by McLean, Jay
Mitch nods. “I don’t know his angle, or what he expected to get out of it, but he paid me to vandalize her house… the paintball gun, the BB gun, all of it… he paid me to do it all, and I…”
Rage solidifies every muscle, every cell. “And you did?”
His eyes drift shut… just as the door swings open behind me. I get shoved out of the way, and all I can see is a ball of blonde hair and bright red nails holding on to the drink tray as it flies toward Mitch’s face. When the contact’s made, there’s a crack so loud even I hiss in sympathy. Mitch’s face is nothing but red from his eyes down. Blood pours—no sprays—from his nose, his lip, all down his chin, his jaw, dropping onto the porch I never got around to fixing. Before I get a chance to say or do anything, Rhys is lifting Karen by the waist and practically throwing her back into the house. Dad joins Rhys and me on the porch while we take in the mess that is Mitch. Dad’s sigh is louder than the fury building inside me. “Let me take a look,” Dad says, stepping toward Mitch. He tilts Mitch’s head back by his jaw, then clasps the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Mitch yelps in pain and Dad squeezes harder. “Yep, it’s definitely broken.” He releases Mitch completely. “Now get the fuck off my porch before you stain it with your depravity.”
Chapter 42
Connor
I tried calling Ava to warn her about Peter. I also tried calling Trevor. My calls went unanswered. So did Rhys’s and Karen’s. We concluded pretty quickly that they’d gotten new numbers and didn’t want to be contacted. It all makes sense now that I think about it. Peter was around when all the major stuff went down, and knowing he got what he wanted is one thing but knowing he’s with Ava… that’s another.
I worry.
I can’t not.
Because if he’s willing to stoop that low to get to her, then what else is he capable of?
I miss her.
I miss her so fucking much it aches.
What’s left of her house has now been cleared. I was able to go there just before the work started and collected what I could of what remained. Mostly, I looked for the photos that were on her mom’s walls: the ones of her as a kid, of her growing up, all of them with her smiling that smile that settled so many of my insecurities. I keep them all in a box under my bed and promise myself that one day, I’ll look at them, and I’ll stop hurting and start remembering. I’ll remember the good she brought out of me, the confidence, the ability to love, and to trust and to…
Lying in bed, I unlock my phone and start going through all the pictures I’d taken of her.
Nine months.
You can grow an entire human in nine months.
And you can fall in love with an entire human in much less.
I find my favorite picture I’d taken of her. She’s in my old car, my arm held to her chest while drool formed a puddle on my weenus. It was the first day I hinted that I loved her, and it was the first day she declared it out loud. I keep going through the pictures, moments and memories, and I wish I’d taken more videos because—and I learned after my mom abandoned me—a person’s voice is the first thing you forget. You remember the way they look, even if it’s blurry; you remember certain parts of their bodies: their eyes, their hair… but you forget their voice. You forget what it sounds like when they tell you they love you, and you forget the tones of their voice when they sing. But worse, you forget their laugh, the way they start low and get higher when the single emotion consumes them. You forget the sound of their sigh at the end when the moment’s over. You forget the moment when The Happiness is so intense it bubbles out of their beings and emits out of their mouths.
I switch to the videos folder and go through them, too, stopping on the last one I’d taken. I’d completely forgotten about it because it wasn’t candid and wasn’t a display of our love for each other. It’s the video for the multimedia project we’d done for school that I’d since been excused from seeing as I didn’t have a partner. I hit play, my heart sinking when she comes to life. But it’s not the her I want to remember. It’s not Ava.
She’s sad.
God, she’s so fucking sad, and I see it now, but I didn’t see it then. I felt it, I’m sure, but it didn’t cut deep like it does now. She’s reading off a script, no inflection in her tone, and occasionally she’ll look up at me, but her eyes… there’s no light in her eyes, no spark, no magic.
I listen to our back and forth, our voices low and melancholy. “Maybe now’s not a good time for this,” she says.
And I reply, because I’m selfish, “I can’t fix this if I don’t know what’s broken, Ava.”
It takes her a moment to respond. “I’m fine. I just want you to be the same.”
I replay it all in my head at the same time I watch it play out in front of my eyes. I ask, “You want me to stay with you tonight?”
She shakes her head. “I’m pretty beat. I’m probably just going to sleep now.” She gets off the bed, and I recall her walking me to the door, can hear us saying goodnight to each other. No more than a minute later, she’s back in her room, on her bed. I sit up higher and watch, my eyes transfixed as she uncaps a bottle of pills and pours the entire content onto her palm.
So many pills.
My heart races as I watch her look up, not at the camera, not at anything really. When her gaze lowers, she lifts her hand, inspecting… and then she tilts her head back, raises her palm to her mouth and I…
I can’t breathe.
Can’t see through the tears as I watch hope die and heartache unfold…
“Ava?” Trevor knocks on her door.
I let out a breath.
Ava coughs up the pills back onto her palm, then rushes to shove them all under her pillow, hiding them from him. “Yeah?”
I hear Trevor open the door. “Hey, you got an A+ in English?” he asks her.
