a v e r y
MY MOTHER ALWAYS TOLD ME never to hate anything— that even a strong distaste for something, or someone was too much of a burden that the heart should not have to handle. Whenever she messed up on one of her art pieces, she would just incorporate the mistake until it fit her original vision. Whenever she cut herself on a knife while attempting any meal than wasn't chicken nuggets or macaroni, she would just hold her hand under the running faucet until the cut slowly began to heal itself and then try again. And when I would make adolescent comments about her underarm odour after she laid in bed for days, she would just smile and then sit in the bathtub until her fingertips turned to prunes. She took everything that was handed to her, whether she deserved it or not, and never once expressed hatred towards anything or anyone.
For awhile, I was the same way. When the girls whose noses were stuck in the clouds made it a point never let me in on the topics of laughter; when I saw children playing in the park with their fathers running after them; and when my mother would wake me up at three in the morning to hold the ladder as she painted the tops of the walls. I didn't hate any of it.
— but when she died, I started to hate even the smallest of things. I hated the way that the birds sang in the early hours of the morning; I hated the way that all of my white clothes had become tinged with pink after I had thrown a red sock along in with the load; and I hated way that Millie made it a point ask me about my day every night at the dinner table.
Every mentions of taking life's tribulations with a grain of salt had gone completely out the window and hate was the first emotion that I felt when meeting someone new, trying something new, and being someone new.
I had escaped my hometown with every intention of breaking that vicious cycle. I did not initially hate Olivia upon meeting her; I did not hate any of the other students, even the one that always smacked his gum in the elevator; and I did not hate the new life that I had planned to establish for myself. But in my art class on my first day, the feelings of hate slowly crept their way back into my body and made a bed in the front of mind.
As I stared at the white canvas, the very ones that I spent hours in the store staring at as my mother ran rampant with a smile on her face, I began to hate that I would never see her again. I began to hate that I was sitting behind an easel living out the dream that she had never gotten to. And I began to hate that the only thing that I really knew about her was that she loved art and me, and nothing of the words that whispered to her at night; nothing of why she hated and missed my father; and nothing of why she had chosen death over me.
And then I met Dean.
I wanted to hate him. I wanted to loathe that he was the riches and I was the rags; I wanted to loathe that he was always smiling; and I wanted to loathe that he was the first man that looked at me like I was something— but I didn't. I didn't loathe him, I envied him. I envied that he was going places, rather than had been places, and that he did not have to have someone look at him in order for him to be something.
And despite all of that envy, I found myself liking the boy that had thankfully ditched the sweater vest and khakis I had seen him in the day that we met. I found myself wanting to tell him things about me, thinking about him in times that he wasn't around, and welcoming his touch.
With him, I was no longer the girl that had lost her mother and herself, the girl that had gotten so good at lying that she couldn't even trust herself, and the girl that welcomed loneliness like a warm blanket.
And all it took me was those blue irises to bring me back to earth where my harsh reality was waiting for me.
Asher. He reminded me that I was that girl and always would be.
I push past the people that stand huddled in the corridors until the cool wind hit every inch of my exposed skin. The grass crumples under the touch of my boots as I make my way to the tree I have claimed as my own for the past few weeks. The brown bark stands tall, reaching new heights that the other trees could only wish to. The tops of the roots linger against the green grass and the beds of dandelions that scatter all around it.
Throwing my bag against the trunk of the tree, I move my body to follow suit as I laid my head against it. At the contact, my eyes fall shut. I soak up the world around me, welcoming the voices around me, the chorus of laughter and joy; the engines of the cars as the started and stopped; but most of all, the wind that entangled in every fibre in my clothes and made a bed on the hair of mine that had slipped completely out of the holder and flew crazily all around me.
"Avery?" An all-too-familiar voice rang, the raspiness in it being one that I could pick out in a crowd of many.
I open my eyes slowly to find his emerald ones staring straight back at me. His eyebrows stand tall even in a furrowed state. Along the sharp curve of his cheekbone and jaw, sat comfortable shade of pink. His hair was dark and pulled back completely, the ends hiding behind ears making it clear that he had gotten out of the shower not too long ago. His lips pulled into a small frown, one that only grows the longer that he stands there.
