The Avery Shaw Experiment (21 page)

Nervous energy spiked through me.

“Come on, Aves.” He curled his fingers up in a “give me” gesture.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I placed my hand in his. Aiden wrapped his fingers around mine gently and then smiled at me. I felt my face get hot, so I looked at the ground.

Aiden began to walk with me across the museum. I concentrated on our hands, swinging loosely in the space between us, and tried not to freak out. I had more questions now than I did before. I knew this was something boys do—Grayson took my hand pretty much every time we walked anywhere together, and sometimes he held it when we were driving—but Aiden had never acted like this before.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Aves. I was really confused. The way we were raised was…”

His voice trailed off when he couldn’t find the right word for it. I would have supplied something, but I didn’t know how to describe it either.

“Do you remember when your dad split and you and your mom lived with us for a couple months? I remember crying every night for weeks after you guys got your own place. I didn’t understand why you had to leave.”

I smiled at the story, but it made me sad too. I had my own set of memories from then. First I lost my dad, but Aiden was there and made it okay, but then we left him too. It took me a long time to understand why.

“Growing up the way we did,” Aiden said. “It was like I had a twin sister who lived a mile away. You’re my best friend. You always have been, but it’s like we never had a choice about that.”

My lungs tightened in my chest. He felt forced into being my best friend?

“I’m sorry.”

“I never minded, Avery. I couldn’t have asked for a better best friend. When I started talking to Mindy, all the sudden nothing made sense anymore. I liked her. I’d never really liked anyone before because I always had you. But I didn’t like you the same way I liked her.”

I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. “You liked me like a sister.”

Aiden shook his head. “I always knew you weren’t really my twin sister, but I didn’t know exactly what you were to me, either. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, I guess. But why didn’t you ever tell me? You were in that class with Mindy all semester, and you never mentioned her even once.”

Aiden sighed, and his pace slowed to almost a stop. People in the museum weaved around us. “I think that was my first mistake. When I got partnered with Mindy at the beginning of the semester, she helped me a lot with my speeches for class.” He shrugged. “I liked giving the speeches. It was fun and I was good at it, and I liked Mindy because she was different. I didn’t tell you because it was the first thing I’d ever done on my own. You and I did everything together. This was something that I could do by myself. I’d never needed that, but once I had it, I really liked it.”

Aiden stopped in front of a large dinosaur display and raked his free hand through his hair. “We did so much together that it was like I wasn’t my own person. I didn’t know how to separate us. I didn’t know who I was without you. I needed something that was mine, you know? Mindy and debate did that for me. I was afraid that if I told you about them, I would lose that feeling.”

I glanced up at Aiden. He was staring at the dinosaur but not really paying attention to it. As I looked closely, I could see how strung out he was. I hadn’t noticed it before because of the bruises covering his face, but he looked tired and stressed. His eyes and cheeks seemed a little sunken in as if he’d lost some weight recently. He was pale and his hair needed a cut. He hadn’t been his normal self for a while.

In that moment I realized that Aiden needed my acceptance as much as I did. We weren’t meant to be apart. Maybe we weren’t meant to be together the way I’d always imagined, but we couldn’t spend the rest of our lives avoiding each other, either.

I gave his hand a small squeeze. “I would have understood. I would have given you all the space you needed.”

Aiden squeezed my hand back and tugged me closer to him. “I should have realized that,” he said with a sigh. “I’m really sorry, Aves.”

I shrugged. “It’s okay. I was never really upset about that anyway. I just didn’t understand why you wouldn’t even talk to me anymore.” My eyes started burning again. “It was like you hated me. You were my best friend. You were the person I loved most and trusted most in the whole world, and all of a sudden you weren’t a part of my life anymore.”

I pulled my hand from Aiden’s in order to wipe the tears that gathered in my eyes. I walked down a little ways to a drinking fountain and gulped down some water. I even splashed a little on my face. It helped ease a bit of the panic. I sat down on a bench and attempted to get my emotions under control again.

Aiden sat down, leaving a foot of space between us like he wasn’t sure I wanted him near me.

“It was the same for me, you know,” I said, sniffling. “I didn’t know who I was without you, either. I don’t think there was a part of me that didn’t include you. When you abandoned me, it was like half of myself was just gone. First my dad left me, and then you. I didn’t even know how to breathe anymore. If Grayson hadn’t been there to hold me together, I don’t know what would have happened.”

So much for gaining control of my emotions. I started to cry, and Aiden’s arms came around me. I turned into his shoulder and clung go him. Then I lost all control and started to sob. “How could you do that to me?” I cried.

I’d never felt so raw in all my life as when I pulled the bandage off my damaged heart for Aiden right then. I’d been trying to suppress my feelings for so long, trying to be strong, but as I sat there with him, I opened myself up and shared all of my hurt with him.

Aiden tightened his grip on me, but the hug wasn’t exactly right. He’s so much closer to my size. His arms didn’t engulf me the way I was used to.

I breathed in deeply. My nose was filled with the smell of the soap Aiden uses and a hint of his peppermint gum, but I wasn’t settled the way I was expecting. He was missing a certain hint of sweet and spice. It took me a moment to realize I was missing the smell of Grayson’s cologne.

“Why don’t we go outside and get some fresh air?” Aiden suggested and then led me out of the building.

We didn’t say another word until we were outside and walking around the grounds of the museum. There was a layer of old snow on the ground, but the sun was shining and the fresh air was nice.

“I’m so sorry, Avery,” Aiden eventually whispered. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for hurting you the way I did. I messed up so bad.”

“What happened? If you weren’t mad at me, why’d things change so much? You said we would still be friends, but we weren’t.”

