The N Word (Redefining Me #2)

by Michelle MacQueen

  “Isn’t it?” She turned on her heel. “Forget it. You aren’t the person who needs to answer for this.”

  He called after her, but she ignored him as she marched across the crunchy grass spanning the wide yards between her and Avery’s houses. Anger. It was a foreign feeling for her. Normally, she just felt bad for herself, but this was different.

  Forget about the crush she’d admitted to having. Avery didn’t deserve an ounce of her feelings. He was a liar, and this time, his lies went too far. Beckett didn’t get it. Becoming Avery’s ‘nerd’ girlfriend made it open season on Nari and her friends. They’d been trying to fly under the radar since the drama earlier in the semester when Peyton basically yelled at the entire school. It was their final year in Twin Rivers before they went their separate ways, and they wanted to avoid dealing with their classmates’ scorn.

  Fat chance of that now.

  Stepping onto the St. Germaine’s front porch, Nari slammed the knocker against the door. No one came. The light in the garage where their dad worked was on. Maybe he’d know where Avery was.

  Nari had barely ever spoken to Mr. St. Germaine, but she knew of his football legacy. He was the town’s claim to fame. The great Grayson St. Germaine with three Super Bowls under his name. His hulking frame bent over a machine as he guided it to saw through a length of wood.

  He turned off the machine and stood.

  Nari cleared her throat.

  Mr. St. Germaine straightened and turned, his eyes wide at finding her there.

  “Um, hello.” Nari did her best to meet his eyes.

  He only stared, and the longer it went on, the more anger seeped from Nari. She tried to hold on to it. She wanted to stay mad at Avery, but she saw him in the planes of his father’s face. The major difference was their eyes. Where Mr. St. Germaine's were cloudy, confused, Avery’s held a clear intensity. He always knew what he wanted.

  Nari kicked a rock on the ground. “Mr. St. Germaine, I was wondering if Avery was home.”

  He shook his head with a grunt before speaking with slow words. “No. Get out of here. Now!”

  Shocked into movement, Nari ran and didn’t stop until she reached the front of her house. Her breath came in gasps. What just happened?

  As she neared the porch wrapping around the front of her house, a figure came into view. Avery sat on the top step, his head buried in his hands.

  She stopped in front of him, but he didn’t look up. His back shook with a silent sob. Every bit of anger she’d held for him slipped away into the night. “Avery.” She put a hand on his shoulder, and he finally lifted tortured eyes to hers.

  It no longer mattered that he’d lied to their entire school or that his dad yelled at her. Not when he looked at her like something was breaking inside. She’d never seen anyone look so lost.

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” he whispered.

  Her brow creased. She didn’t know what had happened to him, but he came to her like she was the one he could count on. She liked that.

  “Stand up, Avery.”

  He did as she told him, holding her eyes in silence.

  “Open your arms. I’m going to hug you, okay?” Hugging was not something they did.

  “Why?”

  “Because I think you need a hug.”

  He only hesitated a moment before spreading his arms. She stepped into them, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his coat. It took him a moment before he wrapped his arms around her.

  She couldn’t hear the beat of his heart through the thick coat, but she imagined it sped up at their proximity as hers did. That was probably wishful thinking, though. Pulling back, she looked up at him. “Does this help?”

  “Yes.” A look passed across his face like he was surprised by his own answer.

  She smiled and released him, considering her options. Avery wasn’t Nicky. Having him stay in her room wouldn’t be the same. But could she really send him back over to that house where his father yelled at unsuspecting visitors?

  No, it wasn’t even a choice. “Go around to my bedroom window,” Nari told him. “You can crash on my floor tonight like your brother does sometimes. I’ll come open the window once I appease the parentals.”

  He started toward the side of the house and paused, glancing back over his shoulder. “Thanks, Nari.”

  She only nodded, not sure what she was really thinking. Now the boy who’d claimed she was his girlfriend would be sleeping in her room. What could go wrong, right?

