Chapter 87: Little Sisters Grow Up

Well, I don't know about you, but I was really anxious to see what happens between Kat-Trace-Leed-Ash, so I had to write you guys a double update! I like this Oasis Song "Don't Look Back In Anger" Besides the general them of forgiveness and accepatance,  the lines, please don't put your life in the hands/of a rock n roll band/who will throw it all away...just seems to fit. This band has a lot of drama!

Kat

Seeing my sister for the first time in months is really weird, especially the moment Leed gently wraps his big lanky lion limbs around her.

Like she's a delicate treasure. Like he's the custom case designed to protect her fragility and at the same time, display her beauty.

Her smile as she relaxes into his embrace and looks heavenward?

Limitless.

I don't know why that eases all the anxiety I felt moments ago about her being here.

Wait, that's a lie. I do know.

Seeing the way she looked at Leed? I've never once seen her look at anybody like that. Not Cameron, her first everything, whom she really did love and thought she would marry. Not Trace, whom she did marry.

Seeing Ashlynn with Leed, I feel like one-half of Trashlynn has got perspective and actually cut the cord on their bizzaro intense-but-not-romantic-married-feelings for one another.

Yes, I know. I'm a bitch for calling my sister and my boyfriend Trashlynn in my head. But before you judge me, try to remember that my sister married my lifelong crush, who became my boyfriend, who kept his marriage to my sister secret from me. I'm entitled to one little piece of Kattiness. Let me have Trashlynn, okay?

Beside me, I feel Trace twitch and sigh as we watch the Leed-Ash-Hugathon. He drapes an arm over me and kisses my head. "Please don't get mad, but I'm gonna bust this up, okay? Leed does not need to be running games on her, right now."

The other half of Trashlynn? He's still in caretaker mode. I sigh and wrap my arms around him. "Baby, look at them. Does it look like games? They look deep, already."

We continue our whispered conversation but we could probably shout for all the attention Leed and Ashlynn are giving us.

Trace whispers into my hair, "I love Leed like a brother, but when it comes to women, he's fucked in the head. He doesn't know how to ship, baby."

I snort. I'm trying. Really trying, not to go to a petty, psycho, or obsessive place right now. Cause I could find all three of those crazy towns, being confronted with Trace and Ashlynn interacting. "Says the dude that had meaningless sex with a hundred fangirls and entered into marriage for the purpose of rehabbing someone he wasn't in love with. It took you a while to wrap your head around being in a real relationship with me, too, you know."

"It didn't," he assures me. His voice drops into the naughty register. "It just took you a long damn time to turn eighteen."

Even in all the crazy stuff we are going through, Trace still makes me laugh.

I refocus on Leed and Ashlynn. He's rubbing her back, whispering in her ear now. "Maybe he's learning," I hold out my hand gesturing at them.

"Don't you think he should practice on someone other than Ashlynn?" Trace shakes his head. "I can't go through it again. Watching her get hurt and self-destruct, searching for her when she runs, trying to put her back together again."

I pull his face down to mine. "That is what hurts me, Trace. I get that you still care for Ash, but it's not your job to take care of her anymore. But you don't feel it. You still feel bound to her."

His jaw tenses. "I guess going through hell with someone only to help them and their family does create a bond, Kat. It doesn't fade as easily your henna tats will."

That stings, but he has every right to be angry with me, too. There's no way around the fact that I got stupidly drunk and fucked up. I stripped and let his brother enjoy my body for hours. I mean even though it wasn't sexual, Street was creating art on my naked flesh. It wasn't like it was torture for him. Or me. It was...way over the top and way reckless, and salacious...and...

Street and I aren't into each other, but it was a moment. We were into that experience, together. The pictures plainly showed that. I'm just glad Trace will never have to see them.

I regret the fuck out of the whole experience, and I feel sick every time I think about it. But in the moment? I guess, I probably loved the adrenaline rush of being bad, and I was too drunk to think about how bad I was really being. How hurtful to Trace it would be when he found out. How damaging it could be to Trace and Street's relationship.

I would do anything to take it back. But I can't.

Just like Trace can't take back his marriage to Ashlynn.

There's no way around our mistakes. No shortcut under or over the hurts. We have to go through them, together.

He sighs heavily. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that..."

He did. It's okay. I meant what I said about his caretaking of Ashlynn hurting me, too.

I just nod at Trace's apology and step back from him, to let him move up the steps toward Leed and Ashlynn, to let him do what he fells compelled to do—put himself between Ashlynn and what he thinks is a potential pitfall for her.

As he comes up the steps, neither Ashlynn nor Leed seem to be aware until Trace grips Leed's shoulder and says, "Ashlynn," in his commanding Rock Star voice.

