Being Not Good

by Elizabeth Stevens

  The second week Don was back at work and Davin and I spent more time at his than at mine – when he wasn’t having dinner with his grandmother. Which, given that I’d suddenly turned into a proper hormones-raging teenager and thought about having sex with him constantly, was probably a good thing since I didn’t have to feel self-conscious every time I wanted to – or did – do it.

  Spending time with Davin, regardless of how physical we did or didn’t get – because despite my new-found lust, we weren’t actually constantly having sex – was actually enjoyable. He was nothing more than his usual moody, sarcastic self. He was grumpy and resistant to anything I suggested that might expose him to even the smallest bit of fun. But I still liked being around him. He showed me the movies he liked and talked to me about the books he liked. He asked me about things I liked and even listened to me while I told him, even if he looked like he regretted asking me, for example, why liquid eyeliner was better than wax pencil.

  Despite his utter insistence that we do not buy into the total commercialism of gift-giving at Easter, I got him a Red Tulip bunny. He had no religious qualms about the concept, I was pretty sure it was just another thing he got to be grumpy about. But he did share half his bunny with me and I was pretty sure I almost caught a smile on his face while he was eating it.

  There had been a time during the holidays when we were wandering around in town under the pretence of chaperoning Ebony and her friends. We found ourselves down by the river and I’d tried to convince Davin to get a paddle boat with me.

  “No,” had been his very definitive answer.

  “Come on, Davin. It might be fun!”

  “It won’t be fun.”

  “You don’t think anything’s fun.”

  His eyes heated and my stomach fluttered. “You know that’s not true.”

  “You don’t think anything in public is fun.”

  “That’s not strictly true…”

  I snorted as I looked around and hoped no one was listening to him. “Davin!” I hissed.

  “Avery!” he mimicked.

  “We are not…” I flushed red and paused. “The cinema was public enough. We’re not getting any more public than that.”

  He sighed dramatically. “Well, that is true.” Then he’d almost smirked at me. “Today’s lesson – jump in.”

  I looked at him. “What?”

  He nodded. “Jump in.”

  I looked at the water and back at him. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “How about because that water is festy as, and you really don’t want to be the instigator of my death by who knows what diseases?”

  He stood behind me and wrapped his arms around me as we both looked at the Torrens. “Yeah. You’re probably right about that,” he’d said resignedly.

  We’d also spent the holidays working on my terrible Maths skills. Davin called them abysmal and I didn’t disagree. But, like with any other subject he put his mind to, Davin seemed to be the smartest person in Maths too, so I felt like I was in good hands.

  As long as those hands stayed on the task at hand and didn’t find themselves under my clothes. Which, to be fair, they usually didn’t. Most of the time. When we were studying, Davin was strangely good at keeping his focus. He also usually kept me on the other side of the table. He was though very aware of his limitations and there were a couple of study session he cut short because I was apparently too tempting.

  By the time we got back to school for Term 2, whatever Davin and I were seemed to be old news. There was nothing like a holiday break to make changes of the first term seem like old news. Much like this whole being in Year 12 business, dating Davin was just a fact of life.

  On the Saturday of week one, Davin and I were at his house again and watching movies in his room. He seemed a little more cantankerous – he taught me that word and I quite liked it – than usual but I was trying to counteract as only I knew how.

  “So what’s today’s lesson?” I asked.

  “I don’t fucking know, Avery,” he sighed.

  Even for him that was short and peeved off. “Hey.” I put a hand on his chest. “You okay?”

  “Yes. I’m…” He sighed. “Sorry. I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  He grunted. “Yes. Fine. I just… I don’t know how to make you be not good, okay? I don’t know what lessons to give you to teach you how to be less…good! Have you ever thought about the fact that that’s just who you are? You’re just a good girl?”

  I wasn’t sure where this was coming from. I knew we hadn’t been really sticking to the one lesson per date plan, but I felt like something about him was making me less good. Surely.

  “I don’t want to be a good girl, though.”

  Davin huffed and pulled his arm out from under me as he got off the bed. Although even obviously mad, he did it gently, just as quickly as possible. “Why not? What’s so wrong with being who you are?”

  Because who I was sucked. I didn’t want to be called ‘too good’ like it was a bad thing. I wanted to be normal. It wasn’t like Davin being himself was making him tonnes of friends. Although that did seem to be the point of his whole personality.

  “So you’re telling me you’re quite happy being this closed off, grumpy guy?”

  He shrugged. “It’s who I am. I’ve accepted it.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I’m happy to.” The way he said the word, I was confident that was not the emotion he felt.

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Avery.” He came close to snarling.

  “I don’t see why not. You want me to accept myself. Tell me what makes you so eager to accept who you are?”

  “Because I have an ingrained sense of distrust and worthlessness after my mother killed herself and tried to take me with her!” he yelled. Then he turned around and spat, “Fuck!” with more emotion than I had ever heard from him.

