Chapter Text
“GET BACK HERE YOU UNGRATEFUL BRAT—”
Aubrey slams the front door behind her, seething. Of course today is one of the few days her mom is sober enough to notice her existence— and of course she’d decided to take insult to Aubrey coming home as late as she possibly could. Something that Aubrey’s been doing for years at this point.
Though who could blame her, really? More time spent away from her shitty house is the only thing keeping her sane sometimes.
As Aubrey turns the corner onto the crossroads, she considers her options. It’s nearly midnight, which means most people will be asleep. She can’t go home until her mom cools off enough to talk it out— something Aubrey knows will never happen— or she passes out after drinking herself into a stupor, which can take anywhere between one and five hours. Either way, Aubrey’s probably going to have to find somewhere else to sleep.
Ugh. At least she managed to feed Bun-Bun and change into pajamas before her mom got pissed off and Aubrey got all but kicked out for the night. She just has to make it back in time to give him his morning meal.
She really hopes tonight is one of the nights Kim is staying up way too late reading trashy romance novels in bed.
Aubrey turns onto Kim’s street, then stops in her tracks. Kim’s mom’s car is gone.
For a moment, she tries to remember if Kim and Vance are staying with their dad this week… then she feels the urge to facepalm. Kim had told her that she and Vance are being dragged by their mother to some start-of-summer family reunion in the next state over. They’re going to be gone for the next couple of days. Neither of them are home— which means that neither of them can give her a place to stay overnight.
She is well and truly screwed.
“No, no, this is fine,” Aubrey mumbles to herself. “I have other friends who can help me…”
It only takes her a moment to think through her options. Angel’s sister doesn’t take kindly to friends staying over— at least according to The Maverick. Mav himself doesn’t have any space for her to sleep, what with three kids and two adults in the house, not to mention no sofa. Goodness knows Mav has complained about his living room being turned into a church enough for that to sink in. Plus, if his folks are as religious as she remembers, they probably wouldn’t like her very much.
That leaves Charlie. Aubrey only considers asking her for a moment, though— she’s pretty sure a few of her siblings came home for a family reunion too, which means for the next week or so, her house will be packed. And a quick glance at the four cars parked in front of her house only proves it. No room for Aubrey there.
Her thoughts drift toward her old friends, but she forcefully yanks them away. Those jerks don’t deserve a moment of her time.
Sighing, she turns and trudges in the direction of the park. Maybe she’ll have to sleep outside tonight. It was only a matter of time, she supposes.
The park is barren in the moonlight, just like she would have expected had she ever thought about it. There’s something almost eerie about the way the painted plastic slide is slick with condensation, the way the sand swirls and shifts in the light breeze, the way the metallic cat sculpture’s eyes catch the low light from the streetlamps in just the right way to make it seem like its gaze is following her as she moves. The way the swings creak lightly as though some ghost or invisible specter has just vacated it, leaving nothing but a faint whisper in their wake.
As she puts a hand on the swing’s chain to keep it still, she wonders how she’d never realized just how much places like the park rely on human presence. Without life, it just feels… empty. Unfinished. Like an abandoned painting that never made it past a sketch on canvas.
It feels lonely.
Taking a seat and absentmindedly kicking her feet forwards to spur her swing into motion, Aubrey closes her eyes. She feels the rush of wind on her face, she feels the swoop of her stomach as she rises and falls, she feels her hair snapping in the breeze. She hears the sounds of crickets chirping their tiny insect hearts out, she hears the creak-creak-creak of the swing’s chains straining under her weight, she hears the snap of twigs and grass as someone runs into the park.
As someone— what?
She opens her eyes and looks in the direction of the park entrance. There’s a figure standing there, wreathed in the glow of the streetlamp. They seem to be equally as frozen, staring in her direction.
Some sort of fragile tension descends in the space between them— until the other person sees fit to break it. “…Aubrey?”
The voice, a slightly hoarse baritone, sounds familiar— and yet not. It takes him moving further into the park for her to pinpoint his shoulder-length hair and tall, lanky frame. “Kel?”
“What are you doing here?” they both ask at the same time.
Awkward silence ensues.
Kel speaks first. “I… needed some fresh air,” he says. “You?”
“Same,” Aubrey lies. She doesn’t really want to talk about her crappy home life to someone who probably couldn’t care less.
“Okay,” he says. A beat, then he motions to the other swing. “Can I sit—”
“Fuck off,” she snaps. “I was here first.”
He goes still in shock. “What’s your problem?”
“What’s your problem?” she retorts. It feels as childish to say as it sounds, and she immediately feels her cheeks warm with embarrassment.
