INTO THE FLAMES

Chapter 14

I woke up hours later tired, groggy, and cold. Dad came in to check on me and found me in bed with a scowl on my face. Seconds later, he returned with a stack of Christmas blankets from the closet next to my bedroom.

I pushed myself up off the mattress in order for him to wrap one around my shoulders and winced at the cold air. Then I gasped.

The mirror across my room showed me that my hair had become a bird's nest, the black hair tie that I'd used to bun it now nowhere to be found. My mascara had streak down my face and settled into a large pool at the top of my cheekbones. Dad had taken a flannel shirt from my closet after he'd carried me up from the office, where I'd fallen asleep in his arms in one of the chairs he kept  for his clients (on a rare occasion that he held meetings at the house). It had been a struggle, but he got me into it then tucked me under my duvet, shut the door, and let me sleep.

At least, I assume so, because I was in dreamland.

"What?" He asked now in a panicked voice. He turned his head to look in the direction that I was, only to see the same thing I did. "What's wrong?" I frowned at him, then pointed at my face. He shrugged, oblivious to the monster that my smeared makeup had turned me into. 

He wrapped the blanket around my shoulder then laid another one on my legs as I sank down into the mattress. He pulled the duvet over my shoulders and, as if I was a little girl again, tucked it around my body. I smiled up at him as sincerely as I could, even though all I wanted to do was cry again and never leave this bed.

When he disappeared through the door, I let myself breathe. I couldn't hold the tightness back in the base of my throat, so it broke, and tears went rolling down my face. Pain shot through my chest where I could feel it. The Pain. Everything.

I was overreacting, but every emotion from the past year was coming up. I was thinking about Jax and letting my panic attack control my life, letting him control my life. Landon had told me time and time again that I should get over him and that I deserved to get over him. I owed it to myself. I don't know, over the past year, how many times I've tried to convince myself that I am.

But now I know that I'm tired of feeling like this. I'm tired of panic attacks and lying to my parents and being afraid of Matt. I'm tired of being depressed.

Dad came in the same way he had to the office; eyes and mouth wide open in shock. Only this time, he didn't have socks on and he knew what to do. 

He scooted my body over and pulled me into him. He took the makeup remover wipe from mom's bathroom and ran it across my face, picking up the foundation, eyebrow pencil, and mascara that I had so carefully applied in order to look put together.

"What's going on, Avery?" Dad asked me now, his eyebrows furrowed in concern for me, his little girl, his firstborn. Concern I didn't deserve.

I settled into him as I sniffled again. "I have to talk to you and mom."

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There's always that moment I pictured in which I said to my father, "I met a boy." After sex with Jax or after he dropped me off at Landon's, I'd lie in bed, close my eyes, and picture the speech my dad would give me, the "he better treat you right or else" speech. I saw me, bringing Jax to Cannon, the two of us glued together and showing off so much PDA as we walked into my house. I pictured Jax giving my father a firm handshake, the two of them holding a long, intense stare in which my father's eyes said everything they needed to. I saw the two of them, drinking beer on the porch, Jax asking for his blessing, a ring, a white wedding gown in a little chapel with flowers and photographs and champagne, my father walking me down the isle. Whenever I though of Jax, I thought of forever.