Page 2 of She Used to Be Nice
Avery took a hearty sip of her beer just as Morgan called out her name from the front door. She waved as she strutted through the bar in a little black dress that clung to her five-ten frame. Morgan was stunning, with waifish, model-length limbs and high cheekbones that contrasted with Avery’s curves and round face. Someone definitely would have approached her outside on that corner.
“You’re early!” Morgan said, hoisting herself onto the stool next to Avery.
Avery suddenly felt self-conscious about the way her thighs spilled over her seat. They looked like two loaves of banana bread bursting over their pans. “Shocking, right?” She tossed Morgan a coy grin, pretending she didn’t hate herself.
Morgan flagged Jim down for a beer. “Extremely. Did your date end early? How was it?”
Avery shrugged. She’d hardly call what had happened tonight a “date.” The cocktails they’d gotten at Lovers of Today earlier inthe night were simply the accepted prerequisite for meaningless sex. But Morgan wanted Avery to fall in love-of-her-life love, like she had with Charlie. Avery never knew how to tell Morgan that it wasn’t as easy for some women to get that. That some women, in fact, might never get that. But Morgan meant well. Avery would allow Morgan to be optimistic, even if it bordered on pathological. One of them had to see the good in Avery, after everything.
“It was fine,” Avery said.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. He was hot, but kind of dull. He also lurks on bizarre subreddits.”
Morgan raised a suspicious brow. “Well, did you have anything in common?”
“Not really.” Avery paused and pointed at Morgan with her beer bottle. “Sorry, I lied. We both grew up in the tri-state area. Does that count?”
“Hardly,” Morgan said with a laugh. “Did you sleep with him?”
Avery hesitated. “Yes.”
Morgan’s forehead creased in worry, like it had so often since Avery and Ryan broke up. But Avery ignored it. She didn’t want Morgan worrying about her. She didn’t wantanyoneworrying about her, not that any of their friends besides Morgan cared about her anymore anyway. She was perfectly fine with having surface-level hookups and forgetting guys’ names by the next day. It was easier this way, keeping her distance so she couldn’t get hurt again.
“I just came from his place, actually,” Avery added. “The sex wasn’t good though. He basically used me as a human Fleshlight.”
Morgan sighed. “I totally get it. When Charlie and I first started dating, it took several training sessions for him to learn that there’s a person attached to a vagina.”
Jim slid Morgan a beer. She used a cocktail napkin to wipe the condensation off the bottle, her shiny, loose waves rippling like a current across her shoulders as she moved. Her hair was light brunette with streaks of blonde that, thanks to her half-Irish genes,looked red at certain angles. It reminded Avery of the way the ocean surface looked when it was dappled by sunlight.
“At least you had someone to teach,” she said.
Avery regretted saying that as soon as she saw the beginnings of a crease on Morgan’s forehead again.
“I’m sorry, Avery. Next time. Your guy’s out there.”
Avery waved Morgan off. She didn’t need pity from beautiful people in happy relationships. Morgan didn’t understand what loneliness felt like, the cavernous empty space Avery tried to fill in an attempt to feel whole again after she essentially ruined her own life. She was fine. Fine, fine, fine.
“It’s fine, I’m fine.” Avery took another sip of her beer. “How was your night?”
A coquettish smile crept onto Morgan’s lips. She thrust her dainty left hand in front of Avery, and suddenly her smile exploded across her face. A massive emerald cut diamond sat on Morgan’s ring finger, glinting beams of bright oranges and yellows. Avery gasped. She’d known a proposal was inevitable but not that it would happen only five months after graduation. Then again, she supposed they were in that delicate place between youth and adulthood now, where some people were settling down and other people were … well, other people were flashing their cleavage at creeps outside bodegas.
Avery shook off the feelings of self-loathing bubbling up inside her and clutched Morgan’s hand, a grin taped to her face. “Charlieproposed?!” Avery marveled at the ring. Charlie had even remembered what Avery told him junior year, about Morgan wanting a solitaire diamond with a gold band.
“Yes!” Morgan cried, resting her hand on her heart. “And I said yes!”
Avery flung her arms around Morgan’s waist, her happy tears seeping into Morgan’s dress. “You’re engaged!” She felt the wind knocked out of her from both breathless joy and a sucker punch to the chest. Her best friend was getting married, and thanks to her new compulsion to bolt from a guy’s place immediately after sex,she was well on her way to dying alone. She never thought she’d be that kind of girl, but alas, this was who she was now. Avery released herself from Morgan’s grip but kept her hands on Morgan’s shoulders, digging her fingers into her skin.Keep smiling,she thought. Don’t be a bitch.“How’d he do it? Tell me everything. I need every detail.”
Morgan’s caramel brown eyes misted, twinkling beneath the overhead lights of the bar. “We were getting dinner at Manhatta, that restaurant with the sky-high views sixty stories up. Our table was right by the window, overlooking all of downtown. We’d just finished eating, and then …” She pulled in a deep breath, holding it for a second before releasing. “And then he started talking about how much I mean to him, and how much he loves me, and finally he got down on one knee. It took me a second to realize what was happening. But when I did, I started sobbing, Avery. Sobbing! I’m surprised my makeup isn’t all over my face right now. And then, a band just started playingmusic.And a bottle of champagne justappeared.” Morgan sighed dreamily. “It was perfect.”
Avery hugged Morgan again with as much excitement as she could muster. All the while, she couldn’t help but think that everyone was growing up, moving on, making something of their lives after graduation. Everyone but her. She was still stuck on that party senior year, on the moment Noah got her alone in that bedroom, and she was too drunk to give him a convincing no. It was her fault for being so friendly with him, for making him think she wanted to sleep with him when that couldn’t have been further from the truth. She knew she wasn’t supposed to think in such a victim-blamey way. Feminism and #MeToo and all that. But she couldn’t help it. She felt like the exception, like those movements were talking about other women and not her.
“Now, I have something to ask you,” Morgan began. She fanned tears from her face and took Avery’s hands. “Will you be my maid of honor?”
Avery’s jaw dropped slightly. Part of her had thought she’d be excused from this massive responsibility when it came time forMorgan’s wedding, because Morgan’s childhood friend Kim was an event planner and loved doing this kind of thing. Avery also hoped that Morgan wouldn’t put her in the line of fire so soon, in front of all the people who thought she’d cheated on Ryan. What happened senior year didn’t happen that long ago, and their group of friends still wanted nothing to do with her, while of course Noah hadn’t suffered at all from the fallout. He was lucky his head was down when they were in that bedroom at the party, that Avery’s face was the only one visible through that crack in the door. Everyone thought she’d hooked up with Ronald Archibald, the rando nobody was friends with who only lived in that room because he needed housing. Nobody knew it had been Noah sucking the life out of her.
Avery tensed. “Are you sure? I—I’ve never even been to a wedding before. I don’t know the first thing about being a maid of honor.”
