Where You Belong

by Tracie Puckett

  Avery was a ball of nerves. He kept licking his bottom lip, and his hands fidgeted the whole way up the stairs to Mel’s front porch.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said, but his voice was dry, and I felt so bad for the poor guy. He was an international star, and he was used to being in the spotlight all the time. But suddenly the idea of meeting a group of normal teenagers had him freaking out, and it was actually kinda adorable.

  He wanted them to like him. I wanted them to like him.

  “I’m here,” I yelled into the house, opening the door, because we never bothered knocking or ringing the bell when we visited each other. It was really just a waste of time.

  “Oh my god, I’ve been trying to call you all morning,” Carter said, turning out of the kitchen. She stopped dead in her tracks as she met us in the foyer.

  Her mouth gaped open and she stared up at Avery, almost as if she hadn’t registered that I was standing right next to him. She never once glanced in my direction. Her face was riddled with disbelief, and all I could hope was that she wouldn’t pass out and knock herself unconscious for hours on end. It was the Avery Effect. He had an inborn way of making girls do that.

  “I’m gonna go die now.”

  “Wait,” I said, grabbing her wrist as she turned away. “Don’t you want to meet—”

  “I have to help Ally with the . . . things.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  “That could’ve gone better,” Avery said, twisting his lips, but then his thought was cut short by the sound of a dish shattering in the next room. Jasper and Ally, attached at the hip, rushed into the foyer.

  “That’s a reaction I like,” I joked. “Roz is here. Drop everything and say hello.”

  Like Carter, neither of them paid attention to me, nor did they appreciate my joke. They were both focused on the man standing at my side.

  “Hi, I’m—”

  “We know,” Ally said, taking Avery’s outstretched hand to shake it. “Ally. Jasper.”

  “It’s great to meet you both. Roz has talked a lot about you.”

  “I need an explanation,” Ally said, turning her stare to me. “How did this . . . when did you . . . that picture you sent was real?”

  I bit my lip. “I’ll tell you everything, but first I wanted to—”

  “Mel!” Ally turned, yelling up the stairs. “Melanie, get your butt down these stairs right now.”

  “In a minute,” Mel called from her room, and I could only imagine she was up there trying to make herself look somewhat presentable.

  Knowing Mel, she’d been all around the house cleaning like a crazy person all morning. She loved hosting these Thanksgiving dinners, and she never wanted anything to go wrong. So her appearance often took the backseat to the preparation. She was always stealing precious moments to clean up once the rest of us were here to focus on the food.

  “Okay, I was trying to—” Mel stopped at the top step, looking down on the four of us in the foyer. Unlike my friends before her, her eyes didn’t go straight to Avery. Instead, they locked straight on me, and her face was expressionless. She was silent. One slow blink at a time, she started to nod. “Okay, yeah. That makes a little more sense.”

  “What’s that mean?” Jasper asked.

  “Mel thought Roz was dating Wes Barrett,” Ally said. “And they’d be totally wrong together, but—”

  “Who’s Wes—”

  “Let’s not do this again,” I said, stepping in before we had a repeat of our diner conversation. Ally could catch Jasper up on that whole thing later.

  Mel finally descended the staircase and stopped. “Avery?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mel,” she said, offering him a hand, and he shook it. “I’m glad you could make it.”

  “Thank you. I’m happy to be here.”

  Mel nodded once, but then she turned into the kitchen, and she was only out of sight for five seconds before a shriek escaped her lips. “Jasper.”

  “I’m on it,” he said, flashing a guilty smile at us for the glass he’d probably left shattered in the middle of the kitchen floor. Ally and Jasper turned out, leaving me alone with Avery again.

  “I should’ve tried harder.” I rested my forehead against his chest. “I didn’t give them enough time to absorb the shock. I didn’t think they would act so—”

  “It’s okay,” he said, taking my hands. He gave my fingers a squeeze. “We’ve got time.”

