Being Neighborly

Chapter 33

"Leila, who the hell is KC and why did Katy bringing them up make you upset?" Tristan asks, for the millionth time since we started driving.

I sit frozen in the seat, still unsure of how Katy even knows about KC. I know I can talk to Tristan about this, I already have with Nicole and Nate, but the confusion leaves me speechless.

The rest of the car ride home consists of Tristan trying to get me to explain while I sort through any explanation for how I have ended up here. Here as in trying to find a way to re-hash my past while sitting in a car with the person who refuses to tell me why he has mysterious meetings with my uncle.

Tristan completely passes my house and parks in his driveway. "I am not letting you go home until you tell me."

"You already took me away from studying with Nicole and Nate tonight. Tristan, I seriously need to start prepping for my midterms," I whine.

"Fine, you can study with me," he says while getting out of the car with his backpack and mine. I follow him into his house and upstairs to his room. I sit on his bed and he sits at his desk. Choosing to actually take my education a little seriously, I grab my backpack that he had tossed next to me and pull out a study guide that was handed out for my english literature class.

Tristan, on the other hand, has spun his chair around and is staring at me with an intensity that I know will distract me from any studying I had even thought of starting.

"Are you just going to stare at me all night until I tell you?" I ask, pretending to underline a random section of the study guide in my lap.

"I just don't understand why this is so difficult to talk to me about when you have told so so many other things. And after I opened up to you too..."

"I'm glad you did open up to me, and I have no regrets with anything that I have told you. I actually have been meaning to tell you what's been going on with the creepy emails I've been getting; I thought you might have a better solution than trying to block every suspicious address like Nicole suggested."

"What emails?" Tristan stands up, visibly a bit angry.

"I'm getting to that, will you chill out for a second while I try and organize my thoughts?" Tristan takes two steps towards me, closing the space between us, and kneels down in front of my on the floor. His eyes are focused and he's silent. He's waiting.

I take a deep breathe and retell him the story I had previously told Nicole and Nate. About Carter. The party. The assault. The fight. The crash. And then the emails. "But since Nate helped me out, I haven't gotten anything from Carter. So that's basically taken care of."

"TAKEN CARE OF? LEILA ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Tristan flies into a mini rage as he shoots up from his place on the floor, where he had been patiently sitting and listening. Guess he was bottling up all of this until I finished. "Leila, you were raped! And no one did anything! That guy, or guys, or whoever is still out there! And Carter? That asshole wrecked your car because he was mad at you? For telling him what happened? Are you joking!"

I let him yell some more and throw his hands in the air and demand for Carters address. I let him do all of this and I don't stop him. It's disgusting what happened. It's emotional. I get it. I lived through it. But that's not even what's bothering me at the moment. And Tristan realizes that too.

"Wait, so how does KC play into all of this?" he finally calms down and sits next to me on the bed.

"KC is Carter," I finally say out loud. "Kaleb Carter Hayes. That's his full name, but he always went by just Carter. There were actually only a few people, including myself, that even knew his name was KC."

"So how did Katy know?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."