Page 71 of She Used to Be Nice
Avery smiled. She’d done it. She’d let him in. It was only a little, and it wasn’t everything, and she wasn’t sure if it would make up for all the other times she’d pushed him away. But she was glad she could let her guard down some more. She was glad that Pete was patient, that he didn’t give up on her when she acted cagey after Comedy Cellar or when she kicked him out of her apartment after sex in a blind rage. Maybe now, whenever Pete thought of her,thiswould be the moment he’d remember, above all those others.
Avery leaned backward on her hands, letting the rays of the sun seep into her face and bare shoulders. It was the most beautiful day of spring so far. On the walking path, people were jogging, riding bikes, and meandering aimlessly, while others were playing catch on the lawn or reading books on nearby benches. There wasa long line in front of a blue and yellow Sabrett hot dog stand; Avery made a mental note to get one later. She glanced at Pete, who was also enjoying himself, grinning and peering around at their fellow New Yorkers thawing from winter. Avery was looking forward to the bachelor party in Colorado in a couple of weeks, to hanging out with Pete for several days in a row and seeing how he meshed with her friends. But right now, she wanted to take it one step further. To show him just how special he was to her. Because it turned out she didn’t care how the bachelor party weekend went. She knew, no matter what, that she wanted Pete by her side for all of it. Good or bad.
“So, I know Morgan and Charlie’s wedding isn’t for another four months,” she began. “But I was wondering. Do you want to be my plus-one?”
Pete leaned over their charcuterie board to kiss her. He pulled away slowly, gazing at her with an expression that looked something like love. And she gazed right back.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said.
Scout has been having diarrhea all over the apartment
It was far too early in the morning on a Monday for Morgan to be texting Avery about diarrhea, but here they were.
oh no,Avery texted back.
I need to cancel drinks tn. Charlie’s gonna be home late from work so I need to deal with this
Morgan sent Avery a photo of Scout looking up at the camera with sad puppy eyes, his little body wrapped in a blanket like a burrito. Avery responded to the photo with a heart and told Morgan that she hoped he felt better. That dog was in great hands. Morgan was so maternal. Unlike Avery, who this morning realized she hadn’t watered her monstera plant for three weeks, and it had begun wilting to its death.
Avery’s phone buzzed again.Call me after work tho? I wanna hear about the picnic!
Avery smiled and wrote backsure thing
She put down her phone and brought her attention back to her desk. Four women in total had now accused Dave Moore of sexual assault, and according toMetropolitanthe latest development was that the Los Angeles police department was building a case to take him to court. Moore, as expected, denied every single allegation, his lawyers whack-a-moling each one as they popped up in what felt like rapid succession. Avery wondered what would even happen if Moore was brought to court. At least one victim would probably need a rape kit, for one, to have strong DNA evidence against him. But maybe at first these victims hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that Moore had raped them, so why would they have gotten something called arape kit?They should change the name of that to something else. Something that didn’t require victims to admit what was done to them. Also, she’d read horror stories about how violating it was to collect samples for the kit. Who’d want to do that immediately after having already been violated?
Avery’s heart slammed against her ribcage. She refused to contemplate this any further. This Dave Moore story was only further proof that #MeToo hadn’t made any of the progress everyone thought it did. So many women spoke out during that movement, and for what? For this shit to keep happening and coming to light? For more readers, still, to say in the comments ofMetropolitan’s coverage that the journalists writing about this case should kill themselves? The associate social media editor could handle this one later. Avery was over it.
“Morning, Avery,” Larry said, leaning against Avery’s desk. “Can I get some help making a video montage?”
Avery was relieved by the interruption. She helped Larry cut together some clips he had taken during a vintage car pop-up museum on the Upper West Side. As she finished showing him how to post the video to his social media accounts, her computer dinged with a message from Kevin.
Larry has 10k Instagram followers but I can’t get an email back from a recruiter at BuzzFeed? Make it make sense
Avery grabbed the box of Insomnia Cookies she’d bought on her way to work this morning and walked over to Kevin’s desk. She’d remembered Kevin was hearing back from BuzzFeed today, his second choice after he didn’t get theEntertainment Weeklyjob, and wanted to get him something to ease his nerves. She was glad at least one of them was pursuing their career dreams. Maybe one day she would find the motivation to join him, to try writing again in a real way. Then she’d never have to work on the Dave Moore story ever again.
Kevin gasped when he saw the white box. “You didn’t.”
“I did.” Avery put the box down. “We’ll use them to celebrate if you get the job. If not, we’ll stress eat.”
“What if Patricia asks what they’re for?”
Avery pursed her lips in thought. “Your birthday?”
“It’s next month anyway, so, close enough. Can you believe I’ll be twenty-seven? Officially in my late twenties.”
Avery pretended to be disgusted. “Wow. Should I call the nursing home? Reserve you a spot?”
“Don’t waste your time. I’ll be dead soon. Just like our racist uncles.” Kevin helped himself to a chocolate chip cookie. “I can’t wait to be out of my twenties. My sister is thirty-two. She says you care so much less about what people think in your thirties.”
“That sounds nice. Probably because you’re more secure in who you are by then. Or so I hear.”
Kevin choked out a laugh. “Can you imagine what it would be like to not hate yourself?”
“I literally can’t.” Avery tried to keep her voice light, but the weight of the truth of her response nearly made her fall through her chair.
She thought about their conversation some more later that night, at home after work. Your twenties, she mused, were supposed to be filled with discovery, a time when you explored who you were and what you wanted out of your life. Yet all Avery was doing was running further from herself, further from the truth about what Noah did to her. She tried to push it away by skirtingaround conversations with Pete and being an attentive friend and maid of honor to Morgan, but those moments of success almost always came with a side effect of destruction. She could only run so far from the minefield of her past before another explosion affected her relationships and forced her to clean things up yet again. And although she hadn’t been a mess for that long, already she’d gotten used to it, the way human beings can get used to any deplorable condition if they’re steeped in it long enough. She was comfortable being this person, and the thought of the work it would take to confront the truth sounded exhausting, like an uphill battle she was too out of shape to climb.
But how much longer could she live like this, so scared of being honest about that night? She didn’t know. Up until this point she’d lied to herself and everyone else. And in just a few short months the wedding would be over, and Noah and all her old friends would be out of her life for good, and then she’d feel less pressure around maintaining the lie. It was the finish line she had to cross, even if she had to army crawl her way there. She was looking forward to that immensely, to the exhale of relief of no longer having to think about any of this, because lately she felt like a wire pulled so taut that soon it would snap. Freedom was so close, she could taste it.