  When Avery went back out to the car to get the drinks, I followed my friends, ready and willing to take whatever they were going to throw at me.

  “He’s outside,” I said. “Whatever you have to say, say it now. You’ve got one minute.”

  “Avery-freaking-Chase,” Jasper said. “For real?”

  “When did this happen?” Ally asked. “Last week you hated—”

  “I know,” I said, stopping her. “Things have changed. He’s been in town for a while, and we kinda ran into each other. We’ve hung out a few times, and I don’t know. I guess we’re friends now.”

  Carter scoffed and turned to the counter.

  “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Mel asked. “We specifically pressed you for details, and you refused to give us anything. You can’t just walk in here, spring him on us, and then blame us for being surprised.”

  “I’m not blaming anyone. But you guys would’ve never believed me.”

  “Of course we would’ve,” Mel said, but both Ally and I looked to her like she was crazy. “Okay, maybe not, but you didn’t even try. And . . .” She looked to Carter before turning back to me. “It was a little inconsiderate, Roz.”

  I looked down to the floor, saddened that they’d ganged up on me. It’s not like I’d brought him in here hoping to give them the shock of their lives. I knew it would be a rough transition, but what choice did I have? They would have never believed me!

  As I peeked up again, I realized that none of my friends were looking at me anymore, but each of them was watching Carter as she silently worked in the corner of the kitchen, assembling pizzas, and trying to avoid the whole conversation.

  And then it hit me.

  They weren’t mad because I hadn’t told them about Avery. They were mad because I hadn’t considered how it would hurt Carter to see one of her friends with a boy she’d liked for as long as I had.

  Mel, Jasper, and Ally . . . they were silently judging me for not taking Carter’s feelings into consideration. And they were right. I’d never considered her or how it would affect her to see him here—at my side. My guest.

  I was too caught up in all the crazy things I felt that I hadn’t thought for one second about anything more than the butterflies that rioted in my stomach every time Avery glanced in my direction.

  I’d thought about what Roz wanted, and not what was best for the people I loved.

  I was the worst friend in the world, and I wouldn’t blame Carter if she hated me forever.

  Chapter Twelve

  They warmed up to Avery fast. Once the initial shock wore off, most everyone was asking questions—except for Carter, of course. She wouldn’t even look in his direction, and God forbid she acknowledge me.

  Avery answered everything they asked of him—why he was in town, why he’d run away. Where he was staying, and how long he would stick around. He shared a lot with them, sparing the details of exactly what had gone down with Evie Lawson and the drug scandal. The basics were enough to appease them, and they never demanded too much.

  My friends, unlike my mother, were a little more receptive to Avery’s sincerity.

  As we worked to set the table, Mel perked up.

  “Okay,” she said. “What’s everyone thankful for this year?”

  Ally and Jasper looked to each other, both of them turning an embarrassed shade of red. Their shared smiles were answer enough.

  “Roz?” Mel asked.

  “Perspective,” I said, realizing that that was the one thing I’d really needed a lot of
, and it was coming to me in small waves.

  “Avery?”

  “Second chances,” he said, nudging me with his shoulder, and Mel forced a smile as she turned to Carter.

  “What about you?”

  “Loyal friends,” she said, seething as much as my mom was the night she met Avery. It was a stab at me—one she hadn’t taken a moment to consider before she said it. Or maybe she had. Either way, it hurt.

  Her two words silenced the room, and while Avery didn’t seem to understand what was going on, everyone else heard the contempt behind her statement.

  “Okay, let’s sit,” Mel said after the table was set and the food was spread out. Her dads had given us the house for the day, just like they always did, leaving us with plenty of space at their large dining table. And since sitting down to eat was about the only way to move past the awkwardness in the air, we all gladly took empty chairs.

  Jasper and Avery looked a little lost as we claimed our normal seats, neither of them sure where to sit. But when Jasper took the seat between Mel and his girlfriend, Mel’s spine lengthened, and she completely stiffened up. The look she shot Jasper was as threatening as the one I felt Carter glaring at me.

