by Rae, Nikita
Morgan’s fingernails dig into my arm. What the hell is her problem? “Tomorrow’s fine. I have to study for my midterms, but yeah…”
“Okay, tomorrow. Write down your number.” He hands me his notebook, which has his police number and an embossed golden badge on the front. I flip it open, looking up to find him watching me as I quickly scribble down my cell phone number. I give it back and he purses his lips. “Thanks.”
We pass on the steps as Morgan and I descended and he goes up, and I see that look in his eye that always makes me dread our ‘catch ups’. It’s pity. I hate being looked at like that. As Morgan and I make our way back towards campus, I wish I’d been sober or smart enough to write down the wrong number.
MORGAN MAKES me run the next morning. Running and I aren’t even vaguely acquainted let alone best friends, so it takes a few strongly worded threats and the promise of chocolate waffles to get me out the door at six am. It’s bitterly cold, the morning air determined to freeze my lungs from the inside out. We last all of twenty minutes before the temperature gets the better of us and we head to Jacquie’s breakfast dinner.
“You realize,” I say, sliding into the booth opposite Morgan, “that ordering pancakes with a ton of maple syrup is going to make your ass fat?”
“It’s already fat,” she announces.
“It really is,” I agree. “I was trying to be polite, but damn you need to start eating right. I’ve never seen an ass that big.”
“Bitch!” she laughs, slapping my arm with the menu.
“You deserve it.”
“I know,” she sighs. “So, we going to put it off much longer?”
I squint at her, trying to ascertain whether there’s any point in pretending I don’t know what she’s talking about. It’s not every morning she shows up on my doorstep demanding exercise. This is all subterfuge, and I know what she’s after. Her jaw is set, which means I am shit outta luck. “He’s just a guy I used to know back home,” I tell her.
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“Don’t give me that, Iris,” Morgan quips. “I know there’s a whole freakin’ well of gossip here and you’ve been holding out on me.”
My face blanches at her use of my real name. I haven’t had to hear it in months. Even my mom calls me Avery now. It’s as though, if she can pretend I’m someone else and not Maxwell Breslin’s daughter, she, in turn, can pretend she was married to some other guy named Patterson and not a murderer.
I look down and see that my hands have clenched tight and I’m ruining the waffle house’s laminated menu. Morgan sees, then screws her face up into a fairly good impersonation of remorse. “Oh, uh…sorry, Ave. I’m not too smart sometimes.”
“It’s okay. I just…I’m not her anymore.”
“I know. I won’t do that again, I promise.”
I shoot her a guilty smile. “Thanks.”
The waitress comes and takes our order; we both get the same thing—Belgian waffles with chocolate sauce. By the time our coffee arrives, Morgan is over the embarrassment of upsetting me and back in Spanish Inquisition mode.
“So, how do you know him?” The salacious glint in her eye declares she’s hoping for a hot hook up story. Boy, is she going to be disappointed.
“He went to my school. He was a cop in my home town for a few years before he moved out here.”
“Uhuh…” She nods, taking a sip of her coffee, never taking her eyes off me.
“That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
She looks around the room like she can’t believe what she was hearing.
“You knew that guy back in Hicksville and you didn’t claim him immediately? What’s wrong with you, girl? You do realize he’s fucking beautiful, don’t you?”
I blow out a long breath and drop my head against the table. “Yes, I know how hot he is. But he was twenty when he left town and I was sixteen. Plus he has a girlfriend, Casey Fisher. They dated the whole way through high school and moved out here together. So…”
“None of that should have been a problem.”
I just stare at her. If the tables were turned, Morgan would be rolling her eyes right now, but my mother forbade that particular trait when I was younger. I haven’t been able to do it ever since, despite how much I may want to. “Well it would have been pretty difficult. And illegal. And besides, I was a mess. My dad…”
A horrified expression develops on Morgan’s face. “Ahhh crap, Ave. This guy didn’t…was he on the force when your dad, um…”
Finally. Some quick thinking on her part. I focus out of the window, trying to shut out the memory of Luke Reid on my doorstep, telling my mom that my dad was dead. “He and his partner were the first officers on the scene. He’d only been on the job four days. Nothing like that had ever really happened in Break before. He puked in my mom’s rose bushes.”
