The Avery Shaw Experiment

Avery


I knew as part of the grieving process I would get here eventually, but I hadn’t meant to fall apart so badly. Depression runs in my family. I’d had problems with it before, and so I told myself I wouldn’t let it overwhelm me. But that’s the thing with depression. Sometimes there is no controlling it. Sometimes it sneaks up on you.

Obviously I’d known it was coming. I even realized when I said no to going to the dance with Grayson that I was starting to feel it, but suddenly I was so deep in it I didn’t know which way was up anymore. In fact it was so bad I wondered if maybe I hadn’t been feeling a bit depressed all along.

It was mid-March now. Over a month had already slipped by since my birthday. I’d barely noticed. I’d been too busy being sad to realize exactly how depressed I was until my mom woke me up one Saturday morning and forced me to go see someone.

After my counseling session—and after my mom filled the prescription of anti-depressants the doctor had prescribed for me—I wasn’t in the mood to talk to my mother anymore. I went straight to my room and stayed there.

It was two in the afternoon when the weight of someone sitting down on my bed woke me.

“Avery?”

His quiet voice was so timid, but it was still one of my favorite sounds in the whole world. It was a voice I knew as well as my own.

“Aiden?” I sat up and almost screamed when I saw his face. “What happened to you?”

Aiden shrugged like it was no big deal. “I pissed off Grayson.”

“Grayson did that to you? You’re disfigured!”

Aiden winced. “I really pissed him off.”

I hated to be so startled, but Aiden looked awful. Half his face was black and blue and his nose was swollen to twice its normal size. I couldn’t believe Grayson had hit him.

“Is your nose broken?”

“Not badly. Doctor said it would heal on its own.”

Once the subject of his bruises was out of the way, I wasn’t sure what else to say. I didn’t know what he was doing in my room, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted him there. Things got awkward, fast.

Outside, a dog barked, snapping us both from the thick silence that had settled between us. Aiden pulled his thoughts together and said, “Come with me to the Natural History Museum. My parents got me an annual pass for my birthday. I haven’t used it yet.”

It figured. “My mom got me a pass too.”

“I know. They thought we’d like to be able to go together.”

I couldn’t make sense of my emotions. I was feeling a whole spectrum of them. In that moment bitterness won out. “Must have bought them a long time ago.”

Aiden stood up and started pacing my small bedroom at the foot of my bed. “Actually, I suggested them for both of us a week before our birthdays,” he explained. “When my parents gave me mine that afternoon, I was going to come see if you would go with me, just the two of us.”

I’m not sure why that was so painful to know, but I had to close my eyes and push back tears. Then I figured something out. “That’s when your parents told you I’d gone up to the condo with Grayson.”

Aiden obviously didn’t want to go there. He stopped pacing and caught my eyes in an unyielding stare. “Come to the museum with me.”

I wanted to go with him. As much as I was mad at him, I could never hate him. He must have known that, or he wouldn’t be here. I missed him so much, but I was scared of him now, so I chickened out. “I don’t feel like going to the museum today.”

“I know you don’t feel like it. You haven’t felt like doing anything for weeks. I’m asking you to come anyway. I’ll beg if I have to.”

“No.”

“Why?” Aiden demanded. “Because you’re depressed? Because you hate me? Because you want to get back at me?”

All of his reasons probably applied, but they weren’t what was stopping me. I shook my head, but his eyes demanded an answer.

“Because I’m scared of you. I don’t trust you not to hurt me again.”

Aiden stopped pacing, devastated by my confession. He walked over to the window and stared out of it. I could barely hear him when he said, “I deserve that.”

We lapsed into another long silence.

Aiden noticed my new diary on my desk and, after reading the front cover, held it up to me with a questioning look.

I felt myself blush. “He gave me that for my birthday,” I muttered. “It’s a long story.”

Aiden set the book back down without saying anything and then looked at the large corkboard collage that now hung on the wall above my desk. It was the only thing that had changed about my room since the last time Aiden had been in here. It started out as an outline for the experiment, but then as Grayson and I began to go places and do things, it became more of a collection of souvenirs.

It had everything from a printout of our bowling scores to the tabs from our Red Bull cans glued onto an index card in the shape of a heart. And there were endless pictures. Pictures taken during science club and from Grayson’s basketball games. There were tons from the party and my birthday and a few of my favorite random ones of Grayson and me together.

