Page 81 of She Used to Be Nice
Katanjai smiled. “Sure, darling. Come, come.”
Blair scooted over to the center of the table. Katanjai flipped the next card and blinked a few times in shock. Avery watched intensely, like she was getting her fortune read, too.
“Oh. Ooooh,” Katanjai said.
Blair’s eyes darted around the room. “What? What?”
What?Avery wanted to scream.
Katanjai cradled Blair’s fingers in her hands. “This is an interesting card …” She moved her finger along the cobblestone path printed on the card. “See this road? As it winds, it disappears into the horizon and plunges into darkness. And there are mountains in the distance, in front of that dark backdrop.” Katanjai squeezed Blair’s hand. “There are challenges for you up ahead, my dear. Daunting challenges that will—”
“No!” Avery slammed her palms on the table and stood up quickly, her chair screeching against the floor as she chucked it back with her hips. “Don’t listen to her, Blair! That card is lying!” It was lying. It had to be lying. How many more challenges was she—werethey—supposed to face?
“Avery!” Morgan cried. “What are youdoing?”
Avery couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to suffer anymore. And she didn’t want Blair, someone who was once one of her best friends, to suffer either. She didn’t want any woman to suffer ever again. Her purpose was suddenly crystal clear. Noah was done for.
Avery gripped Blair’s shoulders, her fingers cramping as they dug into Blair’s skin. “You aren’t damned to whatever darkness is in that card, do you hear me?” She could see the whites of Blair’s shell-shocked eyes. “You can overcome this.”
We can overcome this.
Blair wiggled her way out of Avery’s grip and crossed her legs, muttered something about Avery being a weirdo. Morgan darted a furious gaze between Blair and Avery, but Avery ignored her. This was bigger than Morgan and the wedding, bigger than Blair betraying Avery and turning all their friends against her. And Avery needed to do something about it.
The last stop on the bridesmaids’ tour of Aspen was a beer garden, where Avery achieved the perfect level of buzzed—confident but not manic, loose but not stumbling. She needed all the liquid courage she could get. This was their final stop before they went back to the house, and Avery had officially decided that she was going to confront Noah about what he was doing to Blair.
“We’re leaving now,” Morgan said when she approached Avery, who was happily letting a middle-aged man in a cowboy hat twirl her around.
Avery’s mood dampened. She thought she had at least another hour. “Why do you wanna leave? Aren’t you having fun?”
Avery was hoping to buy some time before this confrontation. Because even though this was the right thing to do, even though she wished someone had confronted Noah for her in college like she was about to confront him for Blair, she was terrified. But she couldn’t live with herself knowing he was torturing other women the way he tortured her. This confrontation was for the greater good. For all the women who were still afraid to speak up. For the woman she herself had been for way too long.
“I am having fun,” Morgan said with a shrug. “I’m just getting tired. And hungry. So, I’m ready to go.”
Avery flicked her eyes to Blair. Blair would support her. Blair didn’t want to see Noah yet either. “Blair, back me up. You don’t wanna go back yet, right?”
Blair tilted her head, confused, and said nothing. Avery tried to be sympathetic, to put herself in Blair’s shoes. Blair had to be scared of Noah just like Avery was. For so long, Avery, too, had struggled with knowing how to act around him, whether being friendly was easier than being quiet was easier than screaming for help. But now she knew what to do. Now, fury bubbled inside her like lava ready to erupt.
Morgan huffed. “Avery, enough. We’re leaving. I’m calling the Uber.” Then she muttered under her breath, “Though technically that’s supposed to be your job …”
When the bridesmaids arrived at the house, the groomsmen had already begun cooking dinner, with Charlie chopping vegetables and Noah manning the grill outside on the porch. Plates of potato salad and corn on the cob were spread out on the table, with wildflowers dotting the spaces in between. Noah thought he was so welcoming, so pure with his intentions to give everyone a fun weekend. But Avery saw right through him, into the sludge of his insides. She grabbed a beer from the fridge and took an aggressive swig, resisting the urge to slam his face into his grill.
“Everything looks and smells amazing,” Morgan said as she admired the setup on the dining room table. “Do you guys want any help?”
“No way!” Noah called from the porch. “Nobody help. Everyone grab a drink and have a seat. The only reason I’m letting Charlie chop the vegetables was because he threatened me with a steak knife if I said no.” Noah threw a steak on the grill; the meat sizzled and an enormous flame lit up in front of his face. He sprung backward and laughed. “Hell yeah, now we’re cooking!” He popped his head into the living room. “Blair, help me bring the steaks in?”
Blair didn’t respond, went to grab herself a beer instead. Then she floated back into the dining room, where everyone else was gathered around the table and had begun serving themselves from the plates of food.
“Blair! Come help!” Noah called again.
Avery clenched her beer bottle so tightly it nearly burst apart and sent glass flying out like a grenade. “She doesn’t want to! Leave her alone!”
Blair shot Avery a look. “Goodness, Avery, how much have you had to drink?”
Avery put her hand on Blair’s shoulder. “You don’t have to do anything he says,” she muttered, disregarding Blair’s comment. She craned her neck to shout at Noah again. “Leave her alone!”
Morgan yanked Avery’s beer out of her hand and slammed it on the table. “What is wrong with you today? You’re being a psycho.”
Noah stepped inside the house. “What’s going on?” He glanced at Blair, prompting Avery to jab a shaky finger at him.
