by McLean, Jay
Dad’s silent a moment, his heavy breaths filling the small room. Finally, he nods, his eyes locked on mine. “You’re right,” he sighs out.
And I exhale, relieved.
“You’re absolutely right, Connor, and I’m sorry I haven’t been what you needed me to be.” The corner of his lips lift. “So, this girl… her name?”
“Ava.”
He smiles. “That’s a pretty name.”
I relax in my seat, let the words flow through me. “She’s a pretty girl.”
“I bet. Does she go to your school?”
“Yeah. Well, we met at school.”
“Psych paper, right?”
I nod, shocked that he remembers. “Turns out she lives next door.”
“No way!” he says, his enthusiasm genuine. “So, have you been hanging out outside of school?”
“Not really, I mean not yet. But she’s a cool girl. Remember that Trevor guy who helped me move in all the furniture?”
“Of course, yeah.”
“She’s his stepsister.”
“Ah, I see.” Then his face falls as if his mind suddenly became consumed by something else.
“Dad?”
“Which uh… which house? I mean, which side does she live on?”
I point in the general direction of Ava’s house.
“I see,” Dad mumbles, his gaze distant.
“What just happened right now?” I ask.
He gets up, picking up his half-eaten meal. “What do you mean?”
“It’s like something triggered you about her house. What... what do you know?”
Dad empties his plate in the trash, then dumps it in the sink. With his hands gripped to the edge of the counter, facing away from me, he says, “I’ve just heard things…”
“What things?”
He huffs out a breath but stays quiet.
“What things, Dad?”
He turns to me now, his arms crossed as he leans against the counter. “It’s not something I’d normally mention, but if you like this girl as much as you say you do, it’s probably important you know—”
“Dad, just spit it out already.”
His lips part, but no words form, and he’s looking everywhere but at me.
I push my plate away.
Dad rubs the back of his neck.
The clock tick, tick, ticks, the only sound in the room.
“Look,” he starts, crossing his ankles. “When I told Tony—”
“The guy you ride with?”
Dad nods. “When I told him where we moved to, he mentioned the house next door. Apparently, there was an incident a while back with the mother there. I don’t know if it’s your friend’s mom or—”
“What incident?”
“She’s a war veteran, the mom, and I guess she got injured in Afghanistan. A grenade went off too close, and she lost an arm and part of her face.”
“Jesus Christ,” I whisper, my thoughts racing—every one of them on Ava.
“When she got home, things were pretty bad for her. People around here—they’re not used to seeing someone in that state. Anyway—and I’m only going by what he told me…”
I’m all ears now.
All in.
Dad takes a breath. And then another. Preparing. “Apparently, she went into a store one day, and maybe she overheard a couple of guys talking about her… no one really knows. But she lost it. Completely. She went through the aisles knocking products off the shelf, screaming and yelling and threatening people with whatever weapons she could find. They say she was inebriated because she was unintelligible, slurring her words and whatnot, but Tony thinks it might be a side effect of some form of head trauma from her injuries.”
I press my palms against my forehead, waiting for the pounding to stop.
“The kids around here call her the town drunk or the loony lady…”
I stand, my fists balled, and recall those punk kids messing with their house. Insane Asylum.
Dad adds, “They even call her two-face.”
“Enough.” I’m angry, furious, but beyond that, I’m fucking devastated. I picture Ava smiling, hear her laughing, and I wonder how the hell it’s possible she still manages to do any of that when her life… I don’t even know anything about her.
“There’s more, Connor,” Dad says, but I’m done listening.
“I don’t…” I don’t want to know.
“Look, I just think it’s important for you to know everything before you get involved with someone like her.”
“Someone like her?” I spit. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you take things further with her, it can and will get complicated. There’s so much more I haven’t even told—”
“With all due respect, if we decide to take things further, that’s our decision. And if there’s more to the story, I’d rather hear it from Ava.”
Chapter 18
Ava
Connor: Where the hell do you hide every lunch break?
Chewing my lip, I contain my smile and think twice about letting him know. For a while now, I’ve been coming to the same spot, living in isolation. I’ve enjoyed it, so I thought. But I enjoy Connor’s company more. I reply with a picture of what’s in front of me, set my phone down, and wait.
It only takes a couple of minutes for him to appear, long legs on the bright green grass of the football field. His eyes keep shifting from his phone to the field, again and again, no doubt looking for exactly where I might be.
He spots me within seconds and strides up the steps, taking them two at a time. He sits on the bench in front of me, legs bent, feet next to mine.
I point to the ball under his arm. “You take that with you everywhere?”
He shrugs. “Habit. I sleep with one, too.”
“No, you don’t,” I chide.
Another shrug. “I get lonely at night.”
He dribbles the ball next to his knee, higher, lower, again and again. But he doesn’t speak, doesn’t even look at me.
