I'd Give Anything(60)

“She’s down to just weekends now that track is starting up,” said the woman. “But she might stop in after practice this evening.”

“I can’t stay,” said Avery, “but can you give her a note from me?”

“Sure thing, honey,” said the woman.



That night, when Avery was brushing her teeth, she got a text from Cressida: I got your note. Sure, I’ll meet you. Would it be weird for me to pick you up? We could get coffee and just sit in my car and talk. I’m finished with track at 5:00 tomorrow. If that works for you, send me your address, and if you want to meet somewhere else, that’s cool, too. Thanks for asking to hear my side of the story.

Avery thought that the text seemed nice enough, but anyone could sound nice in a text. She thought about her house, how it had always been a completely safe place. Even on the really bad sleep nights when she had felt the need to get away, be anywhere else, leaving was really just a way to hit the reset button on her spinning carousel of a brain. She was always happy when her mom pulled onto their street and the house stood waiting, yellow light glowing in the windows. The sight always filled her with peace. Maybe that was why she left in the first place, not to get away, but so that she could come back and be home.

She finished brushing her teeth and wrote: Thanks for texting back. I actually have to stay at school tomorrow to do group work, so you could pick me up there. I go to Lucretia Mott. If that’s okay, you can come to the front entrance, and text when you’re there, and I’ll come out.



When Avery first got into Cressida’s car, she could barely look at her. Her palms were sweating and her stomach hurt and it felt like bells were clanging inside her head. Usually, Avery was good at managing her own exterior, at making sure that, however exhausted or unfocused or anxious she felt on the inside, she could keep the outside smoothed down and confident and glossy. But now, when she would’ve given anything to come across as mature and calm, she believed she might, at any moment, collapse into a thousand stupid, fidgety, fluttery pieces.

“Hey,” said Cressida.

“Hey,” said Avery.

“Should we get coffee?”

At the play, Avery had really only heard Cressida sing. Her speaking voice was different from what Avery had expected, higher, younger. Right then, Avery decided that if she was having this conversation in the name of getting to the truth, she might as well start by telling it.

“Honestly, I’m pretty nervous. Caffeine is probably the last thing I need.”

“Ugh, same here,” said Cressida, making a face.

“Really?”

“The entire way over here, I was wishing I hadn’t answered your text. I mean not really. I want us to talk, but I—don’t know. I can’t even imagine what you’ve heard about me.”

“Well—” said Avery.

“No, actually, I can imagine it because I’ve heard it about me, too.”

“Rumors suck,” said Avery. “It’s like people think if they just put ‘I heard’ in front of it, they can say anything. No one really cares about the truth.”

“I know.”

“But I do.”

Cressida didn’t answer, and Avery gathered her courage and glanced over at her, bracing herself to take one look and get completely intimidated. But it didn’t happen. Yes, Cressida was pretty, even in sweats, even with her hair in a high, messy knot and her mascara slightly smudged under her eyes. Her profile was lovely and long-necked with a clear-cut swoop of jawline and a delicate slope of nose. But she wasn’t the movie-star-polished, glossy, light-emitting princess from her social media photos; she didn’t look like she had just stepped off an airplane from a trip to Paris. She looked like what she was: a genetically blessed but normal human girl, not so different from Avery herself. Avery would have supposed that this discovery would’ve made things easier. But somehow it shook her.

Oh, Dad, she thought.

They parked in a shopping center parking lot, one with a different coffee shop in it, not Cressida’s, not Avery’s. After Cressida turned off the engine, no one said anything. Avery watched a family—a man, a woman, and a boy of four or five—walking out of the coffee shop. The parents had white paper cups, and the boy between them held a big muffin in both hands as carefully as if it were a kitten curled up in his palms.

“I didn’t do any of those things people are saying about me. I wouldn’t. I’m not like that,” said Cressida.

“Okay,” said Avery. “But something happened that shouldn’t have. Because my dad got fired.”

Cressida turned to her. “Are you sure you want to hear about this?”

“Yes. I’m scared to hear about it, but it’s better to know the truth.”

“Okay. Well, I don’t know where to start.”

“How about at the beginning?” said Avery.

Cressida nodded. “All right, well, so my teacher, Ms. Holt, told me to apply for the internship. The thing about me is that I’m smart. But a lot of people don’t see me that way. They look at me and make assumptions about who I am. Probably that happens at your school, too.”

“It does,” said Avery. “I think people see me as smart but also as—I don’t know. Boring. Predictable. Like little boring, good-girl Avery.”