Page 77 of Pictures in Blue
“Avery is coming.”
The shuffling in the background stops and I hear Sky pick up her phone and take me off speaker. “Oh.Thisis gonna be good. Count me in,” is all she says before she ends the call.
Avery’s eyes shoot up at her name. They meet mine as she sneaks a few more crusts to the two beggars at her feet and fails. I noticed as soon as their whines no longer pierced the air, but I didn’t care to stop her. Judy, Bernard and the rest of the dogs are completely wrapped around her fingers. Add in me and Sky and she’s quickly running out of fingers.
“We going somewhere?”
“Sunday brunch.” She glances at the clock on her computer and notes the time. “And we’re late. So get dressed fast.”
I reach across her and steal the last piece of bacon from her plate before heading upstairs.
“Hey!” she calls after me, coming up behind me to make a grab for it. I reach it above my head and she stretches up on her toes, but fails to get to it. I place a greasy, bacon scented kiss on her lips and turn back around.
“You would have had more if you hadn’t fed some to the two beggars at your feet!” I call out. I hear her feet quicken behind me and I shove the rest of the bacon in my mouth and take the stairs two at a time.
She chases me all the way to the bedroom where I grab her around the waist and toss her on the bed. We’re already late. Might as well enjoy being a bit later.
We stopby Fran’s to pick up the usual pastries and I am thrown back to a week ago when I first saw Avery. How has it only been a week? Which means we have barely ten days left. Nine if you don’t count the day she leaves. I don’t waste time as I grab the pastries and ignore Fran’s knowing look. She doesn’t comment about my lateness, but the sly smile she gives me and her craning her neck to look around me to the truck where Avery is sitting, lets me know that she knows all.
I take the box from her and am thankful she doesn’t say anything else until I reach the door. She just can’t resist. “Take care of her, boy!” I give her one of my charming smiles—reserved only for her and Cordie—and walk out into the warm air.
We pull up to my parents house a few minutes later and I can tell Avery has been digging her nails into her palms by the half moon indents now present on them. “When you said Sunday brunch,” she starts. “I thought you meant at a restaurant or something. Like the two of us.”
I realize my mistake too late and I understand the shapes on her palms now. “I forgot you didn’t hear the whole conversation with Sky. It’s Sunday brunch….with my parents and my family…at their house. Is that okay?”
She nods her head and shakes the anxiety out of her palms. “No, it’s fine. I’ll be fine, it’s just…I wasn’t prepared to meet your parents.” She looks down at herself with analyzing eyes and I can see her picking apart her decision to wear leggings that cut off just below her calves and a navy blue tank top with a sport jacket over the top.
“Well, it’s not really meeting my parents inthatway, is it?” As soon as the words leave my lips, I want to suck them back in like the remnants of a milkshake.
“Oh,” she says and I swear I hear a hint of disappointment in her voice. “Okay. Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”
And before I can backtrack and take my words back from her, she leaves the truck with the box of pastries and heads for the porch toward the pristine, white front door.
I race up behind her and grab the box from her hands, plucking the other hand from the air poised to knock on the door.
“I’m not letting you go in there until I know you are okay.”
She takes a deep inhale and lets it out long and slow, closing her eyes. I can feel her hands itching to do their familiar rhythm, but I hold them steady in mine, massaging her palms with my thumbs to keep her grounded. Another deep breath before she finally looks at me, her piercing blue eyes, shimmering beneath her lashes. Pools of glittering sapphire she’s trying so hard to keep contained. To keep from overflowing. A tear escapes from one, leaving a trail of wetness down her cheek.
I lift our hands up and gently wipe the tear away with my thumb, her hand falling from mine. I wait until she is ready to talk, ignoring the sounds of Ethan and my mom getting out baking dishes from inside.
“Sorry,” she says.
I shake my head and bend my head down so our eyes are level. “Never apologize for how you feel. If you don’t want to go in there, we will go back to the truck right now and leave.”
“It’s Elias’ truck though,” she responds.
“I don’t give two shits about his truck right now. I’ll buy it off him right now if he asked and keep it for us if that’s what you needed.”
“I just wasn’t expecting to be around your family,” she explains.
“That’s on me, Avery. I’m so sorry. I should have told you exactly where we were going. I get so caught up sometimes, I forget you don’t know everyone’s schedule in town. Sunday brunches are just kind of our routine. Do you want to leave?”
It’s her turn to shake her head at me. “No,” she says, taking her hands from mine to nervously wipe them on her pants. “I want to go in. I really do, I promise,” she adds at the look of trepidation on my face.
“I just get nervous around a lot of new people and big families. I don’t…” she struggles to find the words, looking down at her feet like she can pluck the words from there, weeds waiting to be tugged. “I don’t come from a family like yours.”
“I know,” I say. I don’t know the extent of it, but from what she told me on our hike, I know her relationship with her mom is not at its best. I don’t think it has ever been in a great spot and from the way she talks about her, it doesn’t seem like she’s very interested in repairing anything. I don’t blame her. Sometimes it’s easier to cut things off, leave the people behind that don’t have a place or even deserve a place in your life, but wanting to do that and actually doing that are two different monsters. One is just harder to slay than the other.
