by Britney King
My eyes widen. It’s such a strange thing to say when you’re about to make love to someone for the first time. I hadn’t considered that this might not be love.
“I have wanted this for so long,” he says, kissing me on the mouth. “So long.”
“Me too,” I assure him.
He slides into me slowly, gently, carefully, and he moves with precision. “I want you to tell me what you like,” he says searching my eyes. “I want this to last.”
“This,” I murmur breathlessly. “I like this.”
“Yes,” he tells me. “But what do you want?”
“I want you to fuck me,” I say, and so he does.
I look up at the stars as he moves into me, and I’d like to say I’m thinking what a mistake this all is. I know I should care about his wife. But the truth is Josie Dunn never crosses my mind.
Chapter Nineteen
Josie
I don’t have time for this. Not today. I have a to-do list a mile long, and I was hoping for an afternoon to myself just to catch my breath.
“Avery, please. Calm down,” I say into the phone.
“I CAN’T CALM DOWN,” she yells, causing me to pull my ear away from the speaker. I can’t make out the rest of what she’s saying. I put the phone to my ear again, but this time all I hear is her heavy breathing, snot and tears. Finally, there’s a break. “Did you hear me at all? I NEED YOU TO COME AND GET ME.”
“Avery—”
“They cut me from the dance team.”
Great. I throw up my hands. “Why would they do that?”
She sniffles, blows her nose, into her collar no doubt. Then she starts crying again. “I don’t know.”
“Well, what did they say?” I shouldn’t sound so annoyed, but I can’t help myself. There’s a limit one can take where teenage dramatics are concerned. I search for my keys.
“It’s a long story,” she tells me, her tone matching my level of irritation. “Can you come and get me or not?”
When I don’t answer immediately—I’m still searching for the keys and wondering where I could have placed them—she lets out a long sigh. “Or should I just call Beth?”
“Beth? Why would you say that?” I reach into the drawer and grab the spare set of keys.
“She told me to call if I ever needed anything.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Wait for me on the bench out front.”
“Fine,” she says. Not thank you. Just fine. For a moment I consider teaching her a lesson for talking to me this way. I consider letting her ride it out. But then she probably would call Beth, and I’d have to explain and it’s just not worth it. There are easier ways to teach lessons. Also, I can’t recall a time when I’ve heard her this distraught, and she hasn’t so much as gotten a bad note home before, so getting cut from anything, much less dance, doesn't seem like her. Dance is her life. They say you’re supposed to watch out for these things with teenagers. Especially in a competitive environment like this. Private school, especially one filled with New Hope members, is no joke. Look for changes in attitudes, quitting or ceasing the things they love, they warn. It can be more than just a sign of growing up. It can lead to trouble. To darker things, things I don’t want to think about. They tell you all the signs to look for. They just never tell you what to do when you come face to face with them.
When I arrive at the school, Avery isn’t waiting on the bench. I text her, and she replies immediately. She’s waiting in the assistant principal’s office. He would like to speak with me.
I don’t know if it’s just my imagination, or if everyone really is glaring at me as I make my way down the hall to his office. When I reach the door, I see Mr. Hines through the small glass window. He’s sitting at his desk, hands folded, facing the door. He doesn’t immediately see me. Avery is seated across from him. He’s speaking to her. His face is set, stern. I know that look well. She nods, but I can’t see her face. She buries it in her hands. Her shoulders heave. She’s sobbing. My heart leaps into my throat; I hadn’t been prepared for this. My hand grips the doorknob. Instinctively, I want to kill him for making my daughter feel this way. Something innate comes to the surface, and I’m ready to pounce. I twist the knob. “What is—” One look at Avery, her mascara running down her face, her eyelids swollen, nostrils raw, and the rest of my sentence lodges in my throat. It’s probably a good thing, as I realize that anything I say is going to be the wrong thing.
“Please, Mrs. Dunn—” He cuts me off and motions to a chair beside my daughter. “Have a seat.” He speaks calmly. Authoritatively. Like my husband. I wonder if there’s a class they give on this kind of stuff. How to get women to do what you want.
I want to dig my heels in, to grab my daughter and get the hell out of there. Somehow, I see the end result, and I stop myself. I’d never hear the end of it if she were kicked out of school. There are things I’ve been warned about, but sometimes you can’t learn until you suffer the consequences.
Still, I look down at Avery, and I do as he asks.
She looks over at me and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “I didn’t do it, Mom,” she cries. She speaks between sobs, furiously. This is not the Avery I know. “I promise. It wasn’t me,” she says, and a thought crosses my mind. I push it away. How well can we ever really know our children?
“Mrs. Dunn, I called you in to talk about an incident—” he starts. I place my hand on Avery’s knee, and he pauses. He peers at me over the rim of his glasses. It feels very official. He wants to see that I understand as much. I do. If you try to boil the entire ocean at once it doesn’t work. “A very serious incident.”
I lift my brow.
He shifts his gaze to my daughter and then looks back at me. “I don’t presume you’re aware of the situation.”
“I’m aware that Avery was cut from the dance team.”
