Lost Avalon: A Finding Nolan Novel (23 page)

             
And suddenly all of the emotions that had filled me with hope and with joy turned to tar within me. Black, thick mortar weighing me down and clogging up my heart, my head. What was wrong with me? There he was. Everything I’d ever wanted. Why couldn’t I just let myself be happy? Why couldn’t I let him? Hadn’t we been miserable for long enough?

             
Next thing I knew I was pulled from my own thoughts by the sound of someone gasping for air. It wasn’t until I saw the look on Rusty’s face that I realized it was me. I was sobbing, loudly.

             
“Darlin’, are you okay?” His gruff voice cut through all of the noise.

             
I could only manage a nod. I clawed my way out of the booth and through the crowd, desperate for air.

             
Seconds later, I was bursting through the back doors and standing in the alley. Alone. The bus was back there and everything in me was screaming to run toward it. To climb in and hide out inside until Blaise finished the concert. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

             
Blaise was doing everything right. He’d made countless gestures. And not the stupid flowers and chocolates kind, no he had made real gestures. The kind that proved he knew me. Proved that he loved me. Why couldn’t I just do the same? Instead I was acting like an idiot. Worse. A selfish idiot. And I didn’t even know why.

             
All I knew was that I hurt.
I hurt
. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. Running away hadn’t taken away any of the pain, but it had numbed it and somehow that seemed like a welcome break from the monotony of constantly wanting to scream from the ache in my heart. Blaise hadn’t been the first to put it there, but he had made it surge through me in ways that had made me question for the first time in my life if I could really live with it.

             
For years I’d carried the burden of knowing I hadn’t been the kind of daughter a father could love. I’d told myself he hadn’t loved my mother, my brothers or the twins either so it was clearly on him. That lie had fallen through when I’d searched the internet for him against my better judgment only to find that he had remarried. And fathered two more children. Weeks had passed and I had stared at those pictures each and every day, fascinated in a sick and twisted way by how much he seemed to adore his family. The new one. We all knew how he’d felt about the old one.

             
I’d been eighteen at the time and struggling with the decision to take off with Finding Nolan. Part of me had hated myself for even considering it. Had called myself every horrific thing I could think of and hadn’t stopped until I’d convinced myself I was no better than he was, just walking away in search of a better life. Then Blaise had come along and been the voice of reason. He’d promised me that no matter what, even if we had to live on cans of beans for the rest of our lives, we would send back money. We would make sure my family was okay without me. Because I wasn’t leaving them behind, I was forging a path out for them to follow. He’d spent all night talking me out of my manic frenzy and the next morning I had gotten into the van and we had left.

             
Then Blaise had started drinking. Doing drugs. At first they all seemed to be doing it and I didn’t think anything of it. That’s a lie. I’d always worried, but I’d told myself time and again that not everyone was like my mother. Plenty of people partied, didn’t mean they would all turn into raging alcoholics. Except of course, Blaise had. And not like my mother. No. Suddenly she’d looked like the tame one. The functional one. The working woman who simply liked to kick back and relax every evening with a few cartons of wine. By herself.             

             
Blaise’s drinking had eaten away at me. Every day. A little bit more. Somehow I hadn’t realized until that very moment just how much I had grown to hate him for it. How much he had made me hate myself for it. Because somewhere in my warped mind I had felt like it was my fault. Logically I knew I couldn’t control the world around me, but the terrified girl inside my head was grasping at straws trying to find one solid enough to count on and she was coming up short every time.

The only thing that had ever given me any comfort at all was my job. The one thing I could control. The one source of power I had. I had ruled Finding Nolan. And I had ruled them well, taking them from a small shit tank of a van all the way to the imperial bus standing before me at that very moment. I had done that. And any other day that knowledge alone would have brought a smile to my face. Tonight, it rang hollow. My heart was empty. I had no power. I had no strength left to rule with. I’d given it all up. To Blaise. And I didn’t know how I’d ever get it back. Or how I could possibly live without it.

There were things I’d put off facing for so long. The pain over losing my dad. The horror of finding Blaise’s mother. The constant struggle of keeping my family together. Afloat. Moving forward. Then there’d been Blaise. It seemed like an eternity ago now the night that he’d been so fucked up I thought I might actually lose him. And then, within the blink of an eye he’d gone from self-destruct to cleaning up and professing his love for me. A love that I could lose at any given moment just as quickly as I had found it because Blaise was just as broken as I was. And maybe it wasn’t fair, but I’d seen the stuff he was made of. What he came from. Both of his parents had bailed in one way or another. Why the hell would he end up being any different?

It was too much. I had nothing left to fall back on. Nothing left to anchor me. No one was there but me. And there were some things even I wasn’t strong enough for.

***

             
“Ava?” I held the tin can up to my mouth again. The string was tight which meant she had it wedged in place between the cracked window and its frame to keep it that way. Or maybe she was even holding it in her hands already and purposely ignoring me. “Avalon!”

             
I knew she’d been at the concert. I’d seen her from the stage. Briefly. By the time the show had ended, she’d been long gone and according to Rusty, she’d been upset when she left. I’d cursed myself the entire drive back here for playing that fucking song. I should have known better. Should have known it’d be too much. But after last night, I’d gotten caught up in the moment, the old feeling of
us
.

             
“Blaise?” Finally. “What are you doing here? What about the party at the club?”

