by McLean, Jay
We end up at the larger gym where the games are played. “Comfortable now?” Karen asks, slipping off her heels.
I nod. “Much.”
Giggling, she pulls a flask out of her purse and hands it to me. “You need to relax, Connor. The world doesn’t end tomorrow.”
She has a point. “You’re right. And I’m sorry. I’m sure this version of me wasn’t what you were expecting when you asked me to go with you.”
With a shrug, she goes to the corner of the court and grabs a ball from the rack. “I just like hanging out with you. It doesn’t really matter what we do.”
I take a sip of the bourbon she snuck in, wondering why she brought it since she doesn’t drink. “Me, too.” And it’s not a lie. I was wrong to have judged her the way I did, because she’s fun to be around. The type of fun that lets me forget everything else.
“One-on-one?” she asks, effortlessly spinning the ball on the tip of her finger.
I take another swig, breathe the alcohol straight into me. “Last time we played, I nailed you.”
“You haven’t nailed me.” She smirks. “Yet.”
I take the ball from her, go for a simple lay-up, then go after the ball and hold it under my arm as I face her. “I’ll give you a fifteen-point head start, just to make it fair.”
“Deal.”
We play until it’s fifteen all, taking breaks for me to sip on her flask. “You gotta give me more than that if you want a chance at scoring,” I laugh out.
She narrows her eyes. “So many innuendos, I can’t choose one.”
I stand under the basket, throw the ball to her while she waits at the free-throw line. I say, “I’ll give you a free shot, just because I feel sorry for you.”
Smiling, she dribbles for a few seconds, her feet planted to the floor. And then she moves in on me, closer and closer, until she’s standing in front of me, her nose to my chest. “Connor?”
I stand taller. “Karen?”
She throws the ball behind her, and I watch it fly in the air, feeling a chuckle build inside me. But it stops when her hands press against my chest, forceful enough for me to take a step back, and then another, and another, until my back hits a wall. I swallow, nervous, and look down at her. Her hands travel down my torso, to my stomach, and my breath halts when she licks her lips. Eyes on mine, she murmurs, “You miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, right?”
I nod.
Her eyes drift shut, and I suck in a breath when she leans forward, mouth ready, and it would be so easy to do this. To be this. With her. I close my eyes…
And I picture Ava.
My eyes snap open. “I can’t,” I whisper, my hands finding Karen’s shoulders to stop her. To stop myself. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Karen keeps her gaze lowered. “Because of her?” she asks quietly.
“No, because of me,” I tell her honestly, putting more space between us. “Because my heart will always be hers, even if she’ll never accept it.”
Chapter 7
Ava
I’m sick of crying.
I’m sick of hoping.
And I’m sick of my own self-pity.
I promise myself to become the model student (for Trevor) with the perfect patience (for my mom), and I stop letting my emotions drive me, and instead, use my love and appreciation for Trevor to guide me.
Life is a series of decisions, Connor’s dad once said. You make them because they feel right at the time, but you’re not bound to them forever. But I am bound to them.
I made a choice to stay for my mom.
And I made a choice to leave for Connor.
I have to stick to those decisions and make the most of what I have.
And that decision is final.
It’s Christmas Day, another zero-day in the house. But Trevor and I—we’re trying, and that’s all he asked for. Tomorrow, he takes off to Colorado to spend the rest of the holidays with Amy. Krystal will still be here during the day, and I have the crisis team on speed dial should I need them. Peter will be in town, but he’ll only be stopping by every now and then to check in on me.
I walk around the kitchen doing my best to create a Christmas dinner worthy of Trevor’s hopes to make the day special. Mom sits at the kitchen table, a whiteboard in front of her. She’s practicing writing with her left hand all the words that remind her of Christmas. It brings her neither happiness nor misery.
“Pick one,” Trevor orders, walking into the room with two different rolls of wrapping paper. “Purple’s her favorite color, but it’s not as festive as the red.”
