There’s no offense. He’ll see.
“We talked about things,” I say. “You know, we discussed things that go beyond the weather. I thought we . . .” My insides bunch up and I don’t know what I think. Or thought. Or should think.
This is all a mess.
Any humor in Matt’s eyes evaporates as he sees the pain I can’t hide in mine. He leans up and places his bottle in the middle of the table. I don’t know if he’s offering it to me or he’s just getting it out of the way, but I take it. He doesn’t say a germophobic word about it.
“May I ask what happened?” he asks.
“Do you know how I told you when I first met her that I thought I knew her?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“But neither of us knew an Avery Perry, so we just assumed I was mixing her up with someone else.”
“Right. And I told you not to mention that—”
“—so she wouldn’t think I was a dick! This is your fault, Matt!”
He hangs his head. I think the son of a bitch is laughing, but I can’t be sure.
I hold my forehead in my hands. My temples throb, probably from trying to process so much information in a short period of time.
“This is not my fault,” he says. “Whatever in the hell happened to set you off like a hillbilly firecracker is not my fault.”
“If I would’ve told her I knew her, then this would be a different story.”
“So you do know her?” he asks.
I yank out a chair across from him. But I don’t sit. Instead, I drape my arms over the back of it and look at my friend.
My world is imploding. A night that meant so much to me so long ago is now relevant—no, entwined—with a girl I just met that I probably really like if I let myself think about it. And I was starting to let myself think about it, I think.
“Do you remember the day my dad got arrested?” I ask.
A shadow falls on Matt’s face as he nods. “Yes.”
I close my eyes as I remember the rage in my dad’s eyes. The way he held my mom like she was a rag doll. How she screamed at me to leave him alone, but I knew that if I did, not only would the cycle of abuse continue but also one of us would end up dead. And it wouldn’t be him.
He gripped my throat. Spit in my face. Explained, in detail, what a disappointment I was to the Etling name. As I listened to his venom and felt the pain of his hits, both verbal and physical, I knew I had to do something. And when he finally let me go with a promise to continue our discussion later, after he had one with my mother, he locked me out of the house.
In my truck a few minutes later from a couple of streets away, I called the police and told them where they’d find a domestic dispute and enough cocaine to lock my dad up for the rest of his life.
“I thought he was going to kill me that night,” I say. “There was something different about him. It was evil. Just inhuman, honestly.” I take a huge swallow of air. “I’m the one that called on him.”
The words taste bitter on my tongue. Still, a weight is lifted from my shoulders as I expel the truth to someone for the very first time.
My chest shakes as I drag in uneven breaths.
I called the police on my own father.
I look up at Matt warily. His eyes grow wide as he absorbs this information.
“Penn, man, I had no idea. That must’ve been hard as hell.”
That’s one way to put it.
“Not my favorite memory in the world,” I say. “But after I did it, I drove out to the lake. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Why didn’t you come over?”
“It’s hard to go to someone’s house that has a decent family when yours is as fucked up as mine was. It makes you feel like there’s something wrong with you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Penn. You are not your parents.”
I shake my head. “I know that. But I couldn’t put on a face for you and Dane.”
He wants to offer me his sympathy. There’s a reminder coming that everything worked out and my mom died having had a little peace and that I turned out okay. But he keeps it all held back. I’m glad for it.
“I was sitting out there,” I say. “It was Fourth of July weekend. I watched the fireworks and pretended my grandpa was there because he’d understand. I realized he was trying to prepare me for this for years, and I just . . . I felt so fucking alone. I didn’t think anyone would understand.” My lips turn upward. “And then this girl came out of nowhere.”
Matt’s face transforms into shock when he sees where I’m going with this.
“I still don’t know how she found me. No one ever comes down that path, but she did. She had hair the color of coal and the thickest black eyeliner. Her lips were stained like she’d been biting them all day.” I chuckle at the thought of Avery looking like that now. “She was also in the same mood as me.”
“It was Avery?”
“It was Abby,” I say, lifting a brow. “We hung out that night. Talked about our shitty lives and how much our DNA might affect us, whether we had a shot at being normal people or not. And we had sex and she left and all I remember specifically about her was that her name was Abby and she had a pair of dice tattooed on her rib cage. A ‘fuck you’ to her parents, she said.” I tip back the rest of Matt’s beer. “Before she left, she wished me luck and told me, ‘Roll with it.’ I never saw her again.”
Talking about this night with Avery in mind feels too hard to believe. But it’s true. I know it in my gut. It explains so much. Why I was drawn to her in the first place. Why I kept thinking I knew her. Why I felt a connection or some crazy shit with her from day one.
Matt stands up, his hands stuck in his pockets. “And I’m guessing you somehow figured out that Avery was Abby.”
“That’s where you come in.”
“I’m not following you.”
I force a swallow. “What are the odds that Avery would have the exact same tattoo in the exact same spot as Abby?”
“Same numbers?”
“Five and five, and in the exact same position.”
“I mean, I don’t know the exact probability, but it’s not good.” He grimaces. “But I think you know that.”
I toss Matt’s bottle in the trash too.
Even with his validation that I’m not crazy to think she is the same girl as the night on the lake, I can’t make sense of it. Why wouldn’t she say anything to me? She has to remember who I am. How many guys are named Penn, after all?
Because I didn’t lie to her.
That night carried me through the darkest part of my life. If she hadn’t shown up, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I was almost frantic when she arrived, from replaying the call I had just made and understanding the ramifications that would be coming my way.
Would I have done something stupid? Cracked? Acted out? Maybe. I don’t know. But Abby—Avery—showing up gave me something to think about instead.
But now everything feels different, like there’s a cloud that I can’t shake.
“I asked her when I first met her if I knew her, and she acted really weird,” I say. “It’s because I did.”