Chapter 25 Ava
Ava
Big Harry and the people at his diner became my family. We worked till midnight, hung out for hours after closing, and slept late. This was all fine by me. Eating, sleeping, and breathing around people I could trust became my most critical survival skill.
Thanksgiving passed. Then Christmas. I spent the holidays with random people from work, vaping and making fun of people who got sentimental about jolly old dudes in red suits and peace on earth, good will toward blah, blah, blah.
I might have looked like a tough girl on the outside with my black clothes and bad attitude, but inside I grew very careful. All the underage servers would sneak alcohol from the bar, but I stuck to Sprite with a slice of lime in it and maybe a splash of colored syrup for show.
I took my medication religiously. My life was a time bomb. If this medicine failed, or if I forgot to take it, I’d have to start all over again. That was the last thing I could handle now that I was on my own.
Tucker didn’t give up when I failed to visit Grandma Flowers and contact him. He showed up at unexpected times.
I would often grab a sandwich at a shop down the street from Big Harry’s before I went on shift, and sometimes he would be there to buy me a cookie. Other times he’d pass me a book or a movie to watch. Small things like that. I couldn’t fault him, so I accepted his brief, gift-driven attention.
One day in February, I spotted him waiting on a bench near the diner. When I got close, he stood and held out a giant bouquet of yellow daffodils.
“Do not tell me you brought me a Valentine.”
He kept them extended, even though I didn’t take them. “Nope. Daffodils were our flower, and today is an important day.”
I cocked out a hip. “Let me guess, some anniversary. When we met?”
“Nailed it. One year since we first saw each other in the hospital,” he said. “I know you don’t remember it, but I do. So I wanted to commemorate it.”
The flowers made me feel funny inside, like someone was about to punch me. I didn’t like it.
I pushed the bouquet into his chest. “I can’t take those. Everyone I work with will laugh at me.”
“I figured you’d say that.” He shifted the flowers into the crook of one elbow and handed me a small piece of cardboard inside a clear sleeve.
It read, “For Ava from Tucker. One year.”
I flipped it over. On the other side, slid between the cardboard and the plastic sleeve, was a single yellow daffodil, pressed flat and dried.
“That one will fit in your pocket,” he said. “No one will see it.”
The uncomfortable feeling inside my chest increased. My eyes burned. But I took his sentimental offering and shoved it into my back pocket.
“Well, thanks. Thanks for remembering what I can’t.” I turned toward the diner.
“Ava,” he said. “Can I say one more thing?”
I twisted around. “What’s that?”
“You said something important to me on the last night I saw you before your mother moved you away.”
I sighed. The past. Always the past. “All right. What did I say?”
“That your heart would remember. Even if it seemed like you forgot me, your heart would know mine.”
He was probably right. It accounted for this terrible sick feeling. My heart was clenching or revolting, or maybe even imploding.
Like hell would I admit this to him, though.
Instead, the part of me most interested in escaping said, “Sounds like the old Ava was full of shit.”
After my last show of cruel Ava, Tucker didn’t come by for a while. But about a month after the daffodils, I spotted him on the bench.
He had another bouquet. Roses this time.
I paused a few feet away. “So, what silly romantic date have I forgotten this time?”
He was dressed up in khaki pants and a white button-down shirt that he had obviously ironed.
“Go on, tell me. We got married or something.”
He laughed. “No, nothing like that. Today was our first official date, one year ago. I wanted to take you out by myself, but I was having seizures, so I couldn’t drive. My friend Bill and his girlfriend came, and you climbed out of your window.”
“What did we do on this date?”
“We played mini golf at Peter Pan.”
“Were we seriously that cheesy?”
“With a capital C. And we had a picnic at Zilker Park.”
I smacked my hand to my head. “So we got even worse.”
He laughed. “At least we didn’t go on a Ferris wheel. All the cheesiest movies have the couple on a Ferris wheel.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s a ride. A big wheel with seats. You find them at carnivals.”
“Never heard of a carnival, either.”
“They have a bunch of rides, and you buy tickets to go on them. They have games of skill, like popping balloons with darts to win a prize.”
“Sounds ridiculous.”
“Most people find them fun. There’s one pretty much year-round on the south side of town. Would you like to go?”
“No.”
He couldn’t hide the way his face fell. What did he expect? I’d been putting him off since he found me.
“Okay. Well, here are the roses for our first date. You can give them out to customers. Might get you better tips.” He shoved them at me and walked away.
I watched him go, his head down.
Damn it, Tucker.
He needed to let me go. I wasn’t going to put anyone else near my time bomb. Eventually, a seizure would come, and it would obliterate everyone. With all the seizures he talked about, he had enough problems of his own. He didn’t need mine.
For a few days, I felt bad about what I’d said to Tucker. He’d been nothing but nice to me. It wasn’t his fault my stomach dropped every time I saw him.
I kept the roses. I hid them in Big Harry’s office. Big H saw me sneaking out with them, but he didn’t say anything.
Weeks passed without Tucker showing up. I worried he was gone for good. Or that a seizure had gotten him. I pictured him collapsed in the street, rushed to the hospital. I had no way of contacting him. No phone number. No email.
I guessed I could go see Grandma Flowers.
Stupid past. I didn’t want it. My life was fine.
Then one day, there he was, back on the bench outside the diner.
I sat down next to him. “What have you got for me today?”
He handed me an envelope. Inside were several pieces of paper, full from top to bottom with typewritten words.
“What is this, a story?”
“Sort of. It’s everything I know about you. Everything you told me. How we met. What we used to do. You mentioned before that you had put together a book of your old stuff. The flowers from your wall and all that. I thought this could go in there. Information. Nothing more.”
I’d already started reading. Disco room. AC/DC. His family.
God. His parents and brother were dead.
I looked up at him, our eyes meeting. That uncomfortable feeling filled my chest again. This time, I accepted it as part of being near him. It wasn’t going to kill me. “I’m sorry about your family,” I said.
“I still have Gram. She’s great. She loves you.”
My chest tightened a little more. There were others out in the world who cared about me, people I didn’t even know. This Gram. And Grandma Flowers. I had refused to meet them.
Maybe I was wrong.
I returned to the pages. I read about my seizure and how he had worried about me. I had kissed him when I saw him again, even though I didn’t know who he was. His first kiss. Maybe mine.
In those pages, I recognized the Ava he knew. The fighter. The survivor. Kicking butts and taking names. He was right there with me, following along. He helped me. He’d been on my side.
That soft spot opened up again, and I had to harden it. I shoved the papers back in the envelope. “I have to get to work, but I’ll read this. If I think it’s got information I should keep, I’ll put in my book.”
That was really, truly the best I could do with the outrageous war going on inside my body. He gave me a nod as I walked away.
I didn’t know that much about him. I didn’t even know if he had a job or people to hang out with or anything other than his gram.
I was a crappy friend. I would try to do better next time he showed.
That night I didn’t stay at Big Harry’s to hang out after closing. I said I had a headache and went home. I wanted to read the rest of Tucker’s story. I started from the beginning and read all the way to the end.
He was right. Our story had been epic. We’d taken risks. And, in the end, when he should have walked away, he stayed. He’d gotten arrested for me. He tried to save me. Then, even when I disappeared, he didn’t give up.
And now, despite how I had hurt him by insisting that my heart remembered nothing, that he had been erased, still, he came. Quietly, patiently, and with care.
He left his phone number on the pages.
Maybe I would go to that carnival.