30. Things That Never Happened
THIRTY
Isaac was waitingin a high-backed booth when Avery arrived at the restaurant a block from campus. He rose and greeted her with a bear hug, like nothing had gone wrong.
“This was the best idea,” he announced. “I’m starving. I haven’t eaten for hours. I’m buying, and we’re getting everything.”
“Isaac.”
He peeked over top of the laminated menu. “Do we have to do the hard part before we even get an appetizer? I can hash out tragic backstories a lot better with a helping of spinach-artichoke dip.”
Avery couldn’t hold back a smile. “I do better with buffalo wings.”
“One of each, then.”
After signaling the server over for their order, Isaac leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms, and feigned a pout. “So. We’re doing this.”
“We’re doing this.” She took a deep breath, and he cut her off before she could speak again.
“Avery, I am so deeply sorry for what I said at the bonfire. To put that on you, and especially at such a vulnerable moment, was just wrong.”
“I told you, that conversation never happened.”
He scrunched his nose in confusion. “Then what are we talking about?”
“Me leaving you to take care of Justin the next morning, for one thing. And for my abuse of our friendship more or less since we met.”
“I swear I’m not trying to be a smartass, but I don’t feel abused in any way.”
“I obviously came on way too strong and gave you the wrong idea.” She crinkled a napkin between her fingers and struggled to hold eye contact. “Before I ever laid eyes on you, I told myself we were never dating because Justin was being so pushy. I told you we were best friends pretty much immediately. I never took the time to see what you’d think about this strange girl suddenly dragging you around and calling you her bestie and asking you to pretend to be her boyfriend. I made you go to the party, and I gave you shit every time you didn’t eat dinner with me, and then Justin?—”
Isaac sliced his hand across his neck to silence her. “Avery, you never had to ask me how I felt. I may be chronically nervous speaking to strangers, but you were never a stranger, and I’ve never had trouble telling you how I feel. You’re not the only one who felt comfortable in the first two minutes. And you don’t have to ask me every little thing. I’m an adult. And I showed you how I felt by acting like a twelve-year-old playing laser tag with you.”
He grabbed her hand and pried the napkin from between her fingers. “You were right when you said at the bonfire that you never gave me cause to think of us as anything but friends. You were entirely right. You treated me like a brother, and I think that was more confusing than if you really flirted with me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve only known brothers. We tease each other and rough each other up and dick around, and we love each other fiercely. With my good friends, it’s the same way, and all my good friends have been guys. People say you should be friends with someone before you date them, and when I said you felt like a sister, I guess I meant you felt like the only girl friend I’ve ever connected with on more than just a buddy level. That night… it was some sort of extension of that idea. I thought for a minute it meant it was supposed to be something more, and I realize how stupid that was.”
“I am the queen of getting the wrong idea. I sympathize. And I wondered if you’d forgotten my amateur fortune-telling. I still think that when you find your girl, it’ll click right away, and that’ll be it for you. You are toast. Crumbs of burnt toast.”
“What made you think that?”
“The same part of my brain that told me I needed to crack the code to Cameron Porter’s heart. And that’s to say, I have no idea where it came from, but when I spoke the words, it was truth.”
“I like that truth, and I think I’ll keep it.” He folded the napkin into a tight square and tucked it in his pocket as the server delivered their appetizers. “Have you cracked the code?”
Avery felt fire rise in her cheeks as her mouth twitched. She reached for a buffalo wing. “It’s going very well,” she said primly.
“That’s a visible understatement. You are beet-red.”
“I’m toast, too. It’s going fantastically, wonderfully outstanding, and I was right about every weird instinct I had about having some connection with him.” She lifted her chin. “There it is. I was right about him and me, and I’ll bet I’m right about you and Miss Whoever.”
“The little charade paid off, then. I reserve the right to call on your services as a friend if I need a little trickery to make Miss Future Wife fall in love with me, once I find out who she is.” He lifted a chip laden with spinach-artichoke dip to her. She bumped it with a wing.
“You’re swoon-worthy, buddy. You won’t need my help, but I’ll cheer you on.”
“What do you think we should do to help Justin?”
She had almost convinced herself they could simply make their apologies and enjoy their dinner without cluttering the table with her brother’s psychiatric problems, but Isaac was Justin’s friend before he was hers, and the sadness in his eyes when he asked spoke of the same sleepless hours and worries she endured.
