006: Recognise him

Avery's POV

My mum thought I was waitressing at a bar somewhere downtown. It was a perfect alibi for my late nights and the decent tips I brought home on work nights. There was absolutely nothing to worry about. I had kept that story clean for months and I had no plans to change it.

"Busy night," I said, sitting down across from her. "I made good tips though." I reached into my bag and pulled out the envelope. Thise were tips from the floor during my sets plus the private room. I put it on the table in front of her.

Her eyes went wide. "Avery—"

"Take it. It's for the house."

She reached for it with both hands and I watched her start to uncrumple some of the bills and the exhaustion in her face slowly gave way to something like relief and my chest did that tight thing it always did.

"This is so much, sweetheart. This will cover the—"

"Well, well."

The voice came from the hallway and both of us froze.

Dean leaned in the kitchen doorway with a terribly worn shirt on and his hair going everywhere and a look on his face that I had learned over two years meant he had already been to the liquor cabinet even though it wasn't even seven in the morning. My mum's boyfriend. Emphasis on the boy.

"Look at that." He pushed off the doorframe and walked to the table and picked up the envelope before my mum could do a single thing to stop him. "Somebody had a good night."

"Dean." I kept my voice flat. "That's for the bills."

"And I've got bills of my own." He was flicking through the notes already, counting. "You've been sitting on this kind of money and I've been eating rice for two weeks. That's not very loving, is it?"

"Put it down."

"Relax." He pocketed the envelope and had the nerve to smile at me. "Think of it as rent. You live here, don't you?"

"She pays rent," my mum said quietly. "Dean, please—"

"It's my mum's house and you are the one who needs to pay rent," I said. "I pay for the food and the electricity and the phone bill. You pay for absolutely nothing and you drink everything we have, including what's meant for the bills, so don't stand in this kitchen and talk to me about rent."

His smile vanished and his eyes went cold. "Watch your mouth."

"Or what?"

"Avery." My mum's voice had that please-don't quality that I hated because it worked, it always worked, because I could never put her in the middle of something that went bad.

I looked at her. Her hands were flat on the table. She was watching me with that careful look I had seen a hundred times.

I looked back at him.

"Give it back," I said.

"Not today." He straightened his shirt like he had somewhere important to be. "You can make more tonight, can't you?" He gave me a look up and down that made my skin crawl. "Clearly you're good at it."

I stood up so fast my chair scraped loud against the tiles.

"Mum." I looked at her. "Why? After everything he does, after every single time. Why do you still put up with this?"

"He's going through a hard time," she said softly.

"He's always going through a hard time. Every month there's a new hard time." I pressed my hands flat on the table. "He has been going through a hard time for two years and we are the ones paying for it. When does our hard time count?"

"He loves me, Avery."

"That is not what love looks like."

She looked away.

Dean was already heading down the hallway like the conversation was over. A moment later I heard the bedroom door close.

I stood there in the kitchen looking at my mum and feeling every hour of the night I had, going down the drain.

"I'm going to Jade's," I said.

"Avery—"

"I need some air, Mum." I walked towards the door. "I'll come back later."

She nodded and didn't look up from the table and I hated Dean for that. I properly hated him, for turning my mum into a ghost of herself.

My bestfriend Jade lived next door. I could cross the gap between our front doors in less than thirty seconds. I had been doing it since we were eight years old.

A car was parked in front of her driveway that hadn't been there when the cab dropped me off less than twenty minutes ago.

I slowed down.

Something about it nagged at me. I had seen a car like that recently. I just couldn't place where.

I pushed the thought away and walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

I heard some voices and the door swung open.

And every single part of me stopped working.

He was in the same plain grey shirt and his hair was still a bit messy and he was looking at me the way you look at a complete stranger.

Because to him, I was.

He did not see my face last night. My wig, mask and makeup that made me Scarlett made sure of that. He was looking at me right now and seeing absolutely nobody he recognised.

But I recognised him.

Every single inch of him.