I missed the dumbass shenanigans we used to get into when we were stupid teenagers. Sneaking off to parties and then ditching them once we found the stash of alcohol and pilfereda bottle so we could go hang out in the woods and drink by ourselves. We always had way more fun with just the two of us than being surrounded by a bunch of people we grew up with.
Back then, I’d deluded myself into believing that I could get Avery to fall in love with me. That by being his best friend was somehow a cheat code into turning him gay or getting him to question his sexuality long enough to realize I was perfect for him.
Clearly, that had worked out real well for me.
“Come on...” I stepped back to offer my hand. “Let’s get you home.”
He slapped it away from him. “Can’t send me away. Came all the way here... to hang.”
“It’s ten at night, Avery. You should be in bed.”
“Not old.”
I huffed out a laugh. “That’s not what I meant. You don’t relax in bed before you go to sleep?”
He pinned me with a weird look. “No.”
Of course not. He was always too restless for that sort of thing. “Let me bring you home.”
“No.”
“You can’t stay here. I’m leaving for the night.”
Avery’s face pinched together in a painfully sorrowful look. “Oh...”
Even without him meaning to, he guilted me into wanting to take care of him.
What did it say about me and that deeply unfilled void that craved being needed?
Outside of anyone else, I would’ve called it a day and told them to get out or else they’d find my wrench being thrown at them.
But not with Avery.
Never with Avery.
He was always a damn exception.
“Kind of sounds like you’re avoiding going home,” I said.
He nodded quickly.
Bingo.
Not a surprise, either. Being surrounded by the memories of your past and the things that could no longer be were probably both haunting and disconcerting. Even with as great of a relationship that I’d had with my mother, I couldn’t wait to leave the nest.
Avery had no such luxury. He’d been forced to go back to that house and be confronted by everything he left behind.
I wondered how much of it changed?
Stayed the same?
How much did he recognize that brought those same agonizing memories back, and how much was new and startling to come to realize that life moves on with or without you?
As sad as it was to leave my mother’s home, I at least would never feel suffocated there.
“You can sober up at my place, how’s that sound?” Offering him another hand that was quickly taken, I heaved him up out of his chair and steadied him while he swayed into me.
He was quite a bit taller than me which was much more obvious being this up close to him. He smelled nice, outside of the soft fragrance of alcohol coloring his breath.
