Page 15 of She Used to Be Nice
Avery didn’t hear Noah’s name again for the next couple of weeks and went back to pretending that he didn’t exist. Her irritabilitytoward her job, too, had calmed down. As the weeks passed by, she reverted to her normal feelings of apathy, which she tempered after work with her usual glass of wine (or three), reality television marathon, and 2AMdoomscrolling. She didn’t once ask Morgan about who else would be in the wedding party, preferring to live in ignorance for a bit longer despite knowing it was only a matter of time before she would be faced with her old friends-turned-enemies. By the time the following Saturday afternoon rolled around, when she met Morgan in SoHo to go shopping, she felt like herself again, or at least the version of herself she’d gotten used to since graduation.
“I asked for a sample of this brightening eye cream from Sephora,” Morgan said. She took a sip of her caramel macchiato. “I hope it works. My dark circles are extra dark lately. It’s not fair that guys get to walk around with circles and nobody says anything, but if I do, I looktired.”
Avery paused in front of a window to admire a pair of sneakers, then kept walking to match Morgan’s long-legged strides along the sidewalk. Avery broke a sweat to keep up with Morgan sometimes. At five-seven, she wasn’t short, but next to Morgan she felt like a troll.
“I don’t think it’ll work,” Avery said. “Metropolitandid a whole story on those eye creams last week. They just moisturize.”
“Really? Damn, this one’s supposed to be good. I won’t buy the regular size one then.”
Morgan scooted out of the way of an interracial couple holding hands and a family of tourists fighting in another language. She and Avery were walking away from the overpriced boutiques and heading to Broadway, where the options mirrored more of what you’d find in a suburban mall. Last week, Avery found a gorgeous gray wool sweater around here for only sixty bucks. Which, in hindsight, maybe wasn’t that cheap. Avery sighed. She needed to be more thoughtful with her money instead of following every impulse she had, as though her net worth were bottomless. She’d never think to sample something before committing to a purchaselike Morgan did. She wasn’t one of those college grads whose parents helped with rent or a gym membership or even a roll of toilet paper; her dad told her she was moving back home to New Jersey beforethatever happened. With the wedding and all its related maid-of-honor expenses, some budgeting would be necessary. She’d have to pay for not just gifts, but her bridesmaid dress and shoes, her part of the bachelorette party and bridal shower, travel expenses … the list went on and on.
Avery walked over a street vent at the exact moment a gust of wind from a subway rushing by underground made her skirt fly up. She tried to cover herself, but it was too late: She’d flashed a group of construction workers leaning against the side of a building, and now they were heckling her. She made a sharp right into whatever the next store was—they hadn’t quite cleared the side streets yet, so it was another expensive boutique—and furiously combed through a rack of clothes, with Morgan beside her.
“Creeps,” Morgan muttered.
Avery held up a white crop top that would’ve been cute if it wasn’t a hundred dollars and didn’t have the words “Allergic 2 Mornings” written on the front. It would also, maybe, be a bit tight. She put it back, hating those construction workers for making her question her outfit choices. It wasn’t fair that what she wore dictated whether men respected her, that basic parts of her anatomy were seen as an invitation. Sometimes now she purposely used revealing outfits to attract guys before they had a chance to weaponize how she dressed against her. But men were often swift to remind her who really had the power. As if she could ever forget.
“Hey, I was thinking,” Morgan said as she moved on to a table of folded jeans. “Did anything happen with Pete?”
Avery glanced at her, looking away quickly. “No. I didn’t give him my number.”
Morgan made a disappointed face. “Aw, why not? He’s cute! And really sweet.”
“He was fine, I guess. It was nice that he took me to the hospital, and I know he knows Charlie, but to me he’s a stranger. Hecould’ve taken advantage of me when I was passed out. I was dumb to get drunk with him.”
Morgan cocked her head, confused. “But he didn’t take advantage of you. He got you help.”
“And I’m supposed to reward him with my number because he’s a decent person? That’s a bare minimum requirement.”
Morgan sighed. “Okay, I see your point. However, it’s not the bare minimum for him to stay in the hospital with you until 4AM, so, let’s give him some points for that.”
Avery considered this. “Fine. Sure. You’re right.” She hesitated. She didn’t want to talk about this, had hoped Pete would become a distant memory like everything from senior year. “But I’d be nervous to go out with someone with such a close connection to our friend group. Who knows what he and Charlie have talked about, or what he’s already heard about me?”
“Charlie doesn’t gossip. Men don’t talk like that with friends. I have to literally pry details out of him after guys’ nights.”
“Well, he could’ve heard about me from another one of our friends at the Dino-Whores party or wherever else. And maybe Charlie doesn’t gossip but youknoweveryone else does, especially when they’re drinking.” Avery shook her head, like this was final. “Pete might already know about everything that happened with Ryan. I cannot imagine a worse first impression.”
Morgan fingered a scarf hanging off a hook on a wall nearby. Then she met Avery’s eye, her face soft. “Even if Petedidhear something about you—and we don’t know if he has—I would hate to see that holding you back. You and Ronald hooked up, yes, but it was a mistake. What’s done is done. All of that is in the past now. At some point, you have to forgive yourself and move on.”
Avery looked down at the ground. She’d definitely made some mistakes that night. Just not the mistake everyone thought she’d made. But no matter how that night ended, she’d started it, asked for it. She’d giggled too much and drunk too much and shown too much cleavage, and then later she failed to get Noah to stop. The end result was still her fault.
“It’s just hard, Morgan.”
Morgan didn’t say anything for a few moments, letting the silence fill the empty space between them. She knew this was difficult territory. “Can you at least tell me how many days it’s been since you’ve stalked Ryan’s Instagram?”
Avery bristled. “It’s been a whole month! But even when Iwaslooking, it wasn’t for any real reason. My finger just magnetized to the search bar and some greater force dragged my fingers to spell out his username.”
“Riiiiiight.” Morgan wasn’t buying it. “And then you’d duck down, hiding from the phone screen like he’d catch you peeking.”
Avery gave a casual shrug. “I did what I needed to do.” Then she chuckled to herself. “Remember when you caught me ducking three times a day, and you tried to go all Pavlovian on me with your pillow?”
Morgan laughed. “That thing could really scratch you if the sequins hit at the right angle.”
“That’s why it was so effective. You got me down to once a day.” Avery’s laughter trailed off into a frown, her face becoming hard and serious. “Look, I’m trying not to think about him anymore. But I obviously still have some feelings for him.” Her eyes burned with tears. She blinked them away before they fell. “I thought I was going to be with him forever. And now we’re over and he can’t stand me.”
Morgan stopped walking, settling in beside a mannequin modeling a lavender athleisure outfit. Avery watched her as she took a nervous breath.
“Okay, I have something I need to tell you,” Morgan said. “And you’re not going to like it. And I want you to know that I fought extremely hard for it to not happen.”
