Chapter 6: Avery

Avery’s POV

The front door closed behind me harder than I intended, and I immediately heard my parents' conversation stop dead in the kitchen.

Crap.

I dropped my backpack and pressed my back against the door, trying to get my breathing under control.

The hallway whispers had followed me all the way home, echoing in my head like a broken record.

Can't believe she came back... after what happened... wonder if she thinks people forgot...

"Avery?" Mom's voice, carefully neutral. "How was school, honey?"

I could hear them both holding their breath, waiting for me to either break down or lie to their faces. The same dance we'd been doing for two years.

"Fine," I called back, hating how my voice cracked slightly on the word.

Dad appeared in the doorway, still in his work shirt but with his sleeves rolled up. His eyes did that quick scan thing checking for tears, for signs that I was falling apart again.

"Just fine?" he asked, and I could hear all the questions he wasn't asking.

Do you want to talk about it? Are you okay? Should we have listened when you said you were ready?

"It was exactly what I expected," I said, which was true enough. I'd expected the stares, the whispers, the careful way people avoided mentioning sophomore year while making it clear they remembered every detail.

What I hadn't expected was how much it would still hurt.

"Well," Mom said, appearing behind Dad with that forced brightness she'd perfected over the past two years, "tomorrow will be better. First days are always—"

"Mom." I cut her off, probably more sharply than I should have. "I'm fine. Really. I just need to do homework."

They exchanged one of those looks, the kind that said they were still walking on eggshells around me, still terrified that the wrong word might send me spiraling again.

I took the stairs two at a time, desperate to get to my room before the careful mask I'd been wearing all day finally cracked.

My chemistry textbook was supposed to be a distraction, but even electron configurations couldn't quiet the noise in my head.

Every time I tried to focus, I kept seeing his face. The way Bryson had looked at me in the hallway, like I was some ghost from his past that had suddenly materialized to haunt him.

Good. Let him be haunted.

The doorbell rang, cutting through my thoughts. I heard Mom's heels clicking across the hardwood, then the sound of the front door opening.

"Gabriel! What a lovely surprise!"

Gabriel. Gabe Castellanos from down the street. We'd been friends when we were kids, but drifted apart as we got older. Before I'd become too wrapped up in a certain quarterback to notice anyone else.

"My mom made enchilada casserole," I heard him say. "She insisted I bring it over when she heard you were back."

"How thoughtful! Avery's upstairs doing homework, but I'm sure she'd love to see you."

My stomach clenched. I wasn't ready to see anyone else today, wasn't sure I could keep pretending everything was fine.

"Avery!" Mom called. "You have a visitor!"

I caught sight of myself in my dresser mirror.

My hair was slightly messed up from running my hands through it, my eyes a little too bright. I looked exactly like what I was: a girl barely holding it together.

Gabe was standing in our foyer holding a casserole dish, and the first thing I noticed was how much he'd changed.

He was taller now, probably over six feet, with broader shoulders that filled out his soccer practice shirt. His dark hair was longer than it used to be, curling slightly at the ends, and when he smiled at me, I felt something flutter in my chest that had nothing to do with anxiety.

"Hey, Avery," he said, and his voice was deeper than I remembered. "Welcome back."

"Hi," I managed, suddenly very aware that I was staring.

"I looked for you at school today," he continued, "but somehow we missed each other. I wanted to make sure you were... okay."

There was something in the way he said it...not like he was fishing for gossip, but like he actually cared about the answer.

"We could sit outside for a bit," I found myself saying. "Catch up."

Mom practically beamed as she took the casserole, and I grabbed two bottles of water before following Gabe out to the front porch.

The old swing creaked as we sat down, and for a moment I just let myself enjoy the normalcy of it.

The late afternoon sun filtering through the oak trees, the sound of kids playing basketball in the Hendersons' driveway, the comfortable weight of someone sitting beside me without expecting anything.

"So," Gabe said, settling back against the cushions. "Connecticut.”

“You heard?” I looked up at him.

He gave me a small smile.“Was it everything you hoped it would be?"

I looked at him sideways, surprised by the directness of the question. 

"It was quiet," I said. "Sometimes that was exactly what I needed. Sometimes it was the last thing I wanted."

"And now you're back."

"Now I'm back," I agreed. "Much to everyone's surprise."

