Page 1 of She Used to Be Nice
1
AVERY WAS FLAT ONher back. Her gaze drifted across the wrinkled brown curtains, drawn together in front of a half-open window. A bottle of contact solution sat on his bedside table, next to a pair of glasses he’d probably had since tenth grade. Every time Ethan (or was it Evan?) thrust into her, the corner of aPulp Fictionposter taped to the wall flapped from the gust of his movements.
“You like that, baby? You like that?”
Avery scrunched her face and glanced up at him, trying to get him to register with his own eyes that she definitely did not like that, not even a little. But he wasn’t looking at her. She sighed. You’d think she’d be used to this by now.
“Oooh, yes,” Avery breathed as Evan (wait,wasit Ethan?) continued pumping without regard for the human being underneath him. She willed herself to feel something, anything, besides the metal coil in his mattress digging into her spine. But there was nothing. There was always nothing.
“Are you—”Pump pump pump pump pump.“Are you close?”
Avery raised an eyebrow. This guy had clearly never heard of the clitoris. She decided to spare him the snarky comment and say nothing, her desire for this to be over surpassing her desire for an orgasm. Seconds later, he let out a loud, satisfied groan and collapsed on top of her, crushing her with his weight. She patted his back, which was slick and gummy with sweat. Then she peeked atthe digital clock flashing on his nightstand. They’d started two minutes ago. She couldn’t believe she’d waxed for this.
Ethan/Evan hoisted himself up, pulled on his boxers, and promptly unlocked his phone. The light from the screen illuminated his face, reminding Avery of why she’d swiped right on him a few hours ago. His angular jawline and icy blue eyes coupled with his CrossFit abs easily ranked him among the hottest guys Avery had ever hooked up with. But he had the sexual prowess of a seventh grader.
“So, I’ll text you?” He was still looking at his phone, engrossed in what appeared to be a Reddit page with gifs of people screaming, though Avery couldn’t get a close enough look to be sure.
She pressed her mouth into a line. “Sure,” she muttered, but they both knew he wouldn’t. Not that it mattered. She retrieved her jeans and silky black tank top from the end of the bed and dressed like she was being timed, then scanned the apartment for any remaining belongings. She didn’t need this guy thinking she’d accidentally-on-purpose left her hoop earrings on his nightstand because she wanted an excuse to see him again.
As she slung her purse over her shoulder, ready to leave, she heard the tinny sound of someone yelling. Her eyes flicked to her hookup. He was biting his knuckles, enraptured by whatever weird shit he was watching.
She blinked at him. “Well, bye.”
Avery stopped to use his bathroom, then slipped out of his apartment and onto the sidewalk, where she was greeted by the perfect cacophony of Manhattan: police sirens blaring down the block, bars pulsating with music so loud it thumped in her chest, a jackhammer drilling into a mess of broken concrete. She checked her phone for the time—11:30PMshone in promising bright white letters on her home screen. The weekend, her salvation, had barely begun.
She hit her vape, feeling the tingles of restlessness that had become familiar to her since her breakup with Ryan a year ago, and began walking, following the nicotine buzz and city sounds wherever they led, which she hoped was somewhere good. Sheinstinctively opened Instagram, her thumb stopping on a picture of her best friend Morgan and Morgan’s boyfriend Charlie, posted ten minutes ago from Morgan’s account. Charlie’s arm was wrapped protectively around Morgan, and Morgan was gazing up at him, her entire face crinkled from grinning. The caption readLove of my life.
Avery’s lip twitched as she double-tapped the picture to give it a like. Morgan and Charlie’s love for each other seemed to increase in tandem with Avery’s number of sexual partners. She’d gotten used to their PDA, though, for the most part. They’d been like this since they met at a pregame freshman year, when Morgan had summoned Charlie to be her partner in a round of beer pong, and he lifted her into a hug every time she landed a throw. Tonight, however, Avery wished Instagram had aWe Get Itbutton. Of course, she was thrilled Morgan had found the kind of love most people spent their whole lives searching for and especially rarely found in college, or at least in the frat-star factory that was Woodford College, their alma mater. But still. We Get It.
She sent Morgan a text.still w Charlie? wanna get a drink?
She stopped to lean against the brick wall of a bodega, vaping some more and waiting for her best friend’s reply. With each silent minute that passed, she grew increasingly jittery, alternating between digging dirt out from under her fingernails and kicking pieces of mulch spilling out from a sidewalk tree pit garden. Morgan and Charlielivedtogether; they hung out every single damn day, from the moment they each got home from work until they went to bed, rinse and repeat. Surely Morgan could stop giving him attention for ten seconds to respond to Avery’s text.
Avery’s phone finally buzzed.Sure!! Just finishing up
Doc Holliday’s?Avery texted back. Doc Holliday’s was a solid dive bar nearby. It was loud enough to be lively, but quiet enough that you could hear yourself talk, unlike so many East Village bars at this time of night. It was nothing like that sweaty, crowded basement from that party senior year, with that lukewarm keg and sticky floor and—
Avery’s phone buzzed again, interrupting her thoughts before the panic set in.
Cool,Morgan replied.Give me 20
Avery heaved a sigh and shoved her phone in her pocket. How was she going to kill twenty minutes? The bar was right around the corner. It would take her no time to walk there, and then she’d have to wait for Morgan alone, as usual. She put her lips to her vape, then tossed it back into her purse. She wanted a real cigarette, to feel actual smoke burn her lungs. She rummaged through her purse and found one, crushed beneath empty bags of chips and crusty tubes of mascara.Gross, she thought. She needed to clean this thing out.
She lit her cigarette. The tip illuminated bright orange, and off-white smoke billowed into the sky. As she inhaled, she made eyes at every guy that walked by, enticing them to ask her for a light. Entertaining herself with cheap male validation was better than feeling sorry for herself for how single she was. Annoyingly, though, most guys passed by without a glance. Some ogled her cleavage, on full display thanks to her push-up bra, so that was something. A homeless man wearing black slides approached her asking for a dollar, and she told him no. She never carried cash anyway—her favorite nail technicians had started accepting Venmo for tips—but after she’d paid her rent this week, she barely had enough money for her sad desk salads.
She spent a few more minutes smoking and trying to entice guys, to no avail. Nothing titillating was going to happen on this corner, and she was starting to feel pathetic. It was time to go. She stubbed out her cigarette butt and tossed it in the trash before making her way to Doc Holliday’s, where a group of high schoolers stood at the front door trying to convince the bouncer to let them in. She frowned. Did these kids have nothing better to do tonight? They had their whole lives to get wasted at bars and do something they’d regret. She wanted to scream at them to go play on a swing set, to preserve their innocence before it was too late. Because once you lost it, she knew, it was never coming back. If only someone hadtold her that her senior year of college, before she put her trust in the wrong man’s hands and watched it break apart.
She shoved the thought out of her mind as quickly as she shoved through the crowd and into the bar.
“Hi there,” she cooed to the bartender as she sat down on a stool, batting her eyelashes like windshield wipers to fade away the memories. She tossed a curtain of her thick dark brown hair behind her shoulder and inhaled the sweet smell of booze. “Can I please get your finest cheap beer?”
The bartender regarded her with a smile. Behind him, a hodgepodge of outdated holiday decorations and handwritten signs threatening to ask for ID hung above the bar. He grabbed a bottle of Rolling Rock from a mini fridge and popped it open with atsst, winking at her as he handed it over.
“Sure thing …” he began, offering an open-ended pause for her to fill in her name.
Avery met his eye, let her gaze linger. “Avery.”
He nodded. “I’m Jim.” He tapped the bar twice with the palm of his hand. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
