Page 53 of She Used to Be Nice
Pete widened his eyes in mock-surprise. “Wait, you like me?”
Avery laughed. “Shut up.”
At the end of the night, Pete paid for dinner and held the door open for Avery when they left the restaurant, two more gentlemanly gestures Avery couldn’t help but clock and revel in. Outside, yellow lamps lining the street flickered above their heads, and a tipsy, handsy couple slid into a cab that drove down the block and disappeared. The couple reminded Avery that they’d approachedthatpart of the first date, and she couldn’t deny that she was looking forward to this. She enjoyed their dinner conversation, enjoyed all the little ways Pete seemed to want to take care of her already, but this was the moment she thought about the most: her hands wrapped around his neck, her fingers running through his silky hair, her lips surrendering to his with a sigh. If she bored him with talk of her upbringing or was at all awkward tonight, this was her chance to make up for it. Because despite how amazing Pete was, at the end of the day he was still a man, and men always secretly wanted this more than they let on, even when they were trying to be gentlemen. Or even, like Noah, when they weren’t.
Pete pulled away from her embrace. “Let me get you a cab home.”
Avery bristled, stung by the rejection. “Seriously? Just come over. Celeste is gone tonight.”
Pete shook his head softly. “Not tonight.”
She huffed. How dare he embarrass her like this. “I’ll get my own cab, thanks.” She turned on her heel to walk away, until Pete spoke again.
“Hey, wait! It’s not that I don’t want to. Obviously I do. But, really? Sex on the first date? Have some class.” Pete bounced his eyebrows on his forehead, signaling he was kidding.
Avery crossed her arms. “That’s not funny. Are we never gonna have sex again now?”
Pete sighed. “Of course we will, Avery. But we started off kind of intense with that.” He stared into Avery’s eyes and laced his fingers through hers. “Why don’t we just slow down a bit?”
Avery shivered at his tenderness. “It’s hard to do that when you’re touching me, you know.”
Pete lifted his hands up. “I’ll never touch you again.”
“No!” Avery grabbed his hands and put them on her shoulders. “Don’t stop!”
Pete laughed and slipped his palms around her waist, making her feel small and safe. He bent down to kiss her once again, this time without letting the kiss slide into anything passionate. Instead, he kept his lips loosely on hers, forcing her to slow down and focus on the closing space between them. She felt light-headed when he pulled away.
“It’s very hard to resist you, trust me,” Pete said. He put a gentle hand on her cheek. “But I want to savor getting to know you, now that I can.”
Avery didn’t know what to say. Her sexual experiences with other guys were always so animalistic and carnal, just a body using hers as a means to a satisfactory end. She rarely cared about what happened when they got drinks or during the actual sex afterward. It was the conquest element that she loved the most, the opportunity to see herself as someone who could take the wheel after Noah stripped her of that agency. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been treated like this, like she was something delicate and precious. Like she was worthy of being taken care of, of being seen.
“Okay,” she said, completely flustered. “Sure. Yeah. That sounds … nice.”
“Now, can you please let me get you a cab? My mother will be so thrilled to know I was chivalrous.”
Avery giggled in a fizzy kind of way. She was surprised that sound could still come out of her mouth. “Sure,” she said. She knew she could hail her own cab—and she would have, since she didn’t like taking the subway this late at night anyway, with all the crazies ready to use her for masturbation material—but she liked that Pete wanted to do this for her. She liked that she was allowing him to do this for her.
An empty cab pulled up next to them. Pete handed the driver some cash, then opened the door to the back seat for Avery. Before she slid inside, Pete put his hands on her waist and kissed her again, a little deeper this time, enough to leave her wanting more. Her lips tingled with the feel of his as she climbed into the back seat. And as the driver sped up the FDR, she looked out the window, beaming at the skyline sparkling across the East River.
“Why can’t Pete keep his toothbrush at your apartment?” Morgan asked, taking a sip of her margarita.
A few weeks had passed since Avery’s first date with Pete. Morgan and Avery were meeting for happy hour at Ofrenda, a delicious Mexican joint in the West Village, where little Mexican flags mixed with string lights hung across the ceiling and behind the bar. Avery felt unsure about Pete today. He’d slept over after they went out for Indian food last night, and this morning, she did a double take when she saw his toothbrush sitting in her cabinet, in the empty space next to her tampons. As if he thought he had aspotin her apartment now.
“I don’t know,” Avery said. “It’s a lot of assumptions. It means you’re confident enough to know that you’ll be back.”
Morgan blinked at her. “But he can assume that. You’re dating.”
“We went on threedates.That doesn’t mean we’redating.” Avery ran her finger around the salty edge of her margarita glass as she mulled over the word. She definitely liked being around Pete, and there was something attractive about a guy who was so secure in his feelings for you that he thought nothing of leaving one of his belongings behind because he knew he’d get it next time. But Avery wished Morgan would use a more low-pressure word to describe what was going on. Something like talking or hanging out. “It just makes me uncomfortable. And is it that unreasonable for me to want to take things slow with someone?”
“No, it’s not unreasonable, Avery.” Morgan’s voice was gentle. “But you can’t let the mistake you made affect you forever. At some point, you have to forgive yourself.”
A lump swelled in Avery’s throat. If only Avery could tell Morgan the truth about that so-called mistake, about the shame that sat like an elephant on Avery’s chest. Then Morgan wouldn’t think moving on was so easy.
“I’m trying, Morgan. The fact that I’m going on dates with him is huge for me.”
“I know it is!” Morgan put her hand on top of Avery’s reassuringly. “I just want you to give yourself permission to open up, you know? Let him see you for the incredible person you are. You are so much more than that night senior year.”
Avery took another bite of her taco. Morgan wouldn’t understand. She didn’t know how that night impacted everything Avery thought about herself, infiltrating her body like an incurable virus. When she looked in the mirror, she didn’t see an incredible person. She saw someone who allowed horror to descend upon her through her reckless actions. She saw all the pieces of herself that Noah had taken from her, all the fragments of who she once was.
