Chapter 15.
My heart pounded in my throat as I sat in stunned silence, unable to wrap my brain around the fact that my awful roommate was standing in my father's house. How was this even possible?
I glanced over at Dylan, wondering if he had invited her home for Thanksgiving as his date, or something equally twisted. But that didn't make any sense. If Dylan had been the one to invite Avery, she would have shown up when he did. And Tony had said something about his daughter.
I gulped, feeling sick at the thought. It was too horrible to contemplate. If Avery was Tony's daughter, and Tony was my step-father, that would make Avery...my stepsister? I felt completely blindsided. Had Avery known about this? And why was I just now finding out?
My only consolation was that Dylan looked just as shocked as I felt. His normally tanned had paled considerably, and he kept glancing between Avery and me, as though waiting for the inevitable verbal sparring to start. Not that I could blame him. Avery and me in the same room together was a recipe for disaster, even though none of the others knew enough to grasp the gravity of the situation.
Tony cleared his throat. "Everyone, this is my daughter, Avery. Avery, this is your stepsister, Lilly, her father, and her friends."
Avery smiled coyly, her voice sugary sweet as she replied, "Oh, Lilly and I already know each other. We're roomies."
That was one way of putting it. A very mild, understated way of putting it. It would have been more accurate to say that we were enemies, but even so, Avery's words made Kelsey and Luke look at me with eyebrows raised. Each of them had been privy to enough conversations about Avery to know that my roommate was pretty much pure evil.
Dylan let out a long, slow laugh. "Well, this just got interesting," he said with a smirk. I glared at him, willing him to shut up. I wasn't sure how much my mother and Tony knew about the roommate situation with Avery. Considering the fact that Tony had just introduced us, I was willing to bet they didn't know about it at all.
Mom shot me a questioning look. "Really? Why didn't you tell me that you and Avery were roommates?"
I crossed my arms, returning her look with a frosty glare. If my mom wanted to act all indignant that she wasn't privy to every detail of my life, fine. Two could play at that game. "Why didn't you tell me I have a stepsister?" I asked.
Mom's face wrinkled in confusion. "Of course I told you," she said, although she looked less than certain. "Besides, she was at the wedding."
Dad frowned. "But Lilly wasn't," he reminded her.
Mom had invited me, and had wanted me to bring a date, but since she had decided to get married in California, I had chosen to stay home. There had been too much going on at the time, and I had just started dating Luke. Apparently, missing the wedding meant I had missed out on some important information. Like the fact that Tony had a daughter my age.
"Oh, right," Mom said, looking a bit sheepish. That was my mother, for you. She loved me, in her own way, but she was so scatterbrained at times, it was a wonder that she had stayed married to my dad as long as she had. Most of the time, she acted more like a teenager than a mother. "So, you wouldn't have met Avery, then. Not at the wedding, at least. But I'm sure I introduced the two of you at some point."
I shook my head, completely certain she had not. "Mom, I just met Tony for the first time today. I assure you, I had no idea that he even had a daughter before today. I thought Avery was just a randomly assigned roommate."
Which reminded me that Avery had been awfully quiet for this entire conversation. "Did you know?" I asked, glancing over at her. She had taken a seat beside Tony, and was sitting quietly, watching the drama go down with a self-satisfied smirk.
"Of course I knew," she laughed sharply, clearly enjoying my ignorance. "I honestly can't believe you didn't. Don't you ever talk to your own mother?"
I shrugged, because Avery was right. My mom and I talked some, but clearly, we didn't talk about important things. Mom normally just wanted to catch up on the gossip about the boys in my life. Which meant important details like Avery's existence seldom came up.
"We talk some," I said defensively. "But somehow, you never came up." I glared over at my mother, who shrugged, not understanding the tension between me and Avery, because the two of us didn't talk about things like trouble with roommates.
"This is great," my mom said, clapping her hands together and smiling widely. Somehow, she had managed to completely misread the situation. "So you and Avery are already friends?"
