Chapter Ten
Avery
Maverick didn’t seem like himself that Friday. In class he didn’t talk to anyone, and when Mr. Jones called on him to answer a question about the Civil War, he just shrugged and said he didn’t know. Which was a lie.
From the small conversations we’d had, I knew Maverick liked history and we’d even discussed our current chapter the other day before class started. He’d said he loved this time period and that Lincoln was his favorite president. So, him saying he didn’t know the importance of the Emancipation Proclamation was a tell-tale sign that something was wrong.
When the bell rang, he stood and was out of the room before me. I trailed behind him on the way to biology, trying to catch up with him, but his legs were longer, and he moved too fast.
Our eyes met when I entered the classroom, but then he looked away.
That one glance spoke wonders, though. He was usually so upbeat and smiled through his eyes in a way I’d never seen another person do. But that day? That cheerful attitude was absent, and in its place was something sad.
I wished I could approach him like he did to me most days, but as I stepped toward him, I chickened out.
Reaching out to people was difficult for me. My comfort level had increased around Maverick, but that nagging thought in the back of my mind that warned me to be cautious was still present sometimes.
“Hey, Avery,” Ben said as he took his seat beside me. He slung his messenger bag to the side of the desk before opening the top flap and pulling out his class notebook. “Did you finish your homework?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t that hard,” I answered, focusing on him instead of Maverick.
Of course, that didn’t last long. Once Mrs. Brown began her lecture, I started zoning out. My attention drifted back to the sad-eyed jock to my right, and I studied him.
Maverick’s gaze remained on his notebook, and he didn’t look up at the teacher not once from what I could tell. Something was bothering him—obviously—but I wasn’t sure if we were close enough as friends to where I could ask him about it.
At lunch, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I finally approached him. He was sitting at his normal spot, and I sat down next to him with my tray. Thankfully his friends weren’t there yet, so he was alone.
“Hey,” I said.
His eyes widened a fraction when he saw me, as if he couldn’t believe it was actually me. Well, I couldn’t really believe it either honestly. Stepping out of my bubble was unheard of.
“Hey, Avery.” Maybe I was wrong, but his mood seemed to lift when he saw me. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much,” I answered, feeling ten kinds of awkward. “I hope it’s okay that I came over here.” My gaze shifted throughout the room, searching for his jock buddies, before settling back on his much livelier face.
“It’s totally cool,” he said with a smile. “Where’s Ben?”
“Still in the lunch line,” I answered, nodding to my friend who was making dramatic faces in the long line of students waiting to get their food. I grinned at him, and then looked at Maverick. “Is everything okay?”
At the question, his eyes seemed to become guarded, reminding me a lot of how I behaved when asked a personal question.
However, unlike me, that look faded, and he answered, “Not exactly, but it will be eventually.”
His gaze lowered, and I watched the side profile of his face—taking in the slightly pouted bottom lip, the sharp jawline, and his perfectly sloped nose. His sapphire eyes lifted and met mine, causing the breath to momentarily leave my lungs.
Even when taken over with sadness, he was beautiful. The slow-building crush was gradually building into something bigger, and I didn’t know how to stop it.
“Chris cheated on me,” he continued as his forehead creased. “I found out last night.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling my own heart ache a little. I’d never been in a relationship, but I knew what betrayal felt like, and it was the kind of feeling that could eat you up inside. “Are you guys going to try to work it out?”
Maverick shook his head. “Nah. He made it clear we were over, and I could never stay with someone who betrayed my trust like that.”
I felt like the worst person in the world by how my stomach fluttered at the news. What kind of friend got happy at their friend’s breakup?
“He’s an idiot,” I said before I could stop myself.
Maverick gave a short laugh. “Thanks for saying that.” His smile faded and his brow narrowed. “Is it weird that I’m more upset at the breaking of trust than I am about losing him?”
“I don’t think so,” I answered. “You haven’t seen him in months and distance can cause that kind of emotional detachment too. It’s natural to lose feelings for someone over a period of time or to have those feelings become less. Doesn’t mean you don’t still care about him, but that closeness is gone.”
Watching me, Maverick didn’t say anything for a while. “What if part of my hurt is also coming from the fact that I wasn’t the best boyfriend to him either? I got upset by him cheating, but in a way, I’ve been doing it to him too. Just in a different way.”
