by NJ Flatman
Of course it was possible that she didn’t want that. Perhaps he was right and she’d moved on to bigger things. Literally. It was hard to tell with her. Glimpses of the Avery I knew were few and far between. The only thing that kept me hanging on was the fact that she was still somewhat there. She hadn’t told me to go away and leave her alone. She still spent time with me. Yes, it was different. But it was time. That counted for something.
Avery wasn’t like most people. She didn’t conform to societal norms. She wasn’t a woman of words. Not that she couldn’t talk. Lord that woman could talk more than anyone I’d ever met. Or maybe she was just the first woman I could sit and listen to for hours on end without getting bored or annoyed.
She just didn’t use words to really express things the way others did. She used actions. The things that she chose to do often spoke the words she couldn’t say. Her time was what she valued and if she gave it to you, then you were important to her. My hope was that at least that much of her was still the same.
Rather than argue I would leave. I was touchy and that didn’t vibe well with his drugged up bluntly honest personality. Kevin was being an asshole in my eyes and I didn’t have the ability to handle it. Yes, he cared. No, I didn’t like the way he was showing it. Especially when his words were the same as my worst fears.
All I needed was to see her. Nothing spectacular had to happen. I wasn’t expecting fireworks and confessions of undying love. Just time with her would be enough. Somehow sitting in the same room with her, even if there was silence, calmed my fears and silenced the demons. Her presence was all that mattered. It was enough.
Hoping to keep the storms at bay, I dialed her number. No answer. I dialed again. Straight to voicemail. Clearly Avery had no intention of seeing me that night and there wasn’t much I could do about it. Possessively, I debated simply showing up. Forcing her to face me. The only thing that stopped me was fear. What if she’d turned me away. What if my failure to give her the space she needed was the one thing that pushed her into the arms of someone else?
So, I found myself turn the car in a totally different direction. My mind drifted through about a million reasons why she wouldn’t answer. A list of things she could be doing ran through my head, most of which I didn’t want to think about. Almost all of them involved that weirdo she’d brought home from vacation. None of them made me feel any better.
I hated the way he hovered in the background like an overprotective father. It made me feel possessive and jealous whenever I was with her. Of course it scared me as well. I was afraid of the reaction it’d bring out in me. I wasn’t very good at patience and I most certainly wasn’t good at not handling what upset me. It just might make me snap one day and that’d never be good for us as a couple. If we were ever going to be a couple again. So far, I’d managed to keep it together, but I wasn’t sure how long it’d last.
Pulling into the parking lot I began to question my own judgment. Was this really the best thing? Should I turn around and leave without ever saying a word? Would it help me to be here? It seemed that all I did anymore was question my own damn choices.
“Planning to get out of the car or just stalk me from a distance like the creeper that you are?” her voice startled me. I hadn’t known she was outside. “Don’t look at me like that. I have a right to leave home once in a while.”
Leave home was an understatement. What she was wearing said she wasn’t planning to come home that night. The skirt she had on was short and tight enough to let anyone think they had a chance and her shoes all but screamed come fuck me. At least that’s what I’d think if I looked at Colby like that. I’d taken many girls home in the past simply because they were dressed much like she was and I knew I could.
“Sorry,” I offered, feeling odd for sitting in my car and staring at the building she lived in. “Don’t let me ruin your night out.”
“Trust me,” she shrugged, “I’d never let that happen. Got about half a mile up the road and he canceled. Decided to come back and try for different plans. Lucky you.”
I watched her dig inside her tiny little purse for the keys to her place. She was fumbling with everything she touched, a sign that something was on her mind. Probably the same fucking thing that was on mine— which is what led me to her place to begin with.
“So did you want to come up, or were you planning to continue to scope me out silently?” blonde curls bobbed against her shoulders as she laughed. The gesture used to annoy me almost as much as the condescending attitude behind it. But, we’d somehow bonded over our trip to Myrtle Beach and our pain with Avery. I didn’t find Colby nearly as repulsive as I once had. “Do you at least have binoculars so the visual is good?”
“Who needs them? An ego that size is easy to spot.” I teased her back, removing the keys from the ignition.
“Be nice,” she instructed, opening the building door and walking inside. “If it’s possible. Fake it if it’s not.”
I followed her to the elevator without speaking. In fact, our ride up to her floor, and walk down the hallway to her door, was silent as well. It wasn’t until she’d opened the door into their kitchen that I felt the need for any words and they weren’t exactly positive and uplifting.
