Page 54 of String Boys

Well, Seth’s Dad had been at Kelly’s house, helping the girls while his parents had been busy at the hospital.

“No idea.” Kelly let his voice go weaker, like he was getting tired, which wasn’t a stretch.

Officer Rivers wasn’t buying it, but he wasn’t pressing either. “Well, let him know that if he wants to talk, he needs to talk to me. Not my partner. Deal?”

Yeah. Neither of them. Seth wasn’t talking to either of these bozos.

“Will do,” Dad said earnestly, and if Kelly hadn’t been getting tired, he would have smirked.

As it was, he closed his eyes as his father stood up and saw Rivers out. He kept his eyes closed, even when his dad came back and sat next to his bed, letting out a sigh that almost shook the hospital bed.

“We won’t tell your mom about that, okay,mijo?”

“Okay,” Kelly whispered. And he wouldn’t. For many years.

KELLY WENThome two days later, with a standing appointment to talk to a rape counselor that he had every intention of missing. He’d managed to get out of all his finals at school, which was great. His teachers had all sent emails telling him that his standing grade would suffice, and he was getting As and Bs anyway. Not super-awesome grades—not scholarship grades—but nothing to be ashamed of either.

He checked the tablet dispiritedly, though, thanking his teachers and then hitting refresh on his email. No word from Seth yet. It had been three days since he’d gotten out of the hospital—and still no word. He could poop okay on his own, the red had cleared from his vision, and with some painkillers, he could lift the tablet, but not much else.

Recovery was fucking slow was what it was, and not having Seth at home to talk to made it slower.

“Kelly, please?” Lily was looking at him and biting her lip. “I know you had stuff to check, but I’ve got a project due!”

“What about Mom’s laptop?”

“Lulu has that one for her own project. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t ask, but it’s important and—”

Kelly sighed and handed it over. “Yeah, sorry, Easter flower. I just… you know. Thought Seth would email.” He could still talk about Seth, right? Nobody had charged him with anything. Nobody had said it out loud.

There were two things happening at that crime scene.

“Why would Seth want to talk to you?” Matty sneered, walking right out of Kelly’s blind spot, past the kitchen table, and shattering his peace and his train of thought. “Think he wants you now? Heleft, remember?”

And Kelly got a cold feeling in his stomach.

Theyallused the tablet.

Matty too. They’d known each other’s passwords since middle school.

“You deleted the emails, didn’t you?” Kelly asked flatly, anger pulling him to his feet when he’d mostly been one with the couch in the past days.

“What’s it to you, fa—”

Kelly didn’t wait around to hear the rest. He could walk. He could make it down the stairs. He wasn’t an invalid, trapped in this apartment with his sisters and his mother and his horrible fucking brother.

He touched his pocket, where he’d put Seth’s key on a plain chrome key ring, and started for the door.

“Kelly!”

His mother launched herself from her small desk in the corner by the kitchen and went trailing after him. “Where are you going?”

“Seth’s dad is home in an hour,” Kelly told her. “I’ll be downstairs when he gets home.”

“But, Kelly—”

Kelly shook his head—slowly, because fucking ouch, everything hurt!—but with meaning. “I can’t, Mom. Not with him. Not with that word. Not with himdeleting my fucking emails!” Kelly yelled, making sure Matty knew he’d told Mom. “You want me to stay in here and be happy? You make sure your other son can’t be an asshole. In the meantime, I’m going to Seth’s.”

He got winded going down the stairs, but still, he made it in the front door.