How did I even begin to answer that? My mind was buzzing with hundreds of questions. Avery had hated me before we had even talked, and now, I had a hunch that it had something to do with our parents. But I still didn't understand why us being stepsisters somehow translated to her hating me. I had never done anything to her. None of this made any sense to me. Had Avery requested me as her roommate, or had it just been a strange coincidence? Why hadn't any of this ever come up before?
"Oh, Lilly and I know each other very well," Avery gloated. "We've even dated some of the same guys, haven't we, Lilly?"
"Umm...actually, to my knowledge, we haven't," I replied. "Unless there's something you're not telling me?"
Avery's overly saccharine smile chilled me to the core. "Don't act like you didn't go for my sloppy seconds before you'd even broken up with your high school boyfriend."
"Who, Will?" I asked. "We're just friends."
Avery smirked. "With benefits? Isn't that what people call it nowadays?"
"Just friends," I emphasized.
Avery shrugged, feigning complete innocence. "Oh, that's not what I heard. I heard that someone took a picture of you and Will looking intimate and sent it to your boyfriend, and he got jealous and dumped you. What a pity, that it was all just a big misunderstanding."
I swallowed, barely containing my rage at her admission. Sure, Dylan had sworn that he hadn't sent that picture, and he suspected Avery had, but she had all but confessed to it. She was toying with me, and I had no idea how to get even with her without getting myself into trouble. My parents didn't know that Avery and I mixed about as well as oil and water, and if I didn't proceed carefully, I would look like the bad guy in this scenario, and Avery would look completely innocent. Which, I had no doubt, was her intention.
"So, since we've established that Will and I are not, in fact, dating, who else did you mean? Since you mentioned guys, plural, I assume you meant more than one?"
Avery smirked, glancing over at Dylan. "I meant Dylan, of course. My current boyfriend, and your ex-boyfriend."
Dylan was in no way my ex-boyfriend. We had never been more than friends. And, I had already known for months that Avery and Dylan were dating. Still, her words made me feel sick to my stomach, because in a way, Avery had stolen Dylan from me. She hadn't stolen an ex-boyfriend, though. She had stolen my best friend, and if I was being honest, I really missed him. Dylan had a way of putting things into perspective, and he would have known exactly what to say to help me stop worrying about the future and start enjoying my college experience.
I sucked in a breath, struggling to come up with words to say, but Dylan beat me to it.
"Actually, Avery, I think you've got that last one backwards," Dylan said, the corners of his mouth quirking up into his all-too-familiar smirk. "As I recall, I broke up with you two weeks ago. So, technically, that would make me your ex-boyfriend, not Lilly's. And I'm still Lilly's friend. That is, if she'll forgive me for being dumb enough to date you, even for a couple of months. Which, I'm sure she will eventually, given my considerable charm and relentless pestering," Dylan said, winking at me.
At that moment, I wasn't sure if I wanted to hug Dylan for coming to my defense, or smack him for assuming that I would forgive him that easily. Honestly, now that he wasn't hanging out with the most toxic person I had ever met, I was inclined to think that yes, I would forgive Dylan eventually. But I was going to make him work for it first.
Avery gaped at Dylan, and for the first time I could recall, she didn't immediately have a comeback ready. She bristled, then turned her attention to Luke. "Hey, hot stuff," she said, turning on the charm.
Luke held his hands up. "Sorry, I'm not interested," he said. "I'm taken."
I was glad that Luke didn't seem to buy into Avery's act. I only wished I knew what Luke meant by 'taken.' Did he mean me? Or was he seeing someone else?
Since the rest of the table was still staring at us, trying to puzzle out exactly what was going on, I figured what we really needed was a distraction. "How about some dessert?" I asked. "I'll go grab the pies."
Avery smiled slyly. "I'll come help you," she offered, following me into the kitchen. As soon as we were in the relative privacy of the kitchen, she grabbed me by the arm, leaning in close to me. "What are you playing at?" she growled.
I ripped my arm away from her. "I have no idea what you mean," I informed her, my voice acidic.
