MICHAEL: The different groups at San Anselmo are so separate they might as well be different species. From an evolutionary perspective, why would a lion pay any attention to a beelzebufo?
Editor’s Note: A beelzebufo is a prehistoric carnivorous frog.
HUTCH: No, there is no evolutionary link between lions and prehistoric frogs. AD, I’m slightly concerned about the data you’re gathering.
LIAM: I’m not complaining about my friends, but those two weeks with Avery—it was nice. I hate to admit it, but it felt good to be part of that crew. God, that sounds sad.
ALEX: That’s what they all want to think, isn’t it? That we’re all just dying to hang out with them? Believe me, I have no desire whatsoever to go to the next Tripp Gomez-Parker party. I imagine the conversation is stimulating.
HUTCH: Seriously, AD, it doesn’t bother me. I really don’t care who’s popular and who isn’t. I’m very happy with my place.
Editor’s Note: I’d always just thought of my friends as my friends. It was weird to hear Michael and Alex and Liam and Hutch talk about us like we were … I don’t know. It felt weird. I didn’t like the feeling that Hutch has a place that’s different from my place.
MICHAEL: I tell you all of this not because it holds any particular fascination for me, but because you need to understand the enormity of what Avery Dennis did when she asked Liam out in seventh grade. She upended the entire social order.
HUTCH: Avery asked Liam out, huh? My hypothesis was confirmed. Once again, we see Avery as aggressor.
AVERY: I politely reminded Hutch that two pieces of evidence does not a proven hypothesis make. Classic confirmation bias. It gets the best and the brightest.
HUTCH: Avery screamed, “SHUT UP!” and hit me with her notebook. I was starting to think we should go back to doing interviews over the phone. Or that I should have pretended the Discover interview took longer than it actually did.
AVERY: The bonus of the in-person interview was that Mrs. Padalecki put out a plate of cookies.
MRS. PADALECKI, Liam’s Mom: Oatmeal scotchies. Got the recipe from one of those Nestle Very Best Baking books in the grocery store checkout line. Love that butterscotch flavor.
ALEX: You’re Avery Dennis? Sure. Okay.
Editor’s Note: This guy is so full of it.
AVERY: I returned to school to start seventh grade single. But not for long.
LIAM: Something was different when I came back. I have no idea what it was. I wasn’t any different. Oh, wait—I guess I got my braces off. But people who had never talked to me were saying hi. Girls were smiling at me. It was … confusing.
AVERY: It was the fatal combination of Liam Padalecki’s summer tan and the braces coming off. Also, he happened to be having a good hair day. And I swear he was taller.
MICHAEL: It is impossible for a human adolescent to grow substantially over two months. Liam was absolutely not taller when he returned from summer break.
LIAM: When Avery Dennis—Avery Dennis!—sashayed over to my locker, I had no idea what was going to happen. How could I? I mean, if you’d bet me a million dollars, I probably would have guessed she had a question about the summer math packet. No, wait—we weren’t in the same math class. Never mind. I had no idea what she was going to say. Not that I could form rational thoughts or coherent sentences around Avery Dennis. I just stared as she walked over, my mouth hanging open as my palms started sweating. I wiped them surreptitiously on my pants as she leaned against the locker next to mine.
AVERY: I panicked, okay? I snapped. I could not walk into that school single. I’d broken up with Robby because I thought I would meet a guy at camp, and I did, but now we’d broken up, and I was single again! It would have been way too embarrassing to crawl back into that school alone. What would Robby have thought? That I was a total loser, probably. To be perfectly honest, Liam Padalecki was the first male form I saw.
ALEX: Yes, Liam’s locker in seventh grade was very close to the middle school entrance. I fail to see what this has to do with anything.
LIAM: She was chewing gum, which is completely forbidden. Which I know because I’ve gotten dinged for gum like six times, and Avery Dennis has never received a single consequence. And that’s justice for you.
AVERY: I have no idea what I said. I guess I just asked him to be my boyfriend and walked away?
LIAM: She said, “Hey.” I nodded. Remember—could not form coherent thoughts in presence of Avery Dennis. She said, “You’re my boyfriend now.” I nodded. She blew a bubble and walked away. It was so awesome. Like a scene from movie.
