“I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can.”
I scooted to the pillows. “No, I can’t. It’s embarrassing. I don’t want one. It’ll hurt.”
He ducked his head, dropping his brow to the bedding as his shoulders shook.
“Are you laughing at me?”
Lifting his face, his cheeks wore an amused flush. “Avery Dean, they feel amazing. Everyone wants one.”
“Let me give one to you first.” I’d have to see it before I made up my mind.
“Okay, but guys are different.”
“Different how?”
“Messier.”
“How much mess?”
“Like a sip. Some girls swallow it.”
That was going to take a lot of begging. I grabbed a tissue from the table. “Sit the way you were.”
“I think you like bossing me around.”
I paused and smiled. I did like it. “Is that weird?”
“No, it’s hot.” He rolled off of me and sat up. “Is this how you want me?”
I wasn’t really sure. “Is that the way people do this?”
“There are hundreds of ways to do it. It’s whatever you like.”
“I think I like you on the bottom.”
He grinned. “Then you get the top.”
I shoved my jeans off my legs because they were just in the way. Analyzing the area, I slid to the floor. “Should I touch you first?”
He leaned back, folding his hands behind his head. “I surrender to your desires. Do whatever you want. You’re in charge.”
* * *
Those words. Those beautiful words. They didn’t only apply to that day, but every day that followed.
Gavin didn’t want to be responsible for anyone but himself. He wanted to get through the last mile and get the hell out. He liked pleasing me, and I liked letting him. We, like everyone else there, were desperate for company, starved for affection, and happy to find a hobby that didn’t cost any money.
The loneliness ate at most people in Blackwater. It was a cancer as he said. But we found a way to fill a void. It hadn’t taken long for him to change his mind about sex. And once Pandora’s Box was opened, the lid never fit right again.
I stared at his bedroom, familiar yet vacant. My innocence was here. My fears, my secrets, my shaky confidence, and my euphoric screams, they all breathed to life in this room. So alive, they were stealing the breath from my lungs now.
“You’re gone.” My words intruded on this mausoleum of memories, ripping the scab of an unhealed wound on my heart. “You left, and now I’m all alone and still tied to this place.”
A tear stumbled past my lashes, and I wiped it away, angling my blurred gaze toward heaven. “Nothing’s made sense since you died. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing or fucking my life up worse than it was already fucked.”
Rolling to my side, I covered my face as a harsh sob ripped from my throat. My heart jerked as memories punched into me. He was gone. He’d spent his whole life trying to get out and only made it a few months, never fully seeing all the things he wanted to see.
So much pain flooded me. I was drowning. I couldn’t catch my breath or move. The sadness washed over me in waves. I gulped for air, but everything was drenched in tears of sorrow and fear.
I wanted the ache in my chest to go away, but it crushed me. I should have never climbed in his window. I should have never come back here. I could feel the hopelessness weighing me down, the fears and insecurities punching through my skull.
My stomach hurt. My teeth chattered. My life seemed so meaningless, a speck I feared would blow away without a trace, just as Gavin’s had.
A while later, maybe an hour, maybe two, I laid in the silence. Shadows grew as the sunlight moved across the windows. Soon it would be dusk. Somehow, I needed to get myself up, dust myself off, and remember who I was supposed to be.
I couldn’t stay here. I could never come back to this place. It was time to say goodbye. Avery Dean Mudd was gone, and I needed to get back to being Avery Johansson.
Again, I thought of the day Drew left. Looking back, I think I was more upset he hadn’t offered to take me with him.
As I returned to my mother’s, I took one last look around, feeling as if I should take some sort of keepsake from my childhood, but unable to find anything I wanted.
The scent of rubbing alcohol filled the air, and I knew she was drunk. Not the sort of drunk a normal person gets after a few glasses of wine or even a couple shots. But the kind of wasted a person gets when they’re so intent on feeding an addiction they don’t care about the poison they choose.
There was no choice here. Just waste. A wasted day. A wasted year. A wasted life.
“Where the hell’d you go?”
“For a walk.” I found my coat and put it on. “I have to get back to the train station.”
“I’m gonna need some money for groceries for the next few weeks.”
I stared at the dishes she’d accumulated in my absence. In another few days, the house would be just as bad as I found it that morning. I wasn’t a cruel person, and I’d never leave my mother destitute, but she was living off more of my income than I was.
“Why aren’t you using your government card?”
“They don’t take it at the Pinch and Save. I’d have to take a bus downtown to get to the big market.”
“So take a bus. You’re getting assistance that some people deserve and can’t get approved.”
“You saying I don’t deserve my money?”
“I’m saying, be grateful you have what you have and stop being so lazy—”
A mug flew out of her hand, alcohol scented hot tea splashed everywhere as it shattered against the wall. I shielded my face as the ceramic exploded.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I shouted.
“Me? What’s wrong with you? I raised my kids. I made sure you were fed and clothed and vaccinated and put into school each year. You come here, in your fancy city clothes and call me lazy?”
“You’d rather beg for money than take a bus so you can access your own! If that’s not lazy, I don’t know what is.”
“Selfish bitch! You’d have nothin’ if not for me.”
Fury raced through my veins as I stared at her in disbelief. “I have nothing because of you! The money I have left, I worked for. I got into college because I wanted it bad enough. You did nothing but berate me since the day I left, too selfish to want something better for me, your daughter. All you ever cared about was yourself! All I’ve ever heard is how your precious boys left you with an ungrateful daughter. Do you ever stop and think they left to get away from you? Look at this place! Why would anyone want to stay here?”
Her face darkened, and she shouted, “You will not disrespect me in my own home!”
“This isn’t a home. It’s a pigsty.”
“And who pays your rent you self-righteous bitch? Whoring ain’t dignified work, Avery Dean. So don’t come here preaching like you’re better than anyone else.”
I snatched my purse off the chair. “I can’t do this anymore. Only a fool would keep offering a helping hand to a mouth that only knows how to bite back. You have no concept of the things I’ve done for you. You’d rather rot in your own filth, living in squalor and waiting on a handout, than try to make something better for yourself. It’s always everyone else’s fault and never yours. Well, I can’t keep saving you.”