5. Ava
AVA
Fourteen days until OA Con
“So what’s this super-secret project that requires getting up at the ass crack of dawn on a Saturday?” I jab the double cup icon on our espresso machine with a yawn loud enough to wake the neighborhood. Part of me hopes it does—if I have to suffer this indecent hour, why shouldn’t they?
Stasia rolls her eyes. “Girl, it’s ten.”
“I stand by what I said.” I dump in an obscene amount of creamer and watch blearily as hot water streams into my mug amid a cloud of steam. “It’s way too early on a weekend to be wearing pants.”
“I thought runners were supposed to be early risers.” Stasia eyes me from her spot at the counter, a glass of cranberry juice in her hand. There’s a brown sugar Pop-Tart resting on a plate in front of her, and I snap it up when I settle onto the stool beside her, breaking off half for myself.
“I run in the evenings, you know this.” I chug half my coffee, scorching the roof of my mouth before taking a bite of toasted pastry. “Now tell me. What’s this all about? You know I’m always down to help a friend, but I’m gonna need a teensy bit more to go on than it’ll be fun.”
Stasia sets her juice down, and one long finger traces the rim while she watches me out the corner of her eye. “Okay, so you know how you’re, like, good at arts and crafts? Like, scary good?”
“Um, scary seems a bit much, but sure. I can fold a mean origami when I want to. I’m president of the pep club for a reason, after all.
Is that it? You have some kind of art project you need help with?
” And here I was worried it was going to be something difficult, given all the hemming and hawing she did last night over the phone.
“Lemme guess. The prom committee talked you into making decorations, and you realized you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.
” I shake my head. “When will you learn to tell people no?”
Stasia snorts. “You’re one to talk. You’re pretty much the OG people pleaser. Which, honestly, I’m kind of banking on right now, ’cause it’s not the prom committee who needs help.” She hesitates, sucking in a quick breath before rushing out, “It’s Declan.”
Talk about a bad moment to go back to my coffee.
Java spews from my lips, spraying the counter in a twenty-inch arc.
Although, given the way my pulse is suddenly racing, the reduced caffeine intake is probably for the best. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand while alternating between coughing and gasping for breath.
Stasia starts hammering my back, and I bat her hand away with an exasperated glare. “I’m not choking, just… reacting spastically. Did you say Declan?”
“The boy from your secret memory box?” Stasia grabs a paper towel and dabs at the spattered coffee with a smug smirk. “Sure did.”
The wires in my brain must have gotten jumbled during my coffee aneurysm, because nothing about what she’s saying makes sense. “Declan needs help with a crafting project?”
Stasia nods serenely, still wiping away.
“And he wants me to help him?”
There’s an almost imperceptible pause in Stasia’s movements this time before she resumes cleaning. “He’s pretty desperate, to be honest. Hiro left him high and dry.”
He’d have to be desperate to want me of all people helping him out with, well, anything.
I wrinkle my brow in confusion. “How do you even know all this? I didn’t think you and Declan were friends.
” A prickle of envy creeps up my spine at the thought of them talking in the halls or laughing about something in class.
He won’t even look at me. Not that I’ve given him a reason to, but still.
“We’re not.” Stasia avoids my gaze as she tosses the paper towel into the garbage. “Hiro was the one who asked me to ask you.”
“Oh.” That makes more sense. Wait, does it? Stasia’s friends with Hiro now? How oblivious am I? “How do you know Hiro again?”
“We go to the same church,” Stasia says, as if this were obvious. Which, maybe it should have been. Kind of starting to feel like a crappy friend over here.
“Oh, right. I knew that.” I didn’t. “So Declan asked Hiro to ask you to ask me to help him with this… project?”
“Something like that.” Stasia still isn’t looking at me as she arranges her plate and glass in the dishwasher. “Anyway, you should probably head over there soon, or they’re going to think you’re not coming.”
“Over there being…?”
“Declan’s house. Hiro said to meet in the garage.”
I nod, but internally? I’m freaking the heck out.
Can I really just walk over to Declan’s house after all these years?
What if I run into his parents, and they hate me now?
What if they chase me down the street with pitchforks?
Or maybe this is all some elaborate prank involving a bucket of pig’s blood dumping over my head when I walk into the garage.
Because who goes from saying their ex-bestie is an empty shell of a human, to inviting them over for craft time?
Nothing about this feels right.
And yet…
What if this is an olive branch? What if he regrets the things he said in the cafeteria?
Things which, if I’m being honest, sting more than they probably should.
I mean, I know I’m the more obvious villain in this scenario, but hearing that from someone who used to mean as much as he did really freaking sucked.
And now he’s asking for my help? Seriously?
Nope. No way.
Not happening.
Only…
His face that night when we met in the park and I told him I couldn’t hang out with him anymore, it was so utterly crushed.
Like I was ripping his heart straight out of his skinny little chest. And then every night for weeks, I would see him sitting out there on the swing set, slump-shouldered and alone.
