“Wait, look.” Ryan pulled a small Ziploc bag from a magnet clip on the refrigerator. Her mom’s handwriting was scrawled across the plastic:
For Ryan when he comes by.
Inside the bag were two sparkly diamond studs.
She grinned. “Great! Glad you found them.”
And glad I didn’t have to act like too much of an idiot trying to find my phone.
“Thanks, Avery.” He shoved the bag into the back pocket of his tan slacks and looked at her with an awkward expression. He seemed relieved but anxious at the same time.
“So,” she said, leaning against the counter and folding her arms over her embarrassing T-shirt. “How are things with Tam?”
His expression lit up, but it almost didn’t seem genuine. “Great, thanks. She doesn’t tell you all about it?”
Biting her bottom lip, she nodded slowly. “Yeah, she does, but sometimes it’s nice to hear the other side, you know?”
He looked down and traced a square on the linoleum with the toe of his 1930’s-style boot.
“It’s all good
—
what she tells me,” she explained quickly. “You’re a great kisser, apparently. Too bad I missed out on that opportunity.”
Bad thing to say, Avery …
Groaning inwardly, she unfolded her arms and looked toward the screen door past the living room, hoping for trick-or-treaters to save her. No such luck.
“About that,” he said softly, looking up from the floor.
“About what?” she croaked. It suddenly felt as if someone had shoved a fistful of candy down her throat.
“The kissing thing. I feel really bad. You still haven’t …?”
She attempted a smile, clearing her throat as best she could. “Um, no, but it’s fine. Seriously. You’re dating my best friend.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” His expression turned to a pleading stare with wide, imploring brown eyes. “I could still help you out if you want.”
She wasn’t sure what to think.
“You seem so lonely, Avery,” he said. “I’ve never met anyone as lonely as you. It’s what I first noticed about you at that dinner in December. It’s why I tried so hard to get you to open up to me. Victor told me you’ve been quiet the whole time he’s known you. Even with Tam, you seem alone. Then that night at Stacy Edisson’s party, when you were hinting that you might have feelings for me, it kind of hit me in the gut how much I might have hurt you.”
She looked up at him, finally realizing she’d been focusing on his boots the whole time he had been speaking. He’d taken off his fedora, revealing a serious case of hat hair.
“Then why are you offering to kiss me?” she asked, her chest rising up and down with her quickened breathing. “Don’t you understand that it might hurt me if you do? You say you want to help me, but maybe the best way to do that is
—
”
The doorbell rang, making them both jump, and Avery stalked out of the kitchen. She yanked open the screen and held out the bowl to a group of little kids.
“Trick-or-treat!” they all yelled as they grabbed candy and dumped it into their bags.
She smiled at them and stood in the open doorway, watching as they turned and ran down the driveway to their parents. If only things were still that simple.
“Avery?”
Turning, she watched Ryan approach her. She kept the door open, hoping he’d just leave already. “Say hi to Tam for me,” she said softly as he brushed past her and stood on the porch beneath the yellow light. He held his fedora at his side.
“Let me give you the kissing lesson,” he said, and her mouth dropped open.
“Why?” she demanded. “I promised Tam I wouldn’t do it.”
He looked down at the ground and kicked at a candy wrapper some kid had dropped earlier. “Because I can’t stop thinking about it,” he grumbled as he looked up at her, his eyes desperate. “Please? Can we just get it over with? I can tell it’s driving you nuts too.”
Her throat closed up for good this time, and she let go of the screen door. It banged shut between them, a loud thud. It reminded her that nobody had ever fixed the broken spring on it. Her dad would have fixed it in a heartbeat, but he was gone now.
“It’s not fair to Tam,” she said, watching him through the uncovered screen.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned forward. “What’s not fair is me not knowing if something might have happened between us if I’d just kissed you that night at the party. I had no idea you were interested in me.”
She folded her arms. “So you regret getting together with Tam?”