He must think so too, because he snorts. “What are you, five?”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.” When Aubrey tears her gaze away from him and turns to look at the darkened tree line, he laughs. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”
She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply.
His voice comes from closer this time— he must be moving to take the swing seat she’d just denied him. Asshole. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever fought with someone the same way I fight with you, Aubs.”
“Of course not,” she mumbles. “You’re just a pushover and a class clown. And don’t call me that.”
“Call you what? Aubs?”
She nods sharply.
The swingset creaks as he sits down beside her. “Now I have to call you that.”
Aubrey resists the urge to deck him in the face.
“I mean, seriously,” Kel continues, “I don’t remember the last time we even talked. It’s probably been years.”
How hard is it to get some alone time, Aubrey wonders. She thinks it’s not supposed to be this hard.
“You’re going to be a junior next year too, right? Wait, why am I even asking— you’re the same age as me. I—”
Aubrey clenches her fists.
“You know, I always did tease you about liking pink and wanting pink hair, but it really does suit you. I guess I never got the chance to say it—”
She launches to her feet, shaking with rage. “Shut the fuck up!”
Kel looks taken aback. “I—”
“Just leave me the fuck alone!”
Now he’s on his feet, too. “Seriously, what’s your problem, Aubrey? I’m just trying to clear the air between us!”
“Don’t fucking bother!”
“Look, I know you’re some kind of bad-butt delinquent now—”
Aubrey blinks. It feels like the wind was knocked out of her sails. “Bad-butt?”
Kel looks embarrassed for a moment. “Badass. Whatever.”
“Why—”
“Don’t question it,” he interrupts. “I know you’re some kind of badass delinquent now, but we were friends once, weren’t we? You and me and Sunny and Hero and Basil and—” He abruptly clams up.
She stares at him. Her voice is frigid as ice. “Go on. Say it. Say her name.”
Kel swallows. “We were all friends once,” he says softly, “before Mari died.”
“And now she’s dead and we’re not friends,” Aubrey finishes. “So get the fuck out of here and leave me alone.”
“No.”
Ugh. Aubrey wishes she hadn’t accidentally left her nail bat at home. Maybe if she’d had it, she could have scared this idiot off without issue. Still, she levels a glare at him, her tone dripping with venom. “No one wants you here, Kel. Go home and rest up to hang with your stupid basketball friends. Summer’s just started, after all.”
“Seriously, what the heck is your problem, Aubrey?” Oh. Oh wow. Aubrey’s never seen Kel this mad— not even that one time she and Sunny painted all his orange shirts with glitter glue. Back then, he’d just laughed and said he’d outgrow them soon anyway. But now? Now he’s furious.
Unfortunately for him, Aubrey’s angry, too. “No, what the fuck is your problem? You just show up here and start blabbering to me like we haven’t been ignoring each other for four years, and when I fucking tell you to leave me the hell alone you fucking say ‘no’!?!”
“This is a public park! I can sit here if I want to!” he fires back. “No, what’s your problem? You ignored me for four years, you bullied poor Basil, and when I try to figure out what the hell is going on in your head you blow up at me!”
“What’s going on in my head? What’s going on in my head?!” She’s starting to feel tears stinging her eyes. Her throat is tight. “What’s going on in your head! In all of your heads! Where were you when Mari died?! Where were ANY OF YOU?!?”
Her chest is heaving, face feeling uncomfortably hot in the cool night air, and he’s looking at her like she’s grown two heads.
“Aubrey…” he says slowly, “what do you mean ‘where were any of us?’”
She rubs at her eyes. “I mean what I said, dingus,” she says, but her words have no real bite to them anymore. She’s suddenly aware of just how tired she is, how much she wants to go home and sleep, drunk mother be damned. Sleeping in Faraway Park isn’t exactly appealing, after all.
“No, I need you to be more specific than that,” Kel says. “What do you mean by ‘where were any of us?’”
“When Mari died, none of you seemed to care,” Aubrey says bitterly, years of resentment rolling off her tongue. “Hero and Sunny both disappeared off the face of the fucking Earth, and you always had a smile on your face, hanging out with your new friends and ignoring the rest of us. I thought Basil was the only one who was grieving her like I was, even though he always avoided me— but then I later found out that he probably never grieved her at all.” She lets out a derisive snort. “Bet that psycho was happy she died. Actually, I bet he wished he put her up there himself.”
Kel is completely silent as he stares at her.
“I was left to grieve her all alone,” Aubrey finishes. “That’s what I mean, I guess. If you value being friends so much, where were you when she died?”
He snorts.
She glares at him. “Did you just— did you actually just laugh?”
