“I’m asking for a favor,” I said, switching my weight from one foot to the other.
Breanna’s brow furrowed. “Why would you ask me for a favor?”
“There’s something wrong with Avery so I’d appreciate if you didn’t provoke her. Could you do that?”
She snorted incredulously. “Obviously there’s something wrong with her.” She folded her arms tight over her chest. “You care about some crazy girl you don’t know and, you look like you could care less about your girlfriend in a coma that could’ve killed her. Did you even care enough to find out that she was pushed into the pool? She might even have a concussion on top of everything.”
I was a bit taken aback by how passionate she was about this, especially since she had just tried to kiss me. “How are you so sure she was pushed?”
“People saw! That’s why everyone’s afraid of freaky Avery, they look the same somehow… I—I don’t know. Their hair looks the same!”
It seemed as if everything slowed down, as a missing puzzle piece was added. As much as I hated to admit it, Breanna was right. The thing was I couldn’t figure out how he and Avery were connected; they couldn’t possibly be siblings, their features were far too different.
“To answer your question, I will leave her alone. She scares me.”
I blinked and nodded slightly. “Good, that’s good.” I felt a little awkward after the conversation we had just had. “Still want to go for some coffee?”
Breanna frowned. “We both don’t want that; I’ll get the coffee.”
I nodded, mildly surprised that she was being this mature about it. I ran my hand through my hair and tried to decipher the small things I was missing. The only conclusion I drew was that Avery was the only person able to help me understand what was happening, although I was still wary of her intentions toward me.
I started to open the door but stopped as I heard indistinct voices on the inside. My heart sped as I realized the possibility of Avery speaking to Gina and causing even more tangible issues between us. I pressed my ear against the door and struggled to hear Avery’s incredibly taciturn voice. I only caught snippets of what she was saying. I decided that if I was going to hear, I’d have to be more assertive.
Thankfully, the door was fairly new and didn’t squeak. I pushed the door open further and heard the last part of her sentence.
“…I love you too,” she said into the receiver of a phone.
I turned my surprise into a cough as she wiped her eyes flippantly, hurriedly saying goodbye. I couldn’t stop the thought slipping into my mind that she was talking to Dylan. But it didn’t make any sense that they’d be talking about love so quickly nor why she was getting so emotional.
She wiped her eyes another time, trying to be inconspicuous. “Uh, what are you doing back so quickly?”
I coughed a little to buy some time to answer her. “Breanna went to get it instead.” I looked at Gina’s still form on the bed then back to Avery. “Is everything okay?”
Avery sniffled and smiled slightly. “I’m fine. I just wish you’d stop being so nice to me,” she said, her words encompassed with a sigh.
I sat on the opposite side of the bed, willing myself to stare at Gina and not think about Avery. The pathetic part about this was that she could’ve been talking to Dylan—and I cared, even if infinitesimally.
“You’re the perfect guy, aren’t you?” she said, thoughtfully. “The perfect girlfriend, perfect family, perfect—”
“I’m not a trophy. I’ve had my share of crappy moments, trust me,” I interjected.
“Doesn’t look like it,” she noted with a sigh. “I’m starting to think that this life here is permanent for the first time.”
I pursed my lips and tried not to pry. I’d be a listening ear and nothing else. “I thought you’d take the first plane out of this place.”
“I would’ve,” she muttered. “But now I have something keeping me here,” she finished, meeting my gaze.
At that moment, Gina stirred and my eyes snapped to her, assuming something had gone wrong. Her eyes opened warily and she smiled as she caught sight of me, happy that I was still there. She seemed pretty exuberant despite her condition.
She was about to speak when she caught sight of the other person in the room. She looked thoroughly surprised and very confused as the memories of the party came back to her. The heart monitor which was beeping rather normally took off with an instantaneous speed. Avery and I exchanged alarmed looks. I tried to hold her hand to calm her down, but nothing was working.
A middle-aged nurse rushed into the room and gave us skeptical looks before injecting something into Gina’s IV that I assumed was to sedate her. The nurse shot us suspicious looks before ushering us out of the room. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t trust Avery and it was getting increasingly hard to trust myself as of late. Breanna approached us, seemingly impervious to the reason we were standing in the hallway.
“Here,” she said, shoving a cup into my hand and one into Avery’s. “It’s a good thing you two got us kicked out because I couldn’t bring myself to leave her.”
“Must I award you a medal?” Avery deadpanned.
The look Breanna gave Avery was so livid that I flinched a little from the impact it had on me. “I’ll find my way home, thanks for the ride here though.”
Breanna sauntered down the hallway without looking back at us. I could tell that she was trying to prove to Avery that she wasn’t frightened by her words. The truth was, though, she wasn’t accustomed to someone talking to her like that and actually meaning what they said.
“Who took you here again?” I asked Avery, willing her to take the bait.
She didn’t take a moment to respond. “Dylan…,” her eyes widened as she trailed off, realizing her blunder. There was no way to correct her mistake. The names Dylan and Reena were eons apart. There was no way to fib.
I raised an eyebrow at her words and tried my best to look surprised. “Dylan? I thought you were home.”
