Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“Are you going to get that?”
Analiese’s question snaps me to attention. She’s eyeing me quizzically—understandably, since I’m staring at my phone as if I’ve never seen one before. Before I can even move, it diverts to voicemail.
Then the texts start.
Jenna: WHERE ARE YOU??
Jenna: ARE YOU ALIVE?
Jenna: Please tell me you didn’t get in a car accident.
The phone buzzes in my hand like an angry wasp, and honestly, it’s just as terrifying. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Analiese lean closer, trying to get a glimpse at the screen.
Jenna: Traffic?
Jenna: Food stop?
Jenna: Boyfriend drama?
Jenna: Averryyyyy. Answer me! It’s not like you to no-show and I’m worried. You said you’d come to my game. Remember?
”I think she wants you to answer her.”
I nearly jump out of my skin. Analiese apparently made it all the way across the couch and was reading the texts over my shoulder while my attention was laser-focused on the barrage of texts.
I tilt my phone away and give her a severe look. “Do you mind? It’s rude to read someone’s texts without permission.”
She shrugs and scoots back slightly. Her face turns thoughtful.
“I’m guessing you’re supposed to be somewhere with Jenna right now, but instead you’re here watching Wuthering Heights with me.”
My fingers unlock my phone screen and hover over Jenna’s messages, indecision warring within me. How do I explain this to Jenna? I do my best to tune out Analiese, but she continues. Annoyingly. It’s almost like she’s narrating the situation aloud to herself.
“I know you’re organized and not the type of person who forgets commitments. I’ve never even seen you tardy for class.”
Mercifully, my shaky fingers finally manage to send a brief text to Jenna, confirming that I’m alive and well.
It’s not enough for her though. My phone immediately starts ringing with another incoming call which—to my surprise and horror—I decline.
It’s like my fingers have gone rogue. This does not go unnoticed by Analiese.
She lets out a small gasp, or is it a scoff? It’s hard to tell because I’m caught between Jenna’s onslaught and whatever Analiese is going on about.
“You don’t want to tell her you’re with me.”
“That’s not—“
“Yes, I can see it now. This is, what? A pity thing? Because of what I told you about my dad?”
She stands suddenly and starts shoving her things into her bag.
“What? No—“
“Yes,” she says forcefully and spins away from me. Her dark hair swings over her shoulder. “I should have known better. I mean, it’s you.”
Ouch. I’m not even entirely sure what she means by that, but it sounds… bad.
My phone starts jumping around again like it’s possessed, throwing me into an impossible choice. Do I try explaining this situation to Analiese? Or do I answer Jenna’s call to beg for her forgiveness?
Talking to Analiese would involve admitting my weaknesses, and talking to Jenna would involve admitting my failure to remember her game. Both options sound terrible.
I rise to follow Analiese, ringing phone still in hand.
She stomps towards the front door and flings it open. With one final derisive glare, she jabs me with her barbed tongue one last time.
“You’re a coward, Avery James.” The door slams.
Coward.
The word hits like a slap. It echoes in the hallway and pricks my skin, like she shot the word at me with a dart gun and it landed somewhere deep—somewhere that already believed it.
A car door crashes shut, an engine roars to life, tires squeal… then nothing. The house goes still in that way it does right before you cry, when your body hasn’t decided if it’s allowed to let go yet. But I don’t want to cry.
My phone rings again and my thumb hovers, paralyzed, because answering means choosing who I’m disappointing first.
Coward.
Is that what I am? For months now I’ve been juggling a half dozen balls in the air, and I thought I could avoid dropping any of them if everything was planned neatly enough.
If I cared hard enough, I’d succeed. Now it feels like maybe I was juggling bombs instead, and two of them just exploded in my face.
My chest feels tight, like someone cinched a strap around it. I blink hard and the room swims. I won’t cry.
What. just. happened.
First period, Monday morning—the start of another week.
The emotional fog from the weekend still looms heavily over my head.
Learning to conjugate a new verb feels impossible, so I zone out and doodle my feelings in a notebook instead.
The class drones on, but the sounds of badly-pronounced Spanish barely penetrate my eardrums. My pencil scratches over the page as I draw.
The past couple of days have been… confusing.
Normally, I have a plan for everything. But this time I completely shut down after Analiese left, even shutting off my phone and tablet.
I guess Analiese was right. I am a coward.
I couldn’t even face talking to Jenna. All the problems I created still exist.
Not to be too dramatic, but my life is a complete dumpster fire at the moment. Jenna is probably mad at me. Analiese, once again, thinks I’m terrible. And the icing on the craptastic cake—yesterday I learned my dad won’t be returning for Thanksgiving after all.
The news hit like a sucker punch. My mom told Hunter and me about how Dad is staying for reshoots, and the team can’t put it off until after the holidays because they would lose too much money booking the locations longer.
Or something. She made it all sound very necessary and unavoidable, but I’m not buying it.
Maybe Dad is trying to avoid his relationship issues with Mom.
All I know is it hurts. I miss him. Hunter misses him.
My head tilts to the side as I study my sketch. Dimly, I note that the class has moved on to some other exercise, maybe practicing greetings. I don’t know. All I know is that this literal drawing of my life is the only thing that matters right now.
I add some pretty sophisticated shading to my burning dumpster doodle, then start drawing my body, dressed in a Valley Prep uniform, popping out of the inferno with a look of agony. A dialog bubble extends above my head with my favorite word, “Braden….!”
My love. My future.