“Aubrey.” He stares at her, expression smoothing over until all traces of humor are gone. “Can I tell you something?”
She opens her mouth to reply, but never gets the chance.
“That is the most selfish thing I have ever heard in my life.”
What.
Aubrey blanks. Kel did not just—
“Who are you to assume that the rest of us weren’t mourning in our own ways?” he spits out.
“I—”
“Did you know that Sunny’s moving in a couple of weeks?” Kel sits back down on his swing, kicking off the ground so he sways a little bit.
She hesitantly tries speaking. “Isn’t that just proof that I’m right—”
“Hell no,” Kel interrupts. Aubrey flinches— she’s never been scolded by Kel before and she really doesn’t like the feeling. “Mari was like a big sister to you, right?”
She doesn’t want to respond. The way Kel’s looking at her, it feels like a trick question.
“Well, Mari was Sunny’s actual big sister.” He laughs, the sound so sour it could curdle milk. “Imagine that. Imagine growing up with Mari, knowing her your whole life, relying on her… and then she kills herself. When I talked to her, Sunny’s mom told me that she’s the one who organized the move for her and Sunny because Sunny is so lost in grief even four years later that he doesn’t ever leave his house. They needed a fresh start, away from the ghosts of the past and away from her suicide hanging over them.”
Aubrey… never thought about it that way.
“Mari helped raise Sunny and you have the audacity to say he isn’t grieving her with everything he’s got? Think again.”
Aubrey bites her lip, then sits back down on her own swing. Kel looks like he has a lot to say… and for some reason, she isn’t feeling the urge to leave. Maybe she needs to hear this.
“Okay, so who’s next on your list?” he asks. “Oh, right, Hero. My brother. Mari’s boyfriend— or, well, I don’t remember if they were official… but Hero loved her so much that after her death, he just lay in his bed and did nothing but mourn for a year. He didn’t go to school, he didn’t shower much, he barely ate…. He just slept and stared at the wall. Is that not grief?”
Shame burns Aubrey’s cheeks.
“As for Basil. He talked to me about as much as you did after everything… but you know what your problem is, Aubrey? You just assume the worst of everyone. He didn’t even do anything—”
“No,” Aubrey protests. This is something that she knows she has to be right about. “He really is sick in the head.”
Kel looks disgruntled. “What did he even do to you for you to think that?”
“He scribbled out all the pictures in the photo album with black marker!” she bursts out. “Even Mari’s face. She’d just died and he goes and pulls something like that? He definitely couldn’t have cared about her, because if he did, he wouldn’t have done something like that!”
“And have you considered,” he says, tone dripping with disappointment, “that that was his own method of coping with her loss?”
She stares at him. “That— that doesn’t even make sense.”
“Doesn’t it? People do things they don’t mean all the time when they’re upset. Did you even hear him out?”
Aubrey’s gaze drops to the floor. She feels like a scolded child.
“And now the last person on your list… me.” Kel glances away, inhaling through his teeth. “When… When Hero was in his depression after Mari died, I didn’t know what to do. So I kept smiling through my own pain, because everyone else had it so much worse… so the best thing I could do was show them that I was fine so they wouldn’t worry about me and they could focus on healing their own pain. I wanted to prove to everyone that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Clearly, though, it did more harm than good…”
Only one word runs through Aubrey’s mind. “…oh.”
“Besides, you can hardly fault me for making new friends when you did, too,” he points out.
Aubrey flinches.
“So it’s not really fair for you to say you were the only one hurting when we all were— just in different ways.”
“I get it,” she mumbles, looking away from him. She considers asking him to leave her alone again, but at this point, she’s pretty sure if she does, he’ll just get more upset at her.
They swing in silence for a few minutes, the creaking of the chains the only noise in the desolate park. The breeze blows against Aubrey’s bare arms, sending goosebumps rippling across the exposed skin. She shivers involuntarily.
“Why didn’t you bring a jacket?” Kel asks out of nowhere.
Aubrey doesn’t look at him. “None of your business.”
He promptly ignores her. “You’re literally out here in the middle of the night with a tank top and pajama pants and you didn’t bring a jacket. Why?”
“Well maybe I couldn’t,” she mumbles sourly, rubbing her arms to put some heat back into them. “And we haven’t talked for more than three years— stop acting like you’re my dad.”
“I’m not—” He sighs. “You’re making it really hard to want to help you, Aubrey. You know that?”
“Then don’t fucking help me,” she retorts. “I don’t need your stupid charity. We’re not friends.”
“For what it’s worth, I never stopped considering you my friend,” he tells her. Then she hears the rustling of fabric— she resists the temptation to look at what he’s doing, instead keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the ground.
