Page 76 of Reaching Avery
Chapter Twenty
Avery
“Thanks for volunteering to help with the set design,” Mr. Lee said to me that Tuesday after school. “We can always use an extra set of hands around here. So much to do.”
“It’s no problem,” I told him. “I’m happy to help.”
Several things had factored into my decision to help with the production. First, it’d allow me to get out more instead of being stuck at home. Second, it’d make me feel great to know I was actually helping with something and not just being a waste of space.
Lastly—and yeah, it was the main reason—I’d get to see Maverick more since he’d be staying after school for rehearsal.
The cast still didn’t have full costumes, but some of them wore pieces of their outfits while practicing that afternoon. As I helped paint a backdrop with some of the other kids from class, I heard Maverick’s deep voice boom from the stage. It was a scene near the beginning of the play when Gaston and LeFou were walking through the village.
I smiled.
Only a few days had passed since our date, but I was still soaring from it. I still wasn’t sure if I was capable of dating with all of my issues, but Maverick made me happy in ways I’d never been before.
The band had come in to rehearse songs that day too. As I blended in shades of green for the hillside scene, I heard music start playing, followed by Sarah beginning Belle’s opening song. She had a great voice, and I found myself kind of swaying to the melody.
Other people had lines in the song—like the random townspeople—but when another voice sounded, I couldn’t concentrate on painting anymore.
I turned and stared through the opening from the backstage to where Maverick was strutting around the stage and singing his part. He walked in a circle around Sarah, who feigned disgust, and he looked at me.
When our eyes met, my heart jumped into my throat.
Maverick grinned before looking away from me and speaking his next line during the break in the song. He was magnetic.
It was then I knew I wanted to continue whatever it was we were doing.
Yeah, my issues would become a problem between us sooner or later, but selfishly, I hoped it was later and not sooner. For once, I needed to feel wanted. To have something I never thought I’d have: happiness. Normality.
I wanted to be a typical teenager who went on dates and had friends.
I hadn’t cut myself in days. Not since hanging out with Mav. He was helping me in ways he didn’t even realize. I didn’t feel the need to cut and release all the bad stuff, because for the time I’d been with him, he had lifted me up and made me feel like I mattered.
I wasn’t foolish enough to believe it’d last forever. No matter how happy I was now, I knew the bad would eventually return—just as it always did.
“Your name’s Avery, right?” the girl beside me asked.
She had long, super thin brown hair and straight across bangs. She wasn’t wearing any makeup that I could see, but she didn’t need it. All the times I’d seen her in class, she’d worn neck-high T-shirts and jeans. On the occasions she’d worn a somewhat revealing blouse it had always been buttoned to the very top button.
I’d gotten the impression she must’ve been religious by how modest she dressed, and also because of the cross necklace she always had around her neck. I didn’t see anything wrong with religion, but only when people didn’t try to force it on others.
“Yeah. That’s me,” I answered, a bit on guard. Mom had tried taking us to church a few years earlier, because she’d been desperate for a change in our life, but the church hadn’t approved of how I dressed—or her line of work—and let us know after the service that we weren’t welcomed back. So I was leery based on how I’d been treated by religious people in the past. “You’re Jennifer?”
She nodded. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Same,” I said, still with my guard up. After changing brushes, I dipped it in yellow paint and added some scattered flowers to the hillside backdrop. “This is sorta fun, isn’t it?”
Not sure why I tried to keep the conversation going, but it seemed like the right thing to do since she’d spoken to me first. I didn’t want to seem rude.
“It really is,” she answered with a big smile, showing just how passionate she was about it. “Creating art is all I want to do in life: painting, drawing, sculpting. It’s the one thing that’smine.The one thing no one can take from me. And nothing can touch me when I’m lost in my work.”
I stopped painting and studied her. “I get that. It’s like in a world where everyone tries to tell you what to do and what to be, art is the one thing you get to control. How you express yourself in ways you can’t always express with words.”
Her brown eyes lit up. “Exactly! So you’re into art too?”
“Kind of,” I answered. Since being an architect involved drawing and design, it was a form of art.