  I was shocked. Utterly and totally shocked. Everything stopped far worse than when Miles had dumped me in the school hallway.

  My head was filled with something like buzzing emptiness and I felt like I’d forgotten how to breathe. It was like what he’d said would be different if I just froze for long enough.

  Of all the backstories in all the films and books and shows, that was not the one I was expecting for Davin Ambrose.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  I didn’t know what to feel.

  He wouldn’t want my sympathy, but I couldn’t help but feel it. I tried to stop myself feeling sorry for him, but I couldn’t. It was the moment you want to wrap someone up in bubble wrap and put them in your pocket to keep them safe for always. Like Tom Holland. That gorgeous man seemed like he needed to be snuggled. But Tom wasn’t the one standing in front of me like every support he’d ever built for himself had just disintegrated out from under him.

  Davin was.

  I scooted to the end of the bed as he paced, muttering a string of no doubt hyperbolic ramble full of giant words I’d never heard of. But it was too quiet for me to hear.

  “Davin…” I said softly and he jumped mid-pace like I’d struck him.

  I watched him take a deep breath like that was the only thing stopping him from falling apart in front of me. There was a pain in my chest as I watched him and I wished I knew what to do.

  I felt myself get up and I went to hug him. He pulled away from me with a look of complete contempt on his face. So I backed up and dropped onto the bed again.

  “Dav, come sit back down…” I patted the bed next to me gently, hoping he’d stop his frantic pacing.

  He looked at me, then the bed, me again, the bed again, and finally dropped onto it like he was on autopilot. My hands fluttered uselessly. The nosey parker in me was desperate to know more and I tried to ignore it, tried to remember I was respecting his boundaries.

  “Davin, are you okay?” I asked because he sure as heck didn’t look
okay.

  He gave a curt nod. “Sure.”

  “Davin–”

  “We don’t have to talk about it,” he said quickly.

  I wasn’t so sure about that. I mean I wanted to be the mature person here and let it go, but… “You don’t just drop a bomb on me like your mum killed herself, then say we don’t have to talk about it.”

  He shrugged. “It’s fine, Avery.”

  “It’s not fine, Davin.” I crawled into his lap and he glared at me. “It’s just a little physical interaction. Suck it up.”

  “You can suck it if you want. I choose not.”

  I frowned at him. “Davin.”

  “What?”

  I brushed his hair out of his face. He finally really look at me and sighed.

  “I was about seven. Okay? Dad was at work. Mum had always been sick, but Gran was around to keep an eye on us and they thought Mum was doing better. Well she was. Until the night she gave me a bunch of pills, then took us both to the bathroom. I woke up in her arms in the bath, freezing and vomiting and wondering why the water was red. Gran found me hiding under the vanity in the corner. She took me to the hospital, but it was too late for Mum.”

  I didn’t need to ask what had happened to her.

  God, I felt awful for him. And I felt awful for basically making him tell me.

  “Davin, I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “Are you okay?”

  His whole expression was as cold as his tone as he replied, “I still get professional help, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Well that I’d guessed from what his dad had said.

  But, “It wasn’t.”

  He nodded once and I wasn’t sure he believed me.

  Not sure what else to do, I pressed myself against him, wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.

  “What are you doing, Avery?” he asked.

  “It’s called comfort, Davin,” I told him.

  Eventually, slowly, he put his arms around me as well.

  “This isn’t so bad, is it?” I asked.

  “I could think of a number of ways to make this better.”

  “I don’t think sex is the answer.”

  “Actually, my first thought was to stop hugging.”

  I squeezed him a little and he buried his face in my shoulder. I felt him take a deep breath and then his breath on my skin as he exhaled. There was nothing sexual about the situation, I just didn’t know what else to do. I ran my hand over the back of his head in a way I hoped was comforting and he breathed deeply.

  Neither of us said anything for what felt like a really long time.

  But I didn’t mind. I just wanted to be sure he was okay.

  I was aware that the fact he’d just told me didn’t necessarily make him any more or less okay than he had been carrying that around for the last eleven years. But I hadn’t been there for the majority of the last eleven years, and I was just optimistic enough to hope that maybe there was something I could do that no one else could.

  I felt him take a sharp breath in and exhale quickly, then he shook himself and sat up.

  “That was…” he started, his eyes searching mine. They were clear and deep. “I’ll drive you home.”

  I smiled in confusion. “Why would I want that?”

  He looked down, then picked me up and put me back on the bed as he got up. “I just… I can’t be around you right now. Okay?”

  “What?”

  He huffed and I could see he was angry. “You should go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because–”

  “Because you don’t want me to see this broken you?”

  His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I’m still the same person I’ve always been.”

  “If that’s the case, why do I have to go?”

  “Because I don’t want you here.”

  I scoffed and crossed my arms. “So, you just get to push me away now? Is that it?”

  “You don’t get it–” he yelled but I interrupted.