Aiden had his back to me, so I couldn’t study his face as he looked at the collage, but watching him examine it made me feel bad. I’d done so much without him. Looking at that board, he probably thought I was a completely different person.

“I was planning to use it as a visual aid at the science fair. Just kind of a fun backdrop to all of the actual pieces of the display, but now it looks like I won’t need it. The Avery Shaw Experiment had been put on hold, most likely indefinitely.”

Aiden finally turned around and looked at me. He sounded cautious as he said, “Why?”

I shrugged. “The science fair is next weekend. I don’t think there’s any way to finish in time. I don’t know how to reach the last stage of grief, and I think my partner has given up on me.”

Aiden reached up to touch his bruised face and muttered, “My nose would have to disagree.”

Before I could ask him why Grayson hit him—I suspected I was the cause of their fight—he asked, “What is the final stage of grief?”

I felt myself blush again. “Acceptance,” I whispered, looking down at my lap. “Hope.”

Aiden didn’t say anything.

When I finally looked up, he was watching me. He was chewing on his top lip as if debating whether or not to say what was on his mind. He always did that when he was nervous.

“What?” I asked.

He pushed his hand through his hair and then sat down on my bed again. “Maybe you’ve just been looking for the answer to this one in the wrong place.”

I didn’t want to tell him I hadn’t been looking for the answer at all. I’d given up weeks ago. But right now he had me interested.

Aiden knew me too well. He knew that playing to my analytical nature would work better than graveling or bribing or anything else he could come up with. He was “playing the science card” as Grayson called it, because he knew I wouldn’t be able to resist that.

“What do you mean?” I asked slowly.

Aiden smiled at his victory.

“People who lose their loved ones often visit gravesites,” he said. “They talk to the dead. They get all their feelings off their chest in order to make peace. You haven’t done that.”

Hadn’t I? Was he forgetting what happened on our birthday? I think I unloaded quite a bit of my feelings that day.

Aiden knew exactly what I was thinking. “You yelled at me,” he said. When I opened my mouth he quickly cut me off. “You had every right to do that. I don’t blame you for it, but maybe you have things you want to say now that you’re not so mad.”

“I don’t know what there is to say, but I am still confused,” I admitted.

“Then give me the chance to explain. Ask me whatever you need to. I promise I’ll answer anything you can throw at me as best I can. Let me try to apologize too. I can’t ever erase what happened, but I can definitely try to make it up to you. Come to the museum with me today. Let me stand in for Grayson on this one. Let me help you find your acceptance.”

My heart pounded at its first glimpse of hope in months. Was there really a chance I could find acceptance? Aiden’s theory made sense. Facing the cause of your grief is necessary in order to obtain acceptance. How could I ever get closure without ever trying to make sense of what had happened?

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized this yet. I’d been trying so hard to push Aiden under the rug and forget him, but people don’t forget the loved ones they lose. They make peace with them being gone. In order for me to get over my broken heart, I had to make peace with the person who broke it.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it. Let’s go to the museum.”

We didn’t say much on the hour-and-a-half drive to Salt Lake City. I think we’d just automatically come to some sort of silent agreement that the following discussion should wait until we were walking through the exhibits of the Natural History Museum. Friendly ground and all that. We were both at home in any museum. Washington DC was our Graceland.

Being there with Aiden was as familiar as it always was, and yet it was different now too. It was strained and slightly awkward in a way it never had been with us ever in our lives. It wasn’t just the unresolved issues. We had both changed over the last few months.

We were well into an exhibit on the history of ancient civilizations when we finally started to talk. We were standing in front of a display of Zallinger’s March of Progress when Aiden brought it up. He looked at the figure of the Modern Man and sighed.

“You know what I think it was?” he asked. At first I didn’t know what he was talking about. He pointed at the statue and said, “This is you. You are fully evolved. I’m still just here…” He walked over to the next figure down the line—a statue of good old Cro-Magnon Man.

Somehow I managed not to smile. I studied the less-evolved human a moment and then pushed Aiden a little further down the line. Neanderthal Man was tempting, but I walked him all the way back to Homo Erectus.

He looked at the hunched over figure, who was almost more ape than human, and frowned. I don’t know what his problem was. It seemed about right to me.

“I don’t even merit early Homo Sapiens?”

“I thought this was generous,” I said dryly.

Aiden tried to be offended, but he ended up smiling. He looked at me a second too long. “I miss you, Aves.”

His smile widened, but the fact that he missed me hurt. I had to start walking again.