HUTCH: I’m sorry. I’m sorry I just—I can’t stop laughing. Of course when AD asks somebody out, there’s no actual asking involved.
MICHAEL: When Liam told me what had happened, I didn’t believe him. Why would I have believed him? It was impossible.
ALEX: You’re saying I was there for this? Sorry. I don’t recall. Not all of us keep tabs on Avery Dennis’s every move.
HUTCH: Listen, AD, Alex remembers. Liam talks about those two weeks a lot. A lot.
LIAM: Part of me thought I’d imagined it, honestly. Until I was making my way to my normal lunch seat, then Avery marched up to me and announced, “We sit over here.” I followed her to the popular table, and there I sat, right next to Avery like I was Luke Murphy or something.
MICHAEL: My mouth was open so wide I think some chocolate milk dribbled out. I couldn’t believe it. Could. Not. Believe it.
HUTCH: And according to the million times I’ve heard this story, Liam then proceeded to completely ignore Michael and Alex for the next two weeks.
LIAM: Yeah, I was a jerk, okay? Sue me! Who among us wouldn’t have been the same, had they been in my situation? I was an awkward loser who was suddenly dating the most popular girl in seventh grade! This kind of stuff does not happen! It does not happen!
ALEX: Oh, Liam was in school for those two weeks of seventh grade he missed? I had thought he was in Space Camp or something.
Editor’s Note: There is no such thing as mid-school-year Space Camp.
LIAM: I was a straight-up baller. I walked around school for the next two weeks like I owned the place. I put my arm around the back of Avery’s chair when I sat next to her. Sometimes she’d let me hold her hand. And she even let me kiss her when she was sure no one was watching.
Editor’s Note: When no one was watching? Forget Bizzy Stanhope. Maybe I’m the worst.
MICHAEL: Of course, what happened next was completely obvious. Hubris. The tragic hero’s fatal flaw. Liam Padalecki flew too close to the sun.
ALEX: Did Michael try to get you to read his graphic novel? Don’t do it. It reimagines Icarus from Greek mythology as a modern-day computer programmer. I created a page for it on Goodreads just so I could give it one star in a public forum.
LIAM: I invited her over after school, to study. Man, that was dumb. I ruined everything. In school I was keeping up a pretty decent facade, but I had put zero thought into what she’d see when she came to my house—because seventh graders are incapable of foresight, unfortunately. My mom let us hang out in my room because she’s cool like that. Maybe if we’d stuck to the living room, I would have been okay.
MRS. PADALECKI: Yes, of course I remembered Avery. She’s the only girl Liam’s ever invited over. Very polite. All that pretty, long blond hair.
LIAM: And I just never thought about what Avery would see.
AVERY: There were, like … goblins … everywhere. His room was covered in tiny goblins.
LIAM: Goblins? I think she was probably talking about the Warhammer models I was in the middle of painting. But it doesn’t matter what it was, exactly—the Warhammer models or the half-set-up D&D spread or the R2-D2 trash can. For Pete’s sake, my room was practically wallpapered in Magic: The Gathering concept art. She was horrified. It was written all over her face.
AVERY: There were goblins everywhere, okay? I was scared! I had to get out of there. And I
had to call Coco. I had to tell someone about the goblins.
LIAM: She whispered one word—“gross”—and walked out of the room. It was the worst moment of my life.
Editor’s Note: I can’t believe I said that. I was so mean. Nothing about this Liam Padalecki interview was making me feel good about myself.
MRS. PADALECKI: Oh, that’s right—Avery had a stomachache, poor thing. Her mom came and picked her up. Whenever I asked Liam about her after that, he said she was busy with tennis.
LIAM: I wish she’d said something besides “gross.” I wish she’d broken up with me right then and there. Or maybe she had broken up with me, and I just didn’t understand. Because like an idiot, the next day in school, I walked over to sit next to her at lunch.
MICHAEL: It was like watching a car crash. I couldn’t look away. Liam had been a supreme butthead for the past two weeks, but that kind of social humiliation isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy, let alone the tiefling bard who sometimes contributes positively to our campaigns.
