10.
Saturday morning dragged by. Saturday afternoon Avery busied herself with laundry and cleaning. By the evening, she gave up. Ellie was right. Avery did need to get out more and do things.
So she figured on starting small. Instead of cooking for herself – a prospect that she found depressing – she changed from her shorts and t-shirt into a skirt and silk tank top. She combed her long hair straight down her back, put on a bit of lip gloss, and headed out to treat herself to dinner out.
It did not bother Avery a bit to have dinner alone. She liked to people watch. She knew that some people wouldn't go anywhere unless they had a friend or a date but she was perfectly content to enjoy steak and salad in her town's only real sit-down restaurant without company.
Once dinner was finished, she spent a little time walking the shopping center, looking into windows, buying a few things for herself and Emily. She saw quite a few people she knew, and smiled and nodded, but she was happy to not engage in conversation with any of them. It was like they could sense her mood.
It was starting to get dark out when she got into her car and pondered her next stop. She could go home. Or she could drive thirty minutes and see a movie. She realized she had no idea what was playing. So she just drove. It was another warm May night. Avery frowned thoughtfully as she headed out of town. She knew exactly where she was going. And she really did not want to go there but felt like she had to.
The pond. By the time she drove down the gravel drive, night had fallen. She had not been here in years, not since Emily was a baby. Once Em had learned to swim, the pond hadn't been challenging enough. And to Avery it was a relief to go to the big lake instead. No memories there. So why the hell was she torturing herself by coming here now?
It was exactly how she remembered. Oh there were some differences. The old wooden picnic tables had been replaced with heavy-duty plastic and metal tables. A covered pavilion was off to one side, to accommodate birthday parties or gatherings. The beach still looked clean and white under the light of the rising moon, the water smooth and flat. No footprints. No one had made use of the beach, or it had been raked over earlier in the evening.
Avery got out of her car and looked around. Deserted, just as she'd thought it would be. And so quiet. Other than frogs and crickets, she couldn't even hear a car on the nearby road.
She had a sense of deja vu so strong it made her pause. She thought it over for a few moments and realized it was exactly 20 years to the day since the last time she'd been at the pond at night. It felt like just yesterday. And a lifetime ago.
With a sigh, Avery went to the picnic table nearest the beach. She sat on top of it, letting her feet rest on the seat as she stared out at the calm water.
Fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty. And then she heard a soft sound behind her. Footsteps. A part of her had known this would happen. Avery wasn't surprised. But she didn't turn. She waited him out. The anger from the other night was gone. She just wanted to know why.
"Are you gonna swim?" Mark's deep voice finally spoke from behind her. Avery felt a shiver go down her back at his words. She remembered.
"You're tryin' to distract me." A smile twitched the corners of her lips but it was a sad one. "I guess it worked, right?"
"You were not just a distraction." At least he wasn't doing the silent thing, making her wait it out. And as long as she didn't look at him, she could hold the hurt and the anger back.
"Then what was I?" Avery asked it softly. Did she really want to know the answer to that?
She felt the table move as he sat down behind her on the bench seat. "My best friend. The only person I trusted. Somebody I knew would listen." Avery could practically feel his eyes on her back. He was being smart, staying behind her. "I never wanted to hurt you." His voice dipped lower at that.
Avery was surprised by his words. His best friend? Since when? He paid her to drill him on facts to pass tests. That was it. She had no clue what to say either.
He didn't let that bother him. "It wasn't because of you. I wasn't ashamed of you. You were the best thing that ever happened to me." Mark huffed a laugh. It sounded rusty. "I wanted to see you. That's why I stuck around. Watching. I know it sounds...wrong." There was a deep sigh. "I'm sorry for just leaving you the way I did. For doing what I did."
"For doing what we did." Avery corrected. "I wasn't...I'm not sorry it happened. I don't regret it. Why do you?" She felt tears building in her eyes.
"Are you kidding? I don't regret it. Hell, I dreamed about it a hundred times before it happened. I thought you would regret it once it sank in. I knew I wasn't good enough for you. Not even close. You deserved way better than me."