Avery looked flustered. “Um, it just happened that…” she inhaled deeply. “Listen, I wasn’t home this afternoon. I went on a sort of semi-date with Dylan Collins.”
I had to admit; I was a bit taken aback that she admitted to it so quickly. “Oh, you didn’t have to lie to me.”
“I didn’t think you’d be gullible,” she flippantly. “What would ever possess you to think I’d want to go home? I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Why would that hurt my feelings?” I asked, very offended.
Avery pressed her lips together to stop herself from laughing. “Nothing, can you take me home? This hospital is depressing.”
“Sure,” I replied, a bit annoyed that she was deliberately trying to get under my skin. She was winning and she knew it.
Chapter
XII
I wiped my forehead and smelled the sweat rising from my skin. That was a mark of accomplishment for the long endurance jog around the block I’d just done. Now that I didn’t have to practice as hard for swimming again, I had more free time to exercise otherwise.
School was back to normal, to say the least. Everyone got over the fact that a new girl with weirdly dark hair was at the school. They’d still flinch every time she walked by. Still, no one was willing to call her out like I did. I still had yet to learn anything remotely new about her. And to top it off, I never had a chance to be around her without Dylan nuzzling her neck or whispering some inside joke to her.
They were now a full-blown couple, even though they had been dating for only two weeks. I intended not to make it affect me by staying in Gina’s hospital room every day, giving her homework help. She was due back at school this week and, as horrible as the thought was, I was happy for a distraction from Dylan and Avery’s ludicrous relationship.
A cool wind rippled through the air and I took a swig of my water. There were sounds of laughing and talking behind me. I almost choked on the water as I
noticed the star couple of the week strolling, hand in hand. I frowned as I remembered that Dylan lived a block away from me. It wasn’t as if I enjoyed seeing them. On the contrary, I hated it. I just still wasn’t able to fully comprehend why Avery suddenly decided to show interest in a member of the opposite sex. As far as I understood, she hated everyone. And I was curious.
I unplugged my ear-phones completely and crouched behind the shrubbery. I rolled my eyes at some ‘sweet’ thing he was saying. The thing I didn’t understand was why Dylan chose Avery. He was the type of person who chose squeaky clean girls, not aspiring murderers. After a moment of tense silence, that had me pressing my eyes tightly together, they crossed the road. I exhaled deeply and continued on my way home. As much as I tried to ignore it, I was horribly jealous.
My relaxing shower was interrupted by a pounding on the door. The person didn’t seem to be giving up. I hurriedly hung a towel around my waist and hassled down the stairs – two at a time. I slipped numerous times as my feet hit the wooden staircase. Throughout all the chaos, the pounding on the door hadn’t ceased once. I was out of breath as I opened the door. My eyes widened as I saw Avery standing there, her hands poised to continue the raucous pounding. Before I could react, she pushed me aside and slammed the door behind her. She pushed me against it and tried to control her fast-paced breaths.
I was beyond bewildered at how frantic her eyes looked and at how tightly she was gripping my arm. After a moment, she calmed down and her eyes focused, finally seeing me.
“Why are you wet…?” she asked, letting me go and stepping back.
I scratched the back of my neck uneasily. “Well, I was taking a shower.”
Her eyes widened in realization and she stepped back again. “Oh.”
“Why were you—?”
“I can’t talk to you while you look like this,” she muttered, looking away from me, clearly embarrassed.
I nodded and gripped the towel closer around me, willing it not to do the orthodox thing and fall. It was pretty debilitating to go up the stairs, knowing she was watching me, even if not directly. As soon as I entered the room, I hurriedly tugged on my clothing and pulled a towel through my hair, trying to control the disarray but making it worse.
Instead of wasting time putting on a shirt, I threw one over my shoulder and rushed down the stairs, a bit panicked that she was no longer there. To my chagrin, she was in the kitchen; the place with more possible weapons than a police station. I stealthily crept along until I saw her staring distantly at a framed photograph of my father, Jade and I. My mother wasn’t in the picture; she was probably the one taking it.
Avery was angled in the direction of the cutlery and I was a little nervous about what she’d do. She turned a bit and got a slight look at me. I almost thought she’d reenact SAW or something, but she was pointing at the picture, her brows furrowed.
“This girl looks familiar,” she said thoughtfully.
I inched closer, tossing the shirt back and forth in my hands. “Who, Jade? Maybe you saw her at school.”
She looked up at me and frowned. “Huh, maybe.”
I was still a bit uneasy about having her so close to the knives, so I led her over to a stool in the middle of the kitchen in front of the island. She sighed and pushed me onto a stool beside her. Before I could come up with a suitable reaction, she buried her head in my chest, making me start.
“Didn’t I tell you that I can’t focus when you’re shirtless?” she asked, her words muffled by my chest.
I sighed. “I thought you weren’t affected by my muscles,” I muttered, quoting her words from just a few weeks before.
“Well,” she stated, matter-of-factly, “when you hear girls ogling over you on a daily basis, it affects your thinking.”
I smiled slightly. “Wait, you have friends?” I asked, feigning surprise.
“When you’re dating Dylan Collins, it comes along with it. The same as with Jason Forbes, I guess.”
