Page 99 of Reaching Avery
“I thought you were walkingme,” I said, arching a brow. When he playfully snarled at me, I offered him my arm, which he accepted. Out in the hall, we veered toward his class. “What kind of sorcery is this?”
“You love it,” he said, peering up at me with amused blue eyes.
“Maybe.” I held his arm a bit tighter as we neared his Study of Fine Arts class, not ready to say goodbye. “See you at lunch?”
“Yep,” he answered, releasing my arm. In a flash, he was back to his awkward self again as he stepped out of the way for a group of people to walk past.
That screamed to my protective side, and it took all of my self-control not to pull him into my arms.
Around me, his timid behavior mostly went away, but he was still extremely introverted around others. His mom had basically come out and said he’d been abused. And the little I knew about people who’d suffered abuse, Avery fit that personality to a T.
I waited until he went inside the room before I walked to algebra.
Sarah attacked me as I got to class, wanting a play-by-play of Saturday.
I had told her the basics of how it went through text, but I hadn’t sent her the pics I’d taken of me and Avery at the tracks. Not because I wanted to hide them, but because I felt… I don’t know… protective of them. Like it was a day between me and him, and I wasn’t ready for other people to see.
“Did you kiss him?” she asked in a bubble of excitement once we were at our desks, resting her chin on her hand in one of those swoony ways. The bell had rung, but other people were still talking, so we did too.
“No,” I said before smirking. “He kissed me.”
“Ohmygosh!”
“Don’t ask me to kiss and tell, though,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Not happening.”
“Know what else isn’t happening?” Mr. Davis said from behind me. I sharply turned and looked at him. His hands were behind his back, and his already puffy face looked puffier. “This conversation. Now stop talking in my class and get out your homework from over the weekend.”
Sarah and I pulled out our homework and avoided looking at each other.
If we made eye contact, we’d start laughing and wouldn’t be able to stop. We’d probably end up in detention, and that would put a damper on my plans with my boyfriend after school. He didn’t know of the plans yet, but I was taking him to dinner.
Thankfully, I made it out of algebra class detention free and met Avery in the hallway before lunch. We stopped at my locker so I could toss the evil math book inside, and then we headed toward the cafeteria.
“How was your art class?” I asked as we stood in the never-ending lunch line.
“Interesting,” he answered, leaning against me. It seemed to happen naturally now, as if we just gravitated toward each other once in close range. “We’re learning about Picasso right now and how he constantly changed his painting style, going from realistic portraits in his younger days to his more abstract works.”
“Maybe he just hadn’t discovered himself yet early on,” I said and went forward a few steps as the line moved. “People change as they grow.”
That couldn’t have been any truer in my case. When I was younger, I’d just done whatever my dad wanted. Being the perfect little sports buddy and just wanting to make him proud. As I got older, I found that while I still liked playing sports, I had other interests too. Ones he didn’t approve of.
After what felt like eighty-four years, we finally got our food and sat at our table.
Sarah, Travis, Ricky, and Ben were already there, as were a few other people from drama class that Sarah had invited to sit with us. They were all laughing about something, and I took a moment to just kind of take it all in.
It was the one table in the cafeteria where popular kids and ones labeled asnerdsanddrama dorksall sat together. I liked it.
Ben scooted over a seat, so Avery could sit beside him, and I sat on Avery’s other side.
“Where’s Chelsey?” I asked Travis, not seeing Queen B at the table.
As if I’d spoken the name of Voldemort, Travis flipped around and quickly scanned the nearby table before looking back at me. His green eyes were wide as he whispered, “Do not speak of such evil.”
I laughed. “Damn. That bad, huh? What happened?”
“Dude, I don’t even know.” He shook his head and looked down at his already empty tray. He was like the human garbage disposal. “We were just hangin’ out one night, and she got all freaking crazy on me like she always does. And I had enough. So I left. I did a lot of thinking—”
“Scary,” Ricky interrupted.
