Avalon
The early morning sun had melted into mid-afternoon heat by the time we made our way back down the mountain, each of us wrapped in our own thoughts. Clarke rode ahead, her posture tight with urgency—she was desperate to get home and tell Melody everything.
And maybe it was selfish, but a part of me wanted to stay up there just a little longer.
To hold onto the quiet. To hold onto her confession. To hold onto the moment she told me she loved me—no, that she was in love with me.
Before Clarke, I’d never known the difference. Not really.
My parents used to say the words when I was little — before I had opinions, before I could talk back, before I understood that love was supposed to feel like something. They said it out of obligation, out of performance, out of habit.
But never out of truth. Never with action behind it. Never with warmth.
With Clarke, it was different. She didn’t say it to manipulate me. She didn’t say it to get something from me. She said it because she meant it.
Because she felt it. Because she saw me — all of me — and still chose me.
“With fierce conviction,” she had said. And I still didn’t understand why. Clarke was loyal, determined, gentle, fierce, honest. And I was… me. Impulsive. Rash. Loud. Messy. Hard to love. Hard to keep.
Yet she loved me anyway.
“Oh my god,” Delia gasped as we turned onto the King family ranch. News vans lined the driveway while reporters swarmed the property. Cameras pointed at the house, the barn, the road — everywhere.
They were waiting for us.
I spun, looking for Clarke but she was already pushing Hestia through the crowd of nagging bodies, not caring if they got caught under foot.
She slipped off the animal before she even had time to come to a full halt; bounding up the wooden steps, Clarke pulled open the door with a fluid movement.
“Melody?” I heard her voice echo from where I sat atop Apollo; around me, reporters pressed forward and shoved their microphones into both mine and the horse’s face.
“Avalon Kennedy, is it true you stole horses from—“
“Miss Kennedy, is this where you’ve been all this—“
“Why has no one heard from—”
“Have you kept in contact with—“
Their questions mixed together, loud and jumbled, their voices spooking the nervous animal beneath me. Apollo’s ears flattened against his skull and I could see the bright whites of his eyes as he chewed anxiously on his silver bit.
I pulled him back with the soft command Colton had taught me in the mountains, relief flooding me as he readily obeyed. He wanted out of this wannabe mosh pit just as badly as I did.
“I advise you all to step back,” I called out, keeping my grip on his reins firm. “I’m sure you all remember what happened the last time one of you go too close to me—now imagine that but with a 1600-pound horse.”
The crowd wisely took several steps back, their microphones tight in their hands. I knew they still expected me to answer their questions—to answer my fans’ questions, but I had wanted to tell Melody about Clarke’s confession and my acceptance.
The paparazzi could and would have to wait. But then another voice rang out, higher and more familiar than the rest.
“Avalon Penelope Kennedy! You get off that animal right this instant!”
My body stilled—well, as best as you could on a nervous and slightly agitated horse. I turned Apollo towards the voice, ignoring the camera flashes.
“Mother.”
“Daughter.”
I laughed without humor and pulled my leg over the saddle.
Sliding off the golden horse, I winced as my boots made contact with the compact earth.
Turning to one of the nearby reporters, I held out the reins; the bewildered man looked from my outstretched hand back up to my face, his face red and pudgy.
“Wh-what am I supposed to do—“
I scowled and tossed him the reins. “You weren’t doing anything useful before, and now you are.” I gave him a forced smile, flashing it at his cameraman. Through gritted teeth I added, “Or would you like to find out how much my right hook has improved?”
He swallowed and clutched the reins tightly, as if his life depended on it.
“No? I didn’t think so.” Returning my attention to my severely out of place mother, my smile was quickly replaced by a scowl. “You, what the hell are you doing here?”
Clarke didn’t need this. Hell, I didn’t need this. I didn’t want her here, she wasn’t wanted here. There was so much I needed to figure out, I couldn’t have here around making me second guess every decision I made.
Ayana matched my scowl with one of her own—the original. “Avalon, that is no way to speak to me—I am your mother.”
I halted in my tracks, my boots kicking up gravel. Spinning, I grabbed her arm. “My mother? Mother?” I wanted to laugh, how stupid did she really think I was?
“You’ve always hated that term, what, now you don’t now that it benefits you? You want to be my parent when I fuck up or make a decision you don’t approve of, but what about when I need you? Are you my mother then?”
Ayana straightened her back and flickered her eyes nervously to the cameras. “Watch your tongue, this is not the place—“
I released her, the laughter finally bubbling out of my chest. “Exactly! That’s my entire fucking point! It’s never the right place or the right time, never when I need you.”