“This may have been a mistake,” I spoke barely above a whisper as I tried to regain my composure.
I could see Avery standing in the corner by the stove she’d probably never used more than twice, a beer in her hand and a smile on her face. She would have blushed as I looked at her and turned her eyes towards the floor with a simple ‘shut up Spence’. The visual broke my heart and brought back all of my fears.
“Oh God,” Colby moaned with an eye roll. “Please don’t cry. Not with me. I don’t think I could handle it with any compassion. I’m not sure I can handle it at all.”
“I’m not,” I argued, knowing that she was only slightly exaggerating my emotions. “I just….this is hard.”
“Hard for you? Fuck you Spencer.” She reached into the fridge and grabbed a water. “She won’t even fucking talk to me. Not so much as a fuck off. She won’t take my god damned calls. So stop sitting there sulking over how hard this is for you because you have to have her newfound bodyguard on hand.”
“I’m sorry,” the words were genuine. Colby had the shitty end of the stick. Avery had blamed her for everything and wasn’t willing to see a bit of her side. She refused to forgive or forget — or even acknowledge — her best friend. It was killing Colby and she was right. I was being selfish to complain about my end of the situation. “I didn’t mean to…”
“I know,” she shrugged as if it didn’t matter, opening the fridge again and handing me a beer, but the distant look on her face spoke volumes. “So what’d ya want?”
Suddenly my reasoning seemed bad. I had come to whine about Avery and that loser she was with and how badly it all hurt. I’d hoped to commiserate over Kevin’s words and what they were doing to my faith in the love Avery and I had. Jesus. How could I have thought that coming to Colby would be a good idea? She was hurting far worse than I was.
“I see,” she turned and walked towards the living room, an act I wasn’t sure I could follow. That living room held a lot of happy memories for me. Things that just might break my heart. “So you came to me hoping I’d feel sorry for you because you only get part of her? Guess you forgot the part where I get none.”
I could hear the annoyance in her voice as she asked and I debated if it’d just be better to turn and leave. I wouldn’t have to deal with the memories that seeped out of every inch of that apartment and Colby wouldn’t have to deal with me and my self-absorbed misery.
“Maybe I should…”
“Give two shits about someone else?” she finished my sentence with her own words. “Why start now Spencer? It might give me a heart attack.” I heard her laugh and knew that she was okay, regardless of how much the situation hurt.
“I couldn’t be that lucky,” I mumbled, cracking open the beer and walking towards
the recliner across the room from her and the sofa I didn’t want to touch. The one I’d spent so much time touching Avery on. “You will live forever just to make my life hell.”
“That’s the plan,” she grinned. “Gotta make sure that you remember what a pain in the ass you are.”
“Seems to be everyone’s mission lately,” I grumbled.
“So spit it out while I’m feeling generous. Tell me how horrible life is for you with Daddy Warbucks hovering over the two of you like he does.”
“I don’t want to…”
“You aren’t going to make it worse Spencer,” she admitted, tears filling her eyes. “It can’t get worse.”
When Colby let down her guard it broke my heart. Probably because she so rarely did. Normally she was sarcastic and hateful— bitchy for the most part. Those occasions that true and raw emotion appeared on her face, it was overwhelming. In those moments I wanted to protect her much the way I’d wanted to protect Avery.
“It’ll get better,” I told her, knowing my words were not enough to ease the heartache or fill the void.
“Says the guy whining and on the verge of tears,” she laughed. “Ever think of growing a pair Spencer?”
“Just because you haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they aren’t there,” I retorted, kind of glad we were able to divert our sadness the way we did into sarcastic humor.
“I’m serious,” Her face tightened as she sat up, a light flickering in her eyes. “You’re a man. Act like one.”
“What the hell Colby?” suddenly she seemed like the same bitch I’d always known. “So much for being past this.”
Not in the mood for this kind of visit, I stood to leave. Colby and I had come a long way, but apparently we still had a long way to go.
“I’m not being mean,” she motioned for me to sit down and reluctantly I obliged. “I mean I know it sounds like it, but I’m not. It just crossed my mind…”
“ My balls crossed your mind?”
“Or lack of them,” she corrected. “Think about it Spencer, what does he have that you don’t?”
“Money?”
“Well, yes,” her laughter filled the room. “But when have you known Avery to give a damn about money?”
“When have I known Avery to give a damn about ugly chunky guys with money? Life’s a little different than I’ve known Colby.” She had mastered talking in god damned circles, that was for sure. I never understood what the hell she was trying to say until she got right to the point.
