Page 51 of It Started with a Sunset
He gave her a look that made her heart skip a beat—something he’d been doing frequently enough that she wondered if an entirely new rhythm of her heart was something she needed to ask her doctor about.
She heard Pavani say, “Summer Graham,” and realized that she hadn’t been listening to anything her friend had been saying on stage, but knew it was time to head up there to give her presentation on all the ways that these students were going to feel right at home at Lake Baldwin State University.
When she got up on stage, she took one last glance at Brock and smiled, knowing that when she finished her presentation, he’d be the one clapping the loudest.
Epilogue
Avery
“Oh my heck specks, it is cold out there!” Avery said to no one in particular as she stepped into the event center with a crowd of basketball fans dressed in purple and teal. The warm air made her do a full-body shiver as she shook the snow off her coat and stomped her boots on the mats. The snowstorm had only dumped about eight inches today, but the winds were already blowing drifts that were closer to six feet high around the building.
Instead of following the crowds to the ticketing agents at the main doors leading into the arena, she followed the curving hallway around to the other side of the building, where the small gym stood adjacent to the arena. As soon as she walked through the doors, she saw Pavani, Elle, Everett, Deja, Tess, Summer’s friend Valeria, and in front of them all, Brock.
She waved to all of them, then walked up to Brock. “Holy donut holes, you’re practically glowing! Is it from excitement or nerves?”
He chuckled. “A little of both.” He took in a deep breath. “Actually, alotof both.”
“Are you ready for this?” She knew Brock didn’t love the spotlight like Summer did, and she was so impressed that he would do something this huge for her. Avery didn’t know if she would be willing to do the same.
He nodded his head.
“It’s going to go great, I know it.” She turned to glance at the door, amazed at how much she could hear the crowd even though the game hadn’t started yet. “I better get in there and find Summer. Good luck!”
He nodded and said thanks, then Avery headed back around the outer hallway and went through the normal doors into the arena. She immediately spotted the crowd of Aquamoose Tracks students and ambassadors in the section just beside center court. With two hundred of them present, all standing and sitting in the same area, holding their growl towels, and eating Aquamoose Tracks ice cream, it wasn’t hard. And once she saw them, she pretty quickly spotted Summer as she made her way up toward the top of the stands, straight up from the students.
When she reached Summer, her friend gave her a hug before they both sat down. “Thank you so much for coming tonight. I didn’t think I’d have a problem finding someone in the Welcome Center to take Pavani’s place when she said she had to leave to go help a friend. I figured Brock would be here, since he always is, but then his brother had a thing he needed help with, and Elle had some party and Everett said he had to head to his parents’, and even Deja had a conflict.”
“Wow,” Avery said, hoping her voice didn’t give anything away. “That’s pretty bonkers to have everyone busy on the same night.”
“Right?” She pulled out two packages of M&M’s and handed one to Avery. “So I’m super grateful that you were willing to come.”
After the band finished playing the school’s fight song, prompting nearly nine thousand people to join in singing, Summer turned to Avery and asked, “So how’s life? Been on any fun adventures lately?” before popping a candy into her mouth.
Avery looked down at her M&M’s, tipping the package a bit, watching the colored candies fall over each other. “No adventures. At all.” It was probably because it was February—the part of the year when it felt like winter was never going to end and there was nothing fun going on anywhere. “My life has been so boring.”
“Well, that needs fixing, ASAP. That’s no way to live.”
Avery smiled. She liked being around Summer. She made it feel like anything was possible if she was willing to take a step in the right direction. “I’ve actually been thinking about contacting my friend Nikolas Servais.”
Summer grabbed her arm. “The foreign exchange student who lived at your house as a teenager? The one in Belgium?”
Avery grinned. “Yep, that one. He said I could go visit him anytime and he would show me around the place. I don’t know, I just feel like I need to do something drastic to get my life out of the rut it’s in. Maybe I should do that.” She was craving adventure, and that was bigger than any adventure she could imagine. “I’m just nervous.”
“About the cost?”
Avery shook her head. “I have enough saved for the plane ticket. And since Nikolas said I could stay in his grandpa’s flat, I wouldn’t have to pay for lodging. It’s just … I don’t know. Big.” She didn’t do adventures that big. The biggest adventure she’d been on in a long time had been sneaking into her own office area five months ago.
“I want you to think of this,” Summer said as they both raised their arms in the air as the wave of raised arms circling the arena circled around their direction. “Imagine that you contacted that sweet boy you knew as a teenager, who is probably just as sweet of a man now, and he—and a girlfriend, you said?—showed you around Belgium and you had the vacation of a lifetime. Now picture yourself a year from now and think about how you would feel.”
Avery closed her eyes, imagining exactly that, and let the emotions that followed sink into her, filling her completely. Without even opening her eyes, she said, “I would feel powerful. Like I could accomplish anything.”
“Okay, now imagine you never took that leap to contact Nikolas. Picture yourself a year from now—how would you feel?”
The negative feelings felt so overwhelming that her eyes flew open as if to reassure herself that she wasn’t actually experiencing that. “Kind of … hopeless, I guess.” She tried to think about how to explain it. “Like my life was destined to always be boring and unfulfilling. Like not taking that chance would make me not take any future chances, either.” Wow. Experiencing both sets of emotions that close together was rather eye-opening.
Based on the smile on Summer’s face, she understood exactly what Avery had just experienced. “The bigger the leap, the bigger the payoff. You want an exciting life? Be willing to take the big leap.”
Avery grinned. “Okay, I’m going to do it.” She hugged her friend because she was suddenly so full of energy and really needed to spend some of it.