“Man, I’m sorry, Avery. I’m hopeless sometimes. There just seemed to be something there, so I thought…”
“There is something there. Luke’s always felt sorry for me. I suppose being the one to find my dad and the others imprinted itself onto his brain and now he can’t shake it. We used to meet up whenever he was back in town. Mostly we’d grab a coffee and he’d just talk at me.”
Our conversation stops when the waitress arrives with our food. I stare glumly down at my waffles wishing I’d ordered something different. Pushing the plate away, I go back to staring out the window.
Sam O’Brady. Jefferson Kyle. Adam Bright. Sam O’Brady. Jefferson Kyle. Adam Bright.
“That other cop said he was in a band, right? I wonder where they play. Hey, if you want me to answer your phone later, I can ask him if you don’t wanna seem to eager?” She clearly didn’t just hear a word I said—that for the past five years I have associated Luke Reid with finding out my dad was dead. The girl has selective hearing. I shoot daggers at her and she shrinks back into her seat. “Or I can tell him you have avian bird flu and you can never see him again. It’s no problem. I am a master of deception.”
I allow myself a small laugh and kick her under the table. “It’s all right. I can handle it.”
But I honestly don’t know if I can. Having Luke in my life here is like bringing a piece of Breakwater into the relatively safe, happy world I’ve built for myself at Columbia. It could ruin everything. When I speak to him later, I know what I am going to do. I’m going tell him the truth. He’ll have to understand that I want to put my past behind me. Surely no one in the world can begrudge me that.
******
My last class of the day is Media Law and Ethics, one of my favorite subjects, but I bolt out of the building as soon as Professor Lang excuses us. Usually I hang back to catch him after class. He doesn’t seem to mind that I have an exhaustive list of questions that always needed answering. Today, though, all I want to do is get back to my place and check my phone to see if Luke has called. I need to get this over with. The calm that I’ve found in being utterly inconspicuous here is going to be ruined until I tell him I don’t want to meet with him anymore.
I take the low steps outside my building at a jog and race up the four flights of stairs to my apartment, hoping Leslie won’t be there. She spends a lot of time studying in the library, especially after class, so there’s a possibility that I’m going to have some privacy. When I burst into the room, my heart sinks in my chest. Leslie sits on the sofa with her headphones in, tapping her bare foot on the worn leather as she types on her laptop. She glances up at me, cropped brunette hair all over the place as usual, and gives me a half smile, pulling out one of the earphones.
“Good run this morning?”
I wasn’t the only person Morgan had woken up by banging on my apartment door at five thirty this morning. I pull a sour face and throw my bag on my bed. “Sorry about that. She’s incredibly pushy sometimes.”
Leslie shrugs a shoulder. “S’okay. I got up right after you left and squeezed some study in. Every
thing worked out for the best.”
Leslie is a New Yorker through and through. Her parents are internet business gurus who set up a dot com company back in the early nineties. They sold up about five years ago and have been comfortably living off the interest of their amassed fortune ever since. Leslie’s studying business in the hope that one day she’ll have a fortune of her own, but in the meantime she’s okay with accepting the healthy amounts of cash her mom and dad throws at her. She’s like me in some ways; her bank account is always full but her parents barely know who she is. At least she has two parents. And one of them isn’t Max Breslin.
I kick off my sneakers and flop back onto my bed, reaching under my pillow where I left my cell earlier before classes started. I normally take it with me, but I knew I’d be looking at it every five minutes if I had it on me today. I didn’t need that kind of distraction.