Okay. I was lost.
“What do you mean?”
Just before Maverick explained, one of his buddies sat across from us.
“Dude, practice kicked my ass yesterday,” the guy said before taking a huge bite of pizza. “Be glad you’re not in football this season. Coach had us running drills up and down Hell Hill in full uniform. Ricky puked.”
Not sure what Hell Hill was, but I didn’t really care to stick around now that the rest of the guys were coming over.
“Shut your face, Trav,” another guy said, who I assumed was Ricky. His tanned complexion and hazel eyes, mixed with his muscular frame, pretty much guaranteed that he was a guy used to getting his way with the girls—or guys, since I never liked assuming someone’s sexuality. “I didn’t puke. Just dry-heaved a bit.”
“Dry-heaved like a lil bitch,” Travis responded.
I grabbed my tray and was about to slip away unnoticed when Maverick touched my arm. “Guys, this is Avery. Avery, this is Travis and Ricky.”
Here it comes.
Now that their focus was on me, I knew the taunts would begin, and probably some remarks about my emo appearance. I’d get called goth bitch or vamp fag or something else along those lines. Popular guys always made it their mission to downgrade me in front of their friends, as if it made them feel powerful.
“Cool. Nice to meet you, man,” Travis said, nodding to me. “You’re new here, right?”
I nodded, too stunned to say anything.
“Out of all the asses you could hang out with, you pick Mav,” he continued with a lopsided grin. “If you ever want to talk to someone with an actual brain, you can hang with me.”
Maverick threw a fry at him, and he ducked.
“Avery, don’t listen to this clown,” Ricky chimed in, motioning to Travis. “Mav is a dude you wanna have on your side. There’s no one better.”
“You know who’s better?” Travis asked with a gleam of mischief in his green eyes. “Your momma.”
That caused them to start a string of insults to each other, but none of them were serious and were all in good fun.
I’d had it wrong, and I was still trying to wrap my head around it. Not for being wrong, I mean, I wasn’t a freaking narcissist or anything, but it was more so the fact that these jock guys—ones who constantly had large crowds of friends and girls flirting with them—were looking at me like I was one of them and not just the gum on their shoe.
Ben was finally through the lunch line, and he stopped beside our table, looking at the empty seat next to me as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to sit.
I understood his expression all too well. Like he wanted to sit, but he was also nervous and out of his element. My nerves were still jittery as well, and I didn’t want to push it too much.
“It was nice meeting you guys,” I said before grabbing my tray and standing beside Ben. “See ya after lunch, Maverick.”
***
Ben invited me over to his house after school, so I found Declan to tell him I wouldn’t be on the bus and that I’d be home later. After that, I walked with Ben to his car and got inside. He talked a lot when we were away from everyone, which was great because I didn’t really talk enough.
I’d never had much of an issue with anxiety, other than the occasional bouts of it that stirred when I was around a lot of people or when my dad used to beat me and my mom, but it’d never been part of my everyday life. Not really. I was introverted and untrusting, yeah, but I tried not to dwell on anxiety when it tried to consume me.
Going over to someone’s house made it course through me, though.
Ben was basically the first actual friend I’d ever had—other than Maverick now, I guess—and I didn’t want to do something to screw it up. What if his parents hated me? Took one look at me, said I was trouble, and kicked my ass out?
I looked down at my clothes, suddenly self-conscious.
Hardly any of my clothes ever fit right because we shopped at those stores that sold used clothes for cheap. Sometimes I got lucky and found a cool band T-shirt or skinny jeans I liked, but for the most part, the selection was as sparse as my pockets. My pair of Converse shoes had some tears in them and probably wouldn’t last through the winter, but they’d only cost a few bucks and I loved them.
Then, I looked at Ben.
His clothes were tear-free and nice. His jeans didn’t have holes, and his shoes lacked the worn soles that mine had. His car wasn’t new, but it was still nice. The shocks weren’t busted like my mom’s car, and it didn’t make that god awful grinding gears sound I was familiar with when you tried to get up to speed.
It made me wonder if he ever looked at me in the same way I was looking at him.