Her eyes snap to his face and her expression turns to concern. Leed's hold on her melts away and he moves aside, looking...wary of Trace.

Ha. I realize with a shock I'm not the only one jealous of Trashlynn.

"You look good, Ash. Real healthy. Glad for you, hon," Trace says, reaching out and cupping her upper arm.

"Trace," there is a worried exasperation in her tone as she touches his face and it pains me just a little that he doesn't wince away from her like he did with nurses and doctors that touched him. "You look like hell."

"Thuglife," he jokes, and she snorts. She was married to him for two years. It's probably not the time she's seen him busted up. I've seen three altercations in as many months. With a pang, I realized they have all been over me. "Don't worry. Riley has got specialist lined up to patch us both up in the morning."

Ashlynn is connecting the dots. She reaches out to her side, like she knows exactly where every part of Leed is, and her fingers brush his busted lip and his throat. She must have heard the roughness, the damage in his whispers. She looks from Trace to him and then her eyes finally find me. She sees my bandages and she drops her hands both from Leed and Trace. She's down the steps in three graceful strides. She doesn't touch me, she just holds out her long fingers, in plea. I put my bandaged hand into hers and she cradles it, just like she used to do whenever I was very little and I got hurt. She would hold the hurt and yell for our mom, to come quick.

"What happened?" Her eyes travel me from head to toe, looking for more injuries, then her head turns almost involuntarily toward the porch again, trying to add up our injuries into a scenario that makes sense. "Car accident?"

I shake my head. "No. Trace wasn't kidding. It was a ...stupid fight. I got in the middle, Leed pushed me back, I tripped, fell backwards through a table. Thirty-four stitches, but it's not bad. Doesn't hurt."

Ashlynn hisses in sympathy but then she searches my eyes. "I've never seen them fight before. What happened?"

I blink, and then I laugh. "No, not Trace and Leed. Trace and his brother. Leed was trying to break it up."

She looks relieved. I have another moment of evil and think, no Ashlynn, Leed and Trace aren't fighting over you. But then I shake my head and chastise myself. She probably wasn't thinking that, and I know for sure the old Ashlynn wouldn't want that. She wasn't that kind of girl—the kind whose vanity needed boys fighting over her. She doesn't ask for more details about the fight. I guess she doesn't think Trace's business is her business, anymore.

She's still looking over every part of me. Her blue eyes glow a little, because Ashlynn cries pretty, just like she sneezes pretty, and mumbles in her sleep pretty. "You look so...grown up, Kat. So confident. So beautiful."

"Thanks. You look...pretty damn shiny yourself." She laughs at me. Ashlynn is eloquent and modest in the way she talks. I've always be the Slang Profane Sister.

"What are you doing here, Ash? Did you leave rehab?" That comes from Trace, on the porch.

She blinks. "No, no. Since I only have about six weeks left in my program, this is a transitional therapy—a three day home visit. Then I go back, and reflect on the challenges here. Which are...considerable, it turns out."

Something eases in me. I'm glad to know that Ashlynn is seeing her entire program through. I want to ask what she means by considerable challenges, but before I can, the pizza man is here.

"That's my food. Mom and Dad went out." Hearing that my parents are out seems to relax everyone even further. Trace actually laughs. "Good, let's fucking eat before Mike and Ellen come home and the shit-storm starts."

"There's not enough. I just ordered a salad." For some reason she looks at Leed. He winks at her and jumps off the porch. Ninety seconds later, he's taking selfies with the pizza man and opening up all his pizza cases, peaking at the labels. "Three meat? Fuck that. Nitrates in all that sausage and pepperoni will kill you. Got any veggie? Or better yet, cauliflower crust?"

"Naw, man, I don't want to eat that shit," Trace joins him and pretty soon they have all the pizza boxes open on the hood of the car. "Ham and pineapple, Kitty," Trace says holding up a box. They end up boosting five pizzas with the delivery man as their willing accomplice. They each give him several hundred bucks. "Severance pay," Trace tells him, "Cause you know you are probably getting fired, right?"

"Shit job anyway," the kid grins, giving them the rock star chin tip. "Music is my real gig."

They laugh and wish him good luck as he backs out of the driveway.

"You guys are idiots," I call, sauntering into the kitchen behind them. "We can't eat five pizzas!"

"I can't help it because Leed only eats gross healthy shit, and you like ham and pineapple and I like actual pizza with sausage and pepperoni. Or that they also had the chicken alfredo, which is what Ash really wanted, even though she only ordered a greek salad. Plus," Trace hold up the fifth box, "Old Man Donner's pizza. Obviously, he was not getting his delivery." Trace slides the entire pizza into the trash. "I hate that guy. He kicked me once, just for trying to sell him girl scout cookies.