LIAM: “Can I help you?” She looked right at me and said that.
Editor’s Note: I kind of hate myself.
HUTCH: According to how Liam tells the story, Avery looked like she’d never seen him before. Like those two weeks of surreptitious hand-holding had never happened. He knew it was over.
MICHAEL: The natural order was too strong. No one, not even Avery Dennis, could subvert it. Things returned to the way they always were. After all—a fish may love a bird, but where would they live?
Editor’s Note: It was like this guy had never heard of a flying fish. Or a pelican.
AVERY: Leaving Liam Padalecki’s house, I was feeling decidedly not super. If I’d learned anything from that interview, it was that I was a grade-A jerk. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t make a relationship work. Because I was a grade-A jerk.
HUTCH: I reminded AD that no one was at his or her best in middle school. Not even me. Once I made Ashley Jenkins cry in earth science because I pointed out that the mantle was labeled incorrectly on her diagram of Earth’s geothermal layers.
Editor’s Note: Must ask Coco, Facebook stalker extraordinaire, to find this Ashley Jenkins person. It’s rare that Hutch mentions a girl. Even if only in the context of making her cry over science.
AVERY: Anyone who was that invested in a geothermal diagram had bigger issues.
HUTCH: I’d rather be overly invested in a geothermal diagram than overly perturbed by Warhammer models.
AVERY: Talking to Hutch’s friends had only made me feel worse about the Liam Padalecki situation. I had actually enjoyed myself at that interview, talking to them and eating oatmeal scotchies. They were funny! And Liam was such a nice guy—I can’t believe I did him so wrong. For the first time, I started to understand why Hutch wanted to spend all of his weekends rolling dice with these guys in a basement. It was kind of sad that they weren’t coming to prom, too. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with them, obviously, but they were still part of our class. They should be there. And I definitely couldn’t imagine the most important night of high school life without Hutch. But I knew there was no way I was getting Liam Padalecki or Hutch or any of them to go to prom. I wasn’t going to mess up Ultimate Game Night by plucking all the tiefling bards off of his campaign and forcing them to dance.
HUTCH: I could not believe that AD had uttered the words tiefling bard. It had been a big afternoon.
AVERY: It was time to press on. But I could not deal with Sean Graney and his lack of neck on an empty stomach. So I kidnapped Hutch and started driving down the 101 to the In-N-Out in Mill Valley. There still isn’t an In-N-Out in San Anselmo proper, despite my frequent letters to the mayor.
HUTCH: The minute I got in the car, the locks clicked into place ominously and AD literally said, “I’m kidnapping you.” No, it was not the most relaxing sixteen-minute drive of my life.
AVERY: There are so many things I love about driving, but probably the best thing about being the person with the car is that you get to make all the decisions! You can force your friends to go everywhere you want to go!
HUTCH: AD did not tell me where she was going. She spent the whole ride screeching along with the radio and ignoring any questions I asked her, like “Where are we going?” and “Should I alert my parents to the fact that I’ve been abducted?” When we pulled up at In-N-Out, I guess I was relieved more than anything else. Where did I think we were going? I don’t know, an abandoned warehouse where she would torture me by making me help her select the most flattering Instagram filters? Or decide which Facebook photos to untag?
AVERY: I ordered animal fries and a strawberry vanilla milk shake for me, and a double-double with lettuce, tomato, and onion for Hutch. Raw onion? Really, Hutch? When grilled onions are an easily accessible option? Honestly, it made me like him a little less.
HUTCH: It’s like everyone woke up one day and decided to hate on raw onion. Raw onion has been a perfectly acceptable burger topping for eons. It adds bite.
Editor’s Note: I think what he meant was “It bites.” Because it does.
AVERY: I hadn’t planned to kidnap Hutch for the entire evening. Especially since he wouldn’t let me eat while I was driving. I was hungry, and those fries smelled good.
HUTCH: AD is already a marginally terrifying driver. I was not about to let her drive with only one animal-sauced greasy paw. I value my life.
Editor’s Note: This is a total lie. I am an excellent driver. One time my dad cried when he was teaching me how to parallel park because I was so good he was moved to tears.