I smile. “I’d go purple. For sure.”
“Tape?” he asks.
“Do we have tape?”
“Dammit.” He rummages through all the kitchen drawers before exiting. Mom writes wrapping paper on the board.
“That’s a good one!” I encourage.
She doesn’t react.
“Would electrical tape be okay?” Trevor calls out.
“No!”
Mom writes down family.
My heart bursts. “I like that one,” I tell her.
“Mmm,” she responds.
Trevor walks back into the room, a stack of papers held in his grasp. His eyes skim one and then another. And my heart stops the second I realize what he’s reading. Shoulders tense, I grind out, “What the hell are you doing?”
The muscles in his jaw tick.
I race over to him, try to grab them out of his grasp, but he holds them above his head.
“When in the hell were you going to tell me?!”
“Give them back,” I grunt, trying to reach for them.
“No!”
“Why the fuck are you going through my stuff?”
“Stop cussing,” Mom mumbles.
He grabs my shoulder and pushes me back, slamming the papers on the kitchen table, making Mom jerk in her seat. She looks up at him, her eyes clearer.
He keeps me at an arm’s length, literally, and I try to push him away, but he’s too strong. “Texas A&M, University of Florida, UNC. These are all early acceptance letters, Ava!”
“What?” Mom whispers, getting to her feet.
“Trevor, why would you do this?”
“Do what?” he shouts, the loudness of his voice making me cower. “Care about your goddamn future?”
“You said I just had to apply. You didn’t say I had to accept!”
“What?” Mom asks again, flipping through all the letters.
“Look what you’ve done, Trevor!” I cry out. “You’ve given her false hope!”
“Ava, I swear to God,” Trevor grinds out. “If you miss these deadlines—”
“You’re going,” Mom says, her tone flat.
“What?” I huff. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her gaze lifts, locks on mine. Resolute. “You’re going, Ava.”
I suck in a breath. Hold it. My teeth clenched. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Yes, you are!” she shouts, slamming her hand on the table.
I glare at Trevor. “See what you’ve done!”
Trevor shakes his head, outrage flaming his eyes. “Your bratty ass is going to college.”
I stand frozen, my fists balled at my sides. I look between them, rage building inside me, surrendering in the form of heated tears. “How the hell am I supposed to go!” I cry. “Under no circumstances, in this life, is it possible for me to leave. None!”
“Goddammit! I don’t know how else to get this through your stubborn little head!” Mom yells. “I don’t want you here! I don’t want to be here!”
“Stop it!” I beg, pressing my palms to my ears. My heart aches, drops to the knot tightening in my stomach.
“I gave you an out!” Mom bellows.
I fold in on myself, weak.
“You shouldn’t have fucking saved me, Ava!”
I can’t breathe.
“You should’ve let me die like I wanted!”
“STOP IT!” I scre
am, my throat scratching with the force. I can feel the physical cracking of my heart… right before its collapse.
“Ava,” Trevor whispers, his arms going around me.
I fight against his hold and break free, pushing him out of the way. Then I run outside. I need to fill my lungs with air. Because I feel like I’m drowning. Like I’ve been underwater for almost three years, and I can’t—I can’t take a breath that isn’t liquified heartache or hope, and I’m done.
I’m so fucking done.
Connor
Dad works a double shift during Christmas because money. And not the “cool” version of money. But real-life paper money to make up for what we spent on the invitational I attended. Rhys invited me to spend the day at his house, and when I mentioned I didn’t want to intrude on his family time, he laughed, said that Christmas at his house was the biggest blowout of the year and that most of the team attend after their own Christmas dinners. So, I go. Because really? What else am I going to do? Dad and his work partner, Tony, were invited, too. They came, ate the smorgasbord of food that was offered, but had to leave soon after. Emergencies stop for no one, apparently.
Now it’s dark out, and the team plus Karen are hanging in Rhys’s room while the grown-ups have a giant orgy downstairs. Not really. But that’s the story Mitch keeps telling. “If I were down there, I’d choose Karen’s mom,” he says.