“He’s somehow protecting her,” she shrugged. “He’s the safe place she had when her world crumbled and she felt like she was falling into the abyss.”
“Probably because she knew she’d bounce off him and not get hurt,” I mumbled, mentally chastising myself for being so judgmental and rude. Then I reminded myself that he was an asshole trying to hook up with the woman I loved and that made it okay. It helped that Colby laughed.
“I don’t like him either Spencer,” she admitted for the first time. “Back to my point. He’s the strong one. We both know Avery isn’t strong. We were her strength. You fucking failed at that. Always whining, moping and crying. I failed when I walked away. She turned to him.”
“Thanks Colby for that huge ego boost. I needed that.”
“I’m serious,” she continued, refusing to acknowledge. “Tuck your feelings back inside and listen.”
“So I’m not manly enough?” her point was loud and clear at this point. “I refuse to believe that a man has to act a certain way to be a man.”
“He doesn’t,” she shrugged and acted as though she were done with the conversation. “Unless he is sitting around broken hearted because the love of his life chose to spend her time with a man that does. Then he might want to reconsider his stupid modern day feminist viewpoint and realize that women need strength and power from their man. They need someone who will quit crying about what they want and do something about it.”
“I’m beginning to understand why you stay single,” her words insulted me and it showed in my response.
“Honey, I’ve got a pussy,” she rolled her eyes. “I don’t need another one. If that’s what I’m gonna get I might as well be alone. I’m just sayin…”
“You and Avery aren’t the same person,” I reminded her, “Thankfully.”
“No, but we are both women. As strong and independent as I am, I still want a man to be a fucking man. So how do you think the girl that can’t decide what she wants for dinner feels deep down inside?”
I didn’t like what Colby was saying, but I had to admit she had a point. Still, I refused to change who I was. Part of what Avery had loved about me included the way we were close. I could open up and talk to her. I showed emotions. She didn’t want some badass tough guy that didn’t feel anything.
“Avery isn’t like that Colby,” explaining this to her seemed pointless. “She doesn’t look for the alpha male type. She loved me for me.”
“Of course she loved you for you, dumbass,” Colby stood and began walking around the room, randomly looking at things as if her mind wasn’t totally on topic. “She loves you Spencer, I promise you that. But if you think for one fucking second that she’s any different than the rest of us, you are fooling yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s a woman. Women have needs. One of those is to be with a man who is stronger than we are. One that can protect us when we can’t protect ourselves.”
“Of all the people to spill out this Susie Homemaker bullshit, I never really thought it’d be you,” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing coming from Colby’s mouth. “Look, I love Avery,” shaking my head I blew off what she was saying. “I really do. But she loves me the way I am. She doesn’t need the macho thing, trust me on that. She doesn’t want a controlling man.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Spencer,” Colby rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say sit there and tell her to bring you a beer and a sandwich or force her to tell you every move she makes.” I was still trying to process being told how to be if I wanted Avery to be with me. “I said fucking grow a pair. Quit crying to her. Quit whining about what you want and how sad you are. Stop expecting her to deal with your fucking PMS. Go make it happen. You want douchebag gone? Go make him be gone. You want Avery back? Go fucking get her!”
“Yea Colb,” laughter followed her words, “let me just run over to the apartment and demand she be with me whether she wants to or not and insist that the powerpuff girl head back to his mansion in the south. That should work.”
“You have it wrong Spencer,” she walked back towards the kitchen. “Not surprisingly. You always get it wrong.”
“And on that note I’ll head home,” I stood up and walked towards the door that was only a few feet from where she stood. “I’ll keep your advice in mind should I end up desperate and willing to become a completely different person to make the love of my life love me back. If she prefers him, then let her have him. I’m not going to try and force her to love me.”
“How the hell do you expect anyone to put up with that? Jesus Christ, I’ve heard two year olds less whiny than you.”
“Good night Colby,” ignoring her I turned the door knob before I stopped and looked back. “I’m here, ya know? If you need anything.”
“You know me,” she shrugged as she slipped the twist tie back onto the bread bag. “Couple strong drinks and a really good lay and I’ll be good as new.” Despite the words that she spoke, the droop of her eyes and sag of her shoulders told a different story. Colby was hurt and not much would ease that pain.
“Better make them manly,” I suggested with a smirk. “Wouldn’t want you to suffer through a guy with feelings.”
“True story,” she laughed. “I’ve been tortured enough with you around.”
“Always here to help,” I answered. “Night Colby.”
