If You Love Me

37

d e a n

IT IS NOT OVER is what Avery said the last thing that we spoke, and I have been holding on to those words ever since. Those four seemingly simple words conjoined together and served as a reminder that we hadn't ceased, that we had not yet reached our finish line.

It has been just over a week of not being able to see her, speak to her, and be with her, and I would be a liar if I said that it has not been the worst week of my life. I have spent every single day busying myself in everything else, avoiding the areas on campus that I know Avery lingered in between her classes, taking the longest routes possible to class in order to arrive just minutes before they started, and staying away from the dorms even when invited over for study sessions and afternoon drinking by some of the boys in my classes.

I spent every single day trying to avoid all things Avery, always failing when the sun would begin to set, and I would be trapped in my room with another sleepless night. My body has become trained to only sleep more than two hours when Avery was there and as the days passed, every inch of my body knew that she wasn't and didn't like that.

I knew sleep before Avery, I knew life before Avery, but when it comes to after her, everything is restless and blank. There is no after Avery so much so that my brain avoids sleep to ensure that there isn't the possibility of me coming up with that mental picture.

Jonah sits across from me at the dining table on his phone as I stare down at the piles of homework that has been thrown at me left and right by my professors as their way of cramming everything in before the semester ends. He types across the screen rapidly, not missing a beat.

Our parents had gone to bed just after eleven, leaving us after watching television and cuddling on the couch after dinner.

When a phone begins to ring, I don't even flinch, keeping my eyes down on my textbook with my highlighter in my mouth.

"Aren't you going to answer that?" Jonah asks.

"Nope."

I haven't spent much time on my phone as my way to avoid calling the only person that I wanted to talk to. I had spent the first two days hoping that it would ring with her name only to be let down every time that it didn't.

"Should I tell them that you're busy?"

"Sure." I shrug.

I watch as his hand slides across the table from the corner of my eye and takes a hold of my phone, answering it before putting it to his ear.

"Hey Avery," my eyes snap up to him. He leans all the way back against chair, the phone tucked into the crook of his neck. He slides his gaze over to meet mine and sends me a small smirk. "Dean? He told me to tell you—"

Before he has the chance to finish, I grab the phone from him and nearly tackle him to the ground.

I probably sound like I ran a marathon by the time the phone reaches my ear. "Avy?"

"Hi Dean," her response is quiet, so quiet that if I hadn't been listening as intensely as I had I would have missed it. "Is this a bad time?"

"No, no," I rush out. "Is everything okay?"

"I can't sleep."

I'm already standing, stacking my books into a rushed and uneven pile. "I'm on my way."

"You don't have to come over, Dean. We could just talk over the phone."

I shake my head even though she cannot see me. "It's been over a week, I need to see you."