Chapter Twenty-Three
Avery
The elevator’s beep at each passing floor sounded louder than Avery remembered.
She’d grown used to silence on the sullen ride home.
Miles hadn’t said a word, despite the fundraiser’s success.
After he and Hayes raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for a camp that hadn’t opened its doors yet, he should be jovial, celebratory, or at least proud of himself. He wasn’t even smiling.
Avery had barely seen Miles the entire night.
They’d drifted from talking to a few people together to having separate conversations while standing next to each other.
She hadn’t noticed the sea of people filling in between them and before she knew it, they were on opposite sides of the room.
Every time she caught a glimpse and headed in his direction, he’d vanished by the time she arrived.
There was no indication he’d looked for her in the swollen crowd.
As the night wore on, Avery wondered if Miles remembered he’d brought a date.
After an hour of cat and mouse, Avery gave up on looking for him, vowed to stop worrying about everything that happened before the party, and walked toward the band.
Miles hated to dance, but the almost empty dance floor seemed like the easiest place for him to find her, if he wanted to.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and spun around to find Paulson.
He motioned to the floor, and they danced an entire set.
The evening had worked out for Paulson. When the band started a slow song, he and Avery headed to the bar.
Victoria waved to Avery and came over to say hello.
A spark ignited the second Avery introduced the two of them.
Avery declined an invitation to join Paulson and Victoria out on the rooftop terrace, allowing them space to get acquainted. Again she’d gone in search of Miles.
“This elevator is taking forever,” she said into the silence.
“Ayuh.” He leaned his head back, sighed, and closed his eyes.
Maybe he was exhausted. Due to bad weather, it had taken more than a day for him to get home from Wyoming.
In the car on the way to the Carter Park Avenue, he’d promised to discuss the fall once they got home.
Perhaps he dreaded that conversation now that she’d made everything so serious between them.
It was possible the I love you explained everything that had happened at the event. He might have used the crowd as a buffer to gather his thoughts. Once they exited this semi-private elevator and entered his apartment, they could talk freely.
She needed to apologize. The last week without him at the lake had been hard.
She’d felt adrift, uncertain of what to do with her career and her life.
Avery was never one for throwing cards into the wind and seeing where they landed.
She craved the predictability of a solid outline.
Her need to plan everything had driven her to say something intimate at the worst time and she’d been unfair to Miles, though truthful.
He stared straight ahead, his jaw tight. A vein at his temple pulsed. Maybe they should go to bed and deal with it in the morning. A shiver snaked down her spine. The tension was eerily similar to the moments right before their breakup that summer.
He’d been sopping wet after pulling Max Perry from the lake and resuscitating him.
Water droplets falling off Miles’s shorts left small dots in the dust on the surface of the staff parking lot.
Something about walking out of the water carrying a limp child had taken Miles somewhere else.
After he’d breathed life back into the little boy and the ambulance arrived, Sam had asked Avery to take Miles home.
At the parking lot he’d insisted on going home alone, staring straight ahead, jaw tensing and letting go.
She’d called him a hero, and he’d denied it.
She’d told him she loved him and wanted to help.
He’d clutched his chest and called their relationship spoiled milk, well past its expiration date, before he got in the Mail Jeep and peeled out of the parking lot.
A pressure built behind Avery’s eyes. He’d clutched his chest that same way before they left for the gala too, a grip so tight it seemed like he was devoting all his energy to stopping something.
The elevator pinged and the doors slid open.
She stepped out into the hallway and waited as he unlocked his door.
As soon as they were inside the apartment, she started to apologize but stopped short when Miles’s face hardened into a chiseled bedrock of ridges and crevices like it had when Victoria asked about his private life.
Avery removed her strappy sandals instead.
When she finished, his face was no softer.
“You must have dazzled Paulson,” he said through gritted teeth, holding his phone so she could see the six-figure donation Paulson had made to the camp.
This couldn’t be the root of his anger. The point of a fundraiser was to make money.
