I have to borrow Mom's running shoes— we're both a size eight.

I feel his eyes on the scribbles alongside my shoes. "I was born with the devil in me." Heat goes to my cheeks; it's a stupid lyric from some band I was obsessed with in ninth grade. I would loop the song on those nights where music was my only escape from my mom and Victor, and the awful things coming out of their mouths.

When we arrive at Eli's home, and his car door slams, Ciri perks up in the driveway, barking.

There is a bike on the lawn, one of those old-fashioned cruisers, with a mint-green body and peach wheels I can only assume is Aubrey's.

As is that cherry-red Volkswagen Beetle, no doubt about it.

"Eli? Whose car is that?"

"Aubrey's. It was a present from my dad. Don't ask." He rolls his eyes. "He never used to buy mom things like those. You know, exorbitantly expensive."

Bingo. 

The hedges lining the front yard fence are neatly trimmed, and I'm happy Eli's garden still has that magical feel. The wooden arch gate, the artfully arranged stones Cindy and I used to play hopscotch on.

She said, if she ever got married, it would be in this backyard.

Little did she know that the path of her life was going to take her elsewhere.

Away from me.

"I'll go feed Ciri," Eli says. "Aubrey must be at the pool with dad."

My eyebrows shoot up. "You have a pool now?"

"It's in the backyard." He smiles. "Another courtesy of Aubrey, and another reason why I think I should probably move out, asap."

I nod, chewing on my secret thoughts alone, face-guarding them closely.

***

I hear the pool before I see it-splashing, chatting, punctuated by songs coming from the loudspeakers. It's hard to imagine that something so big and fancy has been built here in Eli's backyard. There is a bar, and a row of lounging chairs, presumably for Aubrey and her group of posh friends.

I scan the place  surrounding for the crusty old dude and the woman who is too young for him, but can't  seem to spot Daniel Kane anywhere.

A man dripping sweat pushes around a cooler, half heartedly hawking frozen Snickers and SpongeBob ice cream pops.

Another guy is sprawled on the lounging chair-red chinstrap beard and thinning hair to match —he raises his beer bottle to his lips, his eyes raking over me. He's wearing a shirt with a Confederate flag on the front and a faded pair of jeans that sink low on his bony hips.

I look away, my cheeks hot, before his female companion can catch me staring. She looks like she would crush me like a grape if she thought I were checking her man out.

I think I see Aubrey in a group of women pulling jean shorts over their bikini bottoms and packing up their stuff. They're looking at me — or Aubrey, rather — and angling their chins over their shoulders, whispering to each other.

Aubrey lowers the sunglasses perched on her head and I hear her say: "God, I hate this place."

I don't know if she's talking about Gaffney, the pool, or both.

When I approach purposefully to her, Aubrey narrows her eyes farther, two suspicious slivers of whipped-up blue.

Her hair is down, a mess of unspun silk. The sun catches on three different shades of blond. I bet she has always been one of those girls who can simply wake up and be beautiful. It's not fair to look that gorgeous on a hot Sunday afternoon. Skin smooth as glass, face perpetually dewy, as if she's just walked out of facials.

Aubrey lowers her glasses to the tip of her nose, catching me staring. "Can I help you?" Her voice sounds like it's scraping the side of a tin can.

Her beauty reminds me of Cindy's in a way.

The fact that my bestie was beautiful was almost an afterthought, a genetic bonus. She had a volleyball spike that would make girls in the next county nervous. Cindy had even the most burned-out, jaded teachers write amazing job on her work.

She'd seen more places in eighteen years than I probably will for the rest of my life. She'd been everywhere, while I lived only in my head.

Not for the lack of money of course. I hated travelling with my family.

We don't choose family but we choose friends. 

I chose Cindy as my friend. Or rather, she chose me, drew me into her satellite, which seemed to orbit outside all the usual high school drama. Who was hooking up with whom, who was lobbying to win the best smile. None of that mattered to her, even if she was popular.

We seemed to have our own private world where the only things that mattered were each other.

There are some physical similarities between Cindy and Aubrey, come to think of it; but Aubrey is shallow, I find.

"Will you excuse me for a moment, ladies?" she says to the women surrounding her, and comes to sit next to an empty lounge chair I've just occupied.