"How dare you use Dylan against me?"
"I didn't use Dylan. He's his own person. Whatever is going on between you two, is between you. I didn't ask him to defend me. He did it because he's my friend. And you're the one who's being awful. Maybe if you weren't such a witch all the time, Dylan wouldn't need to come to my defense. Seriously, Avery, what is your problem with me?"
"Like you don't already know," she snapped.
I crossed my arms. "No, actually, I don't know. So please, enlighten me. What could I possibly have done to you? You had already decided to hate me before we even met."
"You stole my father from me, you bitch," Avery growled.
Of all of the things I had expected her to say, that hadn't been one of them. "I'm sorry, what?"
"You. Stole. My. Father. He was happily married, until your home wrecker mother came along and tempted him away. Now he's following her around the country, playing music in bars and living like some kind of hippy, while my mom is dealing with severe depression and binge drinking and basically falling apart."
Her story made me feel the tiniest amount of sympathy for her, but it still didn't explain her attitude towards me. After all, even if what she said was true, that was my mother. It had nothing to do with me.
"I had nothing to do with any of it," I insisted. "Our parents are adults. Their choices are their own. Why the heck would you hate me for something my mother did."
"Because, while you got to live with a doting father and date exclusively football players, my entire home life was falling apart. Maybe that wasn't directly your fault, but it was your mothers, and you are just like her. You even look like her. My father won't let me retaliate against your mother, but you? You're fair game."
"You're delusional," I said, shaking my head. "No matter how cruel you are to me, it isn't going to change any of what happened. I'm sorry your home life is rough, but that isn't my fault. And apparently, we're stepsisters. My mom is kind of a flake, but my dad is great. If you'd been halfway nice to me, we could have been friends, and he would have let you come visit us for holidays. We could have been close. You're choosing to be alone instead of asking for help, Avery. That's just stupid and petty."
"You think I want your sympathy, and your charity? I don't need you or your father, Lilly. I just need my father back."
"Well, since your parents are divorced, and your father is remarried, I don't think that's going to happen quite the way you want it to. So why don't you grow up, stop displacing your anger onto me, and just talk to someone about your problems, okay?"
Avery's scowl darkened. "I knew coming here was a stupid idea," she muttered.
"So why did you?" I asked. "What did you expect would happen? That my dad and mom would rekindle their long dead romance over a turkey dinner, and your dad would decide to go back to your mom? Because obviously, that's not happening."
"I didn't have a choice," Avery growled. "My father made me come. Trust me, I wanted no part in it. I want nothing to do with you, but somehow, no one seems to take that for an answer."
I pinched the bridge of my nose with my hand, trying to ease some of the stress of the conversation with Avery. I'd known that she was crazy, but this was a whole new level of insane. "Look, why don't we just keep our distance?" I offered. "We can fill out a roommate transfer form, and swap roommates when the semester ends. That way, I don't have to see you, you don't have to see me, and we'll both be happier."
Avery scoffed. "You think that after all I've been through, I'm letting you off the hook that easily? Dream on, Faye. I plan on making your life miserable for all four years of college."
The worst part was, I had no doubt that Avery meant every word that she said. And I had no idea what to do to stop her.Maybe, just maybe, if I stopped reacting so strongly to everything that she said, the entertainment value of it would wear off, and she would leave me alone. Especially if what Dylan had said was true, and he and Avery really had broken up. Without Dylan to leverage against me, Avery was just an annoying blusterer. She had lost her ace of spades.
Grabbing a pie off the counter, I pointedly ignored Avery, refusing to rise to her bait. From this moment on, I was done letting a single thing that girl said or did get to me. She wasn't even worth it. She was just a shallow, petty girl who was hurting, and was using bullying me as a way of making herself feel better. I was beyond done putting up with her.
If Avery wanted to make my life miserable, let her try. I had a new friend in Will, a recently rekindled friendship with Madison, a budding relationship with Luke, and the promise of having Dylan as my friend back. What could Avery possibly do to me now?