Karen scoffs. “She’d turn you down faster than Connor turned me down.”
“Burn,” Rhys laughs.
I turn to Karen, narrow my eyes.
“What?” She giggles. “It’s true!”
Things with Karen and me were weird for a hot minute. Then she called me a fuckboy, whatever that means, and told me my jump shot was weak. We’ve been fine ever since.
There’s a knock on Rhys’s door, and we all hide the alcohol we managed to sneak up. “Yeah?” Rhys calls out.
His mom pokes her head in. “Did you hand out the gifts, pookie bear?”
The entire room burst out in cackles.
“Yeah, pookie bear,” Mitch mocks. “Did you?”
Rhys sighs, then offers his mom a toothy grin. “I’ll do it now. Thanks, Mom!” She closes the door, and Rhys goes to his closet, pulls out a giant garbage bag of gifts. “Have at it,” he says, dropping the bag in the middle of the floor.
We dive in like kids at a party when the piñata breaks, fighting and wrestling for gifts we don’t even deserve. I rip mine open, my eyes widening when I see what’s inside. “Yo, this is a Louis Vuitton wallet. I think maybe—”
“Mine too!” Oscar announces, already transferring his cards.
“Damn,” I laugh. “You guys really do live in another world.” I move to the window, flick open a gap in the blinds to see all the cars parked on the front lawn—by valets, of course. And that’s when I catch sight of her. I’d recognize those loose curls anywhere. She’s sitting in front of her old house, just like the day of the cafeteria incident. And I understand that she doesn’t want anything to do with me, but seeing her like this, remembering how she was back then, I can’t help but go to her. If she needs me, I’m here. Always. I tell whoever is listening, “I’ll be back.”
I try to make my presence known because I don’t want to startle her, but it doesn’t seem to matter because Ava’s transfixed, chin up, staring at the house she used to call home. “Hey,” I croak.
Slowly, she turns to me, and even in her apparent hopelessness, she’s still stunningly beautiful.
My heart heavy, I ask, “Can I sit with you?”
Turning back to the house, she nods, a movement so slight I almost miss it.
I sit down next to her, ignoring the icy ground beneath me. “You okay?” I ask.
Ava doesn’t respond immediately. She just stares, her blinks slow. “It’s so nice, huh?”
“The house?”
“Yeah,” she sighs out. “We used to hang colored lights out during Christmas. They only have white ones, but it’s still so beautiful.”
“It is,” I murmur, but I’m not looking at the lights. I’m looking at her.
She inhales deeply, her voice quiet when she says, “Sometimes I come here and just look at it. I try to remember all the good times I had there, the happy memories, but I can never seem to think of anything but… but the blood.”
“The blood?”
She nods, her lids heavy when she turns to me, eyes clouded. “There was so much blood, Connor,” she says, her voice strained with her withheld emotions. Her bottom lip trembles, and I fight the urge to hold her, to pull her into me and love her openly. “There was supposed to be a caregiver with me that day,” she says. “But they were ill, and they couldn’t come, and I had a test first period.” She swipes at the tears with no cry to accompany them. After an audible swallow, she adds, “I had a stupid test, and so I left her there. Alone. I was gone no more than two hours and when I came back…” She shudders a breath, and this time, I ignore what I know she wants. I clasp my hand around hers but keep silent. “It was so quiet. I called out to her, but she didn’t answer. And then the stairs. I remember the stairs. I remember the creaks under my feet. And I remember going through every room, feeling the dread escalate with every step.” She sniffs back her anguish. “And then the bathroom and the blood and the water and she was in there and she…”
“Ava…” I whisper, wrapping my arms around her. I pull her into me, my heart pounding.
She sobs into my chest. “She wasn’t breathing, Connor. Oh, God…” Her shoulders shake, her cries coming louder.