He didn’t flinch. “I regret knowing I’ve hurt you. I regret maybe passing up something that could have been great. Maybe it’s because I keep thinking about kissing you, or because Tam practically ordered me not to, that’s bothering me so much.”
“So, it’s a pride thing?”
He looked her straight in the eyes, as if no screen was between them, as if Tam wasn’t between them, as if nothing was between them but a fraction of an inch.
“If you don’t want the lesson, tell me right now and I’ll leave. I will do everything I can to never see you again. You can forget any of this ever happened.”
“Except you’re still dating my best friend,” she said with a sigh.
“Yeah, there’s that.”
She looked down at her bare feet and wished she had never met Ryan. It all seemed incredibly unfair.
“I think it’s best if you go now.” She finally managed to force the words off her tongue as she looked at him. “I’m sorry.”
He blinked a few times, standing there in his stupidly adorable costume, and then nodded and turned to head down the steps. When he was halfway across the lawn, Avery thought about the moment at the party when he had asked her if she did everything Tam told her to do. She had denied it then, but as she watched him walk away, she realized it was the absolute truth. Tam ruled her life, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
Before she could stop herself, she yanked open the screen door and ran down the porch steps. He was stepping off the curb to go around to the driver’s side of his car, but turned as soon as he heard the screen door slam. The grass was cold on her feet as she ran to him. He stepped back onto the sidewalk to meet her.
“Kiss me,” she gasped when she finally reached him.
“What?”
“Oh, shut up.”
She pushed his hat off his head, grabbed his shoulders, and kissed him hard on the mouth, not caring if she knew how to do it right or not.
It started out fast, but he slowed her down, teaching her every move without any words at all, easing her into a deeper and deeper connection with him. Less was more, she discovered. He touched her cheek, moved his hand up to her ear, and then buried his fingers in her hair, tilting her head to just the right angle as she slid her hands down his arms, enjoying every dip and curve of him. She almost lost her breath, but reminded herself to breathe and keep going. It was a long kiss. It was her first kiss. It was a spectacular kiss.
Until she opened her eyes to see Tam’s car stopped in the middle of the road.
The passenger-side window was rolled down, Tam leaning halfway over the seat as if she was about to say something to Ryan and then froze when she saw him making out with her best friend. Or, from that very moment, her
ex
-best friend.
Avery felt Ryan rip away, and as he left her embrace, something inside her wrenched apart at the seams. The kiss had made it clear that she had allowed a part of herself to fall in love with him, and he might have been falling for her. But she had no doubt Tam would ruin it all.
* * *
Avery knew she was in trouble the second she walked into school the Monday after kissing Ryan. Of course, she’d known she was in trouble long before that. Tam had stumbled out of the Gold Bug, hands on hips, shooting the Glare of Death at her and Ryan. But at that point the whole affair was only between the three of them. Tam was hurt and angry. Ryan was frustrated and regretful. Avery was sick to her stomach. Still, the problem was contained. At least Avery had thought it was contained. Her friendship with Tam was over. She had learned her lesson and would move on.
Tam had other plans. She was probably the worst person to have hurt. Tam was the student body president. She was the most popular girl in school. Everyone liked her. She helped people. She cared about people. She donated blood at every blood drive, for crying out loud. She didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs, but she was still welcomed into every single group. She’d always been a mystery to Avery, even after they’d become friends. How was it possible to be so charismatic and influential? She supposed people like Tam became senators’ wives, or senators themselves, or presidents of big corporations, or billionaires. As long as it was epic, it didn’t matter. Because everything about Tam was epic, especially her payback.
Spinning her locker combination, Avery wasn’t lost to the fact that four people had already knocked into her with their backpacks. A group of boys from the crowd Tam had dubbed the Math Geniuses faced her as soon as she closed her locker and turned around. They hissed profanities at her as she walked past them. When she sat down in her history class, nobody sat next to her. People took the front row instead, which was unheard of until then. Nobody sat in the front row unless they were a brownnoser or wanted to punish themselves.
She had been labeled and branded a traitor. A boyfriend stealer. Not that all the other students were innocent of this particular sin, but nobody
—
nobody
—
would ever do it to Tam.
