Heartache and Hope (Heartache Duet #1)(26)

“Ava,” Connor sighs, and I can feel the breath of sympathy and guilt filling the space between us. I imagine my life two weeks from now, when he starts to make excuses for not returning texts, or not sitting next to me, or not acknowledging my existence at all.

I already miss him, and he’s sitting right in front of me.

It’s my fault, I tell myself. It was stupid of me to get attached. To crave him when he wasn’t around.

“Is it true?” he asks.

I nod. “Whatever you heard, it’s all true.” I don’t bother asking what was said or how he feels. None of it matters. I flick the ring around my thumb, over and over. I say, my heartbreak falling from my closed lids, “You know the court ordered her to be on twenty-four hour supervision after that day, so she has a caregiver while I’m at school, and I have to be there all the other times, so it’s not really a big deal that, you know… that you can’t—or don’t want to—be friends anymore. It’s probably better that—”

“Wait,” he interrupts. “Is that what you think this is about?”

“What else can come of this, Connor?”

He gets up to sit next to me and pulls my chin toward him. I resist, not wanting him to see my complete devastation. He lets me go but moves closer until his arm is touching mine.

I face the field.

He does the same.

“I’d like to meet her,” he says, and my heart stills.

My entire body turns to him. “Why?”

He replies, his eyes holding mine, “Because regardless of what you think of me, or how you think I’d react, I’d still like to get to know you more, and I feel like she’s a big part of who you are.”

I wipe at my cheeks again, feel the wetness soak my palms. My exhale is shaky while I wait for all the broken parts of me to calm, still cracked, but settle. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Oh,” he says, looking away.

He’s taken it as a rejection, so I try to explain, “She doesn’t really remember it, what happened that day. She has problems with memory loss, but I think she’s aware that something happened, because afterward, whenever she’d go out, people would treat her differently. Worse than they did before. It wasn’t bad enough that she was ashamed of the way she looked, and the things people said about her and the names they called her…”

Connor nods, listening intently.

“She doesn’t leave the house anymore, and she doesn’t like having people there.”

“I understand,” he says, gentle and comforting.

“But… I can ask.”

His face lights up. “Really?”

I nod. “I can’t promise anything.”

He smiles, genuine, for the first time since he got here. “I’d really like that, Ava.”

I really like you, Connor.





“So, I have this friend…” I tell Mom when I get home from school. I’m sitting on the couch with her on the floor in front of me while I braid her hair, something she used to do for me.

“Uh huh,” she responds.

Today is what Krystal and I call a zero-day. We scale Mom’s moods and actions between -5 to +5. When things are good for her, when she’s a fragment of the woman I know as my mother, we go into the positive. The negative… well, that’s obvious. Today is a zero-day. A day when she scrapes by, barely any emotion or recollection of who she truly is.

A zero-day is probably not the best time to be having this conversation, but waiting for a positive day might take too long, and a negative day… I don’t think she even hears me on those days.

“He’s new in town…” I say.

“He? So, a boyfriend, huh?” she asks, her tone void of any emotion.

“Not a boyfriend, but a friend boy.”

“Go on.”

“And he said he’d like to meet you.”

“When?”

“Whenever you’re up for it.”

“Hmm.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Not tonight,” she mumbles. “But maybe tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I say, but I don’t believe it. Believing would create hope. And hope has no home here. At least not on zero days.





Chapter 19





Ava





I take the bus home the next day because Trevor has a job and Connor has practice. I’d love to watch, jeer him from the sidelines, but it’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to do any after-school activities, so Krystal only works the set times I’m at school.

The moment I enter the house, the smell of freshly baked cookies hits my nose, filling my heart with nostalgia. “Ava!” Mom calls from her bedroom.

I drop my bag by the door and rush in to see her, panic swarming my insides. Krystal’s sitting on the bed, while Mom stands in front of her dresser. Dressed in a floral skirt and pale pink cardigan, she holds up two different necklaces against her chest. “Which one?” she asks.

“Mama, you look so pretty,” I croak out, my pulse settling to a steady strum. “What’s the occasion?”

She lowers her hand, eyeing me questioningly. “For your friend’s visit? Remember?”