She finally looks over when she feels warm cloth being pressed against her bicep. Kel is staring intently at her, his varsity basketball jacket held out to her.
“What is this,” she says flatly.
“Take the jacket, Aubs— you need it more than I do.”
“I don’t fucking want your pity. And don’t call me that.”
“It’s not pity!” he exclaims. “It’s me looking out for a friend. So take the jacket.”
Aubrey takes the jacket and, maintaining steady eye contact, promptly drops it in the sand.
Kel yelps, leaping off the swingset to retrieve it. He brushes sand off it, then turns to glare at her. “What the heck?”
“I told you, I don’t want your jacket!” she snaps.
“You are acting more immature than the literal baby I live with,” Kel says.
Bristling, Aubrey says, “Hey—”
“Ugh. You’re not going to listen to reason, are you?” Kel pinches the bridge of his nose, then sighs. “Fine. The hard way it is.”
Cold foreboding trickles down Aubrey’s spine. “What do you mean ‘the hard way’—”
“Your gang. The Hooligans, right? Mikhael, Angel, Kim, Vance, and Charlie?”
“Yeah—”
“I wonder what they would say if they knew just how much you love the Sweetheart franchise. You, the toughest girl on this side of town, obsessed with that frilly prissy princess?” His grin is devious.
Aubrey scoffs, though it’s a little hesitant. “I don’t think they’d care that much—”
“Oh, and remember that story you wrote in sixth grade? ‘“Oh, Sweetheart,” Spaceboy said, “You are truly the light of my’— mmph—”
“Ew!” Aubrey pulls her hand away from Kel’s mouth. “Did you just lick me?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kel replies, innocently staring off to the side. If this were a cartoon, she swears an angel’s halo would have manifested above his messy hair.
She wipes her hand on her pants. “Whatever. How the hell do you even remember that stuff?”
“I remember a lot of things about you,” Kel says seriously, so seriously that for a moment Aubrey’s breath catches and she realizes just how close they are to one another—
Then he laughs. “Including that Spaceboy x Sweetheart fanfiction you wrote in the back of your history notebook in sixth grade. I wonder what Kim would say if she knew about that—”
Oh, Kim would tease her about it for the rest of her life. “Fine,” she grumbles. “Give me your stupid jacket.”
Kel hands it over with the biggest shit-eating grin Aubrey has ever had the misfortune of seeing.
As she’s engulfed by the heavy fabric, she resents how warm and how comfortable it is— and how quickly her shivers subside. But she’s not going to give that stupid jerk the pleasure of being told he was right. “Guess this is mine now,” she says instead.
He pales. “What? No! That’s my best jacket! You better give it back.”
“Nope. You blackmailed me into taking it, you’re definitely not getting it back.”
Kel stares her down. Aubrey stares back at him. Finally, he sighs. “We’ll… talk about that later.”
“Why’d you even come out here?” she mumbles, pressing her feet into the ground to stop her swing from moving. “Was it just to yell at me? How’d you even know I was here?”
“I didn’t,” Kel says. “I needed a break from home and went on a walk. Ended up here, where you just so happened to be.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What could ‘amazing home life Kel’ need a break from home for?”
He just looks… tired. “I thought we already talked about your tendency to make assumptions, Aubs.”
“I said don’t call me that,” she says for what must be the thousandth time. “And what do you mean? Your parents were always the best out of all of ours.”
“We… fought about my final grades,” he mutters, glancing away.
She considers poking fun at him— Aubrey of ten minutes ago absolutely would have said something along the lines of ‘I always knew you’d get low grades’— but something tells her to swallow her instinctive insult down.
Kel doesn’t say anything else. Aubrey turns to look at him. He looks more lost and unsure than he has this whole evening.
Clearing her throat, she says roughly, “…Do you want to talk about it?”
He looks at her— then his forlorn expression melts into a dopey smile. “Aw, you do care!”
Cheeks burning, Aubrey glances away. “Sh-Shut up.”
“Maybe I’ll take you up on your offer to listen,” Kel says. “Well… I got pretty average grades, honestly. All A’s and B’s. I don’t know why they’re so upset at me. It’s just… sometimes it feels like they love Hero and Sally more than me, and it’s things like this that cause them to like me less. That’s kind of it.”
Aubrey blinks at him. “I… um. That really sucks, Kel. Also who’s Sally?”
“My baby sister! She’s one year old and very adorable,” he tells her proudly.
“Oh. I didn’t know you had a baby sister…”
“Yep! I’m pretty sure I mentioned it earlier.”
She doesn’t remember that at all.