He seems confused. “Avery is being accused of harassing a fellow classmate.”
I glance over at my daughter. She’s staring at me, wide-eyed. I know this expression. But I don’t know what to make of it. “Harassing? Harassing who?”
“One of our students has been hospitalized after an attempted suicide. When her mother checked her phone, she found dozens of messages from your daughter. Threatening messages.”
My mouth hangs open. A saying comes to mind: Those who are shocked should be shocked more often.
“Mom—I swear. I never sent Laura Duffy anything. I swear.”
I shift in my seat. I open my mouth to speak before closing it again.
“I swear,” Avery says. “I hardly even talk to Laura Duffy.”
“How do we know it was my daughter sending the messages?”
He slides a stack of papers toward me. It appears he was expecting the question. I glance down at the text exchanges, most of them with my daughter’s profile picture next to them. “They were sent from her Instalook account.”
I glance up and meet his eye before looking over at my daughter.
“BUT IT WASN’T ME!” Avery begins to lose it. It takes a lot, but there’s a little of her father in her, nonetheless.
“Can we prove they came from her?” I study my daughter carefully.
“We’re currently looking into that. Investigators have spoken with Avery and are in the process of gathering information.”
I meet his gaze, letting my tight smile convey the simmering fury. “Wait—you let cops speak to my daughter without my knowledge or permission?”
“Mrs. Dunn—”
“Don’t—” I say. I stand to leave and pat Avery’s shoulder, ushering her to follow suit.
Mr. Hines is the last to stand. He clears his throat. “In light of how serious these allegations are, I’m afraid we have to suspend Avery until further notice.”
“You can’t even prove she’s done anything.”
“No—” he says. “But we have to keep the campus safe and secure in the meantime.”
Later in the car I turn to Ave
ry. Her nose is buried deep in her cell phone, her fingers working furiously. “Just tell me what happened,” I say.
She stops texting and blows her nose into the bottom of her shirt. Finally, she sighs. “My life is over. That’s what happened.”
“Your life is not over, Avery.”
“It is over! You heard him. I’m expelled. Daddy is going to kill me.”
“You father is not going to kill you.” Me, now that’s another story.
She turns back to her phone. Explaining the situation to her friends seems more pressing.
“Please,” I say, reaching for the phone. “Just tell me what the hell is going on.”
She throws up her hands dramatically and I understand that to her it does feel like her life is over. “Someone is framing me,” she tells me. Then she shrugs as though it is the most logical and likely thing in the world.
“And why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know. Because they can.”
I purse my lips. When she was little, I knew how to fix things. Or at least where to start or what to try. They grow up, but nothing really changes. It’s always going to be a guessing game. “I have to ask—did you send those texts to Laura Duffy? Because if you did Avery—they will find out.”
“But I didn’t,” she scoffs. “I told you that. They can’t just accuse me of something I didn’t do. I know my rights!” she exclaims wildly, with all the false bravado a teenage girl can muster.
“You see, Avery—they can, and they have.”
She glares at me her mouth agape. “WOW. My own mother doesn’t even believe me. What happened to being innocent until proven guilty?”
“Avery. Honey,” I say softening my tone. I reach over and place my hand on hers. She pulls away. “It isn’t that I don’t believe you. That’s not what I said.” I take a deep breath in and slowly let it out. “I’ve never known you to do anything like this. Ever.”
She looks up at me, and I see something in her expression flicker. Relief, maybe.
I tilt my head and narrow my gaze. “It’s just that we have to prove your innocence, which means I am going to need you to be straightforward with me. About everything.”
“I am.”
We sit in silence for a long time before she speaks again.
“You know what this means?” she asks without waiting for a reply. “I have to miss Christmas competition. I'm not allowed to go to the formal, and I'm cut from all pep rallies. I’ll miss finals. They can flunk me.”
I sigh, and she begins crying again.
“We’ll fix this before that happens,” I promise.
“There’s no point.”
“Are you sure you have no idea who sent those texts? You can tell me Avery. You can tell me anything.”
She shifts in her seat and glares at me. “Of course, I don’t know. LIKE I TOLD YOU A THOUSAND TIMES.” she screams. “I should have known you wouldn’t believe me.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. I just have to know where to go from here,” I tell her thinking of her father.
“You know what? Just forget it,” she says. I watch as she folds her arms and shifts away from me. “I don’t care if I ever go back to that place.”
“You’re going back to school, Avery.”
When she starts crying again, I impulsively pull into Lucky’s parking lot. I need something—coffee, green tea, anything to get me through the rest of the afternoon. No sandwiches this time. I couldn’t stomach one even if I wanted to.
I park and order Avery to come in with me. When she refuses, I take the phone from her hand. “This is non-negotiable.”
The normal barista is working the counter. The one from the park. The weird one. The one I invited to church. The one who made me promise to keep her secrets. It seems like such an odd thing to say now. She doesn’t notice me standing there. Not at first. She’s busy staring at her phone. When I get up to the counter she looks up. Her eyes grow wide. Her knuckles whiten around the phone.
