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“I did,” he admitted.
“You know I hate being lied to,” she said in a tiny voice, and somehow, that was far worse than her yelling. “You had so many chances to open up to me—to Izzy. Why did you have to do the one thing I can’t forgive?”
“Which is what?”
“Make me wonder if I can trust you.”
She slumped back against the couch, and she didn’t have to say anything else. He knew what he had to do.
Theo let himself out, refusing to look back, because looking back might very well break his fucking heart.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Avery
The podcast ended with the host listing their producers, and a blanket of silence fell over the car. Avery’s mother gripped the steering wheel with her hands at ten and two precisely, because Dr. Kelly Nielson never did anything less than by the book. Sometimes Avery felt like her mother had been born at least forty-five years old; her exacting need to follow the rules so deep she never once did something incorrectly. It was a trait Avery saw in herself sometimes, and thus it drove her nuts.
Avery hadn’t wanted to ask her mom for a ride back to Hilleboe, but after her fight with Theo she didn’t have much of a choice. Sure, other people were going back to the Twin Cities, and at least one of them would have had space in their car, but then she would have had to answer questions about Theo. The one advantage of her mother was she was guaranteed to want to talk about Theo even less than Avery did. All Avery had had to do was tell her mom she and Theo had a fight, and Kelly offered to drive her back right away.
“How are things with your roommate?” Kelly asked without looking over.
It was, as opening gambits went, incredibly low stakes. “She’s fine. We have Poli Sci 113 together, and there’s a project instead of a final, so we’ll probably work together on it. Easier that way, since we see each other every day.”
Kelly made a noise of acknowledgment, and then there was more silence. The tires hummed over the now-dry pavement, and outside barren cornfields spotted with snow whipped past. “Would you want either me or Dad to come get you when finals are done? Or would—would someone else drive you?” There was an uncharacteristic stumble in her words, and Avery had a sneaking suspicion her mom had been about to mention Theo.
She hated to admit it, but it was like a knife to her gut. Every time she thought about him, her heart did this jump-stutter-break thing that physically hurt. She touched her chest, as if that would fix it, and nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
“I’ll check with your father and one of us can come down,” she replied. “I know he felt bad he couldn’t say goodbye today,” Kelly added, and Avery had thought her mood couldn’t get worse, but as with everything over the past few days, she was dead wrong.
“I’m sure,” Avery said, steadfastly looking out the window, because watching her mother lie to her was one of Avery’s least favorite activities.
Avery had long been used to her parents missing things because of their schedules. As doctors at the only hospital in fifty miles in any direction, they worked long, unpredictable hours, and Avery knew by the time she was eight that she couldn’t begrudge them the times they missed piano recitals and soccer games, because for her, it was just a piano recital—for their patient, it was life or death. But her dad hadn’t been at the hospital that morning, as both she and her mother knew damn well, even if Kelly Nielson would probably rather chew through glass than admit it.
Avery threw her bags onto her floor and climbed up into her lofted bed. She was sweaty as hell despite the cold because as it turned out, without Theo to help her haul her shit, it was a lot to carry up the two flights of stairs. But even still, she flopped down dramatically just as Savannah walked in, looking perfectly made up as always. “You’re back,” her roommate said, peering up at Avery. “And—depressed? Is everything okay?”
Avery rolled over to her back and stared at the ceiling tiles, now just two feet above her head. “How can you tell?”
“You’re all sweaty and gross and in your bed without unpacking. I know I don’t know you that well, but you unpack your entire backpack every single night.”
Avery sighed and threw her arm over her head. It unnerved her how easily Savannah had figured her out, when she hadn’t really given Savannah much thought other than “pretty” and “sorority wannabe.” She hadn’t been fair to her roommate, she knew that, but aside from Theo, Avery hadn’t made a new friend in half a decade. She was rusty.
Avery felt the bed shake slightly as Savannah hoisted herself up the side, and then the mattress dip when she sat down. “Do you want to talk about it?” Savannah asked, her voice gentle.
“You probably don’t want to hear it,” Avery said, peeking out from under her elbow.
Savannah shrugged, one leg dangling over the edge of the bed. “Try me.”
“I had a bad Thanksgiving break.”
“So I gathered.”
Avery sighed. “Really bad. Like, catastrophic. The worst. No one has ever had a worse Thanksgiving break in the history of Thanksgiving breaks.”
“Are you going to give details or just superlatives?”
Avery sat up and crossed her legs to make more space for Savannah. There were so many places to start, so many things that had gotten fucked up in the last twenty-four hours, that she wasn’t sure where to begin. “My dad is cheating on my mom,” she said, surprising even herself.
Avery had never admitted it out loud. It didn’t feel good, not really, but there was some relief in finally saying it to someone, rather than letting the thoughts run around her head on an endless silent loop.