When we got to his house we walked inside, and I gave a quick scan of the place. It wasn’t big, but it was homely. The entrance had hardwood floor that transitioned to carpet when it passed under an open doorway into the next room. An amazing aroma drifted to my nose, as did the sound of something sizzling in a skillet. The walls were adorned with a ton of family photos.
In all the photos, the three of them were smiling and you could just see the love in their eyes. It gave me a good impression of his parents before even meeting them.
“Have you ever played Dead Smash?” Ben asked as I followed him down a hallway to the left.
“Um. I have no idea what that is, so I’m guessing no.”
Ben laughed and tossed me a smile from over his shoulder. “I think you’ll like it. It seems right up your alley.”
At the end of the hall, he opened the last door on the right before going inside, and I trailed behind him. His bedroom surprised me a bit, and I stopped a few feet inside. He seemed to be so put together, but his room looked like a tornado just went through it. The definition of a disaster area.
Clothes were strewn everywhere, as were some empty bags of chips. A laptop was on his unmade bed, and the books on his bookshelf were overlapping and looked as if he’d started shoving them in any spot they’d fit.
The only thing that looked to be neatly in place was his Xbox and controllers.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said before grabbing a pile of clothes on the floor, carrying them to his closet, and throwing them inside before shutting the door. A thud sounded, and I knew that when he opened that door again, they’d all come spilling out at him. “You hungry?”
When we walked into the kitchen, a man was at the stove, stirring something in a skillet. He was probably just shy of six foot, with dark brown hair and a pale complexion. He looked up and smiled.
“Hey, Ben. Who’s your friend?”
“Dad, this is Avery,” Ben said before walking over and giving his dad a quick hug and continuing on to the refrigerator. “Is it okay if he stays for a while?”
“Sure. Food should be ready in five minutes or so,” his dad answered before focusing back on the food. “Your mom said she’d be home around five, so it’ll just be us for dinner.”
Ben helped his dad finish cooking, and then the three of us sat at the table to eat. It was cheeseburger flavored Hamburger Helper, and I had to force myself to slow down and not shovel it in my mouth like I wanted to do.
His dad asked me a few questions as we ate, but none of them were too personal. Just the general things like where I’d moved from, what did I like to do for fun, and if I liked living in Port Haven—which was a question everyone seemed to ask me.
After we ate, we went back to Ben’s room, and he introduced me to the Dead Smash thing, which turned out to be an Xbox game about a post-apocalyptic world where zombies had taken over. In it, you were one of the survivors, and the mission was to find the cure.
“But you can have special abilities too,” Ben explained as he pulled up his character’s chart. “Just like the chemical crap that leaked and caused the zombie virus, there are some you can find that can give you, like, super human strength, quickness, or whatever. And if you want to take a break from story mode, you can go into combat mode and face off against other online players, kill them and steal their supplies, and all of that.” He exited the character screen and went to the combat setting he’d just described. “If The Division, Walking Dead, and Destiny had a baby, this game would be it.”
I sat on the edge of his bed, nodding at the appropriate time and pretending like I was following it all.
I’d played a few games before, but never anything on the newer systems, so the games he mentioned went right over my head. I used to have an old Nintendo that Declan and I’d played Mario Brothers on—before my dad had smashed it during one of his rages—but that was the extent of my gaming.
“What’s up with you and Maverick?” Ben asked as he killed some zombies that had broken through a fence.
“Not sure what you mean.”
“Well, you know he’s gay, right?” he said, not in a condescending way, but more so informative.
“Yeah, I know.”
Ben didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and I thought the topic had been dropped. But then he asked, “Are you?” Another zombie was shot in the head. “Gay, that is.”
I froze, watching as some zombie on the game ran around a corner and tried to bite Ben’s character’s arm. Ben jabbed a knife in its eye socket before jumping up on a rundown van and siting.
The real Ben turned to me.
“Sorry if that was inappropriate to ask,” he said, and his face reflected his apologetic tone. “My social skills aren’t the best, and I tend to just say what’s on my mind.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said before nibbling my bottom lip. I hadn’t even admitted to myself that I was gay, so how could I say it to someone else? “Honestly, I’ve wondered if I was, but I’m not sure.”
