I wanted to yell at her. That’s what I wanted to do.
Over the course of several days it became obvious to me that Avery was never going to return the favor of me asking her to be mine. I’d finally pushed that outside my mind and then she nearly left me but did this?!
“You make me crazy,” I choked, falling into her body, my fist hitting her collarbone. “Of course I want to marry you, you idiot,” I cried.
She took the ring out of the box and took my hand, placing the band around my finger and fitting it down. It was the tiniest bit too big but not so much that it would fall off, just enough to make me paranoid.
“I know I probably did it wrong but I’m bad at stuff like this. No practice, I guess. And I won’t get anymore because I’m only going to do it once.”
“I’m so mad at you,” I cried, feeling stupid.
Of course, she’d pick the time I was most upset to try and please me.
I’d spent all those nights wondering if she’d ever want me as much as I wanted her because of something this stupid, a stupid ring.
Then she runs from me and I think she’s gone? Then there’s a ring?
“Yeah, I know. With good reason,” she nodded and kept holding my hand, accepting her fate.
“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing at last what I was doing and how horrible I was being at a time when I should be romantic and pleased. “I don’t feel good. You really scared me.”
“I know. That’s what I vowed to myself not to do anymore but it just happened and you don’t need to apologize to me. You have every right to be mad. I know I’ll get it through my head someday that I don’t need to worry. I’m sorry that I proposed to you like that but I’ve been wanting to do it and we just keep getting stuff thrown at us so I did it in the hopes that we could move on even stronger.”
Through tears I started to laugh.
I crawled over her to move myself up onto the bed. I really felt like dying for a moment, just ceasing to exist.
She followed me to the bed but stayed on the floor, kneeling next to me. “Can I kiss you?”
My chin quivered and I nodded.
She leaned in, pressing our lips together and sighing into me.
I felt my anger focus and then twist into wanting. My hand came up to her face and I pulled her in.
She fell against the bed, opening her mouth in a gasp that zapped my strength immediately and made me whimper for her.
Her hand went to my hair, pulling me closer. She climbed up, managing to not break our kiss. She pulled me on top of her and we broke apart, breathing hard. We weren’t much more than animals after all; wresting, touching, craving each other.
“I love you so fucking much,” I gasped trying to find my equilibrium again. She had me spinning.
Sometimes she just wrecked me. Sometimes there wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t brace myself.
It was like that stupid Miley Cyrus song. Avery came in like a wrecking ball.
“I love you too,” she breathed, taking me in. “If you don’t like the ring. I can get you another one. That was my grandma's. You know, the one that used to watch old movies with me.”
“I love the ring,” I said. “I just hated how long it took.”
“Yeah? I’m sorry,” she frowned, brow furrowing. “I knew I wanted to do it I just didn’t want to until I had the ring.”
I was about to be real with her again and it scared me to know how quickly it could all end. Her stunt taught me that. “I thought you didn’t want me as much,” I broke down again, resting ontop of her like a stupid kid.
“No, no, that’s not true. I want you as much. I always think things like how much I want you must be more but I think we’re even. I wanted it to be perfect and look, I did it in such an imperfect way. I’m sorry it took so long. If I’d known you felt that way I would’ve proposed sooner.”
“I’m just stupid,” I cried. “I let my mind make me crazy and right now I thought you left in your car. I thought you took off, that I wouldn’t see you ‘til the meeting and even then you wouldn’t want to see me at all.”
“Also, not true,” she said. “I would have come right back in if I hadn’t done a header into that fence. I would have come in and apologized and begged you to forgive me and told you that I knew you loved me and not her and you wanted me.”
She moved her hand down to my face. “And you’re not stupid. You’re really, really smart. Way smarter than I am, but I can run faster than you so there’s that.”
She waited a beat. “I shouldn’t be joking right now. You hate that.”
“Why can’t we have a normal day?” I wondered terrified.
“We will… someday,” she ran her finger along my lips and smiled.
“You’re gonna hate me in a second,” I said.
“I can’t hate you. Impossible. But why are you saying that,” she sat up.
“Natalie has to swing by later. She has some stuff here that she needs.”
“Oh,” she stilled and pressed her lips together. “So, that’s what she wanted.”
“She told me what she said,” I admitted. “I should’ve warned you. She’s good at getting a rise. When I asked you to get my phone I really just meant hand it to me. I didn’t think she could upset you like that. But I guess it wasn't her anyway it was my bullshit, right?” I laughed bitterly. All my shit. Too much. Not Natalie. Not other people. Me.
Avery said that...