“Wow, that’s so nice.” She tried to sound upbeat. “The second you mentioned people could give through the camp’s app, everyone around me pulled out their phones. Your story inspired so many people to donate.”
“Oh, he didn’t do it for me.” Miles put his phone down and crossed his arms, leaning back on the kitchen counter.
Avery’s mouth fell open. Neither anger nor jealousy suited anyone, even him.
“Wait, are you mad because he gave a huge donation? That had nothing to do with me. Your camp motivated him.” Avery leaned a hip against the counter beside him.
“You know Paulson has a personal history of loss, right? His mom left him and his father when he was ten. She’s alive, but she’s in something that sounds like a cult.
He’s tried, but they’ve never reconnected. ”
“That’s not the same thing.” Miles glared at her, his darkened chestnut eyes narrowing.
“It’s a loss, Miles. His mom chose not to love him. That’s painful.”
“You spent most of the night dancing with him.” He shook his head.
“Because you left me all alone. I tried to locate you so many times, I gave up. It felt like you didn’t care where I was.
I couldn’t find anyone I knew except for him.
All Paulson and I did was dance. We made the best of a room where we knew almost no one.
He never so much as touched me. He’s wanted to meet Victoria for a while and once I introduced them, I left them to chat and looked for you. Again!”
Miles massaged his jaw. “You know how I feel about him. And you danced for the entire set. You left me.”
Avery removed the bracelets from her wrist and stacked them on the counter. She knew he wasn’t jealous of Paulson. His behavior was about something bigger. Maybe she’d told him she loved him at the wrong time, but she would not let him talk to her this way.
“The dance floor wasn’t full. Why didn’t you come over and ask me to dance?
Or ask me to go get a drink? Or any of the million other things you could have asked me?
All I wanted was to be with you. I would have done whatever you suggested.
I actively looked for you. Forgive me if I didn’t want to stand at the edge of the party like a jilted wallflower. ”
For a long minute, Miles said nothing. A hurt rose within her.
Trent had iced her out at parties too. Avery had initially assumed his habit of flirting his way through a room was part of his charm.
Later, she learned it was part of his game.
Miles wasn’t the type to enchant women for the sake of his own ego, but he’d left her out in the cold.
“I don’t like feeling jilted, Miles,” she said. “I was alone in a sea of beautiful people who didn’t seem to know I existed. The last thing I wanted to do was bother you with my insecurities. You had enough going on.”
Miles opened the fridge and poured himself a glass of chocolate milk without asking if she wanted anything. She let him gather his thoughts in hopes he might gain some perspective.
“I had a full plate,” he said, screwing the cap back on the milk bottle. “It was a lot of pressure, raising money while making sure everyone had fun. I’m not used to that.”
“You go to parties, premieres, and galas all the time.” Avery placed a hand on her hip, right where he had touched her earlier in the night, back when he couldn’t wait to dishevel her. His wish had been granted. Things between them were rapidly disheveling now.
“Those are different. I’m not an interesting person, I just know interesting people,” he said. “It’s never my party. I’m always a guest.”
“Then you should know how I felt,” she said, trying to keep herself calm despite the growing storm inside her. He had to understand the humiliation of not belonging somewhere.
He stood quietly and drank half his milk.
“I wanted you next to me,” he said, peering into the glass. “Even though we were in the same room, it hurt that you were somewhere else. Did you hear my speech?”
“Of course I heard it. Your speech was brilliant and moving. So many people around me teared up,” Avery said. “And I kept moving to where I saw you and when I got there, you were gone. At some point, I felt iced out.”
Miles began to pace. “What is happening? When did we start moving so fast? We were fine this morning, and now we’re…”
He ran his hand down his face, shook his head, and stared at the floor.
Avery needed him to finish the sentence, but he didn’t. So she filled in the blank for herself.
Now, we’re … having our first fight. Okay, maybe our second.