“Cam said they talked last week after the game in Colorado. He didn’t tell me much, though. I haven’t talked with him at all.”
“We’ve talked ball. Nothing else.”
“Mindy hasn’t mentioned him. I saw her this week for some class stuff and we talked for a long time. Nothing about Justin. I guess he’s hiding from her, too.”
Isaac leaned forward on his elbows and watched her chew. “What do you want to happen from all of this, Avery? Best-case scenario. Do we all pretend it never happened? Do we drag him to group therapy? Something in between?”
Facing the darkness of her brother’s mind seemed at first on the same plane as facing her own fear of water: she simply had to set her goals and push through. Pretending it never happened would get her nowhere, just like avoiding water had only made her more fearful. But her counselor’s words, the ones she shared with Mindy the day before, gave her pause.
You have so much positive energy, Avery. But you move faster than most people do, and while many people will thrive on your intensity and join you for the ride, some want off at the next stop. Some will burn just as brightly as you do, but twin flames can also burn the place down. Has that happened to you?
The counselor didn’t stray from her placid expression as Avery ticked off her list of broken friendships and disappointments, counting backward from Natasha, who seemed like a friend until Avery tried to accompany her to every Freshman Week event, to a girl at a summer art camp whose warmth turned to chill after she assumed Avery’s constant affection and demands for her time meant she was a lesbian and had romantic intentions. On and on, she looked back to a friend who disappeared soon after Best Friends Forever necklaces had been exchanged, a neighbor who mysteriously didn’t want to play anymore, and a new girl in class in first grade who came over for one sleepover, then disappeared into a clique at a different lunch table.
All those broken friendships say nothing bad about you as a person, Avery. And they say nothing bad about those people. Friends can become just as incompatible as lovers, and compatibility is a tricky thing. You’ll have a different friendship with someone who is a lot like you than you’ll have with someone quieter and more reserved. Both of those friendships can be genuine, and neither should ask you to be anything less than your authentic self. What you cannot do is ask someone else to be inauthentic to keep up with you.
“I worry about pushing into Justin’s space right now,” Avery said. “On the one hand, my heart is screaming to go throw rocks at his window until he talks to me and we make a plan and we promise to fix everything. My brain, for once, is telling me he needs to take some steps on his own, and I should just let him know I’m here when he’s ready.” She wiped the wing sauce from her fingers. “What do you want from this? He put you in such an awful spot the other night. Did he apologize or explain anything?”
“He hasn’t said anything about that night, but he’s not going on like nothing happened. He’s been pretty withdrawn.”
“He owes you an apology. I don’t care how drunk he was. He took all his mess out on you in front of all those people. I’m sure he’s embarrassed as hell, but he needs to apologize. It’s been almost two weeks.”
“Benny said he apologized to him and to Cam for having to hold him back.”
“But nothing to you?”
“Nada.”
“How do you feel about that?”
Isaac folded his hands behind his head and tipped his chin up, as if consulting the ceiling. “I’d pretend it didn’t happen if I knew how to. I like my conflict on the field, and I miss my buddy. But you can’t un-see that look on his face, or un-hear the stuff he said. I can’t pretend I don’t know he’s still heartbroken about your brother and not coping well. I’ve gone over it and over it in my head, and I don’t think he had any sort of weird intentions about me filling a dead brother’s shoes or making me into a brother-in-law.”
“Maybe that was just a coincidence.”
“Justin and I clicked in camp. I was never paired with him when I came down here for clinics, but by day three or four, it was like I’d known him forever. We’ve both had some serious brotherly pain, and it helped to have someone understand that. I’ve been a big brother since I was fourteen months old, and it helped to be the little brother for once. The thing that sucks the most right now is feeling like I hardly knew him at all.”
“The thing with the twins? But that just happened.”
He scooped the last of the dip onto a chip. “Other stuff. Never mind. Is it weird to say I don’t care if Justin makes a big apology? I just want him to be okay. He apologized to both of us a million times while he was barfing up that tequila. I’m fine with that.”
“I want him to be okay, too. And I don’t need him to apologize anymore.”
“Then I guess we’re back to plotting what to do about an obstinate man. Are you ever going to tell Cam? I think it worked out okay to just let our little story fade into the background, and right now, I am all about pretending things never happened.”
Avery choked on a sip of ice water. “Me too,” she wheezed, patting her chest. “Me too.”