by Kelly Oram
“But . . .” Her shock turned to confusion. “You don’t do the girlfriend thing. You always say that. You’ve never had one before.”
“A guy can change his mind if the right girl comes along, can’t he?”
“Um . . .”
“I know I have a reputation.”
Someone snorted and a few others snickered, which really didn’t help my case any, but I was determined. “I’ve never been interested in a girlfriend before, Aves, but you make me want to try it. Will you give us chance?”
Pam and Chloe both sighed like I’d just said the most romantic thing in the world, but Avery didn’t melt like they did. She cast a quick glance toward the door that Aiden had just walked out of.
I suddenly wanted to punch something very, very badly. “You can’t possibly still want him.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “I’m just really mixed-up emotionally. I’m scared and confused and still just really, really hurt. I’m not over it. I’m not over him.”
“How can you not—”
“I want to be,” she said quickly, not letting me finish. “I try to be. I even thought I didn’t want him anymore for a while, but then he broke up with his girlfriend and some sick part of me that loves torture got hopeful.”
“Aves—”
She shook her head, still not letting me interrupt. “It’ll never happen. I know that. I’m past denial, remember? I hate that I feel this way. I hate that he can still affect me.”
She searched my face for understanding. “I would love nothing more than to say yes to you right now, but it would be in hopes that it would help get him out of my head, and that wouldn’t be fair to you. You deserve so much better than that. You deserve a girl whose whole heart is in it, not some permanently-damaged mental case.”
I had to read between the lines. She’d said no, but it wasn’t really a rejection.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s say, hypothetically, that you weren’t damaged goods. If my brother weren’t in the picture, if I had been born an only child, if all you knew was me, would you consider being my girlfriend then?”
I braced myself for a real rejection.
“Grayson,” she said tiredly. “If that were the case, I wouldn’t have to consider it. I’d probably already be naming our future babies.”
I am not often taken by complete surprise, but that comment had me reeling.
Avery gave me a sad smile and slipped her arm around me. It was the first hug she’d given me since we kissed. “You have no idea how amazing you are. This is about me. I promise.”
I hugged her back and felt my smile spread from ear to ear. “All you had to do was say you weren’t ready,” I teased, wanting to lighten the atmosphere before she started dwelling on how miserable she felt again. “I can wait. We’ll get your heart all nice and patched up and then you can say yes to me.”
“If you actually manage to fix my heart, I’ll say yes to whatever you want.”
Avery was so innocent I know she didn’t mean that statement the way my brain interpreted it—she probably didn’t even realize it could be taken in such a way—but still, my mind went from zero to dirty in no time flat.
“Anything I want?” I laughed. “Will you do me a favor and put that in writing?”
She finally caught my meaning, and I was rewarded with that cute little embarrassed shriek of hers. “Grayson!” And the rosy cheeks. “You know I didn’t mean that!”
“Believe me, I know,” I said mournfully. “But you did mention having my babies, so I know you’ve at least thought about going there with me. I’d say there’s hope for my future.”
“Grayson! Oh my gosh! Stop!”
“Okay. Okay. Fine.” I really didn’t want to stop. I loved getting her all worked up. “I’ll stop on one condition.”
“What?” she asked so warily that I laughed at her.
“You can’t let Aiden ruin your birthday weekend. Don’t smart people know how to compartmentalize? File him away in your stress-about-later folder, and starting right now, just think about how much awesome fun we are all going to have tomorrow.”
The mention of our skiing overnighter got Owen, Pam, and Chloe all talking before Avery could respond, but their excitement perked her up. “Make sure you all pack your swim suits,” I said. “Our building has a sick indoor pool and a hot tub.” Then, because I couldn’t resist, I leaned down and whispered in Avery’s ear. “Unless you’d rather just hit the shower together again. But then it’s your turn to be naked.”
Avery shrieked again, just like I hoped she would.
That conversation at lunch was the most life I’d seen in Avery since my brother caught us kissing. I wanted to make sure her mood stayed happy for her birthday the next day, so I showed up at her house after school prepared to keep her distracted the rest of the day.
“Grayson!” She was more excited to see me than I’d expected. “What are you doing here?”
I held up my science journal. “We only have a month until the science fair. We have work to do.”
Avery smiled and opened the door wide to let me in. “I don’t know why Mr. Walden was worried about you being my partner,” she said as she directed me into her living room. “You’ve been more of a slave driver than a slacker.”
I rolled my eyes. “A slave driver? We haven’t worked on this since I took you to that party weeks ago.”
Avery gave me a confused look. “Didn’t you write up an entry in your journal about the kiss?”
“Why?” I eyed her journal as she took it from her bag and set it out on the coffee table in front of us. “Did you?”
I was hoping to fluster her, but instead she frowned again. “Of course I did. We have to record all of our experiments.”
I resisted the urge to bang my head against a wall.
Avery paused and then sent me a panicked expression. “You are recording our experiments in your journal, aren’t you? Because we need your viewpoints on everything to keep the integrity of this project.”