I needed to keep moving, to keep this momentum going; if I didn’t say this now, would I ever have this courage again?
“Everything is always on your time, it’s always what you and Dad want, but it’s my life—“
“And who do you think gave you that life?” She cut in, taking her own step forward. “Who do you think paid for the art lessons, that never went anywhere, by the way. Who paid for the dance lessons?” She held out a finger and began listing off my many different failed attempts at self expression.
“The ballet lessons you cried through, the culinary lessons that never went anywhere, the trips, the shoes—Avalon, who made it possible for you to enjoy all of those things?” Her finger turned inward.
“Me! I gave everything to you; I gave you the very breath you breathe and what do you have to show for it? Nothing.”
I winced, her words sinking and settling deep into my bones and tears stung my eyes.
“You fill your life with trophies won for you by other people, Avalon; you have nothing, you are nothing of your own making.” She laughed bitterly.
“There is nothing significant about you but your last name and what do you do? You run off to Texas and embarrass us—the ones who actually put in the work to earn it.”
Each of her words felt like another line across my skin. Another permanent marking on my body; she wanted me to believe her, to believe that I was nothing, I was insignificant and small. Unworthy, unwanted.
But then I thought of Clarke. I thought of Melody, of her resistance and her fight. Her strength. If she could be strong, so could I.
I raised my eyes to meet my mother’s, blinking back the tears that still begged to fall. “I didn’t want any of that, not really. I just wanted your attention—“
“Attention?” She laughed out. “Avalon, all anyone has ever given you was attention! The newspapers, the articles, the posts—it’s all you!”
I stomped at the ground angrily, similarly to Apollo when he was frustrated.
“I didn’t want any of that! I wanted yours.
Your attention. Dad’s attention. I wanted to be like the normal kids my age and be able to crawl into my parents’ bed and feel safe in your arms. I wanted mother/daughter dates that didn’t end with me being scouted for a different modeling agency.
I wanted to be able to cry to you and tell you my problems, hoping you would be able to guide me; but for some fucked up reason, you couldn’t.
“It’s like you’re incapable of being tender, you’re unable to be gentle and for a while, I thought it was my fault. That I was the problem—you were so unhappy with me, regardless of what I did, it was never enough for you.”
I paused, taking a moment to catch my breath. “I was never enough for you—but why should I as a child, why should that have been placed on me? Love has always been conditional and transactional for you; I was your daughter—your only child. Why did I have to buy your love by selling myself?”
Salty tears ran over my lip, and I angrily rubbed them away. I hadn’t wanted to cry, not in front of her, not in front of the cameras.
“The paparazzi and-and the newspapers, that was me trying to get your attention, to get you to see me.”
Ayana huffed although it looked as if she was blinking away her own tears, but I wouldn’t put too much hope in that. My mother had been conditioned to be a statue, a perfect porcelain figure that never showed any emotion. Outside of anger and annoyance that is.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Avalon, I do see you; like you said, you’re my daughter, how could I not see you?”
“Then why can’t you see how happy I am here? Here—I mean something, I’m worth more than just my voice and body.” The Kings saw something in me others never even bothered to try and look for; they saw someone worth including. Someone worth having around.
My mother scowled again, her hand raised in the direction of the farmhouse. “These people don’t know you, Lonny; they’ve had one summer with you—I’ve had twenty-two years with you—“
“You don’t even know me!” I yelled again. “You don’t know of all the times I begged for death; I prayed to die in some excruciating way just so you would finally notice my absence, just so you would finally see me, Mom.”
I could show her my scars, but it wouldn’t change anything if my words weren’t enough. “I don’t want to die anymore,” I continued. “Because I finally found something worth living for, a family worth fighting for—a family that needs me.”
Clarke. Melody. Fuck it, even Colton. They were my family and they needed me. I needed them.
“But you’re coming back to Los Angeles—“
“No,” I laughed, shaking my head and turning back up the driveway towards the house. “I’m not going back to fucking Los Angeles.”
Ayana caught my arm in one last desperate attempt, was she going to drag me all the way back to California? “But it’s your home, Lonny; it’s where you grew up—“
“Clarke is my home, and she is inside that house.” I pried her fingers from my arm. “I’m sorry you wasted a trip, but I’m staying.”
I watched with guilty satisfaction as her face crumpled and her hand fell to her side. “Lonny, please.”
But I kept walking; I would not succumb to her whims, I would not allow her to have any control over my life any longer. She was wrong about me, I wasn’t nothing. I didn’t create nothing. I had simply found the people who took the time to see what I had to offer.