august, two years ago
sacremento

"How was I supposed to know that we'd get super drunk?"

"It's a bachelor party, dude, that's like, the whole point."

"Maybe you shouldn't have planned it the night before your wedding, dumbass,"

"Don't call me a dumbass," Even with her ear pressed against the bathroom door, Avery can hear Calum's grin, vividly imagining the crinkle by his eyes. "I'm getting fucking married!"

There's a conglomeration of cheers and whoops led by Luke- she could tell by the laugh instantly when his deep, smooth voice turned to a high-pitched wheeze, a thousand tiny giggles bursting through. She's smiling like a fool at the sound when someone taps on her shoulder, breaking the trance she was in.

Avery nearly jumps a foot. When she takes in the sight of her agent's kid, Jordan Something-or-Another, in a hand-me-down suit and bright blue bowtie, her heart rate calms.

She didn't want Jordan here, didn't want a kid stuck to her side all night, but when her agent Caroline had met her in the lobby of her apartment building, a brand new Canon and two hundred dollars in cash to babysit for the weekend, how could she say no?

The moment Avery agreed, Caroline unveiled a suitcase for Jordan and ran off to meet her boyfriend in their Uber outside. Avery never got the chance to say she was on her way across the country, but it was too late now.

"Christ," She mutters with a shake of her head, then tugs Jordan by the sleeve and pushes through the bathroom door, swinging it open with a loud slam. Her friends, dressed in their very best groomsmen suits look up as she waltzes in, tight-fitting blue dress and enormous sunglasses taking up half her face, with enough confidence to fuel an entire army.

It was something she learned to perfect immediately after high school, faking her place in the world to shove it back at everyone who thought she'd never make it.

She grins so big that the split in her bottom lip nearly busts back open. "Ayo, groom, your bride is going batshit crazy, you ready for this?"

This utterly surreal world where her childhood best friends were getting married and had a child- an actual, living child- was too much for her to process. The pregnancy was a surprise, sure, but the friend group was large enough to where someone had to be the first to get knocked up; the wedding, though, was the real shock factor.

No one expected Ada and Calum to stay together after the almost-cheating scandal. But their baby changed everything. Calum proposed two days before Mateo was born, when Ada was so fat she couldn't see her feet and only wanted to drink Coca-Cola slushies from the gas station. The whole scandal was nothing but a memory, a disturbed inside joke. They were happier than ever.

Jordan snaps a photo. Calum steps towards them, but the smile doesn't drop from his face. "Do you have to do that right now, Avery?"

She halfway listens to the exchange after that, even as Jordan shuffles away, eyeing Luke in her periphery. God, he looked fantastic, but the simple sight of him sent anger straight through her heart especially when he dared to try and speak to her.

Nothing more than a simple, stuttered hey, but it still set her off.

"Burn in hell, Luke Hemmings."

7:07 pm

"That was like, a cool wedding,"

Avery has to fight the urge to roll her eyes at Jordan's astute observation, knowing she was even dumber as a teen, though she was a mere eleven months past teenagehood herself. Not ever thinking she'd make it to twenty, Avery didn't realize how liberating getting out of high school drama and underage drinking would be.

Avery squints her eyes at him, the messed up bowtie and pimply cheeks, the aura of uncomfortable embarrassment. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"God, I'm sorry." She snorts and takes a swig of vodka from her flask, offering Jordan a sip. He ever so awkwardly accepts, cringing when the taste hits. "Being seventeen is a disease."

"Yeah," He coughs and takes another drink for confidence. "You're only twenty, right?"

She bats her eyes and steals the flask back. "I'm into older men."

8:32

In the bathroom, under dull light and through her tears, Avery applies concealer two shades too light to the bruise ringing around her eye, a little powder over the one on her jaw faded after weeks.

But no amount of makeup covers the pain.

The pills at the bottom of her purse barely help now, the growing intolerance that used to nurse the wounds and get her a little high. And now...nothing.

The door bursts in, a white poof stumbling through like an avalanche. Ada, all dark skin and smiles and kissed off makeup, wiggles through the thin doorframe and bunches up her dress. "Oh, thank God you're here, chica, I've had to piss since I walked down the aisle, and there's no way I'm getting out of the dress alone-"

Her sentence dies off when she takes in Avery, crumpled over the sink with bruises decorating her face like glitter on a rave girl. She drops her dress and waddles to Avery, taking the beauty blender from her fingers.

Her movements are gentle and they don't speak, Ada doesn't stare or pretend like it's something it's not; Avery doesn't over or under-explain anything, and just hands Ada the blush from her makeup bag.

"You know my tia Camila?" It's a whisper in a lonely room, which only means one thing; this is a secret, for Avery's ears only. "Huge boobs, dresses like it's Jersey Shore, you always made jokes about wanting to bang her?"

Avery sniffles through her embarrassment. "How could I forget?"

"She moved in with us when I was 12, and I was ecstatic, you know, fun aunt comes over and it's a sleepover every night. I was 12 and stupid."

"Me too," Tears dot the corners of her eyes, blurred vision as Ada swipes a brush over her cheeks.

