I had no idea what on Earth she was talking about. Though judging by the way Avery’s face was slipping into an amused expression, he must’ve been given the same lecture recently, too.
Hazel was always like a pseudo-mother to him, and me by extension. She treated Avery well growing up. Kept his head on straight and his ego in check—personally determined to not let him turn out anything like his father. Which she’d absolutely succeeded in doing.
She should be proud of the man she’d molded him into. I certainly was.
“Sorry,” was all that came out of my mouth.
I wasn’t going to bother with any half-assed or lame excuses. I didn’t have any that would make sense, let alone grant me forgiveness in the eyes of Hazel for practically cutting off all contact the moment Avery stopped responding to my letters.
What would the point have been to keep torturing myself like that?
It was easier to sever the infected limb and hope that it’d heal on its own.
She merely huffed at me, shaking her head in the process. “You’re both lucky I’m still very fond of you.”
Wasn’t that the truth.
We’d gotten away with a lot when we were kids for that very reason. Probably too much so, looking back.
Hazel slipped the towel off her shoulder, waving it at the both of us while spinning on her heel. “Come back to the kitchen. You can catch me up on your life while I finish prepping for the week.”
“Actually,” Avery finally spoke. “We’ll join you in a bit. I need to show Brandon something that I’ve been meaning to give to him.”
My stomach churned.
I knew what that was code for:we need to talk.
It had to happen eventually, except now that the time was here, I was freezing up, my instincts telling me to turn around and rip open those doors and run back to my truck. It was the coward’s way out, but at least it would save me from whatever rejection was waiting for me upstairs.
Avery’s hand slipped around my arm, a gentle tug that began to nudge me in the direction of the grand staircase leading up to the second floor. Resisting him was futile, as was trying to make up some excuse to join Hazel in the kitchen instead.
Staving off the inevitable, no matter how painful and embarrassing this was going to be, would only make the fallout over this that much worse.
At least I could wallow on the couch with a cold beer once I was finally home.
With the sound of Hazel’s heels clacking back down the hallway to the kitchen, I was pulled up the stairs and down the hall to Avery’s room—the last door on the left. Upon stepping into the room, I was taken back through time.
Hardly anything had changed over the decades since the room’s use. The bed set and curtains were still the same brocade fabric, dipped in a dark hue of blues and greens that complimented the rich color of the floor’s carpet. The room’s wallpaper still had that slight silky sheen to it that always felt smooth against my skin when I’d run my hands along the subtle pattern, barely noticeable until you were up close to it.
Across the way was Avery’s old school desk, the surface cleared completely aside from a small stack of files that looked new in comparison to the school books that were usually sitting on top of it. The door to the suite’s bathroom was open, the lights shut off, but I knew if I walked in there, that same brassy gold hardware would still shine under the amplified lights with not a single fingerprint to be seen pressed against their surfaces.
Avery let go of my arm to shut the door behind us, leaving my side in order to shrug off the quarter sleeve shirt he’d been wearing when we’d run into each other at the festival.
My eyes darted away quickly to purposefully avoid staring at the defined lines of muscle running along his back. Instead, I focused on the wall next to me as he headed for his walk-in closet.
There was a single photo frame still tacked onto the wall, a familiar one that I remember I used to spend so much time memorizing, waiting for Avery to step out of the shower or forhim to come back up after being called away to answer for whatever ridiculous misdeed his father had made up that day
Inside of it was a picture of a young Avery and his mother, Leanne, her arms circled tight around him while they both wore large grins on their faces while facing the camera. I loved picking out the pieces of her that reflected in Avery, the parts that were now the only living memory that she ever existed.
Back when she’d passed, Avery’s father had all but wiped her from existence, leaving hardly anything behind aside from the surface-level traces that could’ve easily been passed off as the artful eye of an interior decorator.
The day after her funeral, family photos were taken down and shoved into some long forgotten box now left to rot somewhere down in the basement of this mansion, along with trinkets, clothing and anything else that could serve as a stark reminder of her. And just like that, it was like she’d never stepped foot inside of this house to begin with.
This was one of the only remaining things that were left.
I knew Avery missed her. We all did.
His father would’ve preferred if we all forgot about her. I don’t think he ever accounted for how many people she’d impacted during her short thirty-two years on this Earth. And now he was lying cold in the ground, too, right alongside her.
