#keely aherne

“I know Winterfest has been a bit of a shitter, what with your sister doing… well, whatever the fuck she’s doing, but with your birthday coming up, I wanted to ask if you’d given any more thought to your surgery.” Siobhan smiled awkwardly.

“Oh.” Keely had been trying to find the right moment to have this conversation with her parents, but Siobhan approaching her first certainly made things easier. “I still want it. One hundred per cent.”

“Well, your dad and I have been talking, and we can afford it. What would you say to a trip to Tomarang? Just the two of us, before you start uni.”

“Are you sure? It’s nearly twenty thousand simoleons!”

“Let’s just say I gaslit Willow Creek Gallery into believing my last landscape was my finest work, and San Myshuno Gallery started sniffing around. We can definitely afford it. Fecking suckers.”

Snow arrived just in time for Winterfest. The Aherne children made their way outside, with the exception of Clementine, who took the opportunity to finish her homework without her sister’s simmering rage distracting her.

In a rather uncharacteristic move, Keely snuck out of the house. She needed to let off some steam, preferably somewhere Clementine wasn’t within firing distance.

She found herself at the park with a bow in her hands. She had shown a natural talent for archery as a child and was pleased to discover it hadn’t deserted her.

The temporary peace brought about by Montague's death didn't last long.

The moment everyone was back inside, Keely stormed straight into Clementine's room, ready for a fight.

"I KNEW YOU WERE LYING! Of all the boys you could have picked, you had to pick the worst one!"

"Are your hormones off, Keely? I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about." Clementine replied coolly.

The following morning, Keely decided to offer her sister an olive branch.

It was Clementine’s first day at high school, she reasoned. Surely she had to be at least slightly nervous, even if Keely had never seen any evidence of her sister experiencing nerves in her life.

“You look good! Surprisingly demure. I thought you’d want to terrorise the teachers from the get-go?” Keely smiled.

“Yes, I do, don’t I?” Clementine inspected herself in the mirror, refusing to make eye contact. “One thing though…”

“What’s that?”

“We don’t know each other. The surname is a coincidence.”

Clementine said this as if it were the most normal request in the world.

“Are you seriously doing this?” Keely gasped.

“Okay, spill! You’ve been smiling a weird amount, even for you.” Keely narrowed her eyes at her brother.

“What do you mean? I’ve been smiling a perfectly normal amount! I’m barely smiling at all!” Burton gasped, with enough dramatic flair to immediately confirm her suspicions.

After far too much time had passed; roughly ten minutes, Dallas realised he may have been endangering his girlfriend’s life.

As they reached a bench, he suggested they take a quick, and probably permanent, break from their jog. Keely happily obliged.

She looked at him with what she assumed was her best scowl, but it quickly faded when she saw how happy he looked.

It was the morning after prom and Keely felt fairly certain she was having a panic attack. She couldn’t catch her breath, her heart was pounding, and death surely hovered somewhere nearby with a clipboard.

“Remember to breathe!” Dallas called helpfully, jogging beside her with deeply offensive ease.

Yes, this was her best friend, newly promoted to boyfriend’s bright idea: a morning jog.

After learning that Keely had successfully submitted sick notes for PE since childhood to avoid the locker room, Dallas had become determined to help her find a form of exercise she actually enjoyed.