“It was because of Mindy. She was so threatened by you. When we got together, she asked me about you.” Aiden shot me a grim smile. “Probably didn’t handle that conversation very well, either. I told her I loved you more than anyone else on the planet. She didn’t take that very well, so I tried to explain how it was for us. Hearing about how we grew up only made it worse.”

I focused on the snow crunching under my feet as I listened to Aiden tell his story.

“I was determined to keep both relationships. You were my best friend, and Mindy was my girlfriend. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. I should have been able to have both, but that first day back at school when Mindy and I were officially a couple at school, so many people were so shocked. Everyone we saw asked about you. Mindy couldn’t handle it. She got angry and went off about how people didn’t have relationships like ours. She said our moms were wrong to force us on each other.”

Aiden got really quiet for a minute and then muttered, “She said a lot of stuff. She was captain of the debate team. She had a convincing argument. Plus, she was my first girlfriend. I’d never had anyone like me that way before. I wanted to make her happy.”

“I get it,” I said. I did understand to an extent, but it didn’t explain the malice I sometimes felt. “But why did you seem so angry? Sometimes you’d look at me, and I would swear you hated me. What did I do wrong?”

Aiden’s jaw clenched tight enough that he winced because it hurt his broken nose. That anger was exactly what I was talking about. He said I hadn’t done anything wrong, but something was definitely bothering him.

“That wasn’t you. I was mad at Grayson.”

“Grayson?” The answer startled me. “Why?”

“Because it was so unlike him to take such an interest in you. I thought he was trying to take advantage of you. I was worried he was going to play you like he did every other girl, and…” He hesitated, shoving his hands in his pockets. “And because I was jealous.”

I stopped walking and gawked at him. “Jealous? Why? You weren’t interested in me. You had a girlfriend.”

We’d come to the edge of a small pond. The edges were iced over. We stopped and Aiden kicked a chunk of ice. “Because I’m selfish,” he said. “When you told me that you loved me and wanted to be with me, I hated that I was hurting you, but I was flattered at the same time.”

I felt like I was going to die from embarrassment any moment. I actually expected myself to drop dead right there.

“I’d never thought about us like that before,” Aiden said. “But after you mentioned it, I kept wondering. I knew almost immediately that I’d rather be with you than Mindy. I was going to break up with her right away, but it was too late. Grayson had already stolen you from me. You guys spent all your time together. He made you laugh and held your hand. I could see how much he made you happy, and I hated him for it.”

My heart hurt again. It hurt for both of us. It hurt for Grayson too. He was innocent in all of this.

“Please don’t hate him for that. Grayson has done so much for me. He’s one of my closest friends now.”

Aiden tensed again. “I know.” He shook his head in disgust. “And I drove you to him. I hurt you so bad that you needed him. I’m grateful he was there for you, but Aves, when I saw him kissing you, I almost killed him.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted it to be me.”

“You what?” I gasped.

“I still want it to be me.”

Aiden took my hand again and wet his lips as he pinned me with an intense gaze. “You asked me to kiss you once, and now I’m asking you, will you give me a second chance?”

I froze. And not because it was cold outside. For a second I convinced myself I was still in bed asleep. I’d wanted Aiden to kiss me for so many years, and now here he was asking to make that dream come true.

There was a part of me that wanted to say no—a piece of my brain, or maybe my heart that didn’t want to kiss anyone but Grayson. But this was Aiden. I had to know. I owed it to myself to see what would happen. In more ways than one, I needed this.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay,” Aiden answered. He took my other hand and stepped closer to me so that the tips of our shoes were touching.

He didn’t kiss me right away. He swallowed and wet his lips again. He was as nervous as I was.

My pulse skyrocketed, and I couldn’t keep any air in my lungs. I think I may have even been trembling a little when he finally leaned in.

He moved slowly, and I kept pretty still because I was scared of bumping his nose and hurting him. His kiss was shy at first as if he were testing the waters, and then his hand came up to my face, and he pulled me closer, urging my lips to part.

I liked kissing Aiden. He was sweet and considerate, and I could feel that when he pulled away, he wasn’t quite ready to let the kiss end. It was a good kiss, but that was it. This kiss was all of the anticipation but none of the excitement that I got when I kissed Grayson. There was no spark. At least not for me.

Aiden looked happy until he saw my forced smile, and then his grin faded. “It’s not going to happen, is it?” It didn’t sound like he needed an answer.

“It was nice,” I said.

“But it wasn’t like kissing Grayson.”

I felt my face go from polite to pained. The whole situation was so surreal. Who knew I’d ever be the one rejecting Aiden?

Aiden shook his head as if to let me know he wasn’t upset. “I had to try, but I think I knew it was coming.” He sighed. “As if I could ever compete with Grayson when he got all the looks and the charm.”

I felt awful and tried to lighten the situation. “But you got all the brains, so he may be the one to rule the country someday, but you’ll own it.”

Aiden forced his mouth to curve up, and he squeezed my hand again.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’ll survive.” My heart sank a little more until he said, “As long as you forgive me and promise to always be my best friend.”

It was that request that broke through the dark clouds in my world and brought me fully into the final stage of grief. If I were in a Disney movie, flowers would have bloomed and the birds would have started chirping.

Whether it was acceptance or hope or both, I knew that Aiden and I still loved each other. Things might be a little different between us now—no one heals without scars—but we were going to be okay. And if we could make it through this, we’d make it through anything.

Maybe now our relationship would be a healthy one. Maybe now we’d be able to have lives separate from one another and still be a part of each other. Maybe all of this needed to happen.