I’d somehow forgotten how beautiful she is. But she’s here, now, and she’s everything I’ve needed, everything I’ve craved. She’s so damn perfect.
When I lift the window, she looks up, those maple-colored eyes clear of the tears that have coated them for days. “Hey, sorry, I tried knocking on the door…”
“Sorry, I must’ve been… it doesn’t matter. Did you want to come in?”
“Can you meet me at the door?”
I smile, giddy. “Yeah, of course.”
I’m already waiting at my open door by the time she comes around the front. I open the door wider, expecting her to come in, but she shakes her head, keeps her distance. My smile falls. So does my heart. Right to my feet.
“Connor…” It’s just my name. Two syllables. But I’d heard it in this tone once before… It was the last time she gave up on me. On us.
“I don’t know what I did,” I whisper, more to myself than to her.
Her eyes meet mine, and those tears she’d been carrying return. “I’m leaving, Connor.”
My stomach plummets. “What?”
She turns to look behind her, and it’s only now I notice Peter’s car sitting idle at the curb, headlights on, with Miss D sitting in the backseat. “Ava, what the hell are you doing? Leaving me is one thing, but leaving—”
“Trevor has to stay to finish up some jobs,” she interrupts as if she’s planned this entire conversation in her head, and I wasn’t even part of it. “We have to leave tonight to get Mom’s placement at the treatment center.”
Dread solidifies every organ. Every muscle. “Where?”
“It’s in Texas.” She blinks, letting a single tear stream down her cheek. “And Peter… Peter’s going to take care of me.”
“Ava, no,” I breathe out, stepping closer to her. I reach for her hand at the same time she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper. She hands it to me, her head bowed.
My nostrils flare with my heavy breaths as I take in the scene. Peter has Miss D, and soon, he’ll have Ava.
Ava says, “You said you were in Georgia.”
“What?”
She motions to the paper, and I quickly unfold it. Bile rises to my throat when realization hits. It’s the fucking receipt for the room service. “You said you were in Georgia,” she repeats.
“That’s not what it looks like,” I rush out. “I can explain—”
“You don’t need to,” she interrupts. “It won’t change anything. I still have to leave.”
“But—”
A single sob escapes and I try, again, to somehow get closer. But the closer I get, the farther she goes, and I know… I know she’s out of my grasp. She wipes at her tears with the back of her hand, her chin lifting, her eyes on mine: a show of strength while I’m drowning in weakness. “Remember that time in your truck, when you told me that you did everything for me?”
I nod, wait.
She swallows. “I got into Duke, Connor.”
I whisper a “What?” because it’s the only thing that forms in my mind.
“There’s a residential treatment facility near there that has a program for people in our situation, but there’s a waitlist, and I was doing everything I could to get my mom there. Miss Turner was helping, too. We’d been writing and calling and pleading our case, and I… I just needed time.” More tears flow, and this time, she lets them free. “I kept telling myself that if I could just wait, then everything would fall into place. But I can’t wait anymore, Connor. Because she’s getting worse, and so am I. I’m falling apart, and I can’t…” She breaks off on a sob, her hands covering her face, and there’s an intolerable ache in my chest that won’t fucking quit.
“Ava…” I breathe out.
“I did it all for you, too, Connor.” She sniffs once. “I should’ve left a long time ago, but I just thought… if I could get through this…” She inhales deeply, her eyes back on mine. “But maybe it’s for the best, you know? Maybe following you to Duke wasn’t what you wanted, and—”
“Ava, please. Just give me two minutes to explain everything and—”
“There’s a place in Texas that can take her right away,” she interrupts again. She’s made up her mind, and nothing I say or do can fix things. “I’m going to move in with Peter until I can find my own place.”
My eyes drift shut as the world around me closes in, and the fragments and happiness of a life I once pictured begin to crumble