“What’s with you?” I ask.
He doesn’t skip a beat. “What do you mean?”
I grab the ball, hold it behind my back. “Is everything okay?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He holds out his hand, asking for the ball, but I shake my head.
“Your words say mmm-hmm, but your face says something’s going on.”
He smiles, but it’s fake. “You know my faces?”
“I watch you through your bedroom window. I see you more than you know.”
A forced chuckle from him to accompany his flat words. “My bedroom’s on the opposite side of your house.”
“Who says I watch you from my house? I’m standing outside your window,” I say, my attempt at a joke that doesn’t seem to fly.
“And you say I’m the creep?”
It’s our usual back-and-forth, but the tone is off. Even if I couldn’t see it in the dullness of his eyes, I can feel it in my heart. “Connor, what’s going on?”
He runs his fingers through his hair, then tugs at the end. “I just…” He peeks up at me through his long, dark lashes, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. “I was telling my dad about you last night…”
Said in any other context, I’d be surprised and maybe a little flattered, but here? Now? I just feel… like something horrible is about to happen. “What did he say?” I croak.
He waits a beat, his words unsure. “He told me about your mom or stepmom…”
I nod, already knowing the fate of the conversation. “My mom,” I tell him, heat burning behind my eyes. “What did he say about her?”
“Nothing bad,” he assures. “He just told me what he heard from a guy at his work. And it’s not like gossip or anything. When Dad told him where we lived, he mentioned—”
“The guy warned him about her?”
“No,” he’s quick to say, sitting higher. “Ava, it’s not like that.”
I look away, afraid he’ll see the tea
rs threatening to fall. I just wanted a friend, and I thought I found that in Connor. But I knew, as much as I tried to ignore it, I knew he’d find out eventually, and knowing the truth would take him away from me. I push down the lump in my throat. “What did he tell you exactly?”
Connor sighs. “He told me about the incident at the store, about how she… she…”
“Yeah, I’m aware of what happened,” I murmur. I remember getting the call at school and rushing to the store to get to her. I remember the stares, the whispers as I walked by the witnesses. By the time I saw her, the cops had her detained in the storeroom. She was crying, belligerent and afraid, and then William appeared, and I could see it in his eyes: he’d lost the fight to fake it. He was gone soon after that incident. And I was left to pick up the pieces. I try hard not to blink, not to let the liquid heat fall from my eyes, but I fail. A single tear rolls down my cheek, and I swipe it with the back of my hand.
“Ava,” Connor sighs, and I can feel the breath of sympathy and guilt filling the space between us. I imagine my life two weeks from now, when he starts to make excuses for not returning texts, or not sitting next to me, or not acknowledging my existence at all.
I already miss him, and he’s sitting right in front of me.
It’s my fault, I tell myself. It was stupid of me to get attached. To crave him when he wasn’t around.
“Is it true?” he asks.
I nod. “Whatever you heard, it’s all true.” I don’t bother asking what was said or how he feels. None of it matters. I flick the ring around my thumb, over and over. I say, my heartbreak falling from my closed lids, “You know the court ordered her to be on twenty-four hour supervision after that day, so she has a caregiver while I’m at school, and I have to be there all the other times, so it’s not really a big deal that, you know… that you can’t—or don’t want to—be friends anymore. It’s probably better that—”
“Wait,” he interrupts. “Is that what you think this is about?”
“What else can come of this, Connor?”
He gets up to sit next to me and pulls my chin toward him. I resist, not wanting him to see my complete devastation. He lets me go but moves closer until his arm is touching mine.
I face the field.
He does the same.
“I’d like to meet her,” he says, and my heart stills.
My entire body turns to him. “Why?”
He replies, his eyes holding mine, “Because regardless of what you think of me, or how you think I’d react, I’d still like to get to know you more, and I feel like she’s a big part of who you are.”
I wipe at my cheeks again, feel the wetness soak my palms. My exhale is shaky while I wait for all the broken parts of me to calm, still cracked, but settle. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Oh,” he says, looking away.
He’s taken it as a rejection, so I try to explain, “She doesn’t really remember it, what happened that day. She has problems with memory loss, but I think she’s aware that something happened, because afterward, whenever she’d go out, people would treat her differently. Worse than they did before. It wasn’t bad enough that she was ashamed of the way she looked, and the things people said about her and the names they called her…”
Connor nods, listening intently.
“She doesn’t leave the house anymore, and she doesn’t like having people there.”
“I understand,” he says, gentle and comforting.
“But… I can ask.”
His face lights up. “Really?”
I nod. “I can’t promise anything.”
He smiles, genuine, for the first time since he got here. “I’d really like that, Ava.”
I really like you, Connor.
