Trace

I push the Lambo, weaving in and out of interstate traffic. Once I'm north of the perimeter, traffic thins to almost nothing across the six lanes, and I put the hammer down—no where near as fast as the car can go, not anywhere as fast as I have driven my own cars—but fast enough to get Kat's attention. At this speed, all my attention is focused on the road, but beside me I hear Kat's breath—excited gasps, not fear. I love entertaining this girl. She was always up for being a little bad with me.

We're taking the off ramp to the old neighborhood in minutes, and I slow to a safe speed. I honestly wasn't that worried about getting pulled over—showing off a little was worth the risk—but I'm glad I didn't, because it would have been a hassle.

"Your shit is ridiculous," Kat confirms, but her eyes are excited—like the old Kat I used to know. I smile to see her visibly relax against the seat, and cross her legs. "You drive like that in LA?"

"LA is gridlocked," I groan. "The only place to drive like that is a track. When I have time, there's one where I can get a few laps on short notice."

"So you own one of these?" Kat runs a graceful hand over the dash.

"Not a Lambo, no. I own a couple nice cars, though."

She cocks her head, and squints at me, "A Porsche? And maybe one of those tricked out street cars, like in the Fast and Furious movies?"

I laugh, "You know me well. Yeah, a 911, and Nissan GT-R. I don't know if that exact Nissan was in one of those movies," I frown, trying to remember, "but you've got the right idea."

She smiles. "So you're living the dream, then?"

I look at over her and drink her in. "Still workin' on building the dream." She smiles. "But yeah, life is good. I bought a house. In Calabasas."

"Is that near LA?"

"It's Los Angeles County, but west of LA. It's quiet. In the hills, you know." We're stopped at a light. I quickly pull up a photo on my phone and pass it over. "That's the view from my backyard." She stares at the sunset photo of the valley that drops behind my pool and the rolling Santa Monica Mountains beyond.

"Oh, wow, that's really beautiful," she says. Kat loves the outdoors, always has. It's probably why we got so tight as kids. Her sister was inside practicing piano, and Kat was running around outside like a hellion, falling out of trees and skinning her knees. I'd love to bring her out west to visit and take her hiking in the canyons, and even out to the desert. It's a totally different landscape than the Southeast. More desolate, but beautiful.

"You haven't been out west, have you?" I try to think back to her family vacations.

"Not West Coast, no. We went to Yosemite, one time. And skiing in Colorado a couple of times."

"You'd love the West Coast," I assure her. "The desert, the canyons, it's all beautiful. And LA—it's fun, too. The clubs, the parties."

Her face is losing some of its sparkle now. "I'm not sure the clubs are my scene."

I look her over from head to toe. I'm not sure what she means. I can't believe she thinks she wouldn't fit in the scene.  But maybe she means she's not interested in LA. She seems a little different than she used to. At fifteen, when Kat was really starting to blossom, she was very, very aware of her power and she flaunted herself almost recklessly. Now, she seems both more grounded, but also more unsure.  I can't tell if it's a lack of confidence, just a little more reserve that's come with age, or maybe she's just feeling insecure about my celebrity bullshit, but there's something slightly wounded and doubting behind her eyes, and I'm dying a little each time I glimpse it.

I take her hand. "It's not my scene, either. It was at first, but it gets old quick. Still, it's fun to cut loose once in awhile. We're young, Kat, and we only live once, you know."

She smiles again, but not the genuine grin I know so well. This smile is mild and agreeable and fake. I recognize it at once as  the kind of smile I give Ashlynn when I don't believe with what ever she's saying but I don't care enough to call her out and start a fight. I wonder what it was I said that Kat doesn't believe. Does she think I party at a different club every night or does she not feel young anymore?

" I'd really like to see those hills behind your house." She peers down at the picture on my phone again.

I nod, and squeeze her hand, but I don't say more.

I hope one day, I'll be able to welcome Kat into my home, but right now, there's the tour. I won't set foot on my property for more than half a year. Not to mention that Ashlynn technically resides there, although she hasn't spent more than a night or two there in six months. I push thoughts of Ashlynn away. We're not talking about her today. And now that she has her money, I won't hear from her for a couple of months at least. There's time for me to figure out how to explain to Kat.