“So they were just… upset, I guess, that my grades aren’t all A’s like Hero’s were. I have to keep my grades up to stay on the basketball team, but it’s not like I want to go into medicine like he did. I want to become a professional basketball player, and grades matter less than skills on the court. But they don’t think that’s a valid career choice, so… we just kind of go in circles.”
“That’s stupid,” Aubrey says. “Your parents really need to support you better.”
Kel just shrugs. “None of my friends know Hero, so they don’t really get what my problem is, growing up in the shadow of someone like him? I dunno…”
Aubrey considers telling Kel that he can talk to her if he needs to— but she thinks for too long. He’s already changing the subject. “Why’d you really come out here with an attitude and no jacket?”
“You think you’re so funny, don’t you.”
“Hilarious,” Kel deadpans.
A beat, and then they both burst into laughter. It feels strangely cathartic.
When their giggles peter out into silence, Kel raises his eyebrow at her. Aubrey sighs. “I just… can’t be at home right now.”
“Why not?”
“It’s— well— it’s none of your business!”
“On the contrary,” Kel says, one finger in the air; Aubrey suddenly has a very vivid image of him with big round glasses and buckteeth and a snooty expression. “We’re friends, aren’t we? That’s what friends do. Nose into their friends’ business to help them.”
“You’re on this ‘friends’ thing again?” she grumbles, more for the sake of her pride than any real insistence that she and Kel aren’t friends.
“You can’t say we’re not,” Kel tells her with a smug grin. “You’re the one who asked if I wanted to talk about my problems earlier.”
“Whatever.”
“So why can’t you be at home right now?”
She huffs. “Can’t you just leave it alone?”
“Nope. Tell me, Aubs.”
“Don’t call me that.” A beat, in which she stares at his earnest, open expression, then sighs. “Fine. Mom’s drunk again. That’s it.”
He watches her for a long, silent moment. She shifts uncomfortably. The swings creak in the still air.
Finally, Kel speaks. His voice is low, filled with some kind of intensity that sends shivers up her spine. “…Does she hurt you?”
“Like, does she hit me? No,” Aubrey reassures him. “She isn’t usually sober enough to remember I exist, anyway.” She neglects to mention that she has no idea what would have happened had she not escaped her house when she did. There’s a reason she usually crashes with Kim when her mom gets like that, after all.
“Still, that’s… not okay,” he says lamely.
Aubrey laughs; the sound is bitter and jaded. “You think I don’t know that? The only reason I’m staying in the park and not sleeping over at Kim’s house is because she’s not home. I’m literally counting down the days until I can escape this shitty town.”
“Wait. You’re going to sleep here? In the park?”
Shit. She hadn’t meant to let that slip. “So what?” she says defensively.
He stands up, extending a hand to her. “You’re coming home with me.”
“What? No! Are you crazy?”
“You need a place to stay, Aubrey,” he argues, and Aubrey really really hates that she has no argument against that. He’s not wrong, after all. “I’m offering you a place to stay. Just swallow your pride and take it!”
“But— your parents,” she protests feebly. “You haven’t even asked them—”
Kel stares her intently in the eyes. “Aubrey. They’ll be fine with it. I just need to explain your situation and they’ll be cool.”
Aubrey opens her mouth to protest… but… sleeping on Kel’s couch sounds a lot more comfortable than sleeping on a hard plastic park bench. “Fine,” she mumbles.
“What’s that? Couldn’t hear you.”
“I said ‘fine.’”
He’s grinning. “Still can’t hear you. Speak up, Aubs.”
“I SAID ‘FINE,’ IDIOT.”
“Well, why didn’t you just say so?”
Aubrey so desperately wants to punch that smug smirk off his face. She stuffs her clenched fists in her jacket pockets— in his jacket pockets— instead. “Shut up.”
“Okay, okay. You’re so fun to tease, heh.” He starts to walk in the direction of the park entrance, Aubrey trailing behind— but not before giving him a sharp elbow to his side.
She’s quiet as Kel leads her all the way to his house, as he hands her quilts from the closet under the stairs that she can wrap herself in as she sleeps on his sofa. She’s quiet right up until he bids her good night and turns around to go upstairs to his room.
“Wait, Kel,” she says.
“Yeah?”
She shrugs off his jacket and holds it out to him. “Um. Thank you.”
His expression softens. “It’s nothing… and you can keep the jacket if you want. I kind of outgrew it anyway. It’s from the beginning of sophomore year.”
“Oh. Thanks,” she says.
He smiles at her, then turns and leaves the room.
It doesn’t take Aubrey long to sleep that night, wrapped in Kel’s jacket and the blankets he lent her and the warmth of a house that isn’t broken.