  “Oh no. I get it. Good little Avery couldn’t possible see the cracks in your armour, Davin. Why? Are you going to take your feelings of worthlessness and throw them onto me? Am I not worth being here for you?”

  “Excuse–”

  “No.” I stood up quickly. “I’ll tell you something, Davin Ambrose! You’re not worthless. You might feel like you’re…you’re unwanted or…or unlovable or something. But you are.” I cleared my throat, realising that I didn’t really know what I was going. “Wanted I mean. And worth…while? Anyway, I appreciate you. You seem to like to ignore that fact. But I appreciate you and I like you. I came to you because I saw you as a bad boy who could help me trash my reputation. But it’s more than that now. I…” have no idea what I’m trying to say and the look on his face tells me he’s finding this no more comfortable than me. “I… I could have gone to someone else. I could be in jail by now or on drugs or…pregnant! That would certainly make me less good…” I shook my head to concentrate. “My point is… I can’t really do a lot about the whole mistrust thing I don’t think… But you’re worth a lot to me and I really enjoy being with you…”

  Okay. Now was definitely time to stop because he was looking at me like he didn’t know if he was going to throw up, cry, or kiss me. And I don’t think I’d ever been quite so terrible at trying to say what was on my mind. So I just took a deep breath and hoped he wasn’t still trying to kick me out.

  “You enjoy spending time with me…? Even after that?”

  I smoothed my skirt like I felt any of the confidence I tried to inject into my words. “I’ve been the recipient of many of your outbursts and yet here I am.”

  “Here you are,” he said, echoing his words from our first date. He sighed heavily and finally took a dang seat on the bed. “I’m sorry, Ave.”

  “What for?

  “For…all that.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “I do.” He held his hands out to me and I took them as I sat in in his lap. “I shouldn’t have…yelled at you.”

  “I think maybe if I had to carry that secret around with me for eleven years–”

  “You’d dress in black and yell at people too?”

  I giggled, but stemmed it pretty quickly. “Yeah. You don’t just get to yell at me any old time though, mind you.”

  “And where was that attitude when Miles cheated on you?” he asked softly as he nudged my nose with his and wrapped his arms around my back.

  “What attitude?”

  “The ‘I’ll take no one’s shit’ attitude.”

  I wriggled self-consciously in his lap.

  “You don’t need lessons in how not to be good, Avery,” he said tenderly.

  “I do if I don’t want–”

  “You just need more confidence in yourself. You just need to stand up for yourself. You just need to refuse to let people walk all over you.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “You be the person you are with me. You show people you have a backbone. Fuck, I like you better now I know you have one.”

  “I don’t know how to do that, Davin…”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. It’s one reason I snapped at you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’ve realised two lessons we need to teach you. I’m just not…sure how to teach them to you.”

  “Why not?”

  “The first lesson involves you learning to stand up for yourself, to confront someone when they do something wrong. The second one is teaching you how to not cave when someone confronts you. Whether they’re asking you for a favour you don’t have to give them or they’re dismissing you.”

  I didn’t like the sound of it. But I could see the sense in it. I could also see how and why he’d come to that conclusion.

  “And we do those how?”

  H
e sighed. “That’s where I have a problem. We need to give you more exposure to confrontations. I just haven’t worked out how to do that without you losing trust in me – in us – if things went wrong. And I was hoping to avoid more confrontations between us.”

  “So what do we do?”

  He tightened his grip around my middle as he rearranged it. “Instead of lessons on dates, we’ll do lessons at school.”

  “At school?”

  It almost felt like he huffed a rough chuckle. “Don’t worry. I’m not suggesting we stop dating if that’s what you really want. I will deign to be seen in public with you if you insist. All I meant was that school seems to be the place where the big innocent doe eyes and the ditzy smile come out when you’re faced with confrontation. So that seems to be the best place to help you out.”

  That seemed logical. Unfortunately. I didn’t like that I had a confidence problem. I was supposed to be bubbly, confident Avery. But then again bubbly, confident Avery was also a goody-two-shoes. So I couldn’t disagree that confrontation was what the bad boy ordered.

  But it also a scary prospect. So I felt the need to change the subject a little.

  “Will this involve more kissing in the hallway?” I asked playfully.

  “I’m not sure how that would help,” he said slowly. “But it can if you want it to.”

  “I wouldn’t be opposed.”

  He nodded, making sure his nose bumped mine again. “Then it will.”

  “How about now?”

  “What about now, Avery?” There was that almost humoured smile in his eyes.

  “Can it involve kissing now?”

  “Yes. It can involve kissing now.”

  I took his face in my hand and kissed him. I was still feeling a lot of conflicting feelings about his revelation and I’m certain a lot of that went into it. I wasn’t sure if you could really communicate messages in kisses. But it felt like I was telling him I was there for him, if he wanted me to be. And I felt like he understood that. Until he’d had enough show of emotions for one night and flipped me over to shower me in a very different sort of kiss.