Part Two: Chapter Nine

As time went on, Kaylin's life took a drastic shift. The plant had closed, and her father had been asked to stay on to 'close up shop.' In a move praised by every person in the community, Aaron declined the offer and chose instead to leave with his coworkers. The community banded together when things like repo men started to descend upon them to collect cars and families left the area in droves, leaving quite a few of the homes vacant and subject to vandalism.

Kaylin and Nick returned to school, and Kaylin was introduced to the teenage nightlife of Riversedge. There were parties after football games, all night 'keggers' at the homes of kids whose parents were away, and even throngs of teenagers crowded into the abandoned warehouse for dancing and booze. Alicia was thrilled that Kaylin had abandoned her days of being leary to go out and made her shimmy into her party clothes and makeup. Suddenly Kaylin McSandsen was more than just the girl in class, she was Nick Ainsworth's girlfriend, and she was gorgeous.

Nick enjoyed the parties, maybe a little too much. He would drink and smoke whatever was available, from whomever offered it. There were early mornings when Kaylin sat with him as he threw up in bushes, or reeled from too much of something. But he would always show is devotion to her. Their relationship had none of the high school dramatics of he said, she said. They eased into each other's lives as if they had always been there.

The scar behind Kaylin's ear was the only memory that lingered of that first night together. Aaron, although considerably more sober, went back to being distant and gone most of the time. Francis' condition remained, his hacking and aches growing more persistant each day. But winter was coming with its cold, long nights and constant reminders of the night her mother died, and the day they put her in the ground.

Over the months, Kaylin became aware of a truth she tried to ignore: Nick had a problem.  His moods were not stable and his reactions uncertain.  She loved him; the way he made her feel beautiful with only a look, the feeling of protection she was overwhelmed with whenever he was near. But even Alicia had begun to worry that Nick's drug use was more than just recreational.  Kay kept to herself the baggie of random pills she found in his jacket pocket one night when she got cold in French class, but Alicia couldn't keep silent when rumors began to fill the school halls that quiet Kaylin that everyone had known their entire lives was dating a coke head.