Ava nods, forces a smile.
“Damn, girl,” says Trevor, pride clear in his tone. “I don’t know how you do it, Ava. Take care of your mom and me and still manage to get these grades. It’s ridiculous how proud I am of you.”
Ava’s blink is slow. “Thanks.”
A beat passes before I hear the door latch again, and I see Ava’s shoulders drop, her chest rising. She whispers to a Trevor who’s no longer there, “I do it all for you.” And then she breaks down, and I break down with her as I watch those small hands of hers cover her face, her sobs. Her shoulders wrack with each of her cries, and she reaches under the pillow again, both hands scooping up the pills. She moves off-screen, but I know she’s dumped them in her trashcan, and she returns to her bed with her phone to her ear. “Miss Turner?” she sobs. “I’m sorry for calling so late, but you said—”…“I’m having those thoughts again.”…“The dark ones.”
I jolt when my phone vibrates in my hand, cutting off the video. Wendy flashes on the screen, and contempt flashes inside me. “Yeah?” I answer.
“Hi, Connor.” I realize now that I could go the rest of my life never remembering my mother’s voice and I’d never miss it. Not for a second. “How have you been?”
Where to start? “What’s going on?”
She clears her throat. “I guess we’re done with pleasantries, then?”
“Honestly, I don’t really have much to say to you anymore.”
“Okay,” she says. Then pauses a beat. “I accept that.”
I stay quiet. She doesn’t really have a choice.
“Connor,” she says with a sigh. “Do you have a lawyer?”
“No. Why?”
“Because you’re going to need one…”
Chapter 43
Connor
I get to school early the next morning because I have things to say, and I know the person I want to say them to will be ready to hear them.
It only takes a few seconds for Miss Turner to call out, “Come in,” after I knock. She smiles when she sees me, and I don’t know her well enough to know if it’s genuine or not. After what I saw in the video last night,
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she blames me for Ava leaving.
I ask, “Are you scheduled to meet with someone or…”
“Well, this was Ava’s time with me, so no.” She points to the seat opposite her. “Is this a sit-down or stand-up type of conversation we’re about to have?”
I sit down.
She nods once. “Good.”
I ask, not wanting to play games, “I know that you’re not going to tell me what I want, but can you at least tell me if she’s okay?”
“She’s okay, Connor. Her mom’s getting the care she needs, and so is she,” Miss Turner answers, her tone gentle. “I promise you that.”
I slump farther in my seat, get comfortable. “She said you were trying to help her get her mom into a place near Duke?”
“Yeah, I was,” she responds, a smile playing on her lips. “God, Connor, you should have seen her face when she got that letter from Duke. She came in here all excited, and then her reality hit, and she was trying to work out a way to be able to do everything.” Pity laces her tone. “Classic-Ava, right?”
I nod, trying to picture Ava’s reaction when she got that letter, but I can’t… all I can envision is the heartache from the video I watched.
“She would’ve loved to start with you,” she rushes, as if she’s been dying to tell me all this but didn’t know how. “But she had to make sure her mom was okay and that she’d be settled in her placement. She didn’t want to rush things, and that’s why she deferred a year.”
My eyes widen. “She did?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t even know she got into Duke until she told me she was leaving.”
Now her eyes widen. “Ava just wanted to keep it a secret in case things didn’t work out with her mom,” she tells me. “She didn’t want you to get your hopes up and then…”
I frown at the thought.
“What are you thinking, Connor?”
I shrug. “It’s just fu—messed—up how we kept so many secrets from each other because we thought we were protecting the other person, and in reality, we were just causing more and more damage.”
Miss Turner sits forward, her forearms resting on the table. “What’s your secret, Connor?”
I don’t hold back. “Remember the first session I had with you?”
“About your mom abandoning you?”
I nod. “She came back into my life recently.”
“She did?” Miss Turner doesn’t even try to hide her shock. “When? How?”
I tell her everything, just like I told Dad. But I tell her more. I tell her that my mom’s name is Claudia, but in order to hide it from my dad, I’d saved her number in my phone under Wendy—because we met up at a Wendy’s when I was in Georgia for the All-American game. I tell her about my mom and grandmother flying over here to see me, and I tell her about how much I regret choosing to protect her over Ava. I admit that, initially, I had believed my mom’s threats about Ava getting in trouble if anyone would somehow find out that Ava knew she existed. It took me a while to realize that everything my mom ever said to me was a form of manipulation for her own personal gain. I say all this while looking down at my hands, too ashamed to face a woman who knows Ava more than I do, that saw her at her lowest and embraced her at her peak. “I thought I had time,” I say. “With Ava, I mean. I thought I had time to make up for my mistakes, but I didn’t, and now… now it’s too late.”
Miss Turner has stayed silent the entire time I speak, and she’s still living in that silence for seconds after I’m done. A steady blink later, as if coming back to reality, she heaves out a breath and leans back in her chair. She grabs a stress ball from her desk and squeezes once. Twice. Then she says, almost singing the words, “I can accept failure; everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
My eyes narrow. “Michael Jordan said that.”