“Shh, it’s okay,” I whisper into her hair. I sniff back my own tears while I listen to her fall apart, and I do my best to keep it together. “It’s okay, Ava.”
“But it’s not,” she cries out, gripping my jacket. “It’s not okay. Nothing is okay, and I don’t know… I don’t—” She struggles to speak, struggles to breathe through her pain. “She hates me because I saved her. She hates me!”
“No, she doesn’t,” I try to soothe.
“She doesn’t, Ava,” Karen utters, and I don’t know where she came from or how long she’s been listening. Ava pulls out of my hold, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“She doesn’t hate you,” Karen repeats, sitting on the other side of her. “And I know… I know that this place, this house, brings back all those memories for you, but there are so many good ones,” she rushes out. “Like that tree,” she says, pointing to a small tree right in the middle of the front yard. “That’s Scout’s tree, remember?”
Ava lets out a sob.
“And remember when your mom surprised you with him? We got off the bus, and she was standing right on that porch, and you didn’t know she was coming home and you ran up the driveway so fast your bag caught on your skirt and you flashed me your bright red undies?”
Ava…
Ava laughs… a sound so pure, even if it ends with another cry.
“And you jumped into her arms, and she held you, swung you around as if you weighed nothing. God, I was so jealous of that genuine love she has for you. And then she brought out this mutt of a dog she found at the pound… so old and raggedy and blind in both eyes, and you fell to your knees and you loved that ugly-ass dog as much as your mom loved watching you with him.”
Ava’s shoulders shake, this time from laughter.
“And your bedroom balcony,” Karen continues, nudging Ava’s side. “Remember how you and I used to stand out there and pretend like we were performing for a crowd of millions? We’d bust out the High School Musical soundtrack as if we could fucking sing, and we truly believed that Troy Bolton was going to somehow climb up there and declare his undying love for us.”
I ask, “Who’s Troy Bolton?”
“Shut up, Connor,” Karen snaps, and Ava giggles, her head down.
“But my favorite memory of all is that tire swing in your backyard.”
Ava glances up at her, wordless and breathless.
Karen stares at the house like Av
a did only moments ago: gaze distant, mind lost. “I’d just turned fourteen, and I needed to talk to you, but you weren’t there. Trevor had taken you out for the day, just you and him. And when your mom told me, I said that I’d wait for you, and I sat in that tire swing. I was probably there for five minutes before your mom came out and told me that she was no Ava, but she’d listen if I wanted to talk. So, I did. I told her about my mom’s boyfriend at the time. About how he was creeping on me and touching me.” Karen’s voice cracks. She clears her throat, sits higher and adds, “Your mom asked if I’d told my mom, and I had, but she didn’t believe me. So, your mom—she said she’d take care of it… That guy was gone the next day. Just packed up his bags and left. Never heard from him again. God, your mom was my hero. She’s always been my hero, Ava. She was like a mother to me when I didn’t have one.” Karen sighs. “And I think that’s why I took it so hard—what happened to her. And I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there for you the way you needed me. I’m sorry I stopped coming around, and I know it’s so fucking selfish, but… she was such a strong, powerful force in my life and to see her—” Karen breaks off on a sob, rubbing her eyes. “Seeing her like that killed me, A. And I just couldn’t. I don’t have your strength. And I’m sorry.”
Ava’s silent. No verbal response. But she takes Karen’s hand in hers. A peace offering.
Behind us, a throat clears. Rhys makes his way around us, saying, “Well, you know what my favorite memory of that house is?”
Ava looks up at him.
“My favorite memory is standing at my window watching you try on bikinis in your bedroom.”
“Oh, my God,” Ava whispers, shaking her head.
Rhys smirks. “Little boobies out like what.”
“Shut up!” Ava kicks his foot.
I say, “I’m about to punch you.”
“He’s not worth it,” Ava says, turning to me. After a heavy sigh, she asks, “Will you take me home?”
“I’ll take you wherever you want.”
Ava