“That kind of pisses me off a little but at her. It probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been carrying around a lot of stuff on my mind. I would have been weirded out but I would have gotten over it. I sure as hell wouldn’t have ran off if I was in my right mind,” she chewed her lips and moved around.
“So, she’s coming here,” she asked again; disbelief.
“Some time today, yeah.” I didn’t like how she ignored what she’d said to me. She couldn’t feel the way her words sounded in my ears.
“Okay, okay,” she said, scooting off the bed. “I need to fix myself. I probably still look like a mess.”
“You look amazing,” I said. “You’re always beautiful. Even when you're covered in blood and scaring the shit out of me. And you don’t have to see her if you don’t want to but if you do want to you can meet her.”
“I need to meet her,” she said standing a little taller. “If she likes to get under people’s skin- then- if I don’t she’ll know she really got under mine so I’m going to be normal. Well, as normal as I can be and still be me,” she walked toward her bags. “And thanks but I do think you’re a little biased as far as my looks go.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that when she comes.” Why she thought all this I didn’t know? There was jealousy and then there was extreme insecurity. Avery was leaning toward the latter right now. All when she had nothing to worry about. “She’s already sad, believe me. I told her I proposed. I dated her and treated her horribly for 6 months and never once thought of even making it official or calling her my real girlfriend. I knew you less than a week before I wanted to marry you. Can’t you hear me when I tell you things? I’ve said all this before. Can’t you see?”
“Okay,” she closed her eyes and backed into the corner, sitting on the chair there. She squeezed herself, tensing her muscles for a moment before pulling her legs up onto the chair. “I’ll do whatever you want, but I have to change. I’ve got blood all over my shirt and that’s just weird.”
“Why did that make you upset just now?” I wondered. She was acting so strange. “I’m sorry,” I said, when she didn’t answer. There was obviously something going on with her right now but I couldn’t force it. “Change. Shower. Do whatever you want. Be a dick to her. Be an angel. Completely ignore her. I don’t care. I just don’t like when you don’t want to hear me and you want to fill in your own blanks. I don’t like when you keep things in and then freak out later and scare me so bad I don’t know how to talk to you after or where to find you or what to feel. I
realize I’m hard to deal with. I told you that today. I realize that. But I’m sensitive and I can’t take much. I’m a double-edged sword with you and it’s shit and I know it’s not fair but I know I’m a mess and I keep trying to tell you that but you don’t want to hear.”
“I fucking hear you, okay?!”
I felt myself stiffen. Sometimes when she was mad at me I got really scared.
Scared of what? I dunno… Probably abandonment. I dunno...
She opened one of her bags and pulled out some jeans. Then she went to the next bag and yanked out a long sleeve tee and a hoodie. I watched her strip down, throwing her clothes in the dirty laundry and putting the new ones on.
There was quiet after that. She went back to that corner chair and took out her phone, playing with it while she rocked a little back and forth.
I let out a sigh and crawled back up on the bed, laying my face in the pillow and crying quietly just to try and stop thinking and stop being scared.
Whatever this was we weren’t in a good place.
I couldn’t believe she picked right now of all moments to propose.
I felt the ring on my finger and it burned because it was still confusing and it shouldn’t be.
It was like she wanted to fix us with a Band-Aid instead of talking through what went on.
My mind was still stuck on her words coming back into the house.
Coward.
Worthless.
Sorry.
Avery’s words...
I couldn’t stop crying. One minute we were happy and the next she was running from me and covered in blood. One minute we were normal and the next this was us, non-communicative, broken.
A few minutes later I felt the bed dip and then her arms came around me, turning me so that she could hold me. “I’m sorry,” I heard her whisper.
My whole body shook. I felt her deep inside.
Coward.
Worthless.
Sorry.
Avery’s words...
“I’m not good to you,” I choked. “I’m not good.”
If she was still thinking all of those things I wasn’t good.
“You are good to me. We’re good to each other. It’s just sometimes we get mixed up. The thing is every time it happens I just want you more. How does that make sense? But there it is.”
Her voice soothed me physically. Her new words painting over her old.
But the old would always be there just like the old would always come up and underlie.
I just cried and let her hold me.
I dunno how. Her body just felt so right when she held me. When she held me I was home. I somehow randomly fell to sleep.
Chapter Nine
Avery
I had to make it better. I was determined. I was holding her, letting her sleep and hoping that when she woke up she would feel better. I lay awake trying to get to the bottom of my freak out. I knew the overlying reasons but I wondered if there wasn’t something I was missing.
My instinct was to view Natalie as a threat but I knew that wasn’t logical given that I trusted Olivia. She wasn’t going to cheat on me and she wasn’t going to leave me. So, why couldn’t I make my subconscious believe that?