  “Should I sit somewhere else?” Jasper asked, and Ally’s lip sucked inward.

  “No.” Mel’s voice was thin. “That’s crazy, just . . . stay.”

  Oh, poor Jasper . . .

  He hadn’t done anything wrong, just assumed the space was up for grabs because it was dressed with dinnerware. But as I looked around the table, I counted that she’d set one place too many. And then I remembered how last year, on the day before Thanksgiving, Mel’s boyfriend had sat in that very same spot Jasper had claimed.

  She’d set a place for him . . . even though he wasn’t coming.

  Even though he’d been dead for nearly a year.

  It was moments like this when I realized that Mel had never really gotten over Kyle’s death. She was just going through the motions, pretending she had it all together, when it was clear she was falling apart.

  We always credited her for being the strongest of our group of friends, but sometimes it felt like Mel tried to be too strong. There were moments when we’d notice how tired she looked, or how she was always journaling. Sometimes she’d jog around town for hours on her downtime. She was working through the heartache any way she knew how, but on days like this, especially holidays, the pain always caught up with her.

  The table fell silent. I could only imagine Ally was thinking all the same things I’d thought—that Mel was fighting to keep a straight face only so she wouldn’t ruin the day. But tears reared up in my friend’s eyes, and I sensed her on the brink of a breakdown.

  This whole day was turning into a major disaster, and I had no idea how to turn it around.

  “Okay,” Ally said, breaking the silence, trying to get the eyes off Mel and focused somewhere else. She looked to Avery. “So we’ve heard the stories about why you’re in town, but you two never mentioned how you met.”

  “Actually, yes,” I said, quick to talk about Avery, even if it meant hurting Carter’s feelings—because, while I loved my friend, her jealousy was no match to Mel’s heartache. And I didn’t want anyone noticing the tear that’d just slipped down Mel’s cheek. “I told you.”

  “You did?” Ally asked.

  “Avery’s the guy who hit my car on Saturday night.”

  “No,” Jasper said, pretending he had some idea what we were talking about, but since he’d missed out on that conversation, he was likely clueless.

  Ally leaned forward, her eyes wide as she focused on Avery. “Please tell me she kept her cool. She’s strangely possessive of that car.”

  “She was calm,” Avery answered, easing back in his seat. “She had to give the shock some time to settle in. It wasn’t until the next morning that she really let me have it.”

  “She yelled at you?” Ally asked, her interest piqued.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “She has a temper, this one.” He put his arm around me and drew me closer. Mel feigned a smile, and Carter looked away. “She wouldn’t talk to me, and when I finally got her to talk, all she wanted to do was yell. And at one point, she was so mad she started stripping her clothes off, and—”

  “Wait, what?” Jasper asked.

  “You’re skipping important details,” I said, nudging Avery. “I was wearing his clothes, because mine were wet, and . . .”

  By the time Avery and I had recounted our argument, neither of us chose to explain exactly how we’d sparked a friendship. We skimmed past the details of our proposed business scheme and settled the conversation with the fact that I’d finally forgiven him, and here we were . . .

  “You know, I don’t think I’m in the mood for games today.” Mel cleared her spot at the table after dinner. “You guys should just play without me.”

  “Me too,” Carter said. “I’m going to sit this one out.”

  “You’re serious?” Ally asked. “We do games every year.”

  “Not this time, okay?” Mel said, and Ally’s shoulders slumped.

  Avery looked to me, lowering his voice. “Is it me?”

  “No,” I whispered. “I’ll explain later.”

  We worked as a group to clean up the mess on the table, straighten up the kitchen, and make sure we left everything just the way we’d found it. Carter packed up leftovers. Jasper sealed the desserts. Avery and I washed dishes while Ally dried them. But Mel just stood at the backdoor, staring out at the yard.