The news traveled like wildfire. Later, Avery heard that a text had been sent to Stacy Edisson on Halloween night, which she then sent to her boyfriend, Steve, the captain of the football team, who then sent it to all the football players, varsity
and
junior varsity, who then told the cheerleaders, the school band, the yearbook staff, and the school newspaper. By Monday morning, even the lunch ladies and the janitor knew what had happened. Some of them probably didn’t care, but Avery was pretty sure most of them did. James, the janitor everybody high-fived in the hallways, gave her the stink eye every time she passed him. It was at that point she knew she was truly doomed. Even her teachers seemed distant with her.
Tam had become the heavenly saint who could do no wrong, and Avery had become the devil. That was her senior year in a nutshell.
Twelve weeks in, she came home from school and buried herself in bed. A knock on her door made her scream, “Go away!”
Her mom opened the door. “I’m not going away.”
“I need a lock,” Avery grumbled, throwing her blankets over her head. “Please, Mom, leave me alone.”
“That’s all you
are,
Avery
—
alone. I think I’m the only person left in your life, honey. Please talk to me. It’s still this thing with Tam, isn’t it?”
Avery couldn’t stop the tears. They stung her eyes, and she let them fall. For weeks now she had kept them inside. She was used to being alone, so what was different about now?
“I hate her,” she muttered into her blankets. “I hate her so much. She’s turned everyone against me. Everyone knows who I am now. That’s something I thought I always wanted, but not like this. This would have died down weeks ago, but she keeps it going.”
“Nobody’s hitting you, are they?”
“No, Mom. It’s completely non-violent, so please don’t go to the principal or anything. It’ll only make it worse.”
“Okay, okay.”
Silence. Finally, she pulled off her blankets and looked over at her mother in the doorway. She seemed so sad. Helpless.
“You can’t fix this, Mom.”
“I know, honey. I think the best thing to do is focus on your classes and graduation. Once you’re in college, things will change. It’ll be a new start.”
Wiping away her tears, Avery nodded. “Do you think I deserve this?” she asked in a trembling voice. She thought about the word TRAITOR scrawled across her locker in black permanent marker. None of the janitors had bothered cleaning it off yet. “I mean, what I did was wrong.”
Her mom looked at the floor for a minute. “You hurt your friend, yes, but what she’s doing to you is worse.” She looked up and shrugged. “At least in my opinion it’s worse. She’s a vindictive little bitch, isn’t she?”
Avery nodded, unable to argue the fact.
“What about Ryan?” her mom asked. “Is Tam making his life miserable too?”
“Not that I’ve heard. I think she’s still in love with him.”
He had texted Avery once after the event
—
two sentences that made her heart ache:
None of this was your fault. Good luck, Avery.
She never replied.
17
Avery wasn’t looking forward to English class on Friday. Kent had already texted her four times during the week to tell her how excited he was to see her again. She had responded to the first two, but not the last two. She let herself drown in a pool of guilt as she slid into her seat next to him.
“Hey, gorgeous.” He bumped her elbow with his and then leaned in for a quick kiss, which she expertly dodged by leaning the other way to slide her messenger bag under the desk.
“Hi, Kent.”
This was horrible. The guilt. She really did like Kent and she didn’t want to hurt him. But what choice was there? Lead him on? He deserved someone who wanted him and nobody else. Her heart was split too many ways to make it fair for anyone.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, brushing his nose across her cheek as he squeezed her closest knee. “Do you need to talk through something? Maybe we can go out again tonight. What do you
—
”
“Turn to page fifteen, please,” their professor’s voice boomed through the room. Avery looked up to see him glaring at Kent’s public display of affection.
“
Kent
,” she hissed, kicking his foot under the desk. “Pay attention.”
“Oh, right.” He smiled and leaned back in his seat, mouthing an apology to the professor.
During class, her mind wandered back to what Jordan had told her about Kent.
“It always goes that far with him and his dates.”