Ashlynn rolls her eyes at Trace. "That you stole from me, Trace! You sold my girl scout cookies and bought a skateboard!"

Leed laughs. "Sounds about right."

"Hey," Trace taps his chest and grins at Ash, "It is my fault that you told your Dad Kat was riding my skateboard down the hill on Swanson, and because of that my Dad confiscated my original board? No. That was on you."

"She was eight years old, riding without a helmet down a steep hill into an...a..." she slaps down her pizza, all the mirth at telling the story draining away in her struggle to find the word she wants. That's one of the symptoms of Ashlynn's brain damage. Sometimes she loses words. It doesn't happen very often, but it's very frustrating to her.

Trace is looking down at the pizza, obviously feeling something negative, witnessing Ashlynn's brain blip. Guilt, I would guess, because that's sure as shit what I'm feeling.

She was going to be a doctor, and we did this to her. There's a painful silence.

"A...whatchayoumacallit at the bottom," she ends, looking mildly frustrated.

"An intersection?" Leed prompts gently. She nods at him ferociously.

"Yes! Thank you! An intersection. A four way stop that everyone always rolls through."

"He would stand at the bottom in the intersection, Ashlynn. He was much more likely to get hit than I was," I say, smiling at my partner-in-crime. "And actually, it was my idea to sell your girl scout cookies. He just took the blame when you realized. Remember, he convinced you to pretend someone stole them from Mom's unlocked car."

"You two deserve each other," Ashlynn rolls her eyes, but she's smiling her beautiful smile, as she parcels out dinner napkins and plates on the table.

Leed pulls out a chair for her like he's done it a thousand times and she sits as her lips murmur a soft "Thank you."

I can't help watching them.

They are so easy together. I'm not completely down with Leed's idea that he and Ashlynn should be friends with benefits, but it's obvious he's way into her. Is it possible he doesn't realize just how into Ash he actually is? I never saw him with Tam when they were sleeping together. I wonder if this is the way he was with her. Would it really be so bad? He seems attentive and caring, even more so than Trace in some ways.

But then I think about the fact that Tamara toured with Leed as his stylist. She would probably share his bed one night and then watch him hotel a fangirl the next.

Fuck no. No way. Not me. I couldn't do that. And I don't think Ash's feelings are that flexible, either.

Leed folds into the chair beside her. "You never did anything bad when you were a kid, Little Miss Sunshine?"

"Only the things they drug me into," she smiles.

"That's so not true," I counter. "What about Cam? You weren't a good girl when it came to him. You stole wine from the cellar and snuck off to lose your virginity at sixteen, remember?" I tease her.

She stops chewing at the mention of his name, like she can't swallow, and I could bite my tongue through.

God, I'm such an idiot for saying that. Bringing up Cam is like throwing acid in Ash's face.

Cameron was the only boy Ashlynn ever loved. He was her first date, her first kiss, her first sex. He loved her, too. I mean, I know first loves don't always work out, but they were good together. He might be her husband right now, if not for the accident that Trace and I caused. As it turned out, because of us, he ended up also being her first heartbreak, and the final unbearable pain that pushed her over the edge into full blown addict behavior.

Cameron tried so hard to help her...for six months after her accident. He was here in this house every day. My parents relied on him to care for her, after they went back to work and I went to back to school. In essence, he lived here. He didn't even attend his classes the final semester of his senior year at college. His professors let him complete with all independent studies, so that his acceptance into medical school wouldn't be affected. He didn't attend his own college graduation, either. He was here with her, as he always was.

He spent months and months sitting with her in a dark room, doing his coursework by flashlight when she slept. Months not able to speak to her above a whisper. Months of his only interactions with her being sleeping beside her or trying to coax her into eating or getting out of bed for a little while, because she would always try to do what he asked. He would come out of her room looking dazed and unused to the light, because he spent so much time in the dark with her. About three months after her surgery, it seemed like his care was finally helping her. She started getting dressed most days and even going out of the house with Cam for very short amounts of time. But with her reemergence, we all noticed her personality had changed. Her temper was volatile, and she was especially hostile to Cam, probably because she was closest to him, and his patience with her hatefulness wore a little thinner every day.