“Avery.”

Aiden grabbed my hand and pulled me to a stop. “It’s the truth, Aves. I miss you like crazy.”

When he didn’t let go of my fingers right away, I jerked back and folded my arms. “Why’d you stop talking to me?” I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice, but my eyes welled up, giving me away. “I don’t understand what I did to make you hate me.”

Aiden started to reach out to me but stopped himself and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I never hated you. I was never even mad at you.”

“Then what happened?”

Aiden sighed. He glanced around us. “Dinosaur bones?”

I nodded, and he tentatively held his hand out as if he wanted me to take it.

Nervous energy spiked through me.

“Come on, Aves.” He curled his fingers up in a “give me” gesture.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I placed my hand in his. Aiden wrapped his fingers around mine gently and then smiled at me. I felt my face get hot, so I looked at the ground.

Aiden began to walk with me across the museum. I concentrated on our hands, swinging loosely in the space between us, and tried not to freak out. I had more questions now than I did before. I knew this was something boys do—Grayson took my hand pretty much every time we walked anywhere together, and sometimes he held it when we were driving—but Aiden had never acted like this before.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Aves. I was really confused. The way we were raised was…”

His voice trailed off when he couldn’t find the right word for it. I would have supplied something, but I didn’t know how to describe it either.

“Do you remember when your dad split and you and your mom lived with us for a couple months? I remember crying every night for weeks after you guys got your own place. I didn’t understand why you had to leave.”

I smiled at the story, but it made me sad too. I had my own set of memories from then. First I lost my dad, but Aiden was there and made it okay, but then we left him too. It took me a long time to understand why.

“Growing up the way we did,” Aiden said. “It was like I had a twin sister who lived a mile away. You’re my best friend. You always have been, but it’s like we never had a choice about that.”

My lungs tightened in my chest. He felt forced into being my best friend?

“I’m sorry.”

“I never minded, Avery. I couldn’t have asked for a better best friend. When I started talking to Mindy, all the sudden nothing made sense anymore. I liked her. I’d never really liked anyone before because I always had you. But I didn’t like you the same way I liked her.”

I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. “You liked me like a sister.”

Aiden shook his head. “I always knew you weren’t really my twin sister, but I didn’t know exactly what you were to me, either. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, I guess. But why didn’t you ever tell me? You were in that class with Mindy all semester, and you never mentioned her even once.”

Aiden sighed, and his pace slowed to almost a stop. People in the museum weaved around us. “I think that was my first mistake. When I got partnered with Mindy at the beginning of the semester, she helped me a lot with my speeches for class.” He shrugged. “I liked giving the speeches. It was fun and I was good at it, and I liked Mindy because she was different. I didn’t tell you because it was the first thing I’d ever done on my own. You and I did everything together. This was something that I could do by myself. I’d never needed that, but once I had it, I really liked it.”

Aiden stopped in front of a large dinosaur display and raked his free hand through his hair. “We did so much together that it was like I wasn’t my own person. I didn’t know how to separate us. I didn’t know who I was without you. I needed something that was mine, you know? Mindy and debate did that for me. I was afraid that if I told you about them, I would lose that feeling.”

I glanced up at Aiden. He was staring at the dinosaur but not really paying attention to it. As I looked closely, I could see how strung out he was. I hadn’t noticed it before because of the bruises covering his face, but he looked tired and stressed. His eyes and cheeks seemed a little sunken in as if he’d lost some weight recently. He was pale and his hair needed a cut. He hadn’t been his normal self for a while.

In that moment I realized that Aiden needed my acceptance as much as I did. We weren’t meant to be apart. Maybe we weren’t meant to be together the way I’d always imagined, but we couldn’t spend the rest of our lives avoiding each other, either.

I gave his hand a small squeeze. “I would have understood. I would have given you all the space you needed.”

Aiden squeezed my hand back and tugged me closer to him. “I should have realized that,” he said with a sigh. “I’m really sorry, Aves.”

I shrugged. “It’s okay. I was never really upset about that anyway. I just didn’t understand why you wouldn’t even talk to me anymore.” My eyes started burning again. “It was like you hated me. You were my best friend. You were the person I loved most and trusted most in the whole world, and all of a sudden you weren’t a part of my life anymore.”

I pulled my hand from Aiden’s in order to wipe the tears that gathered in my eyes. I walked down a little ways to a drinking fountain and gulped down some water. I even splashed a little on my face. It helped ease a bit of the panic. I sat down on a bench and attempted to get my emotions under control again.

