How does one even begin to explain?

I haven't been in one place at one time with multiple people who mean anything to me since I was a little kid.

And look how that turned out.

I start with a hug.

I walk to Kelsea and hug her for caring. For denying reason to get out of this place to come back and check on me. For being my one true friend in this whole world.

The thing about being a girl as lonely as me and finally having a friend...is how much I know it hurts to lose them. Rebecca had loved me once too, and look what happened to her.

"Fuck you for coming back." I look up at her and give a weak smile.

She returns it. "Fuck you for making me." I step back and she glances nervously at Dallas who is still being an interloper from the other room.

"My brother." I explain. "Dallas."

He watches her nervously. The same way she watches him.

"I don't know if you've heard..." she says, turning her attention back to me.

"Don't tell me." I shake my head and clutch my hands into fists at my sides to keep them from shaking. "Mrs. Statham's niece?"

Graciously, Kelsea looks confused. "No." She says and I let out a small sigh. "I don't know anything about her, but you two," she waves a finger between Aries and I. "Are all over the news."

Aries looks up sharply, mouth dropped open. "What do you mean?"

Kelsea sighs and comes further into the room, sitting on the arm of my father's recliner. From the other room, Dallas shifts over slightly to still be able to see us all.

"So they were holding some town hall or something, I don't know." She waves her hands around flippantly as she talks. "This town thinks it is the one from freaking Gilmore Girls, what was it called?"

"Stars Hollow." Dallas and I say together. We share a small glance, both knowing how mom loved to watch that show.

"The point, Kelsea." Aries says from the couch, trying to rein us all back in.

"Right, so they're having this meeting or whatever." She goes on. "And they're talking about precautions to take and what to look out for and lockdowns and all that other bullshit when someone shouts out about Aries." She spares him a tiny remorseful glance. "Which leads to other people shouting out stuff. And then more."

"Is there maybe a cliff notes option of this story we could get?" Dallas sighs loudly. "So we can get to the part about my sister getting dragged into this?"

Kelsea turns her eyes up but ignores him. "So then the whole thing basically turns into everyone shouting their conspiracies over each other." She looks to me. "And of course there was press there." I roll my eyes. Of course. "And they really took one story and literally ran with it." She takes a quick breath. "Basically now all of the news outlets are speculating the suspicious coincidence that Aires and you are both back in town, and were both here before."

I guffaw. "Those two things literally have nothing to do with each other!" I throw up my hands. "I just got back and he's been here! He's literally got a house and has been living here and I'm only in town to get money from the estates."

"Yeah well," she shrugs. "Be that as it may," she offers. "There is a lot of talk now about how the two of you were a thing back then and now the daughter of the original killer is back right as all of these new cases start to pile up and he's connected to one of the murders."

"We've literally seen each other like two or three times." Aries argues, gripping his knees so hard his knuckles are white.

"I'm just saying what was said." Kelsea holds up her hands in defense. "And I'll be honest, it's not a good look."

"So you actually think my sister had something to-,"

"Of course I don't!" Kelsea yells back at Dallas. "I know she didn't freaking kill people. She's not-."

"She's not the one she's worried about." Aries finishes for her sardonically. "So you just think I killed people, is that it?"

"I'm not saying that either." She argues. "I'm saying I don't know a whole hell of a lot and that this whole thing is freaking screwy and weird and I don't like it."

"Oh but we are just enjoying it?" Dallas fires back. "Do you have any clue what Missy has been having to go through because of all of this-."

"Do you?" She snaps, getting to her feet and shouting across the room. "As far as I can tell, we have been the ones here with her, not you!"

"Exactly," Aries is on his feet now too. "We've been the ones here dealing with all of this fallout while you've been off doing who knows what or where and-."

"Where the fuck were you then?" Dallas takes one heaving step forward, his head held high in indignation. "Where were you when she was-."

"Stop!" I shout, slamming my hands over my ears and folding in on myself. "Everyone just fucking stop! I can't do this right now!"

I feel my knees go weak beneath me and Aries and Kelsea are both at my sides to catch me as I sway.

