Second update of the day. Short, but sweet. A little look at Kate and her motivations. Who doesn't like insight into characters, right?

Huge thanks to smmiskimen who beta'd this for us last night while CPW was at the 100 Monkeys show. She's still swoony over Jackson Rathbone. For the record, she also thinks Ben J. rocks the same 'stache her brother had in the 7th grade.

We don't own Twilight or it's characters. We just like to do things a little differently.

Chapter Song: I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

KPOV

Ugh. I threw the kazillion throw pillows across the room and slammed them in the closet. Everything in this house reminded me of her. Which made no sense since the house was decorated impeccably and obviously not in her taste. She was way into bedazzling, which was tacky and so was she.

Never mind that I had idolized her.

Those days were long gone.

Tanya…the daddy stealing blonde bimbo tramp bitch whore. I hated her with every cell in my body. I hated everything about her, including her pig of a brother. I still couldn't believe that he was here and that Daddy was letting him stay.

Tanya probably blew him. Ew, I so didn't need to think about that, but like I said, I had idolized her at first and I knew her modus operandi. What she wanted, she got. Period.

I walked over to my dad's dresser and looked at the framed pictures all neatly arranged, and desperately in need of being updated. We'd been coming here for as long as I can remember, choosing the quiet NC beaches instead of the more commercial Myrtle Beach. He always said it was because he wanted to spend quality time with his family instead of dodging crowds.

We were some fucked up kind of family.

My mom was in New York with her man du jour and my dad was in the middle of his mid-mid-life crisis with her. I didn't have a home; I had two bedrooms in two different states. I had two of every holiday, two cars, I got two checks every month, each trying to total more than the other, though I never told them amounts. I would have given it all up in a hot minute if things would go back to the way they were when we were together.

But they never would. I didn't have a family anymore.

I didn't even realize that I had started crying until I felt Bella wrap her arms around me and give me a good squeeze. Charlotte was quietly shutting the door and locking it. I don't blame her after the scene Garrett made when he saw us in Bella's room earlier today.

Like sister, like brother.

None of this was his fault, and deep down inside I knew this, but he was here. He was close and damn it, if I was going to be miserable this summer, then so was he. If I could find some way to hurt him, then maybe it would hurt her.

"You okay, pretty?" Bella moved us over to the bed where she started braiding my hair, or trying to anyway. Bless her heart, she was gifted as all get out artistically, but she was worthless when it came to fixing hair and makeup and all things girly, but I loved her. So much.

"I'm fine. Just tired, ya know? And I hate this room." I laughed, cackled actually, and picked at the comforter. "I only took it so Garrett wouldn't have it. I don't like sleeping in here, but oh well…I made my bed, I have to sleep in it." I didn't tell them that I had been sleeping on the couch in the sitting area until I had the chance to sneak out and buy new sheets so I wouldn't have to sleep where she slept.

I had watched too many Dateline episodes about bodily fluids on bed linens. Beyond the fact that it would prove that my dad had fucked her…oh my god, bleach my brain now…I knew where she had been and felt pretty sure that she had, at one time, been the owner of a penicillin prescription.

"I trusted her." I didn't even have to say who 'her' was to Bella and Charlotte, but they knew. "I used her ID, I crashed in her apartment, I held her hair when she threw up after a party in Frat Court."

Bella nudged Charlotte who pulled out what looked like a scarecrow made out of vegetables. There was a tomato for the head, a potato for the body, and baby carrots for the arms. The legs were asparagus.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?" I couldn't help but laugh and hold the thing. "Isn't this part of dinner?"

Charlotte nodded and handed me some of those plastic corn holder thingys. "I was watching the National Geographic Channel the other night…"

Of course she was.

"And there was this show called Taboo. They were talking about all sorts of occult things and there was a segment on voodoo dolls." She shrugged and grinned and the girl was so freakin' weird, but she had the biggest heart. "Oh, wait!" She rummaged in the bag for a bit before pulling out a tub of cream cheese and something else that I couldn't see. She turned away from me, taking "Tanya" with her.

Bella peeked over her shoulder and started shrieking she was laughing so hard. "Oh my god! Oh my god! That's classic." Then all sound stopped and her laughter evolved to the kind where there was no noise, no breathing, just open mouths and tears. I couldn't help but start laughing too, even though I didn't know what it was.

Until Charlotte turned back around and "Tanya" had grape boobs.

Best. Friends. Ever.

I stuck the corn holders anywhere and everywhere. I took off arms and legs and told "Tanya" exactly what I thought of her and how I regretted ever introducing her to my dad. I spilled and cried and talked and complained and bitched to Bella and Charlotte, who laughed and cried in the right places and just let me vent.

After I was done and there was no more to say, Charlotte reached back into her bag and pulled out a tub of ranch dip and ate one of Tanya's arms.

I hated admitting when I was wrong, but at that moment I knew that I was wrong about one thing. I did, in fact, have a family. And I was spending the summer with them.