Chapter 10: The Aberdeens

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KATIE ABERDEEN'S POV:

We retreated back to Farrah's house. Sophie ventured off to her room upon arrival to work on her homework. Or so she claimed. I too was once a teenage girl and I always claimed to be doing my homework when really I was on the phone with Ali or on My space updating my profile with a new song. Levi went out in the backyard and started building the fire in the fire pit. Inside the house I sat on the kitchen counter as Ali cleaned the scratches on my face and got an ice pack for the bruise forming on my left cheek from Brianna's lame left hook.

"Thanks for defending my honor Katie." Ali chuckles as she holds the ice pack up for me to grab it.

"Any time. Brianna sucks anyways. Her and Daria, bitches both of them." I mumble as I hold the ice pack to my cheek.

"That's more than what I can say for Levi. I'm pissed at him! He just sat by and did nothing." Ali goes over to the kitchen sink beside me and starts washing her hands.

"I noticed that. Must've been great sex." I shrug. Ali giggles at this. "What a young thing like her? Come on. Very different than what we get at this age."

"You act like we're elderly. We're young and spry." Ali disagrees.

"What young person uses the word spry?" I scrunch my nose up in distaste for her vernacular.

"Let's get coats on and go join the traitor at the fire pit." Ali pats my knee and breezes past me around the corner to the living room. I follow her to the coat hanger by the door where we zip our coats up and go out to the back of the house where Levi has set up three camping chairs around the blazing fire.

"Well this is cultish of us." I chuckle taking a seat next to Levi.

"I'm pissed at you." Ali blinks, after taking a seat next to me. She's looking directly at Levi.

"Oh what now?" He sighs and folds his arms.

"Your booty call tried to maim me and you said nothing!" She scoffs. 

"I didn't want to make things worse." He argues.

"What did I tell you Al, good sex will keep a man whipped." I say looking into the fire.

"Katie!" Levi yells at me.

"Is she wrong?! I'm your friend Levi." Ali huffs.

"I know. I was a coward. I'm sorry Allison." He admits finally.

"Good now let's move on." I clap my hands determine to end this fight between them. I'm not stupid and I'm certainly not blind. Allison has a thing for Levi and as the whole town knows Allison is the one that got away for Levi. I care about both of them so I'm willing to fall on the sword of playing peace keeper.

"So what are you gonna do about her?" Ali asks Levi putting her hands in the pockets of her coat.

"Probably fire her." Levi looks up at the stars above while Ali and I's jaws drop. He looks back down at us after a beat. "I'm joking. But I am gonna stop seeing her obviously."

"I had more respect for you there for a moment." I sigh.

"So are we just gonna not talk about the fact that my niece is missing two classmates because they got murdered at a party she was at. At a party we were all accidentally at?!" Ali blurts out.

"Yeah Katie I'll be walking you to your car every late shift you have from now on." Levi turns to me.

"Fair. I appreciate it." I nod. "Ali how are you feeling about things?"

"Eh I mean people get murdered all the time back in Seattle. I once was sitting on the fire escape outside my apartment window I watched a homeless guy shit on my roommate's car and then rob a convenience store." Ali explains.

"Yeah that's why I don't go to that side of the state often." Levi exhales.

"I need a fucking drink." I sigh and look up at the sky.

"Let's go raid the alcohol cupboard. Come on." Ali stands up and gestures for us to follow her. We all head back through the sliding glass door in the dining room and into the kitchen. Ali gets on her tip toes and starts digging through the back of the freezer. She pulls out a bottle of vodka. I do a double take. Levi grabs the bottle.

"This is frozen. Vodka doesn't freeze. Somebody watered it down." Levi concludes.

"Oh Sophie come on that's a rookie mistake." I chuckle. Allison's face turns beat red. She's pissed. She grabs the frozen bottle from Levi and marches down the hallway. Levi puts a hand on my forearm.

"We should go." He nods. I follow him out the front door. He drops me off at my car in the parking lot of Dawson's. I get in my car and drive back home. When I get in the front room my dad is sitting in his recliner watching baseball. Mom is sitting on the floral sofa crocheting with my grandma on her right doing the same.

"Hi guys." I wave.

"Oh Kathryn, come look at these! Your mom is getting real good at crocheting!" Grandma waves me over. I look at the collection of small hats they've made. Grandma has always crocheted hats for the preemie babies at the local hospital. She recently turned my mom onto the activity too. I pick through the collection, admiring a cerulean one.

"Did you guys go to the town hall?" I swallow recalling my ill behavior. Specifically fighting Brianna.

"Oh you know we avoid em like the plague, Katie." My dad shrugs turning up the volume on the tv.

"Yeah it's just Lesli and Margie causing a stir usually." Grandma shrugs.

"Those are your friends." I give her a look.

"And I play bridge against them every Tuesday. And I win." Grandma asserts.

"Right. Well. I suppose I'm off to bed." I shrug and hitch my purse higher on my shoulder.

"Amanda and Izzy are sleeping so quiet on the stairs please," Mom warns. My parents had me at the young age of  sixteen. They got married when they finished high school and started college. Dad became a mechanic and Mom became a paralegal. They decided to expand the family when they turned 31. Amanda is the second born, she's seventeen in the middle of high school and Izzy is the third and final. He's 14 and just started high school. He's on the same grace as Sophie Monroe but I don't think they're friends as far as I know. Mom always lived with grandma in her house, Dad moved in after they got married. They just never left. Grandma had a big house and grandpa died when I was two, so she would've been lonely anyways. I myself had moved out and back in a couple of times. I first moved out after high school and shared an apartment with my friend Fallon. Fallon got a job in Portland though and moved away and I couldn't afford the rent on my own so I moved back in the house. I moved in with my ex boyfriend Sage for a few years but when we split I moved back in the house once more. Levi offered to rent me the space above the saloon but then he and Rebecca divorced and they sold the house so he had to move in the space while Rebecca moved back to Texas. I'm happy in my grandma's home though. It's nice not being alone so I wouldn't trade it for the world.

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