Aiden sat down, leaving a foot of space between us like he wasn’t sure I wanted him near me.

“It was the same for me, you know,” I said, sniffling. “I didn’t know who I was without you, either. I don’t think there was a part of me that didn’t include you. When you abandoned me, it was like half of myself was just gone. First my dad left me, and then you. I didn’t even know how to breathe anymore. If Grayson hadn’t been there to hold me together, I don’t know what would have happened.”

So much for gaining control of my emotions. I started to cry, and Aiden’s arms came around me. I turned into his shoulder and clung go him. Then I lost all control and started to sob. “How could you do that to me?” I cried.

I’d never felt so raw in all my life as when I pulled the bandage off my damaged heart for Aiden right then. I’d been trying to suppress my feelings for so long, trying to be strong, but as I sat there with him, I opened myself up and shared all of my hurt with him.

Aiden tightened his grip on me, but the hug wasn’t exactly right. He’s so much closer to my size. His arms didn’t engulf me the way I was used to.

I breathed in deeply. My nose was filled with the smell of the soap Aiden uses and a hint of his peppermint gum, but I wasn’t settled the way I was expecting. He was missing a certain hint of sweet and spice. It took me a moment to realize I was missing the smell of Grayson’s cologne.

“Why don’t we go outside and get some fresh air?” Aiden suggested and then led me out of the building.

We didn’t say another word until we were outside and walking around the grounds of the museum. There was a layer of old snow on the ground, but the sun was shining and the fresh air was nice.

“I’m so sorry, Avery,” Aiden eventually whispered. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for hurting you the way I did. I messed up so bad.”

“What happened? If you weren’t mad at me, why’d things change so much? You said we would still be friends, but we weren’t.”

“It was because of Mindy. She was so threatened by you. When we got together, she asked me about you.” Aiden shot me a grim smile. “Probably didn’t handle that conversation very well, either. I told her I loved you more than anyone else on the planet. She didn’t take that very well, so I tried to explain how it was for us. Hearing about how we grew up only made it worse.”

I focused on the snow crunching under my feet as I listened to Aiden tell his story.

“I was determined to keep both relationships. You were my best friend, and Mindy was my girlfriend. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. I should have been able to have both, but that first day back at school when Mindy and I were officially a couple at school, so many people were so shocked. Everyone we saw asked about you. Mindy couldn’t handle it. She got angry and went off about how people didn’t have relationships like ours. She said our moms were wrong to force us on each other.”

Aiden got really quiet for a minute and then muttered, “She said a lot of stuff. She was captain of the debate team. She had a convincing argument. Plus, she was my first girlfriend. I’d never had anyone like me that way before. I wanted to make her happy.”

“I get it,” I said. I did understand to an extent, but it didn’t explain the malice I sometimes felt. “But why did you seem so angry? Sometimes you’d look at me, and I would swear you hated me. What did I do wrong?”

Aiden’s jaw clenched tight enough that he winced because it hurt his broken nose. That anger was exactly what I was talking about. He said I hadn’t done anything wrong, but something was definitely bothering him.

“That wasn’t you. I was mad at Grayson.”

“Grayson?” The answer startled me. “Why?”

“Because it was so unlike him to take such an interest in you. I thought he was trying to take advantage of you. I was worried he was going to play you like he did every other girl, and…” He hesitated, shoving his hands in his pockets. “And because I was jealous.”

I stopped walking and gawked at him. “Jealous? Why? You weren’t interested in me. You had a girlfriend.”

We’d come to the edge of a small pond. The edges were iced over. We stopped and Aiden kicked a chunk of ice. “Because I’m selfish,” he said. “When you told me that you loved me and wanted to be with me, I hated that I was hurting you, but I was flattered at the same time.”

I felt like I was going to die from embarrassment any moment. I actually expected myself to drop dead right there.

“I’d never thought about us like that before,” Aiden said. “But after you mentioned it, I kept wondering. I knew almost immediately that I’d rather be with you than Mindy. I was going to break up with her right away, but it was too late. Grayson had already stolen you from me. You guys spent all your time together. He made you laugh and held your hand. I could see how much he made you happy, and I hated him for it.”

My heart hurt again. It hurt for both of us. It hurt for Grayson too. He was innocent in all of this.

“Please don’t hate him for that. Grayson has done so much for me. He’s one of my closest friends now.”

