Page 85 of She Used to Be Nice
“It’s a cry for attention!”
Whirr …
“She—”
“Okay, you know what?” Morgan shouted, so loudly it bounced off the walls and echoed throughout the house. The conversations stopped. “We’re done talking about this.”
“Hey, don’t blame us,” Blair said with her hands up. “Avery started it. We’re just defending Noah.”
Morgan pointed at Blair. “This conversation isover.”
Everyone hesitated before serving themselves from the trays of food once again. Nobody spoke. The only sounds were chairs scooting back and forth across the hardwood floor and silverware clinking and scraping against dishes. Avery didn’t get herself any food, could hardly bring herself to move. All she did was watch Morgan cut up a piece of eggplant and shove it in her mouth, and think to herself,How could you?
She fled from the dinner table and stormed up the stairs, shaking with sobs as she dove into her bed and buried her wet face into the pillow. She’d never felt more alone in her entire life. This loneliness was even more acute than when everyone ditched her senior year. At least back then she told herself she deserved it, because she’d let everyone believe that she cheated, that she’d just made a mistake, to the point where even she could believe it, too. It was so much easier to accept being treated horribly when you thought you deserved to be treated that way.
But now her head was all mixed up and she didn’t know what was real anymore. What if Noahdidn’ttake advantage of her? What if shedidcheat? She did let that narrative take off without correcting anyone. Why would she do that if there wasn’t a nugget of truth to it?
She squeezed her pillow tighter and kept sobbing until a bone-deep exhaustion pulled her under. Soon she fell asleep, and awoke hours later numb and needing to pee. She rubbed the crusts of sleep from her red-rimmed eyes and tiptoed into the hallway, toward the bathroom, passing Morgan and Charlie’s room. Their door was closed.
“What if he’s lying?”
Avery stopped after hearing Morgan’s impassioned voice muffled through the wood. Avery leaned her ear against the door, straining to hear.
“Why would he lie?” That was Charlie now. “Noah’s a really nice guy.”
Avery pressed her ear harder against the door, heard thetss-tssof cologne spritzing.
“But why would Avery lie? What would she gain from lying?”
“I don’t know, Morgan. I don’t know anything right now.”
“Exactly. You don’t know anything. You especially don’t know anything about Avery.” There was a pause. “You don’t get it. She’s been a mess this year, in a way I’ve never seen. It’s not like her to be like this. She was always so put together, so responsible.” Another pause. “He did it, Charlie. I know he did.”
“How do you know?” Charlie whispered.
“Female intuition.”
Relief poured into Avery’s body.Morgan believes me.
“What are you suggesting we do?” Charlie asked with a sigh.
Morgan mumbled something incoherent. Charlie’s voice became quieter, too. Avery pressed her ear so hard against the door that she nearly fell through it. She heard a drawer opening and slamming shut, then shuffles of footsteps growing louder and coming closer to the door. She scrambled to stand up and brush herself off, and the moment she was upright the door swung open. Morgan was dressed in black flare leggings and a white tank top, her freshly showered hair combed and dangling wet at her sides. The hollows underneath her eyes were stained purple.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Avery said back.
Laughter erupted from downstairs. Charlie murmured, “Let me go check on that,” and put his hand on Avery’s shoulder as he passed her.
Morgan and Avery stared at each other in silence. A few heavy, loaded beats passed before Morgan spoke. “Can we talk?”
Avery said nothing, just followed Morgan to the front yard, where they sat side by side on the cream couches under the stone archway. The early evening air was crisp and refreshing, the perfect setting to watch the sun disappear behind the mountains and fill the sky with streaky reds and oranges. It could’ve been a beautiful night, a beautiful weekend, if not for this. If not for Avery.
“I don’t know what to say,” Morgan said quietly.
Avery picked at a loose thread on the couch. “Yeah, well, you didn’t have much to say inside either, so …” Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t mad at Morgan, exactly, for not defending her at dinner. She was just sad. And not quite sure where they went from here.
“I think I was just shocked.”
