Free Complicit by Stephanie Kuehn Page B

texting me with hearts and smilies. I was honest with Dr. Waverly about my inexperience. Not just with sex, but all of it. I mean, sure, I did some of the high school party make-out thing when I was a freshman, but sloppy rounds of Spin the Bottle don’t teach anyone anything about social interaction except that old-fashioned voyeurism’s alive and well.
    After Cate’s arrest, though, people stopped inviting me to their parties. They stopped inviting me anywhere. And not that it makes up for my loneliness or for anything, but I’ve sort of been okay with that. Cate changed me, too. Most people at my school knew her. Knew what she was like. So it’s like we’ve all been tainted by her and her power. I hate that and maybe that’s part of my attraction to Jenny. Moving here so recently, she never got to know Cate.
    Maybe she never will.
    Not if I have anything to say about it.
    Â 
    Â 
    When I get home, the house is empty. There’s a note from Angie that says she and Malcolm have gone to a holiday fundraiser for the opera all the way out in San Francisco. Charity and the arts are a big deal to them, which I guess is what happens when you have a lot of money—giving it away becomes more important than how you got it in the first place. Though maybe that’s also what happens when you lose your children. Other than altruism, I can’t imagine there are a lot of places to find hope after something like that.
    For my part, I’m just glad they’re not home. It’ll make it that much easier for me to get out for the party later if I don’t have to come up with a believable excuse for why I’m not staying in on a Saturday night the way I usually do. The less pressure, the better, since I’m already a little freaked about someone starting up with me tonight. Over Cate. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. But seeing Jenny will make it worthwhile. Won’t it?
    I was hungry when I stepped through the door, but now a lump’s formed in my throat, making it seem like it might be hard to get food down. So instead of eating, I cruise the downstairs of the empty house. I end up sitting at the Steinway in the formal living room, and I tap out the intro to Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” just to say how I’m feeling.
    Pretty soon it feels good, so I keep playing. A little louder, a little freer. I have a keyboard in my room that I can practice on, but when I’m in the mood, there’s nothing like filling a whole house with my music. Cate used to tease me all the time about the whole piano thing, saying I did it in order to be like Graham, but I could have said the same thing about her riding. We both spent our childhood years competing with the shadows of ghosts. But that doesn’t mean I want to be Graham or that Malcolm only sees me as a replacement for his dead son.
    At least, I don’t think it does.
    Sometimes I’m confused as to exactly how my adoptive dad sees me. I guess I could say he loves me. But I have no way of telling if it’s a true fatherly love, or more of a familiar type of love, the way you can love anything you own for a long time because not having it would feel like a loss. Nobody likes loss. But nostalgia doesn’t make an object any more valuable.
    It’s a matter of perspective, I guess.
    But I’ll take what I can get.

NINETEEN
    After a few of those early breakdowns and tantrums, Cate’s mental illness roared in like a flip had been switched. Like a runaway train. Like an animal unleashed. There was no more doubt or uncertainty or what if? about it. Angie spent all her time trying to smooth over the trouble Cate got into, but her efforts were the proverbial Band-Aid over the stab wound because Cate never went down for the count. Nope, she kept running around town, bleeding her madness and hate over the world like it was her sole purpose in life.
    There was no reasoning with Cate