“Isn’t it kinda simple?” Ben asked, cocking his head. A piece of his red hair stuck up and went in the opposite direction, obviously not conforming to the rest of the hairs on his head. We were kind of like that, I guess. Non-conformers. “You either like guys or you like girls. And in some instances, you might like both. Or none at all.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. But I think for some people, it’s more complicated than that. I used to think I was the latter, you know, not really liking anyone.”
Ben’s brow furrowed a bit. “Until…”
“Until Maverick,” I said as I met his gaze. “But I don’t know if it’s just because he’s been nice to me.”
“Hmm. Well do you get the warm fuzzies when you’re around me?”
“The warm fuzzies?” I asked, nearly laughing, but then I saw how serious he was and stopped myself. “Uh, no. Why?”
“If it’s just because the dude is nice to you, then you’d like me too. Because I’m sorta amazing in the friend department.” Ben tried to be cocky, but it fell flat. It made me smile nonetheless. “Not like I know from experience or anything, but I’ve been my own best friend since, like, I was born.”
That did it. I busted out laughing, snorting in the process.
“Well, when you figure it out, I bet Mav would like to know,” Ben said before picking up the controller and continuing to play. “The guy has a thing for you.”
“How do you know?” Because I didn’t know, and the idea was crazy.
Ben grinned. “People talk. Also, the guy stares at you like you’re a piece of fried chicken dangling on a string.”
I howled with a laugh. “What the hell, Ben?”
With a shrug, he answered, “Hey, I love fried chicken. Take it as a compliment.”
As he started shooting more of the undead, I started thinking.
Sure, Maverick seemed to take an interest in me, but I’d never actually thought that meant he had a thing for me. Years of suffering through the worse kind of insults a person could take made it hard for that person to ever see themselves as more than what they were led to believe they were.
Poor piece of trash, worthless, disgusting: it’s how I’d come to view myself.
And Maverick was different—pretty special, to be honest—and there was no way he’d ever want someone like me.
“Here. You play,” Ben said, handing me the controller.
As I got the hang of the controls, I started having fun. I talked more freely with Ben, joked with him, and before I knew it, I’d relaxed so much that the unease that usually kept my shoulders tensed wasn’t there anymore.
Gone was the burden of being the man of the house and constantly worrying about my mom at her unsafe job, or worrying over whether Declan was making the right life choices… whether we’d get to eat or not that night.
For the first time in a long time—if ever—I felt like a normal teenager.
That moment ended when I had to go back home later. After Ben dropped me off, and I walked through the front door, the fantasy I’d created of a normal life faded away. Back was the burden of my life, and the worry of what the future held.
Declan was in the living room doing his homework, and I grabbed a fork from the drawer in the kitchen before giving him the container of leftovers Ben’s dad had told me to take home. I knew he hadn’t had much for dinner.
“Thanks, A,” he said and opened the lid.
“Is Mom working tonight?” I asked, plopping on the couch.
A spring jabbed me in my side, and I winced. The couch had been on the side of the road, waiting to be picked up for trash, when Mom snatched it up. We’d cleaned it, but it’d been awaiting the dumpster for a reason.
“Yeah,” Declan answered after swallowing a bite. He leaned over his work again and his brow narrowed as he wrote something down. “Dammit, I hate math. This crap makes no sense.”
“Let me see,” I said, leaning forward and looking at his paper.
For some reason, math came easy to me. Maybe it came from my passion for building things and wanting to be an architect one day, but whatever the reason, it was one of the things I was actually good at.
I looked at the equation and tried to explain it as best as I could. Not wanting to do the math problems for him, I made up an equation on a separate sheet of paper and showed him how to work it.
As I talked, he studied the numbers and letters as I pointed to each section.
Helping him with his homework was something I’d done for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t because our mom didn’t care, but she just hadn’t had the time to help.
“Does that make sense now?” I asked him.
Declan looked it over. “I think so.”
“Now you try,” I said, pointing to the next problem.
He scooted closer to the wobbly coffee table and started working out the problem just as I’d shown him. I watched each of his steps, nodding in approval, and I felt that wave of pride that I was sure parents did when their kid did something awesome. Strange, but true. I was only a few years older than him, but I’d practically raised him once we’d gotten a little older and Mom had always been gone.
I’d had to grow up much faster than most kids.
And maybe it was one reason why I’d never given much thought to dating and trying to figure out the whole sexuality thing. My focus had been on Declan. There hadn’t been room for anything else.