* * *
“So, I have this friend…” I tell Mom when I get home from school. I’m sitting on the couch with her on the floor in front of me while I braid her hair, something she used to do for me.
“Uh huh,” she responds.
Today is what Krystal and I call a zero-day. We scale Mom’s moods and actions between -5 to +5. When things are good for her, when she’s a fragment of the woman I know as my mother, we go into the positive. The negative… well, that’s obvious. Today is a zero-day. A day when she scrapes by, barely any emotion or recollection of who she truly is.
A zero-day is probably not the best time to be having this conversation, but waiting for a positive day might take too long, and a negative day… I don’t think she even hears me on those days.
“He’s new in town…” I say.
“He? So, a boyfriend, huh?” she asks, her tone void of any emotion.
“Not a boyfriend, but a friend boy.”
“Go on.”
“And he said he’d like to meet you.”
“When?”
“Whenever you’re up for it.”
“Hmm.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“Not tonight,” she mumbles. “But maybe tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I say, but I don’t believe it. Believing would create hope. And hope has no home here. At least not on zero days.
Chapter 19
Ava
I take the bus home the next day because Trevor has a job and Connor has practice. I’d love to watch, jeer him from the sidelines, but it’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to do any after-school activities, so Krystal only works the set times I’m at school.
The moment I enter the house, the smell of freshly baked cookies hits my nose, filling my heart with nostalgia. “Ava!” Mom calls from her bedroom.
I drop my bag by the door and rush in to see her, panic swarming my insides. Krystal’s sitting on the bed, while Mom stands in front of her dresser. Dressed in a floral skirt and pale pink cardigan, she holds up two different necklaces against her chest. “Which one?” she asks.
“Mama, you look so pretty,” I croak out, my pulse settling to a steady strum. “What’s the occasion?”
She lowers her hand, eyeing me questioningly. “For your friend’s visit? Remember?”
Jaw unhinged, I look over at Krystal. “She’s been talking about it all day. She’s very excited, Ava. She even baked cookies.”
“You did?” I ask, my gaze back on my mother.
She’s nodding, smiling.
Pride fills every empty space of my being. “He’s at practice right now, but he’ll be done soon.”
“Okay,” Mom chirps. “We can wait.”
“Okay,” I agree.
“So?” she asks, lifting the necklaces again. “Which one?”
* * *
Ava: CONNOR!
Ava: CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU FINISH.
Ava: IT’S URGENT.
I throw my phone on the bed and strip out of my clothes. Then I stand there in my underwear, trying to decide what to wear because, besides my school uniform, I live in sweats. It’s been way too long since I’ve had to dress for the outside world, and even though I’m still at home, it’s Connor… Connor is coming to my house and—
And—
Calm down, Ava.
I slip on a pair of jeans and a Texas A&M T-shirt, and then rip off the T-shirt and get into a fitted tank, something a little more feminine.
I tidy up the house a little, ignoring Mom watching me. She’s sitting on the couch with a magazine on her lap, smirking, and how is it that she’s so calm and I’m the one in a panic?
My phone barely rings before I answer it. “Hello?”
“What’s wrong?” Connor rushes out. In the background, I can hear a bunch of boys hollering, their voices echoing. He’s still at school, in the locker room. “Ava! What happened?”
I run to my room, close the door, and lean against it. “My mom wants to meet you…”
He huffs out a breath, static filling my ears. “Is that it?”
“What do you mean is that it? She wants to meet you. This afternoon. Like, now, Connor.”
“Jesus Christ, Ava, yo
ur text sounded like something bad happened. Calm the hell down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Hey, what should I call her? Like… something military or…”
“I don’t know. Miss Diaz will do.”
“Cool. I’m on my way.”
I lower my voice so my mother can’t hear me. “Okay, but hurry, because I don’t know how long she’ll be like this.”
Connor chuckles. “I’ll break every speed limit.”
“And text me when you’re leaving your house. Don’t knock. Knocking gets her—she gets—”
“I’ll text.”
“And remember what I said about her short-term memory, she might ask the same—”
“I got it.”
“And don’t stare when you first see her because—”
“Ava, I’m not a fucking asshole.”
My eyes drift shut, my phone held tight to my ear. I release a staggering breath. “I know, I’m just… just…”
“Nervous? And scared?” he asks quietly.
I nod, even though he can’t see it.
“It’s okay to feel like that. You have every right to. The world hasn’t been good to you guys, and I get that. But I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t think I could handle it. So, don’t worry, okay? I’ll see you soon.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and whisper, “Please hurry.”
“I’ll travel through time to get to you.”
* * *
Connor’s on my doorstep, freshly showered, dark jeans and a light blue Henley to match his eyes and damn, boy. He ignores me standing right in front of him, his smile purely for my mother. “Ava didn’t tell me she had a sister.”