She gripped the edge of the counter as a giant bubble of hurt expanded through her chest. One fight shouldn’t be enough to establish a pattern, but both their fights had started with her saying she loved him.
And him saying nothing.
She knew the pattern. Miles was, after all, a runner.
Avery didn’t like city Miles. She loved the boy in the Boathouse who pointed out constellations to her. Saying I love you hadn’t protected them from the cold, hard truth. Once again, Victoria was correct. Avery and Miles would never work outside the lake.
That summer, she had said nothing as they stood in the parking lot. He hadn’t given her any choice other than to accept his decree and watch as he drove off. This time, Avery was going to say her piece.
“Maybe things started moving fast when we were locked in the Boathouse that night, and you said it had always been me.” She swallowed the growing lump in her throat.
“Or maybe it was when you told me you didn’t need to look at the heavens because I was the only star in your sky.
I’m beginning to think you only mean those things at the lake.
All I know is tonight, I wasn’t in your sky. I was in your way.”
“I never said that,” he said.
“You didn’t have to. I can’t be yours only at the lake, Miles. I’ve been in a relationship with someone who had another life, and I’m not doing it again.”
“Dammit, Avery.” Miles slammed a fist on the counter. “I’m not Trent. Don’t compare me to him.”
“Then don’t give me a reason to!”
It was the first time in the history of Miles and Avery that she had yelled at him. Maybe he wasn’t Trent, but he wasn’t being kind or caring either.
They both stood there, quietly contemplating the night, the summer, their past. A few minutes later, he pushed off the counter and walked away.
“I’m tired,” he said. “I’m going to bed.”
Miles walked into his room and shut the door, making it clear she wasn’t invited. She didn’t like how he fled when things got sticky. Working something out with him was impossible, especially since he didn’t seem to have worked it out for himself.
Her doubts were coming true. They’d left the lake and fallen apart.
Maybe the lake was their haven from the pains of life, or maybe it put them into a continuous loop of reliving that summer.
Ten years ago, it would’ve been tremendous a challenge to stay together after the summer ended, given the eight states between them.
Now they could overcome the physical distance, but it wouldn’t resolve the emotional and social gaps. It wouldn’t quell his instinct to run. Miles bolted when faced with too big of an emotional jump. Not being able to tell him she loved him was no way to have a relationship.
She didn’t need to be the only star in his entire universe, but she wanted to be the brightest one.
The North Star, guiding him home. When he scanned the crowded sky, she wanted him to find her.
He could do it at the lake, but he couldn’t do it in the real world.
Summer only lasted ten weeks. The other forty-two weeks, life got real.
Avery wanted love, commitment, and trust. The things that made Miles flee.
After taking off her makeup and going to bed in the guest bedroom, Avery tossed and turned, chasing sleep for what felt like hours. Her heart was breaking all over again. At three in the morning, Miles came into the guest room and climbed into bed with her.
At least he hadn’t waited ten years to return.
“Avery,” he whispered. “I’m screwing us up.”
He snuggled into the nook of her shoulder, as if he couldn’t get close enough.
“We’ll figure it out,” she murmured. “Mimi used to say our problems look different in the light of day.”
She spent an hour listening to him breathe, thinking about that summer, this summer, Maine, New York City, all of it.
Avery wanted to believe Mimi was right, but the light of day wouldn’t resolve whatever had happened after the gala.
Some of their problems remained the same.
Miles couldn’t commit to Avery the way she committed to him.
Once again, she’d given away too much of herself.
The pain of that raw vulnerability was simply too much to bear.
Consciously or not, he’d made her fears come true. She loved him, but she wasn’t sure he knew how to let himself love or be loved. Some part of Miles was always closed off and she couldn’t open it. Being together all the time, like they were in Maine, wasn’t sustainable.
Years ago, she and Miles had bonded together fast and fallen apart faster. A few hours ago, they’d gone from I love you to broken in the blink of an eye. If history repeated itself, he’d say goodbye soon.
Unless she said it first.