“That’s too bad.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I mean, staying at home, working. That’s not the worst thing in the world. It’s gonna suck, though, when Rose dumps me for some rich frat guy during rush week or whatever.”
“You really think Rose is going to dump you?”
It jarred me to hear someone else say those words out loud, but the truth was, I did think that. Didn’t I? It would explain a lot. It made sense, too, that Rose would be looking ahead, at a life without me, especially given our recent distance and friction. But in response to Avery, I shrugged, noncommittal, as always. “Sometimes it feels like she’s destined for better things. But I get it. All I want is for her to be happy.”
Avery frowned. “That’s sad, Ben. Not that you might break up with your high school girlfriend, but that you think she’s better than you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You sort of did.”
“Yeah, well. I’ll live.” I cast a sideways glance at Avery. “It’s not just about the money, though, you know. My staying here.”
“What’s it about, then?”
“I can’t leave my mom.”
Her expression softened. “She’s not doing well, is she?”
“She’s . . . okay. Still sick a lot, though. In pain.”
“Pain?”
“Her back. She hurt it in the accident but it’s never healed right. Some nerve thing. Doctors can’t figure it out.”
Avery paused. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you do a lot for her. More than you should. It’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t about fair,” I said. “She’s my mom. She needs me. You’d do the same for yours.”
Avery didn’t answer.
My cheeks burned. “Shit, Ave. If she were here, I mean! That came out wrong.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “And I get what you’re saying about not being able to leave. Even if I got a scholarship, it’s not like I could go away to school. My dad’s business wouldn’t make it without me. Not with all his debt.”
I nodded, appreciating for the first time all the similarities in our lives. But a restlessness was building in my bones. It was time to turn around, to get back to the others.
Avery, however, had other ideas. She held her camera up.
“Take your sunglasses off, Ben,” she directed.
I took my sunglasses off.
“Now look at me.”
I looked at her.
“Smile.”
I smiled.
Click.
“How’d it come out?” I asked.
“Blurry,” she said, staring down at the screen. “Shutter speed was too slow.”
“Oh.”
“I’m still learning how to work this thing. Let me take a few more.”
I nodded and stood where she instructed me to go, in front of a twisting oak tree, its branches adorned with sharp-edged leaves. Then she told me to move away from the tree, which I did. And then to take a step back, and I did that, too, although Avery squinted and crouched and moved around so much I started to wonder if she weren’t trying to figure out a way to take the photograph without actually having me in it. When she held the camera up at last, I didn’t bother trying to smile. I stood up tall in an effort to look worthy of a moment remembered.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Finally, I threw my hand over my face. “That should be enough, right?”
“You don’t like having your picture taken?”
“The birds have to be more interesting to look at than me.”
“I like looking at you,” Avery said.
Her words made me stare at the ground very intently. No, I didn’t like having my picture taken, but I also didn’t want Avery to see my face at the moment. That was a weird reaction, I know, considering she’d just said she liked looking at it.
The thing was, I liked that she’d said that.
A lot.
Avery seemed to understand this. Or else she was better with ambiguity than I was. Either way, in the silence that followed, she walked over to me, camera still in hand, and stood by my side, very close. But I didn’t dare look up from my staring.
My heart went after my ribs. I felt what Avery felt, of course—that breathless force draped between us, thick and heavy and undeniable. It was a force far greater than desire because it went both ways, that gravitational pull other people called pheromone heat or electricity or even magnetism. But as I stood there, just drip-drip-dripping with it, the whole thing felt more like time travel: a florid heat that had appeared spontaneously where moments ago there’d been none. To me, that said this force could only have come from the future—a cue not of anticipation, but of fate already foretold.
Still, I didn’t move or make one. When we were fifteen, Rose had been the one to kiss me first. She did it while I was working one afternoon, after prodding me into taking an unscheduled break when my manager was on a call. I snuck out the back of the store to be with her, and Rose didn’t ask my permission or anything. She simply pushed me against the exterior wall and launched herself at my mouth. We were in full view of the street and everything, but I let her do what she wanted and I’d followed her lead, using tongue when she used it and growing hard when she touched me through my jeans. Only Avery wasn’t Rose, I realized, which meant I had to make up my own damn mind for once.
Then again, if this was my destiny, I already had.
15.
LOOKING BACK, I can see nothing foreboding about what Avery and I did in the forest that day. It was an act of pure instinct. I have to believe that. I leaned to kiss her and she kissed me back. Then we kissed some more and groped and slid our clothes off and pulled each other to the ground. We were both thrillingly naked in the leaves as she opened her legs and I crawled between them.
Everything after was all that was needed, heat and friction followed by more of the same—her loose hair sliding like silk against my arm; my breath quickening into labored panting. The only moment of conscious thought came when Avery whispered in my ear not to finish inside her. I nodded vigorously. Rose had always let me, but I did what Avery asked and it was almost better like that, doing it right out in the open, all over her sunlit belly, where both of us could see.
I felt bad about it, though, almost immediately. “I’m sorry,” I said, swiping at her with my wadded-up boxers in an attempt to clean her off.
“Don’t be.” Avery took the boxers from me and did the cleaning herself. “But we should be getting back.”
She was right, of course. Scrambling to our feet, we did our best to straighten our clothes, smooth our hair, and dust ourselves off. Then we began the short hike back to the others, hustling in forced silence, making sure we weren’t touching. There was a bashful look on Avery’s face, and I desperately wanted to do right by her, to tell her I didn’t regret what we’d done.