I'm never ever going to change
This's who I am
Going to feel my own pain
Haven't been here in years
~ Palaye Royal, Get Higher
Avril's POV
I roll my shoulders as I try to work the knot out of my shoulders.
Maybe being hunched over the table all night wasn't the best idea, but after signing those papers yesterday I had this amazing urge to write.
Yesterday was chaotic.
After Will and I had finished with entertaining the idea of being together one last time we had worked all night to get everything out and into a moving truck which I would be paying to be driven home.
It had finally sunken in when we were signing the papers away to the house that my home would officially be LA.
"Why am I doing your English homework?" I question as I look at the cover of the novel in hand; The Great Gatsby.
"Because I don't like English and you're good at it, please? I need a good mark or I can kiss Hawaii away." Kai sits down beside me on her bed, giving me a puppy dog look.
"You're still on that?" I sigh, knowing how stubborn my uncle is; he will never allow her to go to Hawaii and live with her uncle but knowing how stubborn Kai is I know she'll fight till her last breath.
"Yes!"
"What about Mason?" I question.
Mason has been Kai's best friend for 14 years and her boyfriend for the last two.
Not to mention he's the first guy that has been able to handle her sass and somewhat violent attitude, but then again they both have a fiery attitude that seems to work well.
"He'll get it, I think. He knows this is something I want and has been for the last 10 years." Kai looks frustrated with my question as she runs her fingers through her bleached curls. "I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not, you should understand Avril."
I sigh, knowing all too well that my little cousin is right.
How can she have figured out how to stand up to her parents at seventeen when it took me till I was twenty-four to do that.
Even then I'm barely standing up for myself.
"Just think about it Kai, he's important to you." It's true, he was there through every step of her parents almost separating, the aftermaths of fights with her dad and all the good in between.
"I'm not going to give up my dreams for a boy." Kai turns her back on me, ending our conversation as I listen to her clicking away at her Mac.
I look down at my phone, hoping for a text from Erik even though that is stupid of me. I know very well there won't be.
I only work for him and hopefully, I can do it without having to interact with them.
That would be ideal.
"When do you leave?" Kai asks, pulling me from my thoughts of Erik and how the next few months will be.
Maybe I'll forget about him.
"Tomorrow morning, I have to get back to LA." Kai nods her head over her shoulder at me, "guess you better convince my dad tonight then."
My aunt was only somewhat able to convince my uncle, like my mother he's always been controlling of his child's life.
Like brother, like sister.
"I thought your mom did?"
"Sort of, he wants to make sure that we are actually visiting Marcus and not jetting off somewhere else. He doesn't trust us from two years ago." We both laugh at the memory of the spontaneous trip we took to San Francisco in the middle of her school year.
"That was so much fun and you got that cute tour guide's number." I point out to Kai, who just shakes her head at me.
"He wanted your number though," Kai smirks as she flops down beside me, "he was way cuter than Will."
"Can we not talk about Will?'
"Why?" Kai's head snaps up to look at me with concern, "what happened now? Please tell me you don't have feelings for him."
"No...nothing like that." I sigh, I want to tell Kai, but I'm afraid of what she will say, and the judgement that will lace her words. I sometimes forget that Kai is only seventeen and that she doesn't fully understand relationships.
Not to mention she's only ever dated Mason.
I don't even know what came over me last night, maybe it was the hurt of waking up cold and alone after the night with Erik, maybe it was really a way to end our chapter together.
Whatever it was, it was nothing compared to the night with Erik in that Marriott hotel.
"Did you two fuck?" Kai shrieks when I don't answer, "what about Erik?"
"Nothing, that's over. We are moving on from whatever we had." I roll my eyes as I try not to think of how it felt that morning, the loneliness and regret that seeped into me.
I had thought we were finally at a good spot, but apparently not.
"Av, you can talk to me. What happened? Did Erik do something to you?"
I smile at her before speaking, "I'll explain after dinner, K. I don't think we will have enough time, plus I can't be a mess to talk to your dad."
Kai just nods her head at me as we sit in silence until her mom calls us down.
"Here." My aunt hands me a glass of red wine as I take a seat across from Kai at the kitchen table that overlooks a park, reminding me of when I was little and wanted a condo that overlooked Central Park.
Maybe I will one day.
"Thank you." I say as I take it from her and stare at the roast she made, "how's work at the hospital?"
"Busy, lots of sick children." Kai's mother works as a pediatric surgeon at the local children's hospital, "we have the cutest little boy right now who's making everyone laugh even though he has a rare birth defect, such a trooper."
I watch her eyes light up as she tells me about her job and the up and coming fundraiser they are planning to get a new MRI machine.
"Would you come? It's next month and I think Kai would love to have someone around her own age there."
"I would love to."
"You could bring that boy I've seen you hanging out with." My aunt winks at me as my uncle, Kai's father, sits down.
"What did I miss?" He questions, "so good to see you, Avril."
"Avril has agreed to fly back to Boston for the children's fundraiser, it would be around the same time the two of them would be leaving for Ireland." My aunt smiles at her husband for love and adoration.
I don't ever think my parents ever did that.
"Right, so, the two of you want to visit The Tank?" I laugh at the use of Marcus's hockey nickname, a name he deserved.
"That's the plan, it would be easier to fly to see him as he will be finishing exams during that month," I say, knowing that my uncle has always loved Marcus and treated him more like a son more than my mother ever did.
"And how is school going?"
"He's doing well, really enjoying his classes. He says he misses you." I smile, hoping that butters my uncle up.
"Tell him to visit."
"You know he can't, Dad." Kia says softly as she looks down, "auntie doesn't ever want to see him again."
It's true, my mother doesn't want to see the disappointment that Marcus is. She doesn't want to see the son that would rather study history and spend hours staring at a single painting then work for his own father. The son who is bisexual and therefore a disappointment. Everything else she could have lived with, but that was the final straw.
"I know sweetie, but he shouldn't hide from his family."
"That's why we are going to visit him, I don't want my brother to spend another Christmas without family." I wait for my uncle's response, knowing that I have played my cards right.
"You're right, Kai, you can go but I'm driving and walking you to the gate. No taking off to see that uncle of yours, understood?"
"100 percent dad." Kai looks at me and smiles, "I need to tell Marcus."
The rest of dinner goes off without a hitch, no talk of Hawaii or my life that seems to be a puzzle.
"So you gonna tell me about Erik?" Kai asks as soon as we are seated in front of the fire in her living room with hot apple cider in hand.
"So we ended up having sex and when I woke up the next morning I was alone in a hotel room. No note or text message."
"Have you heard from him since?" Kai asks, blowing on her apple cider.
"No." I watch the flames dance across the logs, the room filling with the smell of pine from the Scentsy beside us.
"Maybe he got scared, I don't know a lot about what's going on between you two, but he waited for that long and we both know he's a man slut. Avril, don't worry, you'll go back and everything will be fine." I shift my eyes from the flames to look at her.
"K, he told Lucas that what happened between us was a mistake."
Edited by GirlReader133