Cam was the first to realize what was going on with her—that she was abusing her medicine. My parents were in denial about it and he argued with them for days, finally proving it by counting Ashlynn's pills, even though it caused a big fight with her, too. So they took her to new specialists, a rapid series of different ones over the course of two months, but they all said the same—Ashlynn's pain was undefinable and unresolvable and pain management with the pills she was rapidly becoming dependent on was the best solution. All that happened was that Ashlynn had a bunch of different prescriptions from a bunch of different doctors, and she got motivated enough to find ways to get her prescriptions refilled in secret. Cameron knew before the rest of us that her drug abuse was amping up, but he stopped "reporting" on her, and just started trying to make sure she didn't take enough to overdose.

It was just too much for a twenty two year old guy with a bright future ahead of him. One day in late summer, I found Cam sitting in the hallway outside her door, head between his knees, crying.

"I loved her. So much. But she's not coming back," he said. Three weeks later he went to med school and Ashlynn went heavy into a bottle of fentanyl. She got high, and she got out of bed, and she stayed that way. My parents were thrilled, but as soon as she ran out of pills, she was gone.

"I'm sorry," I say, tears springing to my eyes as I watch Ashlynn force down her pizza and take a slow drink of water. "I didn't mean to bring him up..."

"It's okay," she smiles. "Actually, I've talked to Cam a couple of times since I've been in rehab. You know that whole, twelve-step-make-amends thing. He's about to start his final year of med school, and he's getting married next summer. He's doing really well."

"You didn't have anything to apologize to him for," I say.

She sighs and pushes her fork around in her salad. "Oh, well, you're wrong about that, Kat. I've done a lot of things you don't know about in the last two and half years. I took a few visits to Emory, where he's in med school. Visit not really being the word Cam would use, probably. More like torture trips, from his perspective. I put him and his fiancee through a few hellish nights. Once, I even overdosed in my car in front of his condo, and he even had to take me to the ER." She glances at Trace. "I guess Cam called you, right? Because you were my ICE contact. I don't remember some things, but I remember, you came that time for my detox...not Riley. You and Cam were both there weren't you?"

My heart drops to think of Ash, strung out, distraught, banging on Cameron's door, finding it answered by her replacement, then having to witness Cam and Trace in a painful juxtaposition. The boy she once loved and the husband she sometimes hated both pitying her as she suffered through the misery of detox. My throat tightens and tears are so close. But I refuse to cry. How can I cry for her, when she is so calm about it? It doesn't seem right.

He nods. "He did. I did. We were both there."

She's still pushing her salad. "You haven't told Kat about all the the terrible things I did? All the messes you pulled me out of? All the awful things I've done?"

Trace is sitting opposite of her. He leans forward. "Ash, look at me, please." Her eyes flick up. "All those things that happened? They were your struggles. It was personal and painful for us both, but it was happening to you. That makes it your story, not mine. What you tell your sister is up to you, not me."

She nods. "Thank you. You're...you're such a good person, Trace. I know...I know I have a lot of amends to make to you." Ash's beautiful face is drawn tight with pain. " And to you too, Kat. I'm so very sorry for everything I put you through. I'm sorry that my problems caused a rift for two and half years between you two. I'm sorry for all the lies and evasions and all the times I made you worry. I'm sorry I cut you out of my life. The worst thing I did to you was turning to your person for help. I took the support he should have given you, and in my selfish addiction, I squandered it, wasted it for two and half years, causing both of you pain. I just..." she puts up a shaking hand to her eye, like she can push the tears that are about to overflow back in. "I...it's just so much, I don't know where to start with you guys."

Leed reaches over with his napkin and matter-of-factly wipes her tears away. "You just did, Sunshine."

I don't even realize I'm doing it. Not when my chair scrapes the floor, and not when my hip hits the corner of the table, not even when I put my arms around her, where she's still seated in her chair. It's not until I lay my cheek on the top of her head and smell her vanilla and lavendar shampoo that it hits me—that I'm hugging my sister for the first time in over three years. I look over her head to Trace as I say, "I know what it's like to be really, truly sorry for something, and know that the forgiveness is going to take time."

I drop to my knees beside her. "I'm so tired of feeling sick about the way we are, Ash. I'm so tired of being angry at you and feeling bad about it. I want you better and I want you back but I have also been wanting stuff I can't have. I can't erase what you and Trace went through—not the bad times, or the times where he was helping you and you guys were having something like a normal life. I can't get back that time that I spent in my own depression and confusion. But I don't want to be bitter and bratty about it anymore. What I went through is nothing compared to what you've been through. I know what happened to you was an accident, but it was an accident my actions set in motion, and I'm sorry too, Ashlynn. So sorry for everything you've been through, because I was reckless and Trace was indulgent of me that New Year's Night. So I'm letting go of blaming you for anything that happened after, and I'm asking you to forgive me for my part in your pain."