My heart speeds up as I hit the start button. Nothing. No texts. No missed calls. Nothing. I blow out the breath I’ve been holding and toss my phone back onto my pillow.
“Expecting a call?” Leslie asks.
I stare up at the ceiling. There are sticky marks dotted all over it where glow-in-the-dark stars were tacked to it when we moved in. I knew I was going to get along with Leslie the moment she suggested we pull them down. “Dreading one, more like,” I mutter.
She hmms and goes back to her studies. I set myself up at my desk, placing my phone beside the keyboard so I can answer it straight away if Luke does call. He probably knew I had classes all day and he’s waiting until this evening. That thought makes my stomach roll. I spend half an hour trying to type up the vague notes I scribbled in class, but they are less than useless. I give up in the end, and I type in my email account details and decide to clear out my inbox instead. Two new messages wait for me.
The first is from Amanda St. French. My mom. She filed the paperwork to go back to her maiden name before they’d even finished shoveling the soil into my dad’s yawning grave. She didn’t go to the funeral. It was just Brandon and I. The priest banged on for twenty minutes about the grievous sins committed by people in this life, and how we needed to beg for repentance if we were ever to be accepted into heaven. That had scared the crap out of me when I was younger. My dad hadn’t been religious, and I was haunted for years by the idea that he was burning up in hell because he hadn’t had the opportunity to repent. After that, I spent a long time angry, hoping that he really was burning in hell. Now…now I just don’t know what I think anymore.
The subject bar on mom’s email is blank as usual. It will be the same script she sends me at the beginning of each month, detailing that she’s deposited my allowance in my account. She always manages to make it sound like I’m not grateful—not grateful that she is paying my way at college, not grateful that she finally helped me escape Breakwater once and for all, when she was the person who abandoned me there in the first place.
Aviary,
Find attached a copy of the remit for your allowance. Remember to keep hold of these for your records. I have increased the amount this month in light of the approaching holidays. You might like to do something with your friends at Christmas. I am headed to Hawaii with my sister. She’s had some troubles with her new husband and wants to go snorkeling to take her mind off things. I assume you’ll be headed back to Brandon’s for Thanksgiving?
Hope you are well,
Amanda.
Aviary? I choke back a dry laugh. She can’t even spell my new name. That error could be forgiven by the fact that it’s new and she is still learning to use it, but the other things, the other hurtful aspects of the email, make my blood boil. She’s heading to Hawaii with her sister for Christmas? Oh, I wasn’t under any illusion that I’d be spending Christmas with my mother despite the fact that we live in the same city now. No, I am more stunned by the way she said my sister instead of your Aunt Clare. And going to Brandon’s for Thanksgiving? The real piece de resistance is her sign off, though. Amanda. At least she used to admit to being my mother. Now it appears that her sister is no longer my aunt, and she is going to be Amanda from here on out. Tears prick at my eyes as I stare at the screen, refusing to blink until the text starts swimming.
I clear my throat and screw my eyes shut for a moment. When I open them, I hit the delete button. I am stronger than this now. I can’t let her affect me anymore. The next email is from Brandon. I open it wearily, and my temper spikes. Mom blind-copied Brandon into the email she’d sent me. That was obviously her way of letting him know that I was being foisted off on him for yet another holiday.
Brandon had been my dad’s best friend since elementary school. They’d played football together through college and they’d fallen in love with and married sisters. Brandon’s wife, Mom’s younger sister Melanie, died from cancer when I was two, and Mom hasn’t been able to handle Brandon ever since. She says he reminds her of Aunt Mel, so she keeps him at a distance. Apparently it’s a repeating pattern of hers, neatly bundling together all the things she wishes she could forget.
Hi Avery,
Looks like your mom’s going to be busy this holiday. Want to come and join me in my non-celebrations? You know how I don’t go in for that sort of thing anymore, but it would be great to see you. We can burn some pumpkin pie and smoke some crack just like the good old days. Let me know if you need anything, kid. I’m only on the other end of a telephone.