Kat is still holding my phone. I see her finger hesitate near the screen. "You can scroll through," I assure her.

Kat peruses more photos, nothing special. Mostly of the guys and I hanging out. Mostly at my house, since I added a studio. There are no pictures of Ashlynn on this phone. We don't do pictures.

Even though there are no pictures of Ash, I have the memories of the four months when Ashlynn took care of herself, and those rooms that Kat is seeing in the photos are filled with Ashlynn  in content times.   I don't want to think about Ashlynn right now,  but it's impossible not to. In that house, we basically acted like a married couple, without any romantic stuff, of course. I won't lie, it got confusing, right before I went to Portland. There were a few moments that felt like something was starting to happen, beyond me helping her get healthy.

By then, we had lived together almost a year--on and off. She'd been to several treatment programs during the first six months after we got back from Vegas. Finally, we found the one in Denver. They specialized in addictions for people who needed pain management, too.  When she got home from that one...she was better, really better, for the first time. 

We settled into a routine to keep her better. Soundcrush was on hiatus, so I devoted all my time to keeping Ashlynn on track. We drank coffee together on the deck in the mornings. We went hiking together. I would drive her to her therapy and doctor's appointments. We ate meals together, watched movies together. 

Sometimes we even made music together. Ashlynn is a highly proficient pianist. Sometimes we'd go down to the studio in my basement and practice a song together, but it was never a cut loose kind of thing. She would always play something slow, and slightly sad, and I would quietly strum along. Sometimes, from the songs she would choose, I wondered if she was thinking of her ex-boyfriend. When she seemed sad, I'd switch my acoustic for the Schecter and start something crazy...like a punk song.  Ash would to pound along on the keys along to my hard driving chords for awhile but usually she'd give up and start cursing.  She likes classical precision much more than dirty playing. That was pretty funny—hearing Ashlynn swear like a sailor, mostly because it reminded me of Kat.

I guess I was stupid to think that we wouldn't start to look at each other differently living together, and legally bound to one another. Once Ashlynn started taking better care of herself, she started feeling...grateful, I guess. And it's her nature to take care of people. She started trying to take care of me. Little stuff...like bringing me coffee when she made hers or making me laugh with a funny meme she saw. Then it was making dinner and being social, instead of gliding around the house like a wraith. One day I came home from an errand and found Leed and Mac sitting at the kitchen table laughing with Ashlynn, and I realized what she was doing—she was trying to make my friends feel comfortable around her, so my home would be a comfortable place for me again. She started to seem like her old self in some ways, but in others she wasn't at all like the old Ash. She was trying to feel happy and good and stay healthy in the moment. She wasn't worried about the future and her plans and goals and day-planner. She was vulnerable and open. And worst of all, without all the makeup and the anxious face she used to wear— she looked so goddamn much like Kat.

About a week before Portland, we fell asleep on the couch watching movies one night. When I woke up the next morning, I had Ashlynn folded in my arms, and even though I knew it was her and not Kat, I pulled her closer and I tried to stay in that half-dream state, so that I could pretend, for just a few minutes, that it was Kat in my arms. After a while, I could tell from Ashlynn's breathing that she was sort of awake, too, but she didn't make a move to pull away. We just stayed like that, until the guilt started to eat at me, and I eased her away and stumbled to the kitchen. We made breakfast together wordlessly that morning, but something had changed between us. The lines were too blurry to see where we were crossing them.

I didn't take her to Portland when the band went to write for the new album for one reason only: because of Kat. Things were getting confusing and I needed some space. When I was there, I got perspective again. The feelings I was having weren't about Ashlynn...they were some kind of fantasy that she was Kat. But she wasn't. I have never felt the kind attraction for Ashlynn that I have always felt for Kat, and I'm not talking about sex stuff. Kat and I have so much fun together. It doesn't matter what we do. Just being with her makes me feel alive and happy. I crave her presence. I always did, even when we were kids. I love being with Kat for who she is, not just the way she looks.