"Here, sit down." Kelsea pulls a pillow out of the way to lower me onto the couch.

"None of this is helping!" I shout again, not sure why I'm still screaming when everyone else has stopped but it just feels good. "Neither of you were there!" I snap, holding my face into my hands. "You both took off and neither of you gets the brownie points for trying to fix me or fight over me now! Just give it a rest!"

Kelsea sits beside me, draping a long arm over my shoulders and pulls me over so that my head lays in her lap.

"I'm sorry." She says, rubbing her fingers through my hair. "I didn't come here to start a fight, I was just worried. With the things they're saying out now, it's only a matter of time now before everyone starts showing up at your door." She keeps brushing her hand over my scalp as she turns her body slightly. "Pass me that blanket." She says over me and I watch Aries pull it from the back of the couch and drape it over me.

That's when I realize how badly I'm shivering.

"I'll start a fire." He says, moving over to the fireplace to get it started.

I watch him as he works, focusing on the way his body and hands move as he goes about his task to not focus on the way my body aches deep in every joint.

I wait patiently for the warmth of the fire to reach me as it begins to crackles and grow and he steps back.

I know it won't help though.

These chills can't be satiated by fire or blankets or touch. These are the ones you have to suffer through. Have to feel every bit of it. Every sharp, twisting, convulsing bit of the pain has to be felt until it can bleed through my body. I have to let it empty me out before I can try to build myself up again.

This right here, is the worst part.

We told you soooo

This is what it's like to be without them.

But this time I'm not alone.

And this time has got to be the last time.

I just have to get through this...one more time.

Aries comes to sit in the floor between the coffee table and the couch, leaning his back against the table to look at me.

"Is that better?" He asks.

I look into his blue eyes, trying to steal a little comfort from their depths and I nod and lie.

"Yeah a little." I swallow hard.

He looks up passed me at Kelsea. "I know you might not buy it," he says to her. "But I really didn't do anything."

She stiffens a little. "I'm not saying I don't believe you." She relents. "This is all just scary."

So scary.

"Why do they even think you're connected in the first place?" Dallas asks. "They'd have to have something good on you to turn the whole town against you. You were a golden boy."

I huff a small laugh and Aries shoots a narrowed eyed glance at me. "What?" I try to smile. "That part is kind of true." I admit. "Everyone liked you."

"Yeah until they don't." He gives me a pointed look and I frown. He's right. People loved Dallas and were at least indifferent towards me before our father got arrested.

"You didn't answer." Dallas prompts again.

Aries and I look at each other again. We both know how Dallas can be. A dog with a bone. He was always so smart, loved learning and paying attention to everyone and everything. He's not one to let something go.

"They've got people placing me at the scene where Courtney Tolbert's body was found and they say they have boot prints at the scene that they can match back to mine too, but that's bullshit." He tightens his jaw. "I buy my boots at the same place everyone else in this town does and I have a common sized foot. They can't actually tie me to anything but they think they have enough to consider me a strong person of interest." 

"Ok," Dallas says, and I can hear the wheels in his brain turning from here. "I can agree with you on the boots thing, but why were you there then? Why can they connect you to the scene?"

Aries eyes slowly drift from my brother, back down to me. He stares at me with an intensity I don't understand.

I wait for him to answer but he doesn't. He just sits there stoically, looking at me like I have an answer when I....

"No." I whisper.

"What?" Kelsea and Dallas ask in unison.

No, no, no, no.

"I didn't say anything, Miss." Aries's features seem to shrink. "I didn't tell them."

"I'm confused here." Kelsea's hand stills in my hair and I use every bit of my will to sit up.

"They have eye witness accounts of you being there because of me." I say the words aloud, letting their malignant truth wash over me.

I glance over the couch at Dallas. "The day I found the body." The words send fresh shivers through me. "I'd seen Aries on the street that day and I ran to hide in that alley. He followed me, Dal. He followed me into that alley looking for me. That's why people saw him there." Tears burn in my eyes as I turn back to Aries. "The only reason they're even looking at you at all is because of me."