  She watched him amble around the side of the house before she climbed the steps and opened the door. Inside, her parents both sat in the front sitting room. Her mother didn’t look up from her place on the couch as Nari entered. Instead, she held one hand up to tell Nari to wait as she kept her eyes glued to her Kindle.

  There was something Nari wasn’t even sure her dad knew about her mom. Sure, she was a conservative, sometimes hard woman, but the woman enjoyed her heated stories. Nari picked up her ereader one time just out of curiosity to see what could distract her mom, and she wished she never had. She read about werewolves who liked to get it on. A lot.

  Nari hadn’t been able to look her mom in the eye for a week.

  Her father, on the other hand, was the predictable one. His kind eyes were a bit glazed from staring at the student essays in his lap as he looked up and smiled at Nari. “Did you have a nice time with Peyton?”

  Nari glanced down the hallway to her room, knowing Avery stood out in the freezing cold waiting for her to let him in. She exaggerated a yawn. “Yeah, Pey wore me out with her constant chatter.”

  Her father smiled. Both her parents had known Peyton for years, and in all that time, nothing had changed. Pey was the talker, and Nari was the listener. What would her parents think if they knew she was singing in a band? Who was she kidding? They wouldn’t believe it.

  Nari’s mom finally set her Kindle aside. “I’m sorry. I had to finish the chapter.” A flush stained her cheeks. Gross. Nari did not want to know why.

  Her husband smiled at her. Nari didn’t always get along with her parents, but she thought of the family next door and realized how lucky she was. The Won Songs loved each other. They never yelled. Yes, they had high expectations but only because they wanted their daughter to reach her highest potential.

  Nari hadn’t realized she’d moved when she crossed the room and bent down to wrap her mom in a hug.

  Her mom made a surprised sound and patted Nari’s back. Nari straightened and kissed her father on his cheek. “I’m a little tired. I think I’ll go to sleep.”

  Neither of them answered her after her uncharacteristic displays of affection, but she didn’t need them to. Rushing into her room, she shut the door, locked it, and went to unlatch the window.

  Avery climbed through, tracking snow on her carpet. He slid the window shut and kicked off his boots. “Thanks.”

  Nari scanned the immaculate room, looking anywhere but at him. What now? He was in her room…again. The last time they’d stood in those same two spots… Nari backed away, feeling his eyes on her as she turned.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “No, I’m okay.”

  But he wasn’t okay. He might have tried to erase the emotion she’d seen as he sat on the front porch waiting for her, but she wouldn’t forget it. He’d looked so…broken.

  Moving her laptop from her bed to her desk, she toed off her shoes and shrugged out of her coat. “Um…I need to change.”

  “Right. I’ll just turn around.”

  As she slid out of her jeans, his presence sent goose bumps along her olive skin. She pulled on yoga pants and an old football T-shirt, not realizing until she turned away that it was one Avery left at her house back when they were friends.

  He’d removed his coat, leaving him in a form-fitting black tee that left little of his chest to the imagination. Nari swallowed. She didn’t know when she’d started noticing every little thing about Avery, but she couldn�
�t figure out how to stop.

  His eyes fell to her chest or, more accurately, the shirt. But he didn’t smile, and she wondered once again what happened to bring him there.

  So, she chose a safe subject as she sat on her bed. “Is Nicky going to need a place to crash too?”

  Avery shook snow-speckled hair out of his eyes. “No, he went to his boyfriend’s.”

  Nari’s jaw dropped open. “Not Kenny?”

  Avery shrugged. “That’s what he said.”

  Nari tried not to be disappointed in Nicky for returning to the boy who’d hurt him, but she knew what it felt like to want someone, anyone, to ease the loneliness of being on the outside.

  Avery went to her closet without bothering to ask her and dug around on the floor for a blanket and spare pillow. He didn’t speak to her as he laid them out and lay down, turning onto his side so she couldn’t see his face.

