Shattered Rose (12 page)

“Thanks again…and it was really nice to meet you too,” I replied, deciding that it really was.

“You sound surprised,” he noted, acting as if he was hurt.

I laughed and then admitted, “Ok, maybe a little, but pleasantly.”

“I can live with that! You have a great weekend, Avery. Oh, and keep smiling like that. Your eyes light up when you do.” He winked at me and turned to leave. I realized as he walked away that his car was in commuter parking, the other way across campus. His chivalry had added over a mile to his walk.

I felt good as I walked up the stairs, almost happy. Maybe this weekend wouldn’t be so bad after all.

As always, I spoke too soon, because staring back at me when I entered my apartment were Jake’s stunning green eyes. He was sitting on the couch with
Issy watching a movie.

“Hey guys,” I somehow managed to say as I walked in the door. The crushing pain from the other day returned, and I felt myself stumble back down into the pit. My heart broke all over again as I watched his cool confidence, empty of any feeling he used to have for me.

“Avery, hi!” Issy yelled, jumping off the couch to give me a big hug. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages! We’ve decided to do a marathon of
The Office
this weekend since the nightlife before Thanksgiving is nonexistent.” She went to sit back down by Jake, who had made very little movement since I walked in the door.

The glimmer of joy I had started to feel, vanished, and my bitterness came rushing back. “Sounds like fun,” I muttered as I went to the kitchen. I refused to hide in my room just because Jake decided to show up at MY apartment. “If I made popcorn, would there be any takers?”

Issy put her hand up enthusiastically.

“Jake?” I asked coolly.

“Yeah, I’ll take some.” He didn’t move his eyes from the TV.

What a coward,
I thought to myself, as I threw the popcorn in the microwave. I don’t know how I didn’t see that before. Every time there was an uncomfortable situation, Jake would check out.

I put my books in my room and then passed out the popcorn.
An open seat was available on the couch, but pride alone was not going to let that happen. I sat on the lip love seat that had actually turned out to be pretty comfortable and started watching the show. The tension I felt between me and Jake was so thick, I couldn’t believe Issy wasn’t making some snide comment about it.

“So where is Danny tonight?” I asked, wondering how he would be missing when they had been inseparable for weeks.

“I wouldn’t go there if I were you,” Jake warned. There was a hint of amusement in his voice that a week ago would have sent flutters to my stomach. Tonight it just made me angry and even more sour than I was already feeling.

“Danny’s over,”
Issy said nonchalantly, and then started hysterically laughing at something happening on the screen.

“Why?” I asked, concerned. I really did like Danny.

“He said the ‘L’ word.” She said the letter “L” with such disgust that I thought she might lose her popcorn.

“The ‘L’ word? Am I missing something?”

“Really, Avery? Jake, I’ve left her alone way too long. L-O-V-E. Yuk, I can hardly say it.”

It took me a second, but then it struck me. I did the same thing to Jake. Love must be a bad word in their family because both of them seemed to run for the hills at the sheer mention of it. I lifted my eyebrows, suddenly feeling like I was talking more to Jake, than to
Issy. “Well, just give it time. I’m sure he’ll get over it soon enough.”

They both turned to look at me, dumbfounded by my lack of interest on the subject. I guess I understood. Up to this point, I had been the hopeless romantic of the group.

“What? Do you think you two have the market on being indifferent?” I asked rudely. I didn’t like how I was acting, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I was hurt and angry, and seeing him just sit there was making me want to scream.

They both turned back to the show, not saying much else.
Issy looked at me one more time with a questioning look on her face. My response was a silent “What?” and she dropped it.

I lasted about an hour, but then excused myself saying there was only so much “Michael” I could take. The truth was, there was only so much Jake I could take without completely breaking down, and I had had my fill. The only positive thing…I didn’t throw up tonight. That marked three days now…and if nothing else, that was something worth smiling about.  

Around two in the morning, I heard a knock on my door. “Avery, are you awake?” Issy whispered.

“I am now. Come in,” I answered, sitting up in bed and turning on my lamp. “Is something wrong?”

“No, I just wanted to talk to you, and knew I had to wait until Jake was asleep.” I peeked out my door and saw him passed out in his usual position on the couch.

“Ok, what about?”

“I just wanted to see if you were ok…you were acting a little strange tonight. I tried to talk to Jake about it, but he got defensive like he always does when he behaves badly with a friend of mine. I just don’t want you to leave like Betsy did. It’s partly why I tried so hard to keep you two apart.”

I sat there silent for a while. That speech was the most serious dialogue
Issy had ever given, and I didn’t quite know how to respond to it. Part of me wanted to tell her everything, to confide in her about my struggles with food and about the horrific way Jake ripped my heart out. But that would require vulnerability, and I was still healing from the last time I had given it to someone. So, instead I deflected to something true, but much less honest.

“
Issy, you don’t have to worry about me leaving, well unless my grades don’t come up.” I sighed and then lied through my teeth. “I’m not upset about Jake. I was never that serious about him anyway. It’s my grades that have me on edge. I’ll be on probation with my scholarship next semester, and if I don’t get them back up, I’ll lose it for good.”

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“It’s ok. I have no one to blame but myself. I knew it was going to be a hard semester, and I chose not to make it a priority. I’m just going to have to really buckle down next semester. Which, of course, means much less partying.” I tried to give my voice a teasing edge to let her know I didn’t blame her, and then I changed the subject. “So, what really happened with Danny?”

“It just got too intense. I like to have fun; I’m kind of a free bird like that,” she explained, her face completely void of any emotion.