We both had this habit of freaking out at the worst possible times and misunderstanding each other. It made my head spin but it also drew me closer to her. The more we suffered and cried over our growing pains together the closer we got. That was how I felt.
She sighed in her sleep and I slid my head down to rest my chin on her shoulder. She was laying in front of me, pressed into my body. We were quiet and calm, something that didn’t happen very often, it seemed.
I appreciated her taking care of me and I hated that I’d scared her. I was accident prone when I went crazy. When I tucked my face into her neck a vibration caught my attention. It was underneath me.
“Ugh,” I grunted, lifting just enough to pull a phone from under my leg.
It was Olivia’s and Natalie’s full name was flashing on the screen. I took a deep breath and answered it, speaking softly.
“Hello.”
“So, what. Are you her secretary now?”
“She’s asleep,” I replied, not letting a hint of emotion touch my voice.
“Well… Can you, like, wake her up or something? She told me to come by. I just need to get something I left.”
“Are you here? I can let you in.”
“Of course I’m fucking here,” she said. I heard her car engine shut off and then a door slam over the phone.
“Okaaay,” I drawled. “Well, I’ll be down in just a second.”
I hung up the phone and set it on the bed, sliding out from Olivia’s grasp. She was rude but I wasn’t going to let her see me get pissed. The only way to win with people like her was to not let them get to you. I was an expert at that. After all, I’d been friends with Sarah for three years.
I kissed Olivia’s temple and shuffled down the stairs, going at a normal pace, not rushing or being too slow.
I could see her through the front door, waiting. She looked impatient and.. Hot. I hated her. I didn’t care what Olivia thought she owed this girl; she was no good in my mind.
I unlocked the door and opened it.
“Come in,” I said.
“Right, ‘cause you own the place now.” She had her arms crossed but she smiled at me and looked me up and down, getting a picture, at last.
“Well, I do live here now so there’s that.” I sized her up just like she was doing with me. She was wearing something that made her look like the model she was.
“You’re hot,” she said. “I’ll give you that.” She wasn’t in any hurry to rush in or out, she was taking her time.
“Thanks, I guess. So are you. I can see why Olivia had a thing for Shay Mitchell.”
“What?” She smiled fiendishly. A blush overtaking her.
“She told me one of her favorite celebrities was Shay Mitchell.” I stepped aside as she walked into the house. “You look like her.”
“Bae Mitchell is pretty tame,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Olivia has needs. Shay Mitchell would never do.”
“I guess that’s why she has me then. I’m not very tame.” Natalie seemed content to stand in the foyer instead of going upstairs.
I dunno what I said wrong but Natalie turned on me angrily.
“Okay, are you just fucking with her because if you fucking hurt her I swear to God I will find a way to hurt you worse.” She was pissed now. Really pissed. Her eyes locked on mine.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” I said, keeping my calm. “BUT I am in love with Olivia and I’m going to marry her. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, says, or does- I’m not changing my mind because she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. She saved me.”
“Don’t think you’re the first person to love her,” she said. “And- how did she save you?” She seemed jealous at that, definitely interested in knowing the truth
“I know I’m not the first and I probably won’t be the last. She’s easy to love. I’ll be her wife though so I’ll be the one that is lucky enough to receive her love back.” I started to walk toward the stairs but she didn’t follow, only took a step and then stopped.
“Look,” I said. “I’m not going to stand here and tell you my sordid story. Suffice it to say, I was in a really bad place with the wrong person and Olivia made me see that I was worthy of more. That’s not the whole reason I love her though. I fell in love with her because she’s Olivia.”
Her chin quivered and I watched her eyes squint and fill up with rageful tears. “You don’t have to tell me how easy she is to fucking love, okay?” Her voice bit and she was trying to be quiet and not wake her but she was mad and I was starting to understand why. “That’s what I was trying to tell you! You think I’m horrible right? That’s what this is? You think I was bad with her? Mean to her? I was what she wanted me to be. I was all she let me be. So don’t treat me like I’m the bad
guy. I fucking love her. I’ll probably die loving her. I just want to make sure you’re not going to fuck her up. Because nobody else is protecting her and she deserves protecting. But I guess there’s no way for me to really know about you from one stupid meeting in a house I was never really supposed to be in, in the first place, is there?”
There was an awkward pause. It took me an extra second to take in what she said.
“I don’t know you Natalie. I can’t judge you. I have no right to. I’m sorry that you’re hurting. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose Olivia. It would kill me so I think I can understand what you’re saying. I’m not going to hurt her. She’s safe with me, I promise.”
Paper Dolls [Book Three] Page 18