I decided no matter what, I wouldn't let myself go anywhere near the line again with Ashlynn. I want a future with Kat, not Ashlynn.

Even though I was in Portland, Ash and I talked on the phone every day. She was doing fine, back in LA, with Riley and Tamara for company. Until the night of our anniversary. She jokingly wished me a happy anniversary, and probably in the worst ever foot-in-mouth I alluded to our pre-nup.

Our marriage was never an open-ended arrangement. I had at least had the foresight not to tie myself to an addict without a plan. There's an annulment clause I can execute at any time. There's also two settlement arrangements for her. One is a modest settlement that's more like an escape clause for me, so I wouldn't feel guilty about her situation if I needed to get out of arrangement for whatever reason. In order to get that settlement, Ashlynn has already contractually agreed to cosign the annulment paperwork, certifying that our marriage had never been consummated—that it was essentially a false marriage in name only. That settlement would be enough starter money for a stable person to do whatever they wanted in life. It would be enough to send Ashlynn through the rest of college and med school for sure and let her live comfortably for that time, but probably not enough for her to live in her high end addict lifestyle for more than a couple of years. The other settlement option is more like what a real wife of a celebrity would expect in a divorce proceeding. It would make Ashlynn an independently wealthy woman, but she had to be clean for a year to earn it.

That night Ashlynn wished me a happy anniversary, I didn't know how to respond. I sort of...deflected. I told her I was looking forward to wishing her a happy anniversary on her year of sobriety. I only meant, I was proud of her, and I was happy that we had made this arrangement because she was getting better. She took it like I couldn't wait to get rid of her. For the first time since she had gotten consistently clean, we had angry words. Then she started crying and hung up on me.

That's when I realized...Ashlynn was even more confused about our arrangement than I was. In my wildest dreams, I never imagined the possibility that Ashlynn might start to have feelings for me.

Of course, the primary goal in my plan was to help Ashlynn, but in the back of my mind, I had this crazy image that one day, I would bring Ashlynn home to Atlanta, healthy and clean and smiling, with the annulment papers in hand, and we would tell Kat and her parents everything. I imagined that Kat and her parents wouldn't even care about the unorthodox way I had gotten Ashlynn clean, or that I had kept her whereabouts secret—they would only care that I had brought their daughter back healthy and whole. Then, Kat's parents wouldn't see me as the reckless bad kid that had corrupted Kat and gotten Ashlynn damaged in the process, but as a responsible adult that helped Ashlynn when even they couldn't.

But how could I bring Ashlynn home if she couldn't look Kat in the eye and swear that I was nothing more than a sobriety companion to her? My plan was coming apart and I was so knocked off balance by Ashlynn's reaction on our anniversary, I made a worse mistake than getting fake married in the first place.

I shut her out. I communicated with her through Riley. Essentially, I abandoned my "wife." After our argument, I should have gone home for the weekend, sat Ashlynn down, apologized, and had a serious talk with her about the state of our "marriage." Maybe I could have put our blossoming friendship on the right track. Maybe she'd still be clean right now. But I didn't. I declined her calls, ignored her texts,  wrote a lot of songs and had a lot of casual sex in Portland. I was the worst--part punk and mostly asshole.

About ten days after our fight, Riley reported that Ash wouldn't go to her therapy sessions and that he suspected she was using again. A few days after that, she split. Since then, it's been nothing but her showing up and begging for money. Until this time. She wasn't begging this time. She was extorting—threatening to tell Kat if I didn't give in.

Christ, I can't go on like this. Maybe it's time to stop this insanity. Even Ashlynn's modest settlement is way more than the thirty grand I just forked over. The next time she comes around, maybe I should just have the annulment papers ready and offer her the escape clause instead of an "allowance."

That's the thing, though. I have an out that I haven't been able to bring myself to take. I haven't sought the annulment yet because part of me thinks... I owe her more than money. It's why I married her in the first damn place. I feel responsible.