Love Brandon
I’ve never smoked crack in my life, let alone with my Uncle Brandon, but he has a wicked sense of humor and he’s convinced the college monitors our emails. He thinks it’s funny to set off some ‘red flags’ every now and then. I have no idea if the college does monitor our emails, or if smoking crack would actually even be a red flag, but it still makes me smile. I miss him. But not enough to ever head back to Breakwater. I am never going back there again.
I’m shutting down my computer, promising myself that I’ll reply to Brandon tomorrow, when the door knocks. Morgan’s too lazy to walk up to my apartment usually, and so any visitors we get are usually for Leslie. My roommate’s headphones block out the interruption, though, so it’s left to me to answer. I’m really not expecting the person on the other side of the door.
“Luke? What are you doing here?”
Luke’s out of uniform and wearing a plain black t-shirt and faded-out jeans. His look still carries a little of the skater style he used to rep in high school, although there’s a rocky, harder edge to him now. It’s always a surprise to see him in his casual clothes. Right now I’m surprised to see him period. He shoves his hands in his pockets, drawing my attention to the fact that he’s gotten some fresh ink. Black swirling lines peek out from below his shirtsleeves. Nowhere near low enough to ever be visible in his uniform, but still low enough for me to see them when he hunches his shoulders.
“Sorry, I know I should have called but I got this feeling yesterday that you were gonna blow me off, and—”
Leslie yanks the door open wider behind me, tugging her headphones out of her ears. “Hi!” she says, her voice all easy breezy. “Are you a friend of Avery’s?”
Luke smiles back cautiously—a rueful expression. “Yeah, I’m a friend of Avery’s.”
This is only second time he’s ever said my name. It sounds strained coming out of his mouth. I stare at him, trying to figure out what the hell he is doing here. What he is doing inside halls of residence.
“Are you going to invite your friend in, Avery?” Leslie asks. I can hear the suggestion in her voice: I can leave if you need me to. I sigh and give Luke a look I hope isn’t too difficult to read. Morgan always says I’m pretty transparent with my emotions, so there’s a good chance he’ll be able to tell I am seriously pissed.
“No. We’re going out for coffee.” I head into my room to collect my jacket and my purse and when I return to the living room, Leslie is still standing by the doorway, twirling her short hair around her finger. It’s embarrassing to watch her devour him with her eyes. I’m used to
it, though. Unlike Luke, who, despite how often this happens, never seems to get over the embarrassment factor of being the cause of such predatory looks in women.
I storm past him into the hallway and set off walking without checking to see if he’s following me. After all the times I’ve met with him and all the weirdly awkward conversations we’ve shared, I still don’t know him well enough to be openly mad at him. He must sense the fact that I need some space because it isn’t until we get to the exit of the building that he says anything.
“Hey, I’m sorry, okay? I know I’ve messed up here. Avery? Hey, Avery!” He grabs hold of my arm and spins me around. I’m grinding my jaw together to keep from saying anything I’ll regret later. “Listen, this…I wouldn’t usually do this, but I wanted to talk to you. There’s something you should know. I wanted to tell you when I went back to Break in September but you were already gone. It’s important.”
I stand there with my jacket still in my hand, contemplating putting it on so I can stop shivering, but I’m too hyper-aware of him staring at me to move. I huff out a deep breath and stare at my shoes. Luke’s hand brushes mine for a second as he takes my jacket and leans forward so he can put it over my shoulders.
“It’s November, Avery,” he whispers. “You’re gonna get hypothermia.”
I shrug it off so I can thread my arms into it properly and sigh. “Okay. So you want to tell me something? You should probably do that so I can get back to studying. I have those midterms I told you about last night, remember?”
“Can we go grab some food? I came straight over after I finished my shift. I’m starving.”
I fold my arms across my chest and glare at him. “How did you even know which was my apartment?”