I wanted the conversation to get along but not like this. “Why were you pounding my door down?”
“Because…, I guess you offer that rare solitude no one else has.”
I pursed my lips and gently lifted her head so she could look me in the eyes and talk to me. It turned out my hunch was right; the fear was plastered across her face. And she was trying hard to not let me see it.
“That still doesn’t explain why you rushed through the door though.”
She averted her gaze to the floor. “I’m in trouble.”
It took a moment to conjure a coherent response. “What kind of trouble? Is Dylan—”
“Dylan is an absolute sweetheart,” she interjected, staring into the distance.
“Then why aren’t you at his house then?” I asked, letting my jealousy over-power my lips.
Her eyes snapped to mine, and her brows pulled together. “What?” she asked in a detached whisper. “If you wanted me to leave, you could just say so.”
I groaned and ran a hand over my face. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I paused and studied her face, I just couldn’t resist. “How do you remember where I live?”
Avery pressed her lips together. “Please shut up.”
I chuckled lightly. “Will do. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I would but you have a cop father and I don’t even want to know what your mother does.”
I grimaced a bit at her mentioning my mother. For some reason, I harbored some sort of resentment toward her. I couldn’t figure out why but for some reason everything she did irritated me. “I’m not a snitch. What, did you kill someone?”
Avery gave me a flat look. “No, but there’s someone after me.”
I raised an eyebrow and uttered one word, “Paranoid.”
She sighed loudly and stood from where she was seated. “Yep, you’re right. I am paranoid.”
The sarcastic edge to her voice had made me cringe. I grabbed her hand to force her to stop or slow down or something that would buy me some time. “I feel as if I have to tip-toe around you all the time. Just—just tell me what happened.”
Avery sighed again but kept her eyes on the refrigerator. “You know when you run away from your past?” I nodded and she continued. “Well, my past is chasing me. I used to be bad. Very, very bad.”
I was glued to my seat as she gently tugged her hand from mine and began lifting her shirt. I had started assuming that she had gone mad but then I saw what she was showing me. There was a small black symbol on her lower back. I leaned in closer to get a better look. It was:
‘β’
I ran my hand over it to see if it was real. She shivered slightly and let the shirt fall. A thin veil of awkwardness was draped over us and I chuckled nervously.
“What? Were a beta or something?”
I expected her to smack me upside the head for being so stupid, but she nodded.
“Were you guys a loose interpretation of ‘Mean Girls’?”
“What makes you think they were girls?”
I gulped. A whole lot was going on that I had no clue to fathom. “Who was the alpha?”
It was only then she turned to face me. “My boyfriend.”
“You’re positive you aren’t a mythical creature or something?”
Avery rolled her eyes. “Why would you even think that?”
“Well, your eyes are pretty freaky.”
She looked surprised. “I thought you liked them.”
“I do. That doesn’t erase the fact that they’re creepy.” I cringed as soon as the words exited my mouth. I was way too comfortable around her. “That’s beside the point. Did you guys hotwire cars or something?”
Avery approached me and took the shirt from my hands, examining it. “Worse.”
The front door slammed forcibly, and I stayed rooted to my chair, unable to send some signal to my feet to stand. Jade strutted into the kitchen completely oblivious to us. The anger was still etched brilliantly onto her face. She pulled the refrigerator door open rough
ly and grabbed some juice, slamming it shut behind her. She grabbed a glass and began pouring. It was only then that she looked up.
“Am I interrupting something?” she asked, looking amused. Because she was so engrossed with staring at us, the juice poured onto her hand instead of into the glass.
I raised an eyebrow. “No, you aren’t. Why’d you think that?”
Jade grimaced at the mess she’d made before looking at me. “You’re shirtless and she has your shirt, shall I go on?”
“Do you want me to take you home?” I asked, ignoring Jade. I quickly back-tracked as I saw her expression. “Or we can go up to my room and finish talking,” I offered.
“Talking,” Jade sniped, “that’s what you call it.”
All this time, Avery was staring at Jade as if she’d done some impossible magic trick. She finally detached and looked at me. “Come on.”
I didn’t miss the condescending look Jade was giving me, but even with that I didn’t correct her, I didn’t want to.
The trip to my room was unsurprisingly awkward, despite my innate response to what Jade was suggesting. I was actually nervous as I led her down the hallway and to my room in the back. I hoped to God that I didn’t leave some dirty boxers lying around or something as morbidly cliché as that.
I opened the door slowly, unwilling to divulge any unnecessary insight into a True Life episode with Jason Forbes. Avery rolled her eyes and shoved me away from the door. She pushed the door back and strode in as if it was her room.
“Nice room,” she complimented, taking a seat on the bed.
I scratched the back of my neck uncertainly. “Thanks, uh—”
“Here’s the thing,” she interrupted quickly, leaving her position on the bed and pacing the length of the room. “I need a place to stay.”
My brows furrowed, this was definitely worse than her seeing my dirty underwear. “What are you saying exactly?”
Avery folded her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes at me as if silently cursing me as a dimwit. “It’s quite obvious,” she muttered, her voice lacking the usual intensity I’d grown to expect.
Popularity Rules Page 10