She nods. “Are you going to try, Connor?”
Baffled, I ask, “With my mom?”
“Fuck your mom.”
Oh. “With Ava?”
She nods.
I sigh, hopeless.
Miss Turner shakes her head. “Here’s another one for you then: Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”
“Kevin Durant,” I mumble. “Are you saying I’m talentless?”
“No.”
I rear back. “I’m confused.”
I catch the stress ball she throws at my chest while she says, “I think that quote is about so much more than basketball.” She pauses a beat as if contemplating. “When you think about it, really think about it, talent is God-given; it’s destined. And Ava once told me that she thought you were put on this earth for her. That you moved next door, and you saved her, and that you were destined to be together…”
The past nine months must’ve ruined my brain cells because I can’t seem to comprehend what she’s saying, and she must realize this because she says, “Connor. Replace talent with destiny.”
I say, thinking aloud, “Hard work beats destiny when destiny fails to work hard.”
Miss Turner grins when she must see the light switch on in my mind. “I get it,” I tell her, a single spark of magic flickering in my chest. “Hey, do you just keep a stack of quotes on file?”
“Pretty much,” she replies. “This place does not pay me enough to come up with my own.”
I stand, pick up my bag. “Thanks for listening.”
“You’re welcome.”
I stop by the door and turn to her. “Look, I know that there’s that whole patient confidentiality thing, but if you do speak to Ava, I’d appreciate it if you told her all that… about my mom, I mean. I don’t want her going through the rest of her life thinking that she wasn’t enough.” I pause a breath. “I’ve spent the last fifteen years drowning in those thoughts, and I wouldn’t wish them upon anyone.”
Miss Turner nods, slowly, her eyes lowering. “What are you going to do now, Connor?”
My shoulders lift. “I’m going to start working on me, start giving my dad more reasons to be proud of me, and give my mom even more reason to regret what she did… and then I’m going to work on my end game.”
Miss Turner’s lips tug at the corners. “And what’s your end game?”
Ava.
I tap at my chest, just like Miss D showed me. “The Happiness.”
Chapter 44
Ava
One year later
“Hey, guys. Just give me a minute. I’ll go find her,” Brandon, one of the so-called nurses, tells us as he makes his way through the doors behind the reception desk.
“Find her?” Trevor says, his eyes narrowed. “What? Did they lose her?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” I murmur.
“Ava,” Trevor deadpans.
I roll my eyes. “I’m kidding.” Kind of.
I watch Trevor as he looks around the waiting room. I come to Mom’s treatment center almost daily, but with Trevor back at Texas A&M and working two part-time jobs to try to make a dent in the massive debts he’d accrued over the past few years, he doesn’t get to visit Mom as much as he’d like. I try to see things from his perspective: the peeling paint of the walls, the old bright purple showing through the now sky blue. Posters from the late nineties hang in no particular order, all with motivational quotes that are somehow meant to ease the worry of the people who enter. The worst is the buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead; so neglected, the dead insects in the housing are probably older than I am.
“Where the fuck did Peter find this place?” he whispers, more to himself than to me. It turns out, Peter’s promises to take care of me meant me living in his condo while Mom was placed here. My living with him lasted all of two weeks, but that’s a story for another time. As far as my mom… this is all we can do right now. I’ve applied for so many places, but the waitlists are insane, and it’s not like it’s that bad—at least that’s what I try to tell myself every time I walk through the doors.
> Brandon returns and, without making eye contact, tells us, “She’s in her room. You can go on back.”
Trevor’s jaw ticks, his hands fisted at his sides.
“Thanks,” I reply, tugging on Trevor’s arm until he follows me through the doors. The hallways are just as bad as the waiting room, and I lead us through what feels like endless narrow corridors until we make it to Mom’s room. She’s in an old plastic chair, her hair matted as she looks out the window.
Zero-days.
Every day here is a zero-day.
And, in a way, I’m grateful she doesn’t realize how shitty she has it. Besides, zero-days are far better than negative days.
“Hi, Mama,” I edge, careful not to spook her. “Trevor’s here.”
A hint of a smile plays on her lips as she looks away from the window and notices Trevor standing behind me. “My kids,” she muses. “I love my kids.”
“We love you, too, Mama Jo.” Trevor approaches, kisses her scars. He leaves his hand on her shoulder, waiting for her to reach up and pat it as she always does.
“How’s school?”
“Good,” he tells her. “One more year and you’ll be at my graduation, right?”
Mom looks away.
Trevor’s gaze drops.
She hasn’t left the building since we got to Texas, too afraid of the outside world, and no amount of convincing can change her mind. “And work, Ava?” she asks. “How’s work?”
“It’s the same,” I reply, fixing the pillows and sheets on her bed. I sit down on the edge, my hands clasped on my lap.
“Same,” she repeats. “Everything is always the same.”
It is. At least for her and me. I managed to get a job pretty soon after we moved here, washing dishes at an old run-down diner. The pay’s not a lot, but it’s enough to get me through the week and to cover the rent on my studio apartment, an apartment Trevor hates despite me telling him that it’s fine.
That it will do.
