Page 39 of She Used to Be Nice
“I just worry about you, Avery! You need to be careful. The world’s a dangerous place. I want you to be smart.”
It was painful to realize you couldn’t seek comfort from the people whose job it was to comfort you, that her mother’s perspective on this would never change. Avery buried her face in her phone, too frustrated to argue that as long as people focused on keeping women from becoming victims, the men who perpetrate would have free reign to terrorize. Where was the outrage with the men? Who blamedthemfortheiractions? Avery was tired of shouldering the burden of her own self-protection. It was too heavy to carry all by herself. And yet she felt like it was her only option. Because it wasn’t just her mother who made her feel like that night was her fault. It was the evidence itself. It was the fact that she’d participated in at least some way in the beginning, by peacocking her body and being friendly at the party, or else why would Noah have made a move? And then she had ultimately not tried hard enough to stop him. So she was a victim, but she also wasn’t innocent. It was the most exhausting seesaw.
“Nothinghappened, though,” Avery insisted. “That guy I was with saved me.”
Pete’s Instagram page was still open on Avery’s phone, the video of him singing paused on his openmouthed face. Avery ran a finger over the screen, careful not to like it by accident. She felt strange referring to Pete as “that guy,” even casually to her mom. Because Pete wasn’t just that guy. Avery had never met someone like him. And sometimes her feelings for him—the fact that she could feel anything at all—tricked her into thinking she could be worthy of someone like him. That maybe parts of her heart had remained open after everything, and Pete could see a version of her that was softer and more loving, more lovable. Most of the time, though, she knew the truth.
She didn’t follow Pete back. She’d be doing them both a favor by staying away.
12
AVERY CAUGHT THE6AMbus from her parents’ house to Port Authority on Monday morning, sleeping the whole hour-and-a-half-long ride into the city. Once there, she hustled through the maze of the terminal, first down a long escalator and back up two more, until she reached the subway, then went to check the time on her phone while waiting for a car. Her gaze lingered on her wallpaper. It was a picture of her and Morgan at Phebe’s in the East Village a few months ago; they were facing each other and laughing, and Avery’s lipstick had bled into the corners of her mouth from having accidentally made out with a forty-seven-year-old man.
“I can’t believe he was a college professor!” Morgan had cried. They were outside Phebe’s while Avery was taking a vape break. Richard—that was his name—had left to go somewhere else, probably some whiskey bar to smoke a cigar and discuss Foucault with his peers like the intellectual he thought he was.
“He looked so young in the dark! I thought he was thirty, max,” Avery said.
Morgan shivered in disgust. “Well, the license in his wallet said otherwise. He probably thought you were a student. Which is even more gross.”
“He totally did. He asked what I studied in school. I thought it was to be relatable, but it was, like, in a dad way.” Avery chucked her vape into her purse and searched for a cigarette instead.
“Come on,” Morgan insisted as Avery popped an unlit cigarette into her mouth. “You don’t need one of those.”
“Yes, I do,” Avery mumbled.
“Why?”
“Because I’m an idiot.”
Morgan took the cigarette out of Avery’s mouth and flicked it into the garbage. Then she threaded her arm through Avery’s and smiled. “But you’remyidiot.”
Tears burned Avery’s eyes now. She sat down on an empty seat in a subway car that smelled of breakfast sandwiches and the tangy mix of strangers’ freshly applied perfume. It had only been a couple of days since she and Morgan last spoke, but since they usually talked every day, two days felt like a lifetime. Avery wondered if she’d gotten too used to screwing up, knowing her best friend would be there for her unconditionally. Not only had Morgan forgiven Avery senior year after thinking Avery made one of the most unforgiveable mistakes you can make in a relationship, but she had stopped Avery from charring her lungs with cigarette smoke, had once sent her money for a train ticket home after a drunken bender ended in Philadelphia, and had accompanied her to CityMD for her various STD scares. She’d helped Avery out of the hospital, offered emotional support, sacrificed sleep. And she did it all without complaint. But she shouldn’t have to deal with Avery’s screwups now, during what was supposed to beheryear.
Avery emerged from the subway and went to La Colombe near her office for a black coffee. She chugged nearly half of her drink in one gulp, letting the stifling liquid scald her throat as she lingered in front of her building and stared at her phone. If she didn’t call Morgan right this second, she was going to chug more hot coffee and spend the rest of the day with a burning, aching mouth, and this would be a punishment she would deserve wholeheartedly.
She dialed Morgan’s number with her shaky fingers.
“Hello?” Morgan answered.
“Hey!” Avery said, breathless and grateful. “Wow, I’m so glad to hear your voice.”
“What’s up? How was your weekend?”
Avery blinked back tears, stared up at the sky. Morgan’s voice was suspiciously normal, but Avery didn’t want to sweep what happened at the engagement party under the rug. She knew, from that lastSure.text, that Morgan was upset.
“It was fine.” Avery moved out of the way of a young-looking intern carrying a four-cup drink holder filled with beverages. “Look, I wanna say again how sorry I am for leaving you at the engagement party. I was hammered and I just couldn’t be around everyone anymore. I hope … I hope you understand.”
Morgan sighed. A fire engine wailed in the background on her end of the line. “I do understand. I just want everything to go as smoothly as possible this year. Minimal casualties.”
Avery nodded desperately into the receiver. “I know. I want the same thing.”
“And I know that’s tough for you with our friends around, and I’m sympathetic to that, but …” Morgan trailed off. “But I need you to try. For me.”
Avery tossed her coffee into a steel trash receptacle. She needed to pull it together. She’d known that their old friends would be in the wedding party, at all the wedding events. She may not have known Noah would be around, too, but she needed to get over that, lest he ruin her friendship with Morgan like he ruined everything else. She needed to be better at keeping his effect on her a secret. All she had to do was make it to the wedding in August, and then this whole thing would be over. And it was already nearly the end of January. She could do this.
“I swear I’ll be okay, Morgan. I’m gonna be the most incredible maid of honor you’ve ever had. You’ll see.”
Morgan didn’t respond right away. Avery approached the entrance to her office with her key in her hand, ready to go through the double doors and scan herself through the security turnstiles. But she did not want to stop this phone call. Not even the massive German shepherd police dog barking a few feet away prompted her to move inside for safety. She wasn’t hanging up until theywere okay, until Morgan knew that Avery was going to support her like she’d supported Avery, through everything.