  Nari pulled her own covers back and snuggled beneath them, letting the warmth thaw her frozen limbs. “Alexa, turn all lights off.” Her lights flickered, and the room went dark.

  After laying in silence for a few minutes listening to the sound of Avery’s breathing, Nari couldn’t take it anymore. “Avery,” she whispered.

  “Yeah.” He sighed as if knowing what she was going to ask.

  “Will you tell me what happened?”

  He hesitated for a moment. “Why?”

  “What?”

  “Why do you want to know? Do you want to hear that Avery St. Germaine’s life is just as messed up as anyone else’s? That the golden boy you’ve put on this pedestal isn’t so perfect after all?”

  Nari rolled onto her side to look down at him. “No, I—”

  “Don’t say you care, Nari. We both know we’re from different worlds. I shouldn’t have even come here, but I truly had nowhere else to go where my mom wouldn’t find me. I didn’t want her to make me come home. Not yet.”

  He was hurt. That was how Nari rationalized the harsh words coming out of him. It wasn’t Avery. It was the pain.

  She thought he was done, so she closed her eyes.

  “I miss Cooper.” He was still whispering. “There, I said it. My best friend died two years ago, and I can’t move on. Everything in my life is falling apart, and I need him to tell me to get over myself. I need the asshole to slap some sense into me and tell me what to do.”

  Avery rarely talked about Cooper Callahan, the kid who died in the same accident that took Cam’s leg, the same accident Avery only remembered pieces of.

  Nari didn’t know what made her tell him. But something in his voice made her need to say the words. “I was the one who called 9-1-1.”

  Avery sat up, his eyes finding hers in the dark. “What?”

  Nari sucked in a breath. “I was out front at Addison’s party that night and could see the bridge in the distance. I saw the accident. I just didn’t know it was you guys at the time. Maybe if I had…if we’d gone straight to the bridge, we’d have been able to get to you before the ambulances. We’d have been able to help.”

  Nari closed her eyes and didn’t notice he’d moved until the edge of her bed dipped from his weight. “Hey.” He tapped her chin. “Look at me.”

  When she met his gaze, they were close, too close, but she couldn’t look away.

  “Nari, I’ve tried the blame-everyone-you-can thing. Trust me, it doesn’t make the pain go away. For the longest time, I blamed Cam. I made myself believe he was the one drunk driving that night because my spotty memory couldn’t remember. Peyton was the one who kicked Coop out of the party. Then I blamed Julian and eventually myself. Never Cooper. I didn’t want to see him that way. But I know there was nothing I could’ve done to keep him alive that night just as I know you couldn’t have either. And with you calling for ambulances so quickly, who knows, maybe you saved the rest of us.”

  Nari hunched forward as the weight of his words bore down on her.

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. She didn’t know how much longer she could take Avery’s sudden mood changes.

  Lifting her hand, she slapped his chest.

  “Hey,” he protested. “What was that for?”

  “Slapping some sense into you. Get over yourself. Cooper isn’t here anymore, but maybe I can handle his job for a bit.”

  He laughed, resting his chin on her head. After a moment, he sighed. “My family is broke.”

  Nari pulled back to look up at him. “Broke?”

  He nodded. “Pop drained the finances with his drinking and gambling habits. Mom says we have to sell our cars and the house. Even our college funds are gone.”

  Nari felt sick. How could someone do that to their own family?

  Avery wasn’t finished. “And you know what’s sad? That’s not even the worst thing I learned about my family tonight. Dad has CTE.”

  “CTE?”

  “When he played football, he sustained a number of concussions which messed up his brain. Memory loss, confusion, headaches. To an extent, it explains the drinking and the complete personality shift. For the past few years, I’ve hated my father.” He released Nari and rested his elbows on his knees, hanging his head. “And it’s not even his fault.”

  Nari didn’t know what to say or how to comfort him. She’d hated Mr. St. Germaine too, wondering if each time he drank would be his last. She’d never considered there was something else going on—a medical condition changing his brain.