Aries leans forward and grabs my hands into his. "I didn't tell them why I was there." He tells me. "I told them...it sounds so stupid, but I told them I saw a cat and that I was only looking down that alley for it. That I looked for two seconds and then left."

"Aries, that's a terrible excuse." I cry and he smiles a little.

"I panicked." He sighs. "I just remembered..."

That day after school when we had decided to try to hunt down the cat that always ate out of the school dumpsters. We'd spent an entire afternoon looking everywhere for it with a bag of cat food in our arms because I felt bad that it was alone fending for itself eating garbage.

"Missy?" I turn slowly to look at Kelsea and my tears spring to my eyes again.

"I lied." I tell her, trying to blink them away. "I didn't lose my coat or boots or anything." I force the words out. "I'd run into the alley to hide and when I went to leave...I saw her there. I saw her and I accidentally...I touched her, Kels. I tried to hide that I had been there. I didn't...I couldn't get connected to another body after they already were suspicious about the first."

Kelsea's eyes widen in terror. "Oh, Missy." She breaths out, her voice weak. "You really fucked up." She's says and I cry harder.

"I know." I pull my lips into my mouth and bite down.

"So the only reason you were there was because Missy was." Dallas says slowly. "And you can't clear your name without implicating her at the same time?"

Aries nods solemnly and Kelsea shakes her head. "The cops are focusing on the two of you because of these crazy circumstances, and we can't tell them anything now because it would only look so much worse."

"It's so bad." I cry. "I fucked up everything."

"You were scared, Missy, it's not your fault." Dallas says firmly. "You had no idea all of this was going to happen. You couldn't know."

"It kind of is though." I point out. "Like it or not, I've screwed this whole investigation up now." I wipe at my eyes. "If I would have just admitted what I found in the first place, Aries wouldn't be getting trial by Faulkner right now."

"It would just be you there now." Dallas says. "They'd have you locked up."

"But the murders would have kept happening." Kelsea adds. "They'd have known it wasn't you eventually."

"Do you really think that's helping?" Dallas asks her sharply.

"It's true, Dal." I wave a hand in his direction. "Aries wouldn't be in trouble and I would have been cleared. Maybe they'd actually have a real lead by now if it wasn't for me."

"Oh, like they did with Dad?" Dallas laughs. "No one had a clue it was him until he screwed up the last one. If she hadn't gotten away and implicated him, who knows how much longer he'd have gone. He wasn't even remotely on the radar, Missy."

"That doesn't negate what I did."

"Maybe not." He relents slightly. "Maybe you did fuck up, ok? You know that now. You didn't know that then."

"I was high and selfish." I shake my head at myself. "I was just worried about me getting into trouble. I wasn't looking at the big picture."

Kelsea looks nervously around at us all. "So what do we do now?"

We.

I've just admitted to finding a body and telling no one, lying to her face, and tampering with a crime scene and she's not running for the hills.

"You have to tell them the truth." I say to Aries but he and Dallas both argue over each other about why he can't.

"They don't have anything on me, Missy." Aries tells me. "Coming forward with it now would just muddle everything so much worse. They'll be blinded by your name and the story that would come with it."

"The press will never let it go." Dallas agrees with him. "If you tell them now, the blinders will go on and they'll look for anything to fry you with."

"Honestly," Kelsea sighs. "They're right, you know? At this point we have an addict and a weird cat man. Neither of you are coming in as reliable witnesses at this point."

"And she said they're already trying to connect you two together with this." Dallas points out. "If you come forward saying you were both at that scene? It won't matter what evidence they have that doesn't fit. They'll run with it."

"Well," I sit up straight, looking around at each of them. "I'm all ears here." I stand to cross my arms over my chest. "I don't hear any of you coming up with anything better?"

Kelsea rolls her eyes at my dramatics. "Because I can't think of anything that doesn't lead you both to jail." She looks up at me and purses her lips. "One thing I do know though." She pauses. "If you're right about what you told me, your back yard is about to start filling up with bodies."

The four of us all turn our heads slowly to look at the back door.

"We need to get our stories straight."