"Rhiannon Carmichael." Aubrey leers. "I should have guessed you would come visit me by now. The rest of your family ain't the sharpest tools in the shed. But you? You are a different beast altogether."

"Oh?"

"I'm not stupid, you know. I saw his corpse. Victor's." Aubrey goes straight to the point, her pupils black holes, her spider lashes blinking manically.

"What did you see?"

"Something was very off. The night he died, you know... it was the night when your whole family had dinner to celebrate his early retirement. I bet that's when it happened."

"When what happened?" I repeat slowly.

Aubrey looks at me as if I'm dumber than the stray muffin crumb on the table.

"His murder."

My thoughts swirl.

"You think he was murdered?"

"I do, and your mother knows it, too. She was right next to me when I approached the body. She saw what he looked like, for crying out loud."

Aubrey rolls her eyes.

Does mom know? For real? But mom would have said something — "It doesn't make any sense. Mom never mentioned anything."

"And it surprises you? Of course she didn't mention it. Bet she was the one who did it." A smile pushes between Aubrey's lips, misshapen and mad, like a bloated slug finally breaking free, splatting there in the floor for everyone to stare at.

"Mom would never..." I start, raising a trembling hand. "Why would she even..."

"Because she must have found out about us. You see, Lorraine's like an abused puppy. The more you ignore her, the more she wants you: Victor found it endearing, because he liked being wanted. She was his little loyal golden retriever. Until she turned into a wolf and slit his throat. She loved him and he betrayed her. It's as simple as it gets."

"I..." My throat is dry.

"Oh don't you worry, my poor little baby. I won't tell. I don't care about others very much, you see. Your mother, your father. I'm like a black cat. Aloof, unattached. Always taking, never giving. And if you are a black cat, you focus on yourself and yourself only, honey."

"Who's to say you didn't do it?" I stand up abruptly.

"One: I didn't care enough about him to murder him. And two: I had no motif at all. Victor was more useful to me alive. He liked them young, you see. We had a deal — I fuck him, he skyrockets my career. In the event of his death, I stood to gain nothing."

"So where were you the night of his retirement party?" I feel a bit like Miss Maple, but I need to know.

Does Aubrey have an alibi?

"On a long deserved vacation." She shoves her Instagram feed right under my nose.

Two men I have never seen before, and Aubrey on the beach.

Aubrey, in a race-car-red bikini, is kissing one of the men in the photo on the cheek; his arm is draped over her shoulder. The same man who tagged her in the photo.

"Who is that?" I ask.

"Does it matter? Just another one of my wallets. Or did you think I put all my eggs in one basket?"

"Did Daniel know?" I suddenly feel so bad for Eli's dad.

"Funny you should mention Daniel." She winks at me. "He was one of the honoured guests at the party. Plus; he was pretty sure he would inherit the company after Victor's death. And I don't see you going to talk to him, checking his alibi."

"Maybe I will." I turn to enter the kitchen. 

Perhaps Aubrey didn't kill my father, but I find her too despicable to even be sharing the same space with her. Breathing in the same air.

"I won't mention anything to anyone if you don't. Oh, and I wouldn't poke around too much if I were you." Her giggle catches up with me. "Let the sleeping dogs lie, Rhiannon. You never know what you might wake up from deep slumber. Just go back to wherever your life is now. You don't belong here anymore."

Eli's embrace readily awaits me when I enter their living room. His jacket is zipped to his chin, and his hands are on his hips. He looks no different than he used to look like on the football field, calmly sizing up the opposing team, while the coach tried not to explode at the ref.

My look must tell him all that he needs to know, because he holds me in his arms for an eternity and some more.

"Eli, I..." I feel so feverish, so lost. "I need you so much."

He kneels on the kitchen floor; and pushes my t-shirt up to kiss my belly button with devotion.
He unzips my jeans and his lips and his tongue move lower.

I close my eyes in utter bliss.

My head is blank for the first time this week.

I don't have to think about things such as: was it my mother who killed Victor?

Or Eli's dad?

I don't have to remind myself that I'm still here.

I just am.

When he drives me home that night and drives away, my one hand is still raised in goodbye, high-fiving the breeze.

Upstairs, I shower Eli off my body and pin my hair into a bun on top of my head.

The thoughts are back as buzzing bees, bugging me.

Tomorrow, I must speak to Daniel Kane.