Aiden tensed again. “I know.” He shook his head in disgust. “And I drove you to him. I hurt you so bad that you needed him. I’m grateful he was there for you, but Aves, when I saw him kissing you, I almost killed him.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted it to be me.”

“You what?” I gasped.

“I still want it to be me.”

Aiden took my hand again and wet his lips as he pinned me with an intense gaze. “You asked me to kiss you once, and now I’m asking you, will you give me a second chance?”

I froze. And not because it was cold outside. For a second I convinced myself I was still in bed asleep. I’d wanted Aiden to kiss me for so many years, and now here he was asking to make that dream come true.

There was a part of me that wanted to say no—a piece of my brain, or maybe my heart that didn’t want to kiss anyone but Grayson. But this was Aiden. I had to know. I owed it to myself to see what would happen. In more ways than one, I needed this.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay,” Aiden answered. He took my other hand and stepped closer to me so that the tips of our shoes were touching.

He didn’t kiss me right away. He swallowed and wet his lips again. He was as nervous as I was.

My pulse skyrocketed, and I couldn’t keep any air in my lungs. I think I may have even been trembling a little when he finally leaned in.

He moved slowly, and I kept pretty still because I was scared of bumping his nose and hurting him. His kiss was shy at first as if he were testing the waters, and then his hand came up to my face, and he pulled me closer, urging my lips to part.

I liked kissing Aiden. He was sweet and considerate, and I could feel that when he pulled away, he wasn’t quite ready to let the kiss end. It was a good kiss, but that was it. This kiss was all of the anticipation but none of the excitement that I got when I kissed Grayson. There was no spark. At least not for me.

Aiden looked happy until he saw my forced smile, and then his grin faded. “It’s not going to happen, is it?” It didn’t sound like he needed an answer.

“It was nice,” I said.

“But it wasn’t like kissing Grayson.”

I felt my face go from polite to pained. The whole situation was so surreal. Who knew I’d ever be the one rejecting Aiden?

Aiden shook his head as if to let me know he wasn’t upset. “I had to try, but I think I knew it was coming.” He sighed. “As if I could ever compete with Grayson when he got all the looks and the charm.”

I felt awful and tried to lighten the situation. “But you got all the brains, so he may be the one to rule the country someday, but you’ll own it.”

Aiden forced his mouth to curve up, and he squeezed my hand again.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’ll survive.” My heart sank a little more until he said, “As long as you forgive me and promise to always be my best friend.”

It was that request that broke through the dark clouds in my world and brought me fully into the final stage of grief. If I were in a Disney movie, flowers would have bloomed and the birds would have started chirping.

Whether it was acceptance or hope or both, I knew that Aiden and I still loved each other. Things might be a little different between us now—no one heals without scars—but we were going to be okay. And if we could make it through this, we’d make it through anything.

Maybe now our relationship would be a healthy one. Maybe now we’d be able to have lives separate from one another and still be a part of each other. Maybe all of this needed to happen.

“I can do that,” I said.

“And you’re never allowed to have a birthday party without me ever again.”

I laughed. “Promise.”

Aiden let out a huge sigh of relief and leaned over to grab me up in a big hug. We held on tight, neither of us wanting to be the first to let go.

“Can you really forgive me?” Aiden asked, his voice thick with emotion.

I sniffled, but laughed at the same time. “I really can. I do.”

“I love you, Aves.”

“I love you too, Aiden.”

As we walked back to the car, I thought about how much my life had changed in the last few months. For the first time in what felt like forever, I was excited by the prospect of my future. With Aiden back, it was like I now had the best of both worlds.

“Are you going to be mad if I keep sitting with Grayson at lunch? It’s the only time I ever see him at school.”

Aiden sighed again, but it was playful. “It’s okay. I get it.”

“I’ll rejoin you guys next year after he graduates,” I promised.

Aiden watched me a minute with a frown on his face.

“What now?”

“I will never get used to the idea of you dating my brother. It’s seriously disgusting. If you guys start making out in front of me all the time, I am going to need therapy.”

I think I turned redder than I ever had before, and I felt a weight settle on my chest. “I think it might be too late for that,” I said, unable to hide my disappointment. “I think Grayson’s given up on me—not that I blame him.”

Aiden rolled his eyes and shook his head. “If that were the case, I’d be able to smell right now. Trust me, Aves, he’s still crazy about you. All you have to do is let him know you like him too.”