"Turns out her boyfriend put her in the ICU, so she came to live with us for a while..." Her eyes glaze over. "Then the boyfriend shows up one night and suddenly me and my cousin are getting locked in the bathroom while all the adults are shouting and doing god knows what in the front yard,"

They lock eyes, champagne hazy and deep brown. "It's still one of the scariest nights of my life and I only heard everything through the walls."

Avery doesn't speak until her makeup is finished, and in the mirror, no one would be able to tell. A little touchup on lip gloss and she was good as new, a doll repainted. She helps Ada lift her dress to finally pee, and as the two girls walk back to the reception, Ada touches Avery's wrist.

She didn't even need to say a word.

10:13

"Hey, pretty girl,"

It had been ages since that voice and that name, strung out so prettily from his lips; Avery thought she could fall into Michael's arms immediately. His smile reached his eyes, champagne starry and candy apple green, and it was the same smile he had given her at age nine when they were sharing orange slices and scraping knees on the playground.

Here was her oldest friend, a man now, but once the boy she loved more than herself.

"Hi, Mike," Her grin reaches her eyes and his arms find purchase around her waist, a hug that felt like coming home. But something was off. Upon glancing around, it hits her. "Where's Kayla?"

Tipsy, Michael grabs her hand. "Wanna dance?"

They fall into step, limbs tangled and feet stumbling over a handful of Vodka crans and four-inch heels.

"This reminds me of our junior homecoming," Michael whispers into her hair, Avery safely snuggled against his chest as they swayed slowly to the song's beat. "You in a pretty dress, me in a scratchy tux,"

"Yeah? We gonna get wasted and steal your mom's car tonight too?"

"That was all on you," He chuckles. "All the trouble we got into was always your fault,"

She stares up at him and wants to cry. At sixteen, she loved him the most, in that way where your heart swells when your best friend makes you laugh more than anyone. At twenty, it felt odd. Odd to be pretending she was still the same person now, a stranger in a body that would never forgive her for what she's done.

"Where's Kayla, Mikey?"

He looks down. "Her classes start next week. I know that much."

They'd gone through a fair share of relationships together. With each other, with others, but it seems like nothing ever stuck. Avery briefly imagined a world where nothing bad happened to her, and she and Michael would be high school sweethearts, in their mid-20s and planning their wedding by now.

It was nice to pretend, however briefly, that they could have some kind of whirlwind romance and settle down in their hometown, 10 blocks away from their parent's houses.

If she had stayed with Michael, maybe a few summers ago, she wouldn't have gone out at night in retaliation against her father.

Luke wouldn't have crossed her path. She wouldn't even know what a Luke Hemmings was.

Something gave her a clue that life would be almost worse that way. It was better to lose him now than never get the chance.

"Don't look now, but Luke's, like, right behind us," Mikey warns. Avery immediately turns to stare directly at him.

A sigh escapes her lips, suddenly the only sound in the world, his vibrancy and warmth radiating through the room. And just as fast as she turned to look, she turned back around with a little less dignity than before.

"Here's the thing, Ave," Michael sighs when she wraps her arms tighter around him, holding on for dear life. "He loves you more than anything, more than her-"

Avery flinches.

"It doesn't matter what you asked him to do, he'd say yes. You want him back, go get him."

"And if I don't want him?" It was a truth she hadn't yet spoken, a soft confession she feared. Avery loved Luke, loved him for three summers now, despite the bullshit and anger and thousands of miles. "I'm not good for him,"

Michael, although perplexed, didn't question it, experiencing firsthand how Avery can ruin even the most simple of relationships.

But that never stopped him before.

"Go home with me?" Michael whispers, drunk and nostalgic. She caresses his cheek. Anything Avery felt for Michael died in New York.

"Go home and call Kayla." She whispers to him before spinning on her heel, deciding that the party, for her, was over. Avery walks through the crowd unnoticed, invisible. Until he sees her. The way he's always been able to see right through her.

Eye contact across a crowded room. Girls spinning in pretty dresses, a blur of colors between them, a sea of people going home with one another. Avery would swim across it, swim a thousand miles to get to him.

A dawn of recognition as she realizes he's stepping towards her, parting the crowd in a path leading directly to where she stands. Suddenly the spell is broken and her feet are moving, tied to his invisible string, a magnetism she'd followed for years.

Anger is easy when he is a thousand miles away and she can't count the colors in his eyes. But now with a backbone bending over backward for his will, she can't find anything but an indescribable, complex pain.

This pain, this empty aching feeling where their hearts are, is what reminds them of each other.

She'll never stop being sad if it means he'll always be a part of her.

The second her feet move, someone else steps in, grabbing his hand to dance, her vibrant violet dress swirling. Liv, all boundless energy and champagne smiles, steps between and holds Luke the way Avery wishes she could. She kisses his cheek and twirls under his arm and the two are such a picture that Avery picks up the camera from around her neck, a flash of light capturing that moment in time.

Luke's eyes find her once again and it was that moment when Avery knew.

She'd love him forever, but this was the last time they'd ever be in a room together.