She came to me when she ran away from home. She was already smoking weed and taking whatever pain pills she could get her hands on.  At first, I put her up in a hotel suite, but I let her hang around with me, because I didn't know what else to do. When she started to use harder drugs, I tried to put a stop to it. I sent her home. She came back. I let her hang around again, but I let her stay at my house, so I could keep a better eye on her. After her drug use started to amp up and I couldn't take her places without worrying she would go home with someone who promised her a better party, I got her sort of cleaned up again and sent her home a second time. The third time she came back, she had made some other contacts in LA and she didn't rely only on me for club access. But still, it was my lifestyle that had introduced her to those people and gave her access to the kind of hard drugs she's hooked on now. Ashlynn's accident, Ashlynn's current state...all of it is my fault.

That night I proposed, that's all I was thinking. Ashlynn's fucked up and it's my fault and I owe her.

That night we ended up in Vegas, we weren't even hanging out together. I ran into her in a club. She was with a scummy LA promoter I had introduced her to. He had her coked up and he was treating her like shit—talking down to her and putting his hands all over her at the same time. I followed her to the ladies room, paid the attendant to kick the other girls out, and begged her to leave with me. I'd had way too many drinks myself, and when I couldn't convince her to go to rehab...somehow I convinced her to go to Vegas with me.

It all happened so fast after that. We were in a diner, sobering up. I had the lawyers on the phone. We drove through the desert as the sun came up. As soon as we hit Vegas, I went straight to a club that was closing down and found Ash some vicadin because she was hurting so bad, and I knew she couldn't go cold turkey. We got a suite, and she slept all day. When she woke up, I had room service and more pills on the table. When her headache was tamped down enough for her to think somewhat straight, I asked her if she remembered how we got here. She said yes, but she didn't think I was really serious about getting married in Vegas.

I put the pre-nup on the table in front of her and laid a pen and a two carat diamond ring on top of it. I told her plainly I wanted  her to live with me platonically, and I wanted to be her sobriety companion. She pointed out that we didn't have to get married to do that. I told her we should anyway—because I wanted her to vow to get clean and I wanted to vow to help her. I told her our marriage was a commitment on both of our parts to fix her life. I also pointed out the marriage was to keep her parents from being able to get her declared unfit, and to give her the time and space to get clean on her terms. Even if somehow they found out where she was, if we were married, I would be her next of kin, not them. After I explained about the annulment clause and the settlements, she sat there, just staring out the window. Finally, she started crying. She said she knew she needed help or she was going to end up dead. She put the ring on and signed her name in all the right places.

I kissed her, after we were pronounced husband and wife. Chastely. It was hardly less awkward than the first time I kissed her in a closet at fourteen, but I did kiss her. It seemed like the decent thing to do—how could I not in front of the officiant and witnesses? And she kissed me back, too. And I think about that sometimes, and I wonder if Ashlynn, even from the very start, in her very vulnerable state, thought maybe things might...grow between us.

Maybe they would have, if it weren't for the way I feel about Kat. Ashlynn and I had never liked each other at all during high school but we were both very different people by the time we said those vows. Ashlynn is sick and she is an addict, but at heart she's a good girl. Over time, I've grown to care about her. And I'd be lying if I said I don't like the look of her. Hell, she looks just like her sister, with blonde hair--or at least she does when she's not too skinny like she is now. Maybe if it weren't for Kat, Ashlynn and I could have made a go of things. And, if I had actually been a good husband to her—attentive and affectionate and all that shit--maybe feelings would have followed. I have no doubt Ashlynn would have tried harder to stay healthy for the idea of us more than she tried for herself. 

But then I look over at Kat in the seat beside me, and I'm not sorry that I couldn't do better by Ashlynn. I just can't give Kat up, not even to help the broken girl that I was responsible for breaking.

Kat  has found a picture on my phone she doesn't like. She is frowning at a picture of a famous Victoria Secret model, posing with Mac in my kitchen. I smile, reading her like a book. She's wondering if I've slept with that girl. It's kind of funny, that she's worried about that, when I'm worried about annulling my fake marriage to her sister. I find myself