Avery sniffled but said nothing.
"Do you wanna know the real reason I couldn't talk to you? Or see you or contact you?"
"It would be nice." Avery said softly. "Although I know I wasn't your type. I wasn't pretty or popular or..."
"I wish you would stop that. Not pretty?" He made that strange laugh again. "You were beautiful."
"I was a mouse."
"You're crazy. Do you understand how many guys used to talk about you? Daydream about you? It used to piss the girls off."
Avery shook her head. "Yeah. That's me. Cleopatra among the peasants." Her voice was all sarcasm.
"You kinda were. Guys were afraid to approach you. Because of your dad. It's the kind of scrutiny that nobody would stand up under."
"And that's why you left?" Avery thought he was full of shit. Her, beautiful? Not in this lifetime.
"God no. It was your mom."
"My mom?" Avery raised an eyebrow.
"She never told you, I take it."
"Never told me what?" Avery asked, confused.
"That night. That I spent at your house." He paused thoughtfully. "It was early. Seven or eight. I heard a noise. I went to check it out and it was your mom. I surprised the hell out of her. But then she clamped down and hid it. She was pissed that I was there. And I told her everything."
"Everything?" Avery's voice was a whisper.
"I felt like I had to. I was never so scared in my whole life as I was sitting in your kitchen, in my underwear, with your mom standing over me." He sounded amused. "And she wanted to know what was going on. So I told her. Everything. About my mom. About you trying to help me. And that I knew I wasn't good enough for you but I loved you and wanted to be with you."
Avery sat in stunned silence. She couldn't have spoken if he'd put a gun to her head.
"The angry left her. She sat down and we...talked. I told her how I saw you. Perfect. Beautiful. Smart. Better than I deserved. I wanted to make myself better but didn't know how. I had nothing to offer you. And she said..." He paused for a moment. "Actually she thanked me. For being honest. And mature." He scoffed at the word. "Then she asked me to leave. She said that you'd be hurt but you'd get over it. That you would need time to sort out your life. That you were younger and that you might not want the same things I wanted. She made sense. I had already thought about that stuff, see? She wasn't planting new ideas in my head. So I told her I'd leave. Because of my mom but also because I didn't want to hold you back more than I already had. But I made her promise me that she'd stop tryin' to make you feel smaller than you were. Stop tryin' to turn you into something you weren't." He let out a deep breath and stopped talking finally. Avery didn't know he had that many words in him.
And it explained why her mother, who until that point had been critical of everything that Avery did, had changed how she viewed her daughter. And she had known that Avery had slept with Mark. "She never said a word. About knowing. Never even hinted that she knew." But she remembered her mom buying that dress, the black one. The one she'd said meant she was ready to be a woman. Now Avery understood it wasn't just the graduation she was talking about.
"She asked if we were safe. I said we were. That seemed to settle her down." Mark added thoughtfully. "I shouldn't have listened to her. I should have stayed. I wanted to. But I don't think I was ready to stand up to your mom."
"Nobody was ever ready for that." Avery observed. She absently wiped at her cheeks, brushing away a few stray tears. "You loved me." She said it as a statement.
"Never could tell you. Never felt comfortable sayin' stuff like that." Mark admitted. "And I didn't think I deserved you. But for a while I kept sneakin' back. Like a thief." Again the rusty laugh. "Saw you graduate. And saw you dance. You were good. Not that I know a about that stuff but...you were sad. I felt it. And then you went to college and..."
Avery raised an eyebrow. She slid from the table and stood for a moment, indecisive. And then she turned to look at him.
Her memory of that night twenty years ago tried to impose on the reality of Mark now. It was an odd feeling. He still sported a dark t-shirt, his long hair tied back once again in a braid. She looked him over thoughtfully. At some point over the years he had gotten tattoos. A lot of them. Both is arms were covered up to the sleeves of his shirt.
Her heart was thumping in her chest. She once again wondered how he still managed to do that to her. Those butterflies were back, making her feel self-conscious. She hadn't forgiven him. But he'd given her plenty to think about.