Page 21 of She Used to Be Nice
“Vaguely. They were in a fight? Something like that.”
“I’m impressed! Yeah, same guy. Maybe you didn’t need to go to the hospital after all.”
Avery choked out a laugh. “Tell that to the concrete I planted into face-first.”
She smoked the last bit of her cigarette as they sat in comfortable silence. There weren’t many people around either, just a group of women carrying shopping bags and a man in a suit rushing by while talking into his AirPods. It was often more desolate at nightin this part of the city, especially on the weekends; most people were heading farther downtown or farther uptown. Avery didn’t mind. She liked being alone with Pete.
He fixed his eyes on the flicker of orange light at the tip of Avery’s cigarette, then cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck.
“So, what are your plans tonight?” he asked. “Do you wanna hang out? Maybe get a real drink?”
He stared carefully, hopefully, at Avery, his blue eyes round and sparkling. She locked eyes with him, feeling her heart swell.
Wasthis the beginning of something?
“Sorry, I can’t,” Avery replied quickly. “I’ve got plans with some friends. I should head home to get ready, actually.”
She stood up and threw her cigarette butt in the trash. She had no plans. She had no friends anymore either, besides Morgan. She just knew where a drink with Pete could go and was putting a stop to it now. She didn’t deserve any happiness he could give her. She didn’t deserve any happiness at all. She deserved the pain of making all the wrong choices with Noah, deserved the wrath of all her friends thinking she’d cheated on Ryan. She deserved to suffer, to be lonely and alone.
“Oh.” Pete stood up, too. His eyebrows were furrowed in confusion. “Okay. No worries. Maybe we could do a rain check?” He handed Avery his phone, which was open to a new contact page. “Here.”
Avery clutched Pete’s phone and stared at the screen, feeling his eyes on her as she contemplated what to do. Pete wasn’t the only guy she’d met who didn’t have her number. No guys ever got it. The dating apps had their own messaging systems, so there was no need to move platforms just for sex. And if she met a guy at a bar, they didn’t need a permanent way to contact each other, because she was going home with him that night and he’d be irrelevant by morning.
She didn’t know what it was about Pete, though. Perhaps it was the earnestness of his continued pursuit of her, the way hedidn’t seem to balk even when she gave him every reason to. Perhaps she simply liked him. Something about him sparked the tiniest flicker of hope, the first since her breakup, and she found herself wanting to let it guide her through the darkness instead of blowing it out before it could combust.
When she finished typing her number, she handed back his phone before she could change her mind. In the middle of the exchange, her fingers brushed softly against his, sending a jolt through her arm and up to her heart. It was the most innocent touch they’d shared all night. And yet, somehow, it was the most invigorating.
7
THE SUBWAY CAR ONMonday morning was suspiciously empty. Avery didn’t realize why until the car was already zipping underground, rumbling through the dimly lit transitions between stops. From her seat, she spotted a man in ripped black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt slowly walking around in circles and weaving through the empty spaces between passengers. The few people who’d either been brave enough to ride in this car or who, like Avery, hadn’t realized he was in here ignored him.
Avery held her breath and remained seated, praying he’d walk past her and move along. After a few stops, he sat down next to her and eyed her cleavage, and then, to her horror, began stroking himself underneath his boxers. Her heart pounded. She kept her nose buried in her phone and managed to not make eye contact with him even as his gaze bore into her. With a lurch of nausea, she realized that looking down provided him with a perfect view of her cleavage, more explicit imagery with which to get off. But she was frozen. Too frozen to move. It was a feeling she knew well, the quiet resignation after putting up a fight with a man who wouldn’t leave her alone.
When the train finally approached her stop, she sprinted out of the station and to her office, where Patricia was waiting by her desk.
“There you are!” Patricia said, twirling a pen between two fingers. “How are you this morning?”
Avery was so shaken up she couldn’t form words. “I’m … fine,” she said softly, shuffling some papers to give herself a minute. “You?” She’d never felt more exposed, like she could button her shirt up to her chin and still be someone’s nonconsensual sex object. Why did being a woman mean paying a toll on your ability to move about the world freely and with dignity? If the pink tax didn’t already include “being eye-fucked by sickos,” someone should add it. Or was there something specific about Avery that attracted the most disgusting men that walked the earth? Maybe that night with Noah set something cosmic in motion. She wished she hadn’t worn this button-down shirt today. She wished she hadn’t done a lot of things. Maybe, if she’d done everything differently, Noah would’ve stopped.
“I’m wonderful, thanks for asking.” Patricia tapped her pen against the wall of Avery’s cubicle. The sound made Avery’s teeth hurt. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something. We need to find some fresh younger audiences on new social media platforms. Start meeting the kids where they’re at online. Our readership has grown stagnant.”
Patricia spoke to Avery like she was bestowing some newfound knowledge about the capital-I Industry, butMetropolitan’s existing audience was dwindling faster than any of their competitors, and Avery could have told Patricia they needed to diversify their traffic sources the day she started working here a few months ago. Unfortunately, the responsibility of creating kitschy videos over viral sounds or doing whatever else she needed to do to maximize reach was going to fall squarely on Avery. She needed a coffee the size of her head.
“Start on it today,” Patricia said. “And when you create the new accounts, ask Kevin to build a feature that pushes all our published content onto each platform at the same time. With one button. So that we don’t even have to think about it.”
Avery peered longingly at the coffee machine over Patricia’s shoulder. “I … don’t know about that.”
“Why not?”
“That would probably be a big challenge from a technical perspective. Also, isn’t that why you hired me? To keep tabs on these different platforms and share our content in ways that make sense for different audiences?”
“Hmm. I suppose it is.”
Avery stared at her.
“Look, I don’t care how we do it,” Patricia said, rubbing her temples. “Our numbers are down and we need them up.” Her pep from earlier completely dissolved. She started walking away, back in the direction of her office. “You guys are smart,” she called over her shoulder. “Figure it out.”
Avery made herself some coffee, then messaged Kevin.I assume you heard all that