“Aves, relax. Yes, I’ve kept my dumb journal up-to-date. I blabbed all about our kiss in it, okay?”
Suddenly curious about what she’d written on the topic of our kiss, I snatched up her journal and flipped to the last entry. I thought she’d freak, but she just smiled at me and asked if I wanted something to drink.
I assumed that was permission enough, so I read her entry as she went in search of some soda. All I can say is no freaking wonder she considered our kiss an experiment. I flipped back through all of her entries and found every step of this project mapped out in detailed outlines.
“What is this?” I complained when she came back and handed me a Sprite. My voice conveyed all the confusion, disappointment, and horror I felt.
“My journal?” she asked, confused.
“This is not a journal. This is . . . it’s a freaking textbook. Where’s all the good stuff?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, all the girly stuff.” I kicked my voice into my best falsetto. “OMG I got my first kiss tonight! It was AH-MAZING! Grayson Kennedy is so hot!” Bringing my voice back to normal, I flipped the open book so she could see it. “There’s not one single exclamation point, smiley face, or heart scribbled in this thing.”
Avery burst into the biggest laugh I’d ever heard from her. She went into full hysterics.
“What?” I demanded.
“It’s not a diary, Grayson!” She had to wipe tears from her eyes. “It’s a scientific study!”
I failed to see the difference.
Avery looked at my face and fell into another fit of laughter. Once she could talk again, she opened the book—I refused to call it a journal—to the last entry and started pointing things out. “It’s a log book of all the work we’ve done through the experiment.”
“It looks like a bunch of outlines. What is this pattern you’re using?”
Trying very hard to get her giggles under control, she pointed at the first heading. �
��It’s called the scientific method,” she said. “It’s the process by which science is carried out. Basically it boils down to question, hypothesis, prediction, test, and analysis.”
“What does that even mean?”
Aves got that look on her face that she’d had when she handed me a bowling ball and told me about Newton’s Laws. It was a little pitying, completely amused, and slightly excited. I could tell she liked teaching. She’d be a great teacher, actually.
“Here.” She sat down next to me and opened the book back to the kiss entry. “First you have to have a question. In this case, yours was, ‘Why can’t Avery move on from the guilt stage?’ Your hypothesis was that I was self-fulfilling the feelings of guilt and subconsciously repressing the anger. Next you predicted that if I could be forced to feel something out of sequence, it might break the cycle and put me back on a more natural path. You tested it by kissing me. The analysis is the result of the test. In this case the experiment failed because afterward, despite momentarily experiencing feelings of acceptance and happiness, the second I was faced with the original problem, I went right back to guilt.”
I had no idea what to think. I read her “analysis” again and frowned. “Geez, Aves, you sure know how to bleed all the romance out of a kiss. I must have really sucked performance-wise if this is how you remember it.”
“Grayson, this journal is a record of our scientific research. It doesn’t depict my personal feelings on the matter.” Avery’s face crept into fire-engine territory. “Of course you didn’t suck. I think that might be impossible. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect first kiss.”
She really looks so adorable when her face is all pink like that. She was so close to me too and smelled completely mouthwatering as always.
“I don’t know. The fact that you could even look at that kiss analytically after it happened means it wasn’t good enough. I think you’d better give me another chance to do it better.”
I couldn’t get my eyes to look anywhere but her lips—those lips that I just had to taste again. Right now.
I started to lower my face to hers, and she quickly leaned forward out of my reach. “Actually,” she said, “I think I’d better take a look at your journal.”
“Oh, no you don’t!” I forgot all about kissing Avery and scrambled for my journal before she could get her analytical hands on it.
“But this is going to be turned in. It’s going to be judged, Grayson, and now you have me worried now that there’s not enough actual science being recorded in it.”
“Are you kidding? There is so much science going on up in here that I deserve a freaking PhD.”
“Then why can’t I see it?”
There was no way I was showing her this journal filled with crap about how I was getting a crush on her, and how I love to make her blush, and how dancing with her had blown my mind beyond all reason. Especially not after seeing her stupid scientific method. No freaking way. I was going to have to rewrite the whole thing from the beginning before I turned it in.
I tucked the book more securely into my arms. “Because I am the outside, unbiased observer, remember? Reading my thoughts before it’s over would completely taint the whole experiment.”
Avery glanced at the journal again but stopped insisting. “You’re right. I’m sorry. But will you let me read it after the science fair?”
You see? This is why journals are lame. How did I turn into such a girl?
“I guess that depends on the outcome of the experiment.”
Avery actually pouted at me. It was freaking adorable. Every bit as cute as when she blushed. Maybe a little sexy even. “Fine,” she said. “But you do realize that people are eventually going to read it, right? The judges and Mr. Walden? The book will be on display at our booth for anyone visiting the science fair.”
I crossed my arms defiantly. “Well, then once it’s on display, you can flip through it all you’d like. For now it’s off limits. But it does need some more entries, so we need to get working on this anger business. I have a few theories that need to be tested. See? I’m all over this science business.”
Avery
Grayson wasn’t joking when he said he had theories to test. He’d come prepared.