"Including mine," he admitted. "I heard rumors you were coming back, but I didn't really believe it until I saw your parents’ car in the driveway yesterday."

"Disappointed?" I asked, trying to keep my tone light.

"Are you kidding?" He turned to face me fully, and I was struck by how intense his eyes were. "Avery, you were always the smartest person in the room. This place was boring without you."

Something warm unfurled in my chest at his words, and I felt my carefully constructed walls wobble slightly.

"I wasn't that smart," I said quietly.

"You were. You are." He paused, studying my face. "What happened before... that wasn't about you being smart or not smart. That was about other people being jerks."

The casual way he said it, acknowledging what happened without tiptoeing around it, made my throat tight.

"Most people seem to think it was about me making bad decisions," I said.

"Most people are idiots." His voice had an edge to it that I'd never heard before. "Anyone who actually knew you would know better."

I stared at him, trying to process the fact that Gabe Castellanos....sweet, quiet, Gabe....was sitting on my porch defending me with a fierceness that made my heart race.

"You don't know what really happened," I said carefully.

"I know enough." He leaned closer, close enough that I could see the intensity in his brown eyes.

"I know that you were always kind to everyone, even when they didn't deserve it. I know that you never hurt anyone on purpose. And I know that whatever happened, you didn't deserve what came after," he continued.

My breath caught in my throat.

No one had ever said that to me before.

Not my parents, not my therapist, not anyone.

They'd all been so focused on helping me heal and move forward that no one had ever just... defended me.

"Gabe—"

"I also know that anyone who can't see how incredible you are is an idiot. And that includes a certain quarterback who thinks he owns this town."

My blood went cold. "What do you mean?"

"I saw him today," Gabe said, his jaw tightening. "At soccer practice. Our field’s next to the football field, so I could see their practice too. Gray looked out of it, and he kept screwing up the plays. Coach Williams finally kicked him out."

The world tilted slightly. "He got kicked out of practice?"

"Yeah. Couldn't complete a pass to save his life, apparently. Which is weird, because Gray's usually on it when it comes to football."

Gabe's eyes searched my face. "I'm guessing that has something to do with you being back."

I stared at him, my pulse speeding up. Bryson had been so distracted by my return that he'd gotten kicked out of practice. Football was everything to him.

His identity, his future, his way into college.

"Look," Gabe continued, "I don't know what the history is between you two, but if he's harassing you—"

"He's not," I said quickly. "I mean, he tried to talk to me today, but I shut it down."

"Good," Gabe said, and there was something protective in his voice that made my heart skip. "Because you don't owe him anything, Avery. Whatever happened before, whatever part he played in it…you don't owe him a second chance."

The way he said it, like he'd fight anyone who suggested otherwise, made something warm and and fierce unfurl in my chest.

"I know," I said softly.

"Do you?" He leaned closer, close enough that I could see the concern in his expression. "Because guys like that, they think they can just apologize their way back into your life. They think because they feel guilty, that means you have to forgive them."

My breath caught. "Gabe..."

"I'm just saying," he continued, his voice gentle but firm, "you get to decide who deserves your time. And from where I'm sitting, you deserve a hell of a lot better than whatever he's offering."

I looked at him. This boy who'd grown into someone I barely recognized, who'd just defended me more fiercely than anyone ever had, whose presence was making my pulse race for entirely different reasons than fear.

"Thank you," I whispered. "For what you said. For... all of it."

Before I could lose my nerve completely, I leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. His skin was warm and smelled like soap and something else, something distinctly him.

"I should go inside," I said, standing up before I could do something really stupid. "Homework calls."

He stood too, his hand reaching up to touch his cheek where I'd kissed him. "Yeah, of course. Thanks for... this. For letting me welcome you back properly."

"Thanks for the casserole. And for defending me."

"Anytime," he said, and the way he looked at me made my pulse race. "I mean that, Avery. Anytime."

I watched him walk down the front path, then went inside and leaned against the closed door, my heart hammering.

Because Gabe Castellanos had just made it very clear that my return wasn't just affecting me. Bryson was so thrown by seeing me again that he couldn't even function at the thing he cared about most.

And the protective way Gabe had talked about me, the way he'd looked at me like I was worth defending...

I was in trouble. Because for the first time in two years, I was starting to feel things that had nothing to do with anger or hurt or the careful walls I'd built around my heart.

And that scared me more than any amount of hallway whispers ever could.