             
“Really? You think I want to be at a party right now?” I choked back the hurt. I couldn’t blame her for making assumptions. Not when I’d given her a gazillion reasons to make them in the first place.

             
“It’s just…” I could hear her moving around in her bed. “You didn’t need to come here to check on me. I’m fine.”

             
“Really? We’re lying to each other now?” Even if Rusty hadn’t told me that she’d run from the place practically hyperventilating, I would have known by the sound of her voice the second she’d answered. It was deeper than normal, like she’d been crying.

             
“I’m not lying to you, Blaise. Maybe I had a minor meltdown earlier, but I’ve reigned it back in now. I’m good. You should go back and enjoy what’s left of the celebration.”

             
Fucking A, she was pissing me off.

             
“Would you stop being such a goddamn martyr, Ava?! Who the hell wants to celebrate shit when you’re sitting here falling to pieces alone in the dark?”

             
Silence. Then several sounds that made me think of an air pump, but were in actuality probably coming from her lips as she sucked in air as part of her desperate attempt to maintain her composure. I already knew she’d fail and instantly regretted yelling at her when I knew damn well I wouldn’t be able to hold her when she lost it. I’d just have to listen to it from my end of the tin can, helpless to do anything about it.

             
“Yo-you d-don’t get to s-say that to m-me, asshole.” I heard in between sobs.

             
“Actually, I’m the only one who gets to say that to you.” I was calmer this time around. “How much longer are you going to do this to yourself? Huh?”

             
She wept. “I don’t know, Blaise. I don’t fucking know. Don’t you think it would be so much easier to just come running into your arms and let you tell me how everything is going to turn up all fucking rainbows and unicorns?”

             
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “So let me. Let me tell you about fucking rainbows and unicorns…and cotton candy and dolphins and happily ever after and all that shit.”

             
“I can’t!”

             
“Why not?”

             
“Because, Blaise, I’ll believe you. And then what? Then we’re both fucked. The only reason you and I are so perfectly fucking matched is because you can dream up shit like that and keep your head in fucking la-la-land twenty-four/seven while I’ve got you tight by the hand keeping you firmly tied down to reality without you ever having to actually face it.”

             
Was she fucking kidding me with this?

             
“You seriously think I don’t have to face reality?”

             
“You’d have to be honest about what it is first to face it,” she spat.

             
“Nice. My mother. That’s what this is about for you?”

             
“Your mother, my mother. Our fucking fathers. Everyone’s fucking addictions.”

             
I knew she was just getting started. If I let her, she’d be going down this road all night, but we’d already been down it plenty. No need for another fucking recap. Not when the real issue had nothing to do with any of it.

             
“You need to listen to me, okay? No matter what happens, I am not going anywhere. Do you understand?”

             
“I know that.” She didn’t know shit. Worse, she was still crying. If anything it was only getting more intense. Ava was coming completely undone, unraveling at the seams like I’d never seen her do before. It scared me.

             
“You know what, fuck this. Hold on a sec.” I dropped the can and it rolled on the floor.

             
“Blaise? Blaise?” Her voice was distant, like it was a million miles away. Another reminder of how far apart we’d been in the last few weeks and how fucking sick it was making both of us.

             
I ran from my room and down the stairs. Once I was outside I came up along the side of my house and jumped the fence until I was standing just below her window. I used the overturned wheelbarrow they had lying in the grass by the house, along with the mower and hose, as a step up. Holding onto the rain gutters, I pulled myself up and carefully walked across the slanted roof until I reached her window.

             
Sliding my fingers into the small crack between the window and the frame where she’d kept it open for the string of our tin can phones to pass through, I lifted it all the way up until I was able to fit through.

             
“What are you doing? You shouldn’t be here. I thought I made it clear that I needed some distance.” She was clutching her blanket like the sight of me frightened her.

             
“Ava.” I slowly went to sit on the edge of her bed and she scrambled to get away.

             
“No.” She practically leapt from the mattress and ran to the opposite end of the room.

             
I stared at her, my eyes wide, mouth hanging open. I was supposed to be her source of comfort. It was my one redeemable quality. No way was I going to let her convince me that I had lost it. I hadn’t. Just with everything that had happened recently, she hadn’t been able to come to me. I hadn’t been able to hold her, ease her hurt…because I’d been the cause of it.

             
“Stop it.” I stood up and closed the distance between us in two steps. Before she could bolt again, I had a hold of her, both arms wrapped around her tightly.

             
“Let go, Blaise.” She tried to fight me, but it only made me grip her stronger, keeping her close to my chest. I leaned down until my lips were even with her ear. “I’m not letting go. Not ever. You hear me? I don’t care how hard you fight or what you do to try and hurt me, I am not letting go.” And I didn’t. Not when she tried to head-butt me. Not when she dug her heel into my foot and not even when she launched her entire body weight into the hold I had on her. I held on. Silently. Relentlessly. Until she broke.

             
“I hurt,” she cried.

             
“I know.” I gently rocked her back and forth while the tears continued to fall and the pain found its way out of her body one shudder at a time.

             
Ava slowly but surely let down her guard and eventually found herself molded to me again, two fucked up peas in a broken pod. That was us. But I was starting to like us this way. Was starting to appreciate what it meant. Sure, we had experienced extreme pain, but it was that precise experience that had allowed us to feel supreme happiness. Because there wasn’t one without the other. It was through the struggles that we’d found success. Through our fears that we’d found courage. Through the heartache that we’d found love.