“Is he upset?”

“I don’t know. I stopped taking his calls,” she answered nonchalantly.

“Issy,” I scolded. “That’s horrible. You didn’t even tell him why you were breaking up with him?”

“You have to be dating in order to break up, Avery.”

“You’ve been sleeping over there for weeks. That’s dating.”

Issy
just shrugged. “Maybe to you. I don’t do relationships. Anyway, when are you leaving for Thanksgiving?”

“I’m not.”

“Ohhh, you should come with me!” I immediately looked skeptical and started to decline. Issy jumped in before I could say anything. “Come on, Avery, you’ve never met my mom and there is no way I can deal with my dad without you there. You have to come!”

“Won’t you have Jake? You don’t need me.”

“Are you kidding? That’s exactly why I need you. I hate Jake when he is around my mom, and he can’t stand my dad and refuses to go over there with me. I need a buffer…please…pretty please.” Issy was impossible to turn down, even when the idea of sitting around a dinner table with Jake made my pulse race.

“I’ll
think
about Thanksgiving Day only. I’m working the rest of the week.”

“You’re the best, Avery! I’m so glad you moved in!” She jumped off my bed, the seriousness of our conversation long gone, and said good night. I had no idea how I was going to manage what she was asking me to do.

“Lord, set her feet on level ground and let her walk in your truth. Show her your love is ever before her and lead her to a place where your glory dwells…”

9. VORTEX

Jake was gone before I woke up on Saturday and didn’t come back around. Issy was still avoiding Danny, so we spent the afternoon shopping in Asheville and doing other “girl” things like getting our nails painted. It had been a while since I had just good, carefree fun, and it felt refreshing.

Issy
spent most of the time giving me the background on her family drama, so I wouldn’t be surprised on Thursday. I still wasn’t sure how to tell her I had decided not to go, but I’d deal with that later.

I guess her mom and dad met in college and got married pretty young.
Issy came along after they had graduated, and her mom opted to stay home with her while her dad got into the business world. To hear Issy’s point of view, you’d think her dad was a monster.

“He got into the habit of buying my affections around my fifth birthday, and I’ve taken full advantage of that since.  He topped it all
, though, on my twelth birthday,” Issy explained as the massage chairs were kneading out the tension in our backs. “He had promised to take me to a concert that night, but was running late as usual. My mom decided to drive me to his office to save him the commute time (or so she said), and that is when we got to see him and his assistant going at it. Talk about a quick way to have the birds and bees conversation with your kid.”

“Oh my gosh! Did your mom suspect?” I asked
, horrified at the visual she was painting.

“Of course she did, but I don’t think she expected us to see what we saw. Even she seemed shocked. Needless to say, I did not get to go to the concert. Instead, I spent the next year going to custody hearings and couns
elors. Fun year.” The sarcasm in her voice was potent, but her face concealed any emotion she may have been feeling.

“How do you do that?” I asked, once again amazed at her ability to detach.

“Do what?”

“Be completely apathetic, like you’re telling me a story of someone else’s life? Jake would do something similar too, except his was more of a zoning, while your face just stays vacant. I can’t master that. I’m a total open book.”

Issy chuckled. “Yes, you are, and worse, you are a terrible liar. But that’s beside the point. I’m vacant because that is how I feel…empty. There is no emotion there because I feel nothing for my father. Jake zones because he’s stuck in the past, trying to figure out what he could have changed.”

I cursed
Issy in my head. I didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t want to feel sorry for Jake or see anything redeeming in him. It was too painful.

“See! There you go again!”
Issy said pointing. “Your face total shifted. You thought something and it immediately reacted. Don’t tell me Jake didn’t hurt you. I know you’re lying.”

“Fine, he hurt me. What does it matter?”

“It matters because I don’t want you to change.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,
Issy. Life changes you. It just does.”

She leaned back in her chair knowing full well I was right. We finished the rest of our pedicure in silence, neither one of us wanting to talk about the men in our lives who hurt us.

We had about two more hours before dinner, so we decided to hit some of the art galleries in town. Looking at art was by far my favorite thing to do in Asheville. I had always been blown away by the creativity of others. I didn’t have an eye for such things, and was inspired when someone could take a simple object and make it look spectacular. I think that is why photography appealed to me so much. Being able to look at the world from completely different angles and find beauty in it was incredible. Issy bored pretty easily and didn’t understand why I spent so much time on each picture.

“I guess I just don’t see what you are staring at,” she said
, mimicking my intensity. “I mean, it’s a picture. You look at it and move on. What are you trying to find? Is Waldo in there or something?”

I couldn’t help but laugh.
Issy looked at life though the eyes of a child, seeing only the obvious and stating it as well. “I like to imagine what they were thinking when they took the picture. Why they chose that angle and how the lighting sets the mood. There is so much more to the pictures than what you see at a glance.”

“Ok then…what does this picture say? To me, it says ‘I’m a spiral staircase with people on me.’”

“Actually, what is so awesome about this picture is not what it is, but the image that it gives. He used the shadows and textures to create what looks like a spinning vortex. The addition of people makes the staircase appear so large that it could swallow them up whole. Kind of how life seems sometimes.”

She looked at me and then at the picture again with new insight. “That’s amazing.”

“Yes, it is,” a soft voice agreed behind us.

Issy
and I both turned around to see the owner of the mysterious voice and to my surprise, Parker was peering over our shoulders at the same picture. “I thought that was you,” he said pleasantly with the same charming smile I remembered. “This is one of my favorite galleries.”