He said he still thought the best way for me to finally get mad was to lock Aiden and me in a room together and make us battle it out. When I said no to that one, he showed me his backup plan.
I’m not much of an angry person. I never have been. Easily stressed out to the point of hyperventilation, sure. But getting in fights? Never.
Grayson decided that if I could get really angry, for any reason at all, that might work as a catalyst for the all the pent-up rage—his words, not mine—I was harboring for his brother. He’d looked up ways to make a person irritable on the Internet and then declared he planned to annoy the crap out of me until I unleashed a shit-storm of fury on him. Again, that phrase was all Grayson.
According to Google, the easiest way to make someone irritable is to overstimulate them. Grayson started by making me down a four-pack of Red Bull. Then he locked us in my bedroom with a strobe light, turned up some kind of angry death-metal music and pelted me with raisins. That didn’t work, so he pulled a water gun out of his backpack.
When he refused to stop squirting me unless I made him, I finally lost my sanity and launched myself at him. I wrestled him for the gun, but that just turned into him tickle torturing me until I almost peed my pants.
Instead of angry, I ended up soaked with raisins stuck in my hair and pinned beneath Grayson on my bed. This proved to be too tempting for Grayson’s next-to-nonexistent restraint. He kissed me, and even with the strobe light and the death metal blaring, I kissed him right back. We kept it up for quite a while, and that’s how my mom found us when she got home from work.
Grayson tried to tell her it was in the name of science. I blamed all the Red Bull. Neither excuse was acceptable for my mom. She sat us down and forced us to tell her exactly what was going on. I showed her my science journal about our experiment, hoping it would make her take pity on me. I think it did, but she didn’t really calm down until after she read Grayson’s journal.
I don’t know what Grayson had been writing in that thing, but whatever it was, it couldn’t have been as scientific as he claimed it was. Mom read his “prologue,” then ordered the two of us to go cook dinner, while she curled up in a chair and devoured the rest of the journal like it was one of her soap operas. I heard her laugh out loud many times, and when she finished, I noticed a small pile of tissues sitting on the end table.
Mom had always loved Grayson, but after reading his journal, I think she might have actually fallen in love with him. For me, I mean. She completely forgave us for making out on my bed with the door closed and pretty much acted like we were going to be married one day.
She did, however, manage to threaten him within an inch of his life if he so much as laid one finger on me during our overnight the next day. I think she planned on duct taping us both to our own beds.
The next day on the slopes, Mom and I ended up on a ski lift together, and I couldn’t help asking, “What the heck is in Grayson’s journal?”
Mom smiled at me with this love-struck twinkle in her eyes. “He’s such a good boy, isn’t he? I’m so glad he’s been there for you.”
I sighed. No way was she going to spill the beans. Grayson had her completely wrapped around his little finger.
After a minute of silence, mom sucked in a big gulp of the cold, fresh mountain air. “You know, Avery, I owe you an apology.” Her voice was really small all of a sudden. “You and Aiden both.”
“For what?”
I looked up, shocked to see that my mother was crying. “You guys always got along so well that Cheryl and I never once thought about what we were doing to you kids. What you and Aiden are going through right now is our fault.”
“Mom.” I tried to give my mom a big hug. My arms wouldn’t go all the way around her thanks to our
coats, but I still managed to get a good grip on her. “Don’t blame yourself. Aiden and I will get through this somehow. You need to stop being mad at Cheryl. Tell her you’re sorry. Aiden hurt me, but it wasn’t her fault. And it’s not yours.”
“I’m not mad at Cheryl anymore,” Mom admitted. She took her gloves off to swipe at her tears. “I’m as much to blame as she is. We didn’t set the proper boundaries for you kids growing up. We had no idea what we were doing to you.”
“You didn’t do anything to us except give us a loving environment and a great example of a healthy friendship.”
My mom smiled a sad smile at me. “Maybe, but your relationship with Aiden wasn’t healthy, and neither of us noticed.”
This news was shocking to me. “What do you mean?”
“Something Grayson said in his journal made me realize that maybe you needed this. I’m sorry you got hurt. Aiden didn’t handle the situation very well at all, but I think he did the best he knew how, and I agree with him that the two of you needed some distance between you.”
When I gasped, my mom’s tears returned. “Avery, you’ve changed so much since winter break. You’re really growing into yourself. You’ve gained confidence, and you don’t have as much trouble with your anxiety.” She ran her eyes over me and brushed her fingers through my new bangs. “Honey, you glow now in a way you never did before. You’re growing up.”
I felt myself blush and tears sprang up in my eyes. My voice was thick when I replied. “Thanks, Mom.”
We were almost to the top of the mountain, so my mom wiped her eyes one last time and then put her gloves back on. “I love you so much, Avery. It hasn’t been easy raising you on my own. I’m just one person, and I’m far from perfect.”
“You’re perfect for me,” I said, hugging her again. “I don’t need anyone else.”
“Yes, you do. You need your friends. You need me the most, but you also need your friends. And . . .” She hesitated as if suddenly feeling awkward about something. Then she said, “You need Grayson.”