EPIC (Book 1 of the Soundcrush series)

Chapter 40: Rock Stars Are Nowhere When The Cops Show Up

This chapter is dedicated to @jumprope because she leaves nice comments, she calls me "Hun", and she really wants Kat to be happy. @jumprope, I think  Kat has made it through her darkest night, and this is her turning point. In a room full of people all wanting her to act one way or another, she's true to her feelings. She  doesn't know exactly what she wants yet, but she's done trying to please other people!

Kat

Ben ushers Colin out under protest, but I'm glad when they are both gone. As soon as I see myself in the bathroom mirror, I lose it again.

I don't even know why I'm crying. Is it because Trace is married to Ashlynn? Or is it because he lied to me for days about it? Or is it because my sister—who should love me and be more loyal to me than anyone else—married the boy that she knows I love, have always loved? Or am I crying because I'm an idiot, and I ignored all the signs, and all my instincts that told me something wasn't right, in the way Trace spoke so casually, so intimately about Ashlynn?

Suddenly I'm on my knees because I can't even trust that Trace didn't lie when he told me he'd never slept with her. Who marries someone they aren't sleeping with? I don't know what to believe about that part, because both Trace and Ashlynn are liars.

I don't know how long I sob on the bathroom floor, but finally I hear my mother's voice calling me, and I hear the bathroom lock jiggling.

"Katheryn, are all right?" Katheryn, honey, let me in. Katheryn."

"I'm fine, mom. Just getting dressed."

"Unlock the door, honey."

Somehow I splash water on my face and pull on my jeans. I don't look at myself in the mirror again. I can't. I don't even recognize the girl I see there. She's not the Ashlynn clone, she's not the old tomboy hellion—she's a stranger that doesn't even know herself.

I open the door and meet my mother's gaze. We look alike...warm skin, dark eyes and hair—Greek ancestry. Ashlynn has the same features as us, but the lighter skin and hair like my dad. My mom takes one look at how shattered I am, and she embraces me, pushing me back into the bathroom and closing the door as she hugs me fiercely. After a long moment, she pulls apart.

"Katheryn, you tell me now before we go out there in front of Trace's people...did he hurt you, or...give you drugs to make you..." she hesitates, her Southern sensibilities curbing her words...

"Have sex? No. God, why does everyone think he's a creep like that?" I put my hands to my face, furious at myself for still being loyal to him, when he's clearly not loyal to me. "No, Mom. I'm here willingly. Everything I did with Trace—coming here, clubbing, drinking, sleeping in a bed with him— I did willingly. And by the way...I'm still a virgin," I hiss at her.

Her eyes widen a little at that. She assumed Colin and I had been sleeping together for awhile, but like a good conservative southern mother, who approved of my sweet conservative, southern boyfriend, she never asked.

"Colin said he thought you were...taking drugs last night..."

"I did, but Trace didn't give them to me or want me to take them. I'm just the inexperienced idiot that didn't understand that the drinks somebody else bought for the table were laced." God, how did I not see that? Didn't they make us watch all those stupid video in high school about drugs, and how one of the side effects of MDMA was jaw tension and how pacifiers were basically Molly paraphenalia—used to prevent teeth grinding?

"Let's just...go get this over with, with dad," I say, pushing past her. Michael Ballard, CEO, would be the one in charge, and the one I had to negotiate this situation with.