He looks completely unrecognizable in this moment. The happy-go-lucky boy was now a rain cloud, all at the hands of me.
I watch his every move as he moves to sit next to me, leaving quite a bit of space in between the two of us to allow the wind to continue its assault on the both of us fully.
"I haven't heard from you in awhile." He starts, his eyes remaining out on the view in front of us, while mine were on him. As he stares forward, I could tell that it was at nothing in particular but just in avoidance of my stare on him. "How are you?"
"Fine." I respond.
As he continues to stare forward, I pull my gaze away from him and resume my head back against the trunk of the tree feeling as my eyes slowly flutter shut once more, it now being my turn to avoid his gaze.
"So we're back to that?" He asks.
"I guess so."
I can vividly feel him flinch as he sits quite a ways next to me. As the silence lingers between the two of us, I listen to the sound of his breathing as it had become heavier than before. I listen to the grass as it crunches beneath him the closer that he moves to me. His shoulder makes contact with mine as his head too comes goes to rest on the base of the tree. Even with my eyes closed I could feel his gaze on the side of my face, the feeling sending a wave of shivers along my spine in the same way that they had the night we spent together at the waterfront.
"Did I do something to make you upset?" He breaks the silence, his voice a mere whisper.
My son always cares so deeply about everything, his father's words runs rampant in my mind. The words were true, Dean cared too much and the way in which he cared was far deeper than anything that I had experienced. It was not like the way Millie and Will cared about me, there was no sense of obligation. He cared about me because he wanted to and selfishly, I had let him.
"Avery, please say something."
I open my eyes and turn to look at him watching as his green eyes continue to stare at me.
"Please leave me alone, Dean."
His eyes falter from mine for a moment as he looks down at where our hands were begging to be entangled. His lips fall open and closed a few times before he speaks. "What?"
"I'm not someone that you should want to be around." I elaborate further.
"Yes you are." He raises his voice slightly.
"I will never be who you want me to be." I start. "I'm not the girl that you bring home to your family, that you introduce to your friends, or take on boat rides in the middle of the night. I'm not the girl on you kiss on a checkered blanket in the middle of nowhere. I'm not the girl that you should want to be around."
"Why do you do that?" He responds, his voice now completely laced with anger.
"Do what?"
"Speak so ill of yourself." He lets out a heavy breath. "Never once have I asked anything of you in regards to change. I have never forced you to be with me, to meet my family, to go on a date with me, or to confide in me about your mom. All of those things you have done so rather willingly."
"Screw you, Dean." I say, instantly wishing I could take the words back. "You don't know me."
"So let me," he answers, so much plead in his voice. "Let me know you."
"I can't." I whisper. "I don't want you to."
His mouth opens and closes as he stares at me for a few seconds.
He stands in one swift motion, placing his bag onto one shoulder with one of his hands enclosed around the brown strap. His vacant hand then goes to rest on the front of hair, messing at the way that it had once laid perfectly behind his ears until falls forward and become entangled with the hairs of his eyebrows.
His skin becomes flushed as his eyes met mine once again. He looked so vulnerable in the moment, reminding me of how we had been in the exact same position the day he had asked me to spend time with him, yet the circumstances evidently different. So different.
As Dean stood before me, he looked thoroughly exhausted. His hair a mess, his eyes dull, and his features sunken and it was all because of me. I have completely drained the life out of him in one fell swoop.
He reminded me of my mother in this very moment on my sixteenth birthday. Even though she had tried her best to hide it throughout the entire day, I knew that something was not right. While we all danced to the music, devoured four boxes of pizza, and cut the cake, I noticed yet I didn't say anything. I knew that the look on her face was worse than any other one I had seen her wear, that she looked even more exhausted than after spending two days straight painting, and yet I didn't saying anything. I just watched as she moved lifelessly up the stairs as I said goodbye to all of the party guests.
I watched as my mother had completely fallen and was now watching as Dean was doing the same thing.
"Goodbye Avery."
I watch as he begins to walk before my vision becomes impaired as I close my eyes and rest my head once again against the tree.