Free It Takes Three to Fly by Mia Ashlinn

Katie-Anne? We’ve tried every way in the world to not beat the truth out of you. We’ve given you time, and we’ve given you space, but all you do is pull further away from us.”
    Shannon paused, her eyes filling with tears. “Now, you come home and you are acting completely different.” She touched Katie-Anne’s arms and continued, “You haven’t been here fifteen minutes, and I can already feel your walls going up.”
    Jaycee came at her from the other side, clasping her cold hand in her warmer one. “You’re not really here, and you’re not staying. Are you?”
    Katie-Anne wasn’t sure if Jaycee was making a statement or asking a question. Covering her bases, she responded, “No, I’m not.”
    Shannon gasped, shaking her head, as the tears trailed down her cheeks. “Please, don’t do this to yourself or to us”—she stopped midsentence and pointed at the door— “or to them.”
    Katie-Anne opened her mouth to deny what Shannon had said, but Jaycee cut her off. “I don’t know what they did or didn’t do. And, frankly, I would love nothing better than to clobber the idiots for whatever it was.” She squeezed Katie-Anne’s hand firmly. “But they are barely making it without you. If you leave, you will destroy not only yourself but them as well. Are you really okay with that?”
    “That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Katie-Anne replied, sounding dejected and not bitchy as she’d meant to.
    “You know, Katie-Anne,” Jaycee began with a sigh, “I never took you for a coward. You always seemed so—”
    “Perfect, calm, put together,” Shannon filled in for Jaycee. “Well, you get the picture.”
    “More like cold, bitchy, and snobbish,” Katie-Anne muttered to herself.
    “Well, that, too,” Shannon mouthed off. “But you know what we mean. Running won’t help you any more than it did Jaycee. And hiding won’t save you any more than it did for me. Suck it up, sister.”
    If it were that easy, I would.
    Katie-Anne shook her head. “I need to get out of here.”
    “No,” Jaycee denied. “You need to face your problems and fight for the life you want.”
    Katie-Anne snorted. “That is what I’m trying to do, and you two are giving me hell for it.”
    “No,” Shannon disagreed. “You are trying to take the easy way out.”
    “There is no fucking easy way out of this situation,” Katie-Anne confessed furiously, picking up her drink and sucking down the rest of it as though it were the sweetest of wines.
    “Nothing worth having in life is easy,” Shannon said as she patted Katie-Anne’s arm. “You know that.”
    “No, I don’t. My life is easy,” Katie-Anne rebutted as she shook off their hands. She got up from the table and walked over to the sink. “I’m the spoiled, little rich girl with no job and no problems. My life is fucking perfect.” She rinsed out the milk in her cup before refilling it with water from the tap.
    With a cough, Shannon muttered, “Bullshit.”
    “If your life is so damn perfect, then why would you want to leave your friends and family?” Jaycee asked with a superior smile. “You like to tell us how we are full of shit. Well, baby, we have nothing on you.”
    “I despise you,” Katie-Anne sneered.
    “Sure you do,” Shannon replied.
    “Well, you’re about to despise me more,” Jaycee stated ominously.
    Fuck. Katie-Anne’s heart picked up speed, and she nearly dropped the glass in her hand as it trembled. The dare. Placing her cup in the sink, Katie-Anne whirled around. “No, Jaycee,” she half begged. It was easy to see where this was going, and she had to stop it because if she stayed, she wouldn’t resist Shane and Landon. She couldn’t. “Please don’t do this to me.”
    “Yes,” Jaycee nodded solemnly. “You’ll thank me later.”
    “I will not,” Katie-Anne replied, her anger surging to the front of her mind. She stormed back across the room and sat down in her chair at the table. “I will never forgive you,