The phone call with Braden on Friday night—the last good thing before everything went sideways on Saturday—is the only bright moment I have to carry me through.
A smile tugs at my lips as I sketch a figure of Braden racing towards my burning dumpster fire life astride a stallion, determined to save me from myself. For good measure, I add a crown to his stately head. My prince.
The day seems oddly amorphous. I float from class to class, barely registering anything that happens in each one. If homework is assigned or quizzes are mentioned, I wouldn’t know. Am I dissociating? Maybe. I remember reading about that one time and it seems like it could apply here.
All I do all morning is work on my doodle.
I’m not sure it can be classified as a doodle anymore.
There’s a sky and animals and grass. There’s even a dog running alongside Braden, as if it’s his little sidekick.
Perhaps named something noble like Valor.
I’m not sure why the dumpster would be in a field but it just feels right.
A sudden tap on my shoulder pulls me back into reality. I glance up to see Jake leaning over my desk in the now near-empty calculus classroom, squinting at my notebook. The bell for lunch must have already rung.
“Hey, Avery. Uh… what are you working on there?”
His brow furrows adorably in confusion as his blue eyes scan the page.
I notice for the first time that one of his eyes is slightly smaller than the other, but the flaw somehow makes him seem friendlier.
Then I feel annoyed that I’m having pleasant thoughts about anything or anyone when it feels like my whole world is crashing down.
I shift my notebook away. My emotional doodling isn’t for public viewing—it’s catharsis.
But it’s obvious by the look on his face he already got a pretty good look at it, and for some reason the idea of Jake thinking I’ve lost my marbles bothers me.
It’s also clear he isn’t going to let the issue go—the tiny smirk on his face has been Jake’s tell for mischievous behavior since forever.
Maybe I can bore him out of being interested in it. Jake used to get very bored very easily when we were younger. If Jenna and I talked about fashion for more than thirty seconds, Jake would abandon all hope of getting us to play with him.
“I’m employing several layered artistic principles we’ve learned in art class.
For instance, the detail and shading techniques are being used here to ground the piece in realism, while simultaneously juxtaposing the abstract emotional landscape.
I’m working through several themes, such as the chaotic nature of life and the complicated relationship between transformation and destruction. ”
I pause to see if he’s glazing over yet. No such luck. He is still watching me with raised eyebrows, clearly enjoying this. Maybe older Jake needs more than 30 seconds to get bored.
“And, of course,” I continue, leaning in like I’m about to drop a major intellectual bomb, “the choice of a simple pencil drawing over the backdrop of a common lined notebook paper speaks to the reduction of the human experience to its most essential and common form, to convey how we often feel like faceless participants in our own lives. But despite that reduction, you can see there’s still a heroic struggle, which I’ve embodied in the figures overcoming the flames of life. ”
He clicks his tongue and snaps his fingers. “Those are flames! Got it.”
During my monologue, my grip on the notebook must have waned. Quick as lightning, Jake snatches it and holds it aloft, his towering height making it difficult to grab it back while seated at my desk. I growl in frustration, which amuses him—as evidenced by the appearance of a dimple.
Then he grows contemplative. His free hand rubs his chin in mock concentration as he studies the notebook.
“Ah, yes, flames. And a stick figure with wiggly long hair yelling 'Braden!'—so that must be you. Which means the guy with the triangle on his head and some kind of blob next to him is... Braden? Is that a sword or a toothpick? And what is he riding?”
I gasp. He doesn’t stop.
“Now I’m trying to interpret the… raft? boat? bench?… you’re sitting on, and why it’s burning, or why you’re yelling. I have to say, I’m drawing a blank. I’m sure there’s a deep and astute connection you can craft for me.”
I stand, grab the arm holding my notebook aloft, and yank it back down to eye level—and for the first time all morning, I see the drawing I've been obsessing over instead of paying attention in class. Instead of me or my emotional turmoil, I see it for what it really is.
It’s terrible.
Braden and I are little more than stick figures with boxy clothes imposed on top.
The shading I’d labored on and internally gloated over is crude, at best. Valor, the dog, is basically a floating blob with tiny, stick legs, and my tortured, screaming face looks like a child’s jack-o-lantern gone wrong.
The only positive I can see about it is that my sun is nicely rounded, practically a perfect circle, with nicely spaced rays arranged around it.
“You know, your sun reminds me of how I used to draw them when I was in kindergarten with the wavy lines shooting out of it. It’s cute,” Jake adds.
And there goes my last remaining bit of dignity.
It’s clear that Jake is smiling just by the tone of his voice, but my eyes are too glued to the disaster I created to verify. Although he doesn’t sound like he’s trying to be condescending, I can’t help wincing as he demolishes the last thing I thought was remotely acceptable.
Did I eat bad yogurt this morning? What had I been thinking? It’s an established fact that I’m not an artist, as illustrated by my struggles in art class.
Jake grabs my backpack and slings it over his shoulder, then his warm arm settles around me. We’re side-by-side, the horrifying doodle still in front of us.
“Let’s ditch,” he says.
I gasp again. How many times is he going to shock me within the span of five minutes?
I look up at his face, but his eyes are fixed on the notebook.
“What?” I ask.
“It’s lunchtime. Let’s go off campus and not come back the rest of the day.”
“But you’re too young to go off campus. Only juniors and seniors can leave during lunch.”
He sighs heavily. “I’m a junior. And let’s drop the ‘baby Jake’ routine, yeah?”
I nod, suddenly feeling drained. Maybe skipping school for the first time in my life is what I need. Why not?