Page 16 of I Hate Myself for Loving You
Hector’s lips thinned. “You doubt everything, Avery. You’re a real downer sometimes. I’m telling you, let this go for now and let’s see what happens. Keep your mouth shut and let me thank Lassiter. You can go think up new ways to convince yourself he’s evil.”
Avery was speechless. Stunned. Rooted to the spot, watching Hector’s retreating back go off to thank the almighty Lassiter.
Her eyes narrowed. Lassiter was up to something and there was no time like the present to find out what it was. She wasn’t falling for this Lassiter has a heart crap. He might have had one once, but not anymore.
* * * * *
Avery stood by the large maple tree in full fall bloom, just beyond Lassiter’s trailer. Under the cover of night and the howl of the wind, Avery was feeling safe. The position gave her a bird’s eye view of his back door. The sliding glass door where she watched him talk to his pet parakeet.
She’d shifted as a precautionary measure. Now, in wolf form, she curled around the trunk of the tree, perking her ears to see if she might catch a phone conversation, or anything that might lead her to understand what had brought Lassiter here.
I’m not the boy you once knew. Lassiter’s words were as close to the truth as it got for Avery. They had stung her ears the other night and the more she thought about them, the more regret lingered.
She and Lassiter had gone to school together. His last years in high school were spent mostly with her. Avery, the awkward teenager, and Lassiter, the foster child of caretakers he just couldn’t identify with but loved nonetheless. They’d met when she was in eighth grade and Lassiter in the tenth. She’d met him in an after school accelerated math class held at the local high school.
Lassiter had stopped a bunch of boys from picking on her and for whatever reason, from that moment on they’d been friends. He was quiet much of the time, but when Lassiter spoke, it was like a kernel of wisdom Avery clung to.
Meaning. It was always said with a purpose and with meaning. Lassiter’s life hadn’t been easy, shipped from foster home to foster home, until he’d come upon the Fullers. A kind, older couple who’d taken him in at twelve and loved him like their own.
Yet, Lassiter always had a dark side Avery couldn’t reach. It was deep and layered, rank with a smell Avery could never quite pinpoint. He was as different as Avery was and those differences bonded them.
Lassiter was a loner—a loner no one screwed with. That didn’t stop them from talking about his pale skin and sunglasses when he wasn’t around, though.
He wore them all the time, making Avery want to tease him about it. But she didn’t because Lassiter didn’t tease her about her gangly, awkward body and her braces. Yet, because he wore those sunglasses all the time, she’d decided in all her teenaged fantasies, he simply was cool and mysterious. Like, maybe it was his thing. The thing that set him apart from every other boy she knew.
He’d treated her like his kid sister and though Avery had wished it differently, she’d respected their boundaries and kept her schoolgirl crush to herself.
She’d had enough of a stigma already, hiding her half-were heritage. Yet she never felt like the dork everyone else thought she was when she was with him—even if he didn’t know her deepest secret.
Often, Lassiter had told her, her opinionated mouth would bring her trouble, but back then he’d chuckled more than he’d scowled over her rants about one thing or another.
Lassiter always said less was more.
They’d shared a common bond in their love of animals. At the time, Avery was working after school at an animal shelter and she’d managed to wrangle a job for Lassiter, too. He was diligent in his duties. The animals adored him and it’d seemed like he’d liked them right back. He had a way about him that drew them to him.
Even the orneriest of domestics could be soothed by Lassiter. His low, honeyed tone of voice and his easy, gentle hands never failed to amaze Avery when she watched him in action.
For two years, before Lassiter graduated and moved away, they’d been the best of friends. When he left to go to college, Avery had cried herself to sleep every night for a month.
Her parents had fretted over her and her mother had threatened to drag her into therapy if she didn’t get over what she’d called Avery’s “bizarre attachment to the pale boy.”
Sure, he’d called once in a while and she’d gotten a letter or two, but it would never be the same as sharing French fries on a park bench after work, watching the sun set. It would never be the same as the time he’d brought his portable radio to the park and slow danced with her after she’d gone to the ninth grade Spring Fling and no one asked her to dance.
That moment, the moment when he’d held out his hand to her from her place on the park swing, would forever turn her insides out. She would always remember the warmth his arms around her had brought when she’d buried her face in his chest, fighting tears. The comfort he’d offered with no words but with a gesture, a gesture Avery could still feel imprinted on her heart.
It would never be the same as being able to talk with him for hours on end about nothing in particular and everything that was important in her world.
After a year or so, Lassiter didn’t call anymore and Avery moved on, but she’d missed his presence for a long time thereafter. She’d lost track of her lifeline who’d been something so much more than a friend to her. He’d become an integral part of her life, and his leaving, something Avery knew he’d eventually do, left a void that couldn’t be filled by anyone else.
When next they met, it had been in California, and then nothing about Lassiter was the same.
Nothing.
He was cold and angry and bitter, but over what she didn’t know. No longer the skinny geek she’d once known, their physical attraction was instantaneous, but Lassiter wasn’t interested in strolling down memory lane.
If he’d been surprised to see Avery picketing his condos, he hadn’t shown it.
She shook off the memory, probably because it still made her heart yearn for the sweet boy he’d been. Her protector, her first love, her everything. Before California, she’d regretted never telling him how she felt about him. But now? Avery decided she was better off.