"I never blamed you, Kat. Not in my heart. Only in my head, when I was high, to justify staying high. But if you need it, I forgive you," she says, reaching out a hand to smooth my hair and offering me her beautiful smile.

To my surprise, Trace swears loudly and rises, he looks down at the floor. His voice is shaking when he says, "Keep going. I just...I'm so fucking happy to see you two being sisters and I...fuck...I'll be back in a minute." He walks swiftly out the slider and onto the pool deck where he paces around it slowly.

Leed watches Trace intently for a minute. "He's alright. He's just not cool showing his emotions."

That's not exactly true, but I don't object to Leed's statement. Trace is just not comfortable unless it's one-on-one with certain people. With me, with his mom, with Adam, with Marley, I think he's learning to open up.

Leed drops down on the other side of Ashlynn. "Unlike me. I'm actually grateful Traced jumped up, because he interrupted the big bawl I had brewing. Group hug, Ladies." Leed the goofball manages to get his arms around both of us and squeeze. "You two are fricking adorable. Like the cutest little sisters I've ever seen. And believe me, I seen a lot of sisters. I mean a lot of a lot of sisters."

"Oh my fucking god, Lawson," I growl at him. "Shut up. Nobody wants to hear about your sister sexscapades." Especially my sister who is crushing on you and whom you've been flirting with, you big stupid man-whore, I add silently.

"Ballard Sister B relax, I'm just kidding." He looks Ashlynn in the eye and says, "Never had sisters. That's weird, even for me."

Ashlynn rolls her eyes and wiggles out from between us, rising. "Leed, I am no position to judge anyone for anything they've done."

"Oh, I could think of a few positions I'd be happy for you to judge me in," he grins.

She tosses a napkin in his face. "Go stand on your head, Lion."

I just smile silently at their flirtation. I don't get the stand-your-head-thing, but Leed is weird and Ash seems a little different, too, so who the hell knows what they are talking about.

Ten minutes later, the kitchen is cleaned and Trace has returned, giving me a sweet, swift kiss and a warm, rocking hug that gives me hope that forgiveness is moving in all directions. "I love you, and I am so proud of you, KitKat."

I just bury my head in his chest. "I love you, too."

I don't even mind when I release him and he opens his arms to Ashlynn, and gives her a gentle hug. "I think...I think you really got this, this time. You look whole, hon, and it makes it all worth it."

"Thank you for everything, Trace." She's about to cry, but instead she laughs. "Hey, you want your million dollars back?"

"You know the answer to that."

"Shit, ask him again after he get the doctor's bill for that," Leed gestures at his butterfly-bandaged-split cheek. Trace laughs, but both Ash and I make painful expressions of worry.

Despite my worry that Trace is going to slightly scarred from his dust-up with Street—whom I'm not even speaking to I'm so pissed about Trace's injuries—everything else is turning out so much better than I expected. I'd almost forgotten that the whole reason we came was to see my parents. When we hear the garage door open, I remember. Ashlynn tenses, her head bows, and her shoulders slump in defeat.

Leed senses it immediately. "What's wrong? Your head?"

She shakes it swiftly. "No, it hardly ever hurts anymore. Really. It's just...my parents. I'm having a disagreement with my Dad. It's why I didn't go to dinner with them. He and I just needed some space."

"What's the problem?" Leed asks, leaning on the counter in front of Ash.

"The same problem you're about to have, Kat," Ash looks at me in sympathy. "Dad's been great the whole time I've been in rehab, but something happened, and now he's...well, he's in control freak mode again. Mom is having some problems. She and Dad won't really tell me the specifics, but from the way she seems, I guess she's suffering from depression. She's tired, and easily upset. Dad sat me down and said she just can't cope with our "difficulties." He said she's terrified I'm going to relapse again when I leave rehab, and she's terrified something is going to happen to you in LA. I think I'm ready to leave my rehab program when my six months are up, but Dad is asking me to stay a whole year—basically he doesn't want me here, in case I relapse. And I think you're going to get the opposite request. He's going to press you hard to come home, for mom's sake."

Well, that's...not good.

I think we've made some progress here! Okay, so Trace still isn't vibing Lash,  but Kat is very open to it--or at least hoping Leed will progress his feelings toward Ash. I wonder if being of opposite opinions on that will cause Trace and Kat strife in Tantric? Hmm...anyway, I think the MOST important thing is that  Kat and Ash  and Trace are FINALLY on their way to true healing over their unusual love triangle !!! Thoughts!?

Hmmm...what's going on with Ash and Kat's parents? Do you think Kat will do what her parents want? Is Ash going to? What repercussions will all this have in Tantric?!?!? Stay tuned. One more Atlanta chapter and then we are time warping to Nashville--five months from now!!!