Page 39 of Reaching Avery
Then, I looked at Ben.
His clothes were tear-free and nice. His jeans didn’t have holes, and his shoes lacked the worn soles that mine had. His car wasn’t new, but it was still nice. The shocks weren’t busted like my mom’s car, and it didn’t make that god awful grinding gears sound I was familiar with when you tried to get up to speed.
It made me wonder if he ever looked at me in the same way I was looking at him.
When we got to his house we walked inside, and I gave a quick scan of the place. It wasn’t big, but it was homely. The entrance had hardwood floor that transitioned to carpet when it passed under an open doorway into the next room. An amazing aroma drifted to my nose, as did the sound of something sizzling in a skillet. The walls were adorned with a ton of family photos.
In all the photos, the three of them were smiling and you could just see the love in their eyes. It gave me a good impression of his parents before even meeting them.
“Have you ever playedDead Smash?” Ben asked as I followed him down a hallway to the left.
“Um. I have no idea what that is, so I’m guessing no.”
Ben laughed and tossed me a smile from over his shoulder. “I think you’ll like it. It seems right up your alley.”
At the end of the hall, he opened the last door on the right before going inside, and I trailed behind him. His bedroom surprised me a bit, and I stopped a few feet inside. He seemed to be so put together, but his room looked like a tornado just went through it. The definition of a disaster area.
Clothes were strewn everywhere, as were some empty bags of chips. A laptop was on his unmade bed, and the books on his bookshelf were overlapping and looked as if he’d started shoving them in any spot they’d fit.
The only thing that looked to be neatly in place was his Xbox and controllers.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said before grabbing a pile of clothes on the floor, carrying them to his closet, and throwing them inside before shutting the door. A thud sounded, and I knew that when he opened that door again, they’d all come spilling out at him. “You hungry?”
When we walked into the kitchen, a man was at the stove, stirring something in a skillet. He was probably just shy of six foot, with dark brown hair and a pale complexion. He looked up and smiled.
“Hey, Ben. Who’s your friend?”
“Dad, this is Avery,” Ben said before walking over and giving his dad a quick hug and continuing on to the refrigerator. “Is it okay if he stays for a while?”
“Sure. Food should be ready in five minutes or so,” his dad answered before focusing back on the food. “Your mom said she’d be home around five, so it’ll just be us for dinner.”
Ben helped his dad finish cooking, and then the three of us sat at the table to eat. It was cheeseburger flavored Hamburger Helper, and I had to force myself to slow down and not shovel it in my mouth like I wanted to do.
His dad asked me a few questions as we ate, but none of them were too personal. Just the general things like where I’d moved from, what did I like to do for fun, and if I liked living in Port Haven—which was a question everyone seemed to ask me.
After we ate, we went back to Ben’s room, and he introduced me to theDead Smashthing, which turned out to be an Xbox game about a post-apocalyptic world where zombies had taken over. In it, you were one of the survivors, and the mission was to find the cure.
“But you can have special abilities too,” Ben explained as he pulled up his character’s chart. “Just like the chemical crap that leaked and caused the zombie virus, there are some you can find that can give you, like, super human strength, quickness, or whatever. And if you want to take a break from story mode, you can go into combat mode and face off against other online players, kill them and steal their supplies, and all of that.” He exited the character screen and went to the combat setting he’d just described. “IfThe Division,Walking Dead, andDestinyhad a baby, this game would be it.”
I sat on the edge of his bed, nodding at the appropriate time and pretending like I was following it all.
I’d played a few games before, but never anything on the newer systems, so the games he mentioned went right over my head. I used to have an old Nintendo that Declan and I’d played Mario Brothers on—before my dad had smashed it during one of his rages—but that was the extent of my gaming.
“What’s up with you and Maverick?” Ben asked as he killed some zombies that had broken through a fence.
“Not sure what you mean.”
“Well, you know he’s gay, right?” he said, not in a condescending way, but more so informative.
“Yeah, I know.”
Ben didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and I thought the topic had been dropped. But then he asked, “Are you?” Another zombie was shot in the head. “Gay, that is.”
I froze, watching as some zombie on the game ran around a corner and tried to bite Ben’s character’s arm. Ben jabbed a knife in its eye socket before jumping up on a rundown van and siting.
The real Ben turned to me.
“Sorry if that was inappropriate to ask,” he said, and his face reflected his apologetic tone. “My social skills aren’t the best, and I tend to just say what’s on my mind.”