AVERY: But then, as we were driving by Creek Park, I saw a sign for an outdoor movie night in the park, and they just happened to be playing my favorite movie of all time. I could see the black-and-white shape of Audrey Hepburn from the street! So I parked in a safe and conscientious manner.
HUTCH: AD screeched to a halt, drove in reverse down the street, and then managed to somehow hit both of the cars she parallel parked between.
Editor’s Note: There was no damage. Ergo, I did not hit the cars.
AVERY: I grabbed my food back from that fry hoarder and took a swig of my milk shake. Which is when I discovered that Hutch had never seen Roman Holiday before. How was that possible?!
HUTCH: Yeah, I know who Audrey Hepburn is. Breakfast at Tiffany’s, right? No, uh, I haven’t seen it. And that’s all I’ve got.
AVERY: There was a gaping hole in Hutch’s cinematic knowledge that had to be rectified immediately.
HUTCH: It’s not that I have a thing against black-and-white movies. I just don’t especially have a thing for them. My favorites? Pacific Rim, Princess Bride, and Hook. In that order.
Editor’s Note: Actually a totally respectable list! Then again, it is inconceivable that anyone wouldn’t like Princess Bride. Except maybe someone like Bizzy Stanhope, who has no soul. Bizzy Stanhope would probably love to marry Prince Humperdinck.
AVERY: I grabbed a beach towel out of the mess of crap that lived in the back of my car and marched toward the screen, dragging Hutch along behind me. It was totally packed, but I found a space for our towel way in the back. Luckily, it had just started—Princess Anne hadn’t even cut her hair yet. I spread out the towel and plopped down. With an inordinate amount of effort, Hutch folded up his long legs and sat down next to me.
HUTCH: I do not enjoy sitting on the floor. Who does? Well, AD does, apparently, ’cuz she plopped right down, crisscross applesauce, while I tried to find a position that was somewhat comfortable.
AVERY: I realized suddenly that Hutch and I had never hung out outside of school before. And that was weird. I’d seen him every school day for the past four years—I guess I hadn’t realized I’d only ever seen him in school.
HUTCH: It was weird, hanging out with AD at night. It had been weird being in her car, weird stealing her fries, and it was weird sitting down to watch a movie with her.
AVERY: I felt weird around Hutch—somethi
ng I’d never felt before. And not bad weird, just like … weird weird. So I sipped my milk shake, ate my fries, and watched the movie.
HUTCH: I was kind of surprised this was AD’s favorite movie, honestly. It wasn’t what I would have expected. What would I have guessed? I don’t know. Frozen?
Editor’s Note: Frozen? Really, Hutch?
AVERY: In Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn is a princess who runs away from her royal tour and meets this beyond swoonworthy reporter while she’s exploring Rome. They have amazing adventures together and she cuts her hair and they fall in love, and the end is kind of sad because they can’t be together. She has to go back to her royal life. But I kind of like that it ends like that—it’s real. And the important thing isn’t that they’re not together; the important thing is that they had this wonderful adventure together. And also that he didn’t sell her out by publishing a newspaper story about her. That’s important, too.
HUTCH: What did this mean, that AD’s favorite movie was a love story in which love ended? Was she unconsciously following the model set by Roman Holiday, leaving all her Gregory Pecks standing alone in the Colosseum as she moved on to other adventures? Or was she drawn to the film because it reflected her own experience back to her? In summary: Did life imitate art, or did art imitate life?
Editor’s Note: I had definitely had enough of these open-ended rhetorical questions about my psychological state.
AVERY: I guess I like it because … because I don’t know, really. Maybe because there aren’t a lot of love stories that show that you can love an experience, too. That you can love a day. That sometimes love is about finding out who you are, and doing things you never thought you could do. It’s not always about the other person. Also, I love her haircut. Any movie with a makeover scene just slays me.
HUTCH: Did I like it? Yeah. Yeah, it was good. Really good. My favorite part? Huh. I can’t, uh, remember, somehow. But I had a really good time.
AVERY: While we were watching the scene with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in the river, sitting close together on my old blanket that weirdly smells like Fritos, I realized that this moment, right this second, was an experience. And it was an experience I loved.
It's Not Me, It's You Page 5