  “I’m going to take off,” Carter said, as soon as the food was put away. “I’ll see you guys on Monday.”

  “Tomorrow,” I corrected her. “You’re coming to the soup kitchen, right?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “And my party? You’ll be there Sunday, right?”

  “I’ll let you know,” she said, pulling her jacket off the coatrack. And with that, Carter was out the door without another word.

  We all looked around the room at each other, and every quiet minute that passed felt like an even deeper blow to my gut.

  Confirmed. I was the worst friend in the world.

  ~

  “It was Christmas Eve,” I said, crossing my arms.

  I hugged myself tighter, wishing I’d dressed a little warmer. I hadn’t planned on a long walk around town this evening, but after leaving Mel’s house, Avery and I weren’t ready to say goodbye. Besides, after the way everything had gone down this afternoon, I knew I owed him some kind of explanation. So I started with Mel. More specifically, I began with Kyle . . .

  “There’s a back road that runs between Cedar Lake and Sutton Woods,” I said, shivering—at the cold or at the memory, I couldn’t be sure. “It’s scenic and beautiful, but dangerous on any dry day, considering the steep cliffs on either side. Even with the guardrails, it’s never anyone’s first option when coming into town, because the highway’s faster and safer. It’s a no-brainer. But it was a holiday; the weather was bad and traffic was heavy. I guess he thought the back way was his best bet to make it home before dark.

  “Speed was a factor,” I said. “He took the last curve too quickly, and . . . his car went right off the edge of the cliff.”

  Avery closed his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. He was as speechless as we were when the news first ripped through our small town.

  Kyle Delgado was gone.

  We’d lost our friend. Our classmate. Our confidante.

  “It’s still so raw,” I said. “We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary next month, and some days it still hits her like it was yesterday.”

  “Holidays are hard.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “How long were they together?”

  “A year, officially. His family moved to town sophomore year, and they were attached at the hip from the day he moved in next door. By Christmastime, they were finally comfortable admitting they were a couple, and for th
e next twelve months, you never saw one without the other.”

  “That’s cute,” he said.

  “They were cute.” I wished Avery could’ve met Kyle . . . or even Mel, before the accident ripped her happiness away. “Sutton Woods is too painful for her now; she hates it here. There are too many reminders of Kyle, of all the time they spent together. Though she lived so much of her life here before he ever came along, the happier years can’t seem to outweigh the sadness. She can’t escape his memory. His family’s right next door, and they’ve shut her out.”

  “That’s rough.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “She took a job in the spring at the diner, and she’s worked every shift she can take to save money. Once we’re out of school and she has the means to get herself out of here, she’ll be gone faster than we can say ‘goodbye.’”

  “I’m sorry, Roz.” He wrapped his arm around my waist. Avery pulled me closer as we turned a corner, and I kept my eyes focused on the sidewalk.

  “Was Carter close to Kyle, too?” Avery asked, and I could only guess he was trying to get to the bottom of why she’d acted so quiet and distant today. I didn’t know how to explain to him that Carter’s behavior had nothing to do with Kyle and everything to do with him . . . or, my current attachment to him, anyway.

  “Not so much,” I said. Avery nodded, and I closed my eyes, hoping to muster up the words that would help him understand Carter’s unusually cold demeanor. “You know, I kinda wanted to punch Wes in the face for saying so much—you know, about . . .”

  “Your super-giant crush on me?” he teased, squeezing my shoulder. “I hope you’re not upset about that. I wasn’t. I thought it was adorable.”

  “But humiliating,” I admitted. “Which is why I need to be careful.”

  “With what?”

  “What I say about Carter.” I hoped I wouldn’t say anything that would embarrass her half as much as Wes embarrassed me. But I had to say something to Avery; he needed to understand. “She hasn’t lived in Sutton Woods forever. Mel, Ally, and I have been inseparable since kindergarten, but Carter came into the picture last year, and the big thing she and I bonded over was . . . you.”