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She shook her head and looked down. The sadness on her face told me everything I needed to know.
"It's not like that. I promise. We tried to hang out, but he can't get over what I did."
"You mean the abortion?"
She nodded silently. "It's not what you think… I didn't have an abortion."
Forty-Three
"What? What are you talking about?"
Avery exhaled a large breath and eyed her glass of lemonade. A few seconds ago she’d been my rock, giving me inspiring words. Now she seemed broken inside, her face paling. Her thumb rimmed the lip of the glass as she blinked, like she was lost in her thoughts.
"Are you sure you want to hear this?" she asked me, her voice low. "It's not all rainbows and butterflies, and you have to make me a promise to never tell your brother, no matter what I tell you."
I reached for her hand and her fingers wrapped around mine. I didn't say anything. I didn't need to. She knew I'd never do that. We both positioned ourselves against my headboard and sat back.
"There's a lot you don't know about your brother," she said quietly.
Didn't surprise me. Most siblings were like that.
"Tell me when you started to date him."
She looked at me with guarded eyes. "We never dated. We were together but we never dated officially."
"I kind of gathered that. I just don't know how you guys made it work when he was in school."
"He came home on the weekends a lot to see me and then we hid out in the guest house together or went to parties. Or I'd go visit him. It wasn't hard to sneak around, honestly, and no one thought anything of it because my brothers were there too. I just looked like the little sister that tagged along, you know?"
I nodded. Made sense. Anything was possible with enough courage.
Avery released a breath like she just let the weight of her world go.
"Don't hold back from me, okay? No more."
She glanced in my direction and smiled softly.
"It sucks because I still want him, even after everything. He's a different person when it's just me and him. Kind of like with you and Kova, I guess." She paused to swallow, then chewed on her bottom lip like she was nervous to tell me. "We started up about two years ago. We teased each other like siblings do, but then something somehow morphed into something else and we became more. He was like a best friend with benefits in a way. Once we started hooking up, we fell hard for each other. I loved him… I think I still love him."
My brows shot up. "I can't believe I never knew. How did I not I see it? I feel like everything is so obvious now, but at the time… Like New Year’s… I should've seen it."
"You wouldn't have. No one would have. Our parents were never around. You were doing gymnastics morning, noon, and night, and we were good at hiding it. It was so easy."
I nodded my head back and forth. She had a point. Sneaking around is easy when you want something bad enough.
"The parties, though…that's where all of our issues stem from. There's so much drugs and aggression and testosterone at them. At the time, we didn't think anything of it. We were living our best life, but hindsight is a bitch. We'd drink and smoke some weed, then go back to his house and smush like rabbits. But it wasn't just like any hookup. It was way more for both of us. I can't explain it, like it just was, and he knew that."
Avery exhaled another big breath like it was hard for her to get into the nitty-gritty of the story. I felt bad.
"If it's too hard to talk about, we don't have to," I said gently.
She shook her head. "No, I need to tell you everything."
Scooting
closer to her, I rested my head on her shoulder, hoping to give her the courage to keep going. "Go on."
She waited a long moment.