Not even swinging, just waiting for a friend who would never come.
That boy, the one I left waiting all these years, he deserves all the help I can give him.
Even if his older self is kind of a jerk.
What about Mom? She’s been doing really well lately, but are you sure you want to drag her down memory lane? You’ve gone to all the trouble of amassing this pristine little nothing-Dad-related bubble around the two of you; do you really want to risk popping it now?
I frown, drumming my fingers along the side of my mug.
Yes, it’s a risk, but a small one. She’s working this morning, so she won’t question where I’ve gone, and it’s not like anything outside of these next few hours is going to change in the long run.
Who knows if I’ll get another chance to make amends?
A few hours spent crafting in Declan’s garage?
Harmless.
A spark of excitement kindles deep in my gut, a tiny smile tugging at my mouth. “Okay, I’m in. Let’s go.”
“Awesome!” Stasia walks with me to the front door and steps into her knee-high boots. Bending down to zip them, she adds, “Be sure to text me the deets later. Like, all of them. Leave nothing out.”
I freeze midway into my running shoe. “You’re not coming with me?”
“To do crafts with Declan in his garage? Um, no. That is all you.”
Okay, now I’m hyperventilating for real.
It’s one thing to woman up and face my mistakes with Stasia at my side cheering me on.
But to do it on my own? At his house, no less?
“On second thought, this may be a bad idea. I mean, he’s probably working on some kind of costume prop, and I’ve been focusing more on posters and spirit swag.
I doubt I even remember how to make a helmet pattern anymore. ”
“The fact that you know you’re supposed to have a pattern for something like that tells me you’re gonna do just fine.” Stasia gives my ponytail a gentle tug, her voice reassuring. “You’ll do great, Ava. He’s gonna be stoked to have you there.”
Not according to my stomach. Pretty sure I’m a second away from hurling. “I don’t know, Stace…”
“Nuh-uh. None of this wishy-washy, I-don’t-know nonsense. I said you’d be there, and you’ll be there. Now toughen up, damn it, and show me some of that sweet Viking blood.”
I shove my foot the rest of the way into its shoe and reluctantly straighten up, hands stuffing nervously into the pockets of my pink hoodie. “For the last time, I don’t have any Viking blood. Literally none of my ancestors were Vikings.”
Stasia’s eyes narrow, and she gives me a suspicious once-over. “You sure about that?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Huh. Between the blonde hair and the face you make when someone leaves the cap off a Sharpie, I just assumed you came from a line of pillaging, bloodthirsty warriors.”
“Hilarious.”
“Always.” Stasia holds the door open for me, her brown eyes glinting with challenge. “Now get your butt out the door, and show that nerdy band geek what he’s been missing.”
“He’s not a nerdy band geek,” I protest, jogging down the front steps before I can chicken out and change my mind.
“He’s in the marching band, Ava. Have you seen their uniforms? They have tassels.”
“I think they look sharp. And they sound amazing.”
“Spoken like a true friend,” Stasia calls as I turn down the sidewalk toward Declan’s house. “See? You guys are gonna pick right back up where you left off. Just don’t get any ideas about replacing me as your number one bestie. I own that spot.”
“No worries there. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t spit in my face,” I mumble, tossing a wave over my shoulder while Stasia peels out of the driveway. She honks when she passes me, and then I’m alone.
Declan’s garage door is open, brass-heavy music already drifting out into the morning air.
My steps slow, and I’m taking a steadying breath in when a scrawny little black cat darts out of Mrs. Bingley’s rhododendrons and runs yowling across my path.
My heart comes an inch away from exploding.
A fat orange tabby—Persnickety from three doors down—pokes his head out of the bushes and hisses, as if to say and stay out.
If I believed in signs, this would not be a good one.
I gulp, sweat beading my temple.
Maybe I do believe in signs…
No. It’ll be fine. Declan wants my help. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t want to see me. I force myself to walk past Mrs. Bingley’s hedge and down the Greenes’ driveway.
A figure stirs within the shadows of the garage, and that soft, steady ache bleeds through my chest. Leading me down his driveway until his lanky form looms clear as day.
His dark hair, still messy from sleep, falls over his forehead while he leans against the workbench, scribbling notes into a spiral-bound journal.
I step across the threshold and clear my throat.
His green eyes flare wide when he looks up.
I swallow. “Um, hey. You, uh, needed my help with something?”
He doesn’t answer, and I shift awkwardly from one foot to the other.
He blinks, and I seriously consider bolting. This was such a bad idea. But then his lips part, and I find myself glued in place while I wait for him to speak. Bracing myself for the pig’s blood.
The pencil snaps in his grip, and he squeezes his eyes shut with a growl. “Hiro is so dead.”
And that’s when it hits me—Declan didn’t ask for my help at all.
Stasia lied.
I’m going to kill her.