Chapter 8 #2
Pete lived with his parents . How had she not noticed that?
Did she honestly think a guy’s apartment would be this clean and orderly?
The apartments of most guys she’d met in the city were usually in disarray, with beige L-shaped couches covered in mysterious stains, video game consoles overflowing from beneath television stands, containers of Muscle Milk taking up all the counter space in the kitchen. She should’ve known.
“You guys want some cantaloupe?” Pete’s mom asked in her thick Staten Island accent as Pete’s dad gave Avery a quick hello before heading upstairs to do some work. Avery watched Pete watch his father disappear, a forlorn look on his face.
Then he shrugged in Avery’s direction. “Well, do you?” he asked.
Avery studied Pete’s mom as she shuffled around the kitchen, which was decorated in that Tuscan style of sand-colored furnishings and grapes everywhere—another clue that this apartment did not belong to a twenty-something man.
With her long French-manicured nails and highlighted hair, Pete’s mom looked exactly like the women back home in New Jersey, who’d wear heels and a full face of makeup just to go to the grocery store.
Pete’s mom caught Avery’s eye as she set the container of cantaloupe on the wooden kitchen table.
Avery found herself smiling, comforted by this woman’s presence.
Staten Island and New Jersey, certain parts at least, were similar in a lot of ways, most notably their strong populations of loud, fussy Italian-Americans.
Pete’s family seemed to be cut from the same cloth as Avery’s, and right now his mother reminded her of home, of her life before college.
A life she didn’t need to spend forgetting.
A life she was excited about, even, when she dreamed about finding someone with whom she could share the kind of special romantic bond her parents had.
Whether it was fate or a coincidence that Pete’s family culture mirrored hers, she wasn’t sure, but she allowed herself to feel a small thrill about the similarities.
Avery joined Pete and his mother at the table. The bowl of bright orange cantaloupe sat in the middle beside a stack of plates and a row of forks.
Avery gestured toward the utensils. “Can you please pass me a plate, Mrs.… uh …”
“DeFranco,” Pete said with a pointed grin.
“Yes, of course,” Pete’s mom said. “And you can call me Gina, honey.”
Avery helped herself to some cantaloupe and took a bite. It was delicious. “Gina. Got it.”
“So, where you coming from, Avery? You live in Manhattan?”
Avery nodded.
“Your parents from New York, too?” Gina asked. “Any siblings?”
“I have a younger brother, Hunter,” Avery said. “And I grew up in New Jersey. But my parents did the whole Brooklyn to Staten Island to New Jersey trek, so we still have family here.”
“Ah, the classic northeast Italian-American voyage,” Pete declared, like he was a cartographer mapping a new world. “Hopefully we’re not secretly cousins or something.”
Avery nudged him with a laugh. “Ewww, don’t be weird.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t like it any more than you would.”
Gina rolled her eyes. “You’re sick, Pete.”
Avery’s heart warmed at Gina’s familiar pronunciation of “you’re.
” Yaw-uh. “My parents hate that I moved out. They wish I still loved home. They’re a little overprotective.
One time, in college, when my mom couldn’t get a hold of me because my phone died, she sent the campus police on a search for me. ”
Gina and Pete burst out laughing. “That’s hilarious,” Pete said.
“It was. I mean, now it’s funny. But at the time I was mortified.
” Talking about her parents made Avery realize she hadn’t talked to them in a while.
The last time they spoke, though, they got into an argument about why abortion should be allowed for any reason a woman decided upon with her doctor, not just the extreme exceptions touted by Republicans, and it turned into a massive fight about women needing to “take responsibility for their actions.” Maybe she should wait a little longer.
“You gotta understand something, Avery,” Gina began.
“You guys are our babies. Doesn’t matter if you’re sixteen or sixty.
When our babies are out of our sight, we are in a constant state of distress.
” Gina reached over the table to squeeze Pete’s cheek.
“All this is to say, I’m gonna cry the day Petey moves out. ”
“Ma!” Pete ducked away from her grip. “Goddammit.”
Gina wagged a finger at Pete. “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain in this house.”
“Sorry about her,” Pete muttered to Avery.
“Don’t be,” Avery said, charmed by how embarrassed Pete was. She could imagine her mom reprimanding her for the same thing.
Pete stabbed a piece of cantaloupe with a fork, the juice sliding down and pooling onto his place.
“I’m definitely moving out soon.” He seemed to direct that statement more to Avery than to his mother.
“To Manhattan, most likely. I’m just trying to save up some more.
I’ve almost got enough to rent a place and have some extra cushion in the bank. ”
“That’s a good idea,” Avery said. The familiarity of Pete’s home made her feel so loose, so open. She kept going with it. “I lived with my parents for a month after college. It helped a little with savings. But I couldn’t stand the commute.”
“Where’d you go to school?” Gina asked.
“Woodford College. In Boston. Just like Pete.”
“But we never knew each other,” Pete added. “And I definitely would’ve remembered if I’d met her.”