  “It’s over.” Avery lowered his voice. “Football. Mom is begging me not to play college ball. She doesn’t want to see me end up like Pop too. The schools scouting me, the scholarships—it’s all off the table.”

  “How do you feel about that?” Nari asked.

  “I don’t know. Relieved. Furious. The last few years I’ve thought about leaving football behind when I go to college, but it’s what was expected of me. And now it’s the only way I can pay for school, but my mother—I can’t stand her tears, and I’d do anything she asks. But…it’s like I lost my entire future in one day.”

  “Avery.” Nari scooted closer and took his hand.

  When he looked at her, the silver moonlight filtering through the window made the tears on his face shine.

  “You don’t need football to be who you are. It doesn’t define you.”

  For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. For a moment, she wanted him too.

  But she forgot who she was and who sat next to her.

  Avery stood from the bed and paced across the darkened room, stopping at the window. “You’re going to hate me, Nari.”

  “Why?”

  He turned to face her. “I sort of told the entire school it was more than a kiss. That we were dating.”

  Nari crossed her arms. She’d already heard it from Becks, of course, but it didn’t make her any happier about the situation. “Was Meghan jealous?” She had to know if their plan to get Avery back in Meghan’s skinny arms was working. And if it was? Well, that would hurt.

  “Yeah,” Avery breathed. “Which is why I think we should continue.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well…” He scratched the back of his head. “I just broke up with Meghan a few weeks ago. I dumped her, but that’s not how she twisted the story. If we end things too soon…”

  “You’ll end up looking as pathetic as you are?”

  He laughed at that. “Maybe I am a little pathetic. But I’m asking you to please consider it. Just until we’re back at school. Let everyone think we’re truly dating. It’ll increase your popularity.”

  “I don’t care about popularity.”

  Avery blew out a frustrated breath. “I know. Of course, you don’t. Sometimes, I forget it’s you I’m talking to.”

  Because he’d rather be talking to Meghan. Nari didn’t voice the words. Instead, she did as he asked. She considered it. “What will I get out of it?”

  “Tutoring.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “All through break? You get me to pass our ex
ams when we get back no matter how long it takes for my stupid brain to absorb the material.”

  “You’re not stupid, Nari.”

  “As much tutoring as I need for the next two weeks.”

  He shifted where he stood. “I guess it’s not like I have anything else to do. Wanna kiss on it?”

  She imagined if the lights were on, she’d see his patented smirk. “I’m not kissing you again, Avery.” But she wanted to.

  “I’ll settle for another hug.” Before she knew what was happening, he’d climbed onto her bed once more and engulfed her in a hug she wished would never end. But it did. He pulled back after too short a time.

  “Are you going to be okay, Avery?” She couldn’t help but think of the way he’d looked when she’d found him out front.

  He shrugged with a nonchalance she doubted he felt. “I’m always okay. It’s not me I worry about.” Nicky. The best thing about Avery was how he protected his brother. “I think I just needed someone to talk to. You’re a better listener than Coop ever was.”

  Nari laughed. “I can’t picture Cooper Callahan having a serious conversation.”

  “That’s because you didn’t know him like I did. Few people really knew Coop. He was an asshole of the greatest proportions. He did stupid, sometimes hurtful, things, but he always had my back.”

  “I can have your back now.” The words slipped out before Nari could stop them and she scrambled to explain. “I mean…we used to be friends, and if we do this whole fake dating thing, we should probably try to get back to that and—”

  Avery covered her mouth with his hand to cut her off. “I would be honored if Nari Won Song had my back.”

  She relaxed and let out a laugh as he uncovered her mouth.

  Avery slid from her bed and resumed his spot on the floor. Neither of them said another word as they drifted off to sleep.

  The sound of chatter coming from the kitchen had Nari opening her eyes. What time was it? She sat up slowly, shielding her eyes from the blinding sunlight filtering through the window. Images from the night before returned to her, and she pulled the comforter up to her chest, suddenly shy about the clothes she’d slept in the night before.