“You,” she says, and I can’t read her expression, but it’s almost like I’ve caught her doing something she shouldn’t be. Texting on the job?
“Don’t worry,” I say, nodding. “I won’t tell.”
She sort of smiles and takes my order. I realize I shouldn’t have come. Being here reminds me of the sandwich incident and my reconciliation with Grant feels too fragile just yet for any reminders. “The cappuccino is for my daughter,” I say, glancing back at Avery, who is sulking in a chair. She too is staring at her phone. I remember all the times I’d take her after school for donuts or hot chocolate or a croissant when she was little. Looking back, those seem like such innocent times. Before all the rules. Before I really minded having to follow them. I thought life was hectic then. I thought they’d keep me—keep us— safe. I had no idea.
Back then, I had no context of what parenting an adolescent would bring. I only knew what it had been like when I was a teenager, and still, that was seeing it from the other side. To be a parent, in charge of so many emotions while trying to manage your own, is something else entirely. “She was cut from drill team today,” I mention. I leave out the part where she was expelled from school entirely. Sometimes the truth is too much.
She glances at Avery. “I’ll add extra whip.”
“Thanks,” I say. “But I don’t think that cheers teenage girls up these days…I haven’t a clue what does, actually…maybe nothing.” I speak nervously. Off the cuff, which isn’t like me.
“How’s she taking it?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I say. I don’t say that she doesn’t talk to me anymore, not about dance, not about most things. She has her friends for that, and with the invention of smartphones those friends are ever present in our lives. I don’t say this, but it makes me long for the days I just wanted a break, even five minutes to go to the bathroom alone. In those days, at least I knew what was troubling my daughter, and I knew how to fix it.
I notice a bouquet on the counter. I lean down to inhale their scent. It helps hold back the tears that threaten my eyelids.
She smiles.
I inhale deeply. I probably look like a fool. But I’m an expert at keeping my emotions at bay. “Lilies. They’re my favorite.”
She nods. “Mine, too,” she tells me solemnly. I see sadness in her eyes. She hands me my green tea. Her hand touches mine. I glance over my shoulder at Avery. When I look back at the girl, she’s crying. “Are you okay?’
I hand her a napkin. “It’s my anniversary.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well—”
“He’s dead.”
A lump forms in my throat. “I’m sorry.”
“He always sent lilies.”
“It’s fine,” she says. I stare at the floor as she rings me up. Avery sidles up to me and takes her coffee.
“Have you given my invitation any thought?” I tread carefully. Now that things are better between Grant and I, and Beth too, I regret asking.
“I don’t know…”
“That’s okay,” I say. “It’s probably not your thing anyway.”
“Say,” she says, her tone serious. Intense. “I could work with your daughter. I used to teach dance. Ballet mainly. But I’m familiar with all kinds. My mother owned a studio. I mean, that was a long time ago—but still.”
“Wow,” I say, caught off-guard by her offer. “That’s very kind of you. But—”
“Wait,” Avery says, interrupting me. Her face is lit up. “A private tutor. That’s exactly what I need. I’ve been asking…”
“I’m really cheap,” the girl smiles. “As in free of charge.”
“That’s not necessary—”
She furrows her brow. “The truth is, I just really miss dance.”
“This is perfect,” Avery claps. “This way I won’t miss out. If I keep up my skills—if I get better—maybe they’ll still let me compete. ”
I look from Avery to the barista. She looks so happy. A complete one-eighty from just a few m
inutes ago in the car. I shrug. “Guess I’ll need your contact info.”
Chapter Twenty
Izzy
I know I shouldn’t have done it. But I couldn’t help myself. I hadn’t seen Grant Dunn in five days. We had sex on the hood of his car, and then he ghosted me. To his credit, he did throw in a dozen flowers first. Her favorite, as it turns out.
I’ll admit. I was drunk and a little high too when I stumbled on Avery Dunn’s Instalook page. And the more I drank and the more I looked at her spoiled little life, the more I realized why her father hadn’t called. He was too busy making her life perfect. He shouldn’t have to work so hard to give her all that. She should be happy just to have a dad like him. But she isn’t. It’s obvious. Also, I recognized her face as one of the kids who “studies” at Lucky’s. She’s not one of the troublemakers. But she doesn’t exactly clean up after herself, either. Why would she with a life like that?
So, I did it. I found one of her friends, and I started dripping DMs. Just one or two, here and there. But over those five days, the less I heard from Grant Dunn the more I sent.
But the invitation to teach her to dance…well, that was luck. I didn’t know my messages would get her kicked off the dance team. But I’m not the least bit sorry, either.
“I think we should go away together,” Grant tells me in the office at Lucky’s. We’ve just finished having sex, our third time. It’s after closing, and Stacey’s desk seemed more appealing than Grant’s car. This time was better than last time, but not as good as the first. Maybe it never gets to be as good as it was the first time again. I remember that with Josh. Maybe it’s a high you chase forever. I’m willing.
“Where would we go?” I ask with a smile. This is the best suggestion I’ve heard all week. I can’t take my eyes off him. Mostly, I’m just so relieved he finally called.