He met her eye across the table and smiled. Avery resisted the urge to grab his hand, as a thank you for seeing something good in her. For giving her a chance that she wasn’t sure she deserved.
“Get outta here!” Gina squealed. “So how’d you two meet then?”
“We met at a bar downtown,” Avery explained. “And it turns out Pete knows my friends Charlie and Morgan.”
“Yeah, Charlie worked at the record store with me, Ma, if you remember,” Pete said. “He brought me to Woodford to hang a few times.”
Gina gasped. “Now that is fate.” Her eyes darted between Avery and Pete. “This is all God’s work. You two were meant to be, I just know it.”
The suggestive smile on Gina’s face punctured Avery’s chest with guilt. Avery knew that look. Gina thought she was meeting her son’s new girlfriend.
Avery felt her walls shoot back up around her.
She let this conversation go on too long, open up too many possible doors.
She knew she needed to keep Pete at arm’s length, but she also knew the more they hung out, the harder that would be.
Because this was how it all began: First you told them your favorite color, and then they found out everything.
Even the things you were the most ashamed of, all the things you wanted to hide.
And she liked Pete so much already. She’d rather spare herself the pain of his inevitable rejection when he found out what a mess she was. What she was capable of.
“Well, it’s getting late,” Avery said, shoving a final chunk of cantaloupe into her mouth. “I think I should get going.” She stood up. It was only 9 PM , which wasn’t late, but she didn’t have another excuse.
“Already?” Gina reached out to give Avery a hug. “Come back soon, will ya?”
Avery returned Gina’s embrace. “For sure.” Avery was grateful for the hug so that she wouldn’t have to look Gina in the eye when she lied.
“Let me drive you to the ferry,” Pete said. He was so earnest in his offer to help, not thinking anything of Avery needing to leave. His trust in her made her feel even worse.
“Oh, you don’t have to,” she said, feeling shy. “I’ll just take an Uber.”
“Let Pete take you!” Gina winked. “He should learn what it takes to care for a woman.”
Avery’s heart sank. She’d led them on enough; she didn’t want to be even more of an asshole for putting up a fight. “Okay, sure. Thanks.”
Pete drove Avery to the ferry. He tried to make conversation but she gave him clipped, one-word answers and claimed she was tired, then turned on the radio to let the chipper voice of a Z100 host fill the air.
She leaned her elbow on the windowsill and stared out into the street, watching blurred images of buildings and cars zoom past in a blend of bright lights and colors.
She caught her reflection in the side mirror and glanced away, disgusted with herself.
She knew she shouldn’t have come here. Pete didn’t deserve to be with someone who could hurt him the way Avery hurt Ryan.
She was helping Pete out by leaving. Eventually he’d find someone with less of a past. Someone better.
Pete pulled into the terminal and put the car in park, cutting the radio abruptly. The silence pierced through the still night air. Avery reached for the passenger car door and gripped the handle, half waiting for him to say something, half ready to bolt.
“So, I guess we skipped right to meeting the parents,” he said with a playful lilt.
Avery returned a joyless grin. “I guess so.”
“Seems like things are getting pretty serious between us now, huh?”
Avery closed her eyes. The more he tried to crack her with his jokes, the more she fortified her walls, which made her feel even guiltier for letting the night go this far in the first place. Without responding, she went to open the door, but then Pete put his hand on her shoulder.
“Avery, wait.”
Avery glanced at his hand, felt the heat of it through her sweater and jacket. She inhaled through her nose, savoring his touch one last time before disappearing from his life forever.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about my parents,” he said with a sigh. “I thought they’d be out all night.”
Pete took his hand off her shoulder. The loss of physical contact made Avery ache with longing.
She was still inside his car and already she missed him.
How much pining would she do when she left?
She couldn’t handle any more emptiness, when she already felt like such a husk of her former self.
That night with Noah had taken everything from her, and the only way she could stop it from taking more was to keep everyone at a distance.
Because if she didn’t gain anything else, she had nothing else that she could lose.
Because if you never knew what happiness was, you couldn’t know what you were missing without it.
She never wanted to see Pete ever again.
“I was also embarrassed about it, to be honest,” Pete continued, so soft it was almost a whisper. “I mean, I’m twenty-three, and I still sleep in my childhood bedroom. It’s not exactly very attractive.”
Avery didn’t care that Pete lived with his parents. It was pretty responsible, actually, considering the astronomical cost of living in New York City. Pete was responsible. He was funny. Charming. The best sex she’d ever had. And way too good for her. This was for the best.
“It’s fine,” Avery said. “Really.”
She got out of the car and closed the door before Pete could say anything else, before she could trick herself into thinking she was enough for him, that what Noah did to her didn’t break her beyond recognition.
On the ferry back to Manhattan, she swiped through her dating apps and fired off messages until someone invited her over.
She dragged whoever he was to his bedroom and didn’t let him ask her a single question, just let him use her for her body like all the others, her flesh like armor keeping her battered heart safe.