The Avery Shaw Experiment

“Avery!” Grayson shouted. I didn’t stop, but as I flew down the stairs I heard him shout, “Idiot! How many times do you have to break her heart?”

I burst into the office a sobbing mess and threw myself at Cheryl. “Avery?” she gasped, wrapping her arms around me.

“Can you please take me home?”

“Of course, honey. What happened?”

“I just want to leave.”

Cheryl reached around me to grab her purse, but Grayson stopped her. “Let me, Mom,” he said quietly.

Cheryl searched my face for signs of approval, but Grayson didn’t give me a chance to protest. He pulled me from his mother’s arms. “Aves, that’s not what that was about. I swear you’re not just another girl to me.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but that wasn’t what I was so upset about. “He hates me, Grayson! Did you see the look on his face? He was disgusted with me!”

“Don’t let him ruin what just happened. It wasn’t disgusting. It was amazing and special. Hell, it’s been practically inevitable since New Year’s Eve.”

I shook my head furiously. “What it was, was a failed experiment. It didn’t reset anything! Now I just feel guiltier than ever!”

I turned to Cheryl, who was watching us at a complete loss for words. She’d probably pieced together what had happened, but when I turned to her and asked her if she would take me home now, she didn’t say anything about it. She simply grabbed her purse and ushered me past Grayson out to her car.

Grayson

Damn Aiden to the very deepest depths of hell. Avery was back at square one with her heartbreak, and I was back at square one with her. We’d had this amazing moment—we’d shared her first kiss—but she couldn’t even muster up a smile for me the next morning at school.

That whole week I couldn’t get much more out of her than two- or three-word sentences. She was too busy watching Aiden from a distance. He’d rejoined the science squad for lunch, but it was clear he wasn’t really part of the group anymore. I was sure Avery blamed herself for it.

I also know she wanted to talk to him, but every now and then he would look our way and glare with such hatred it would make Avery sick to her stomach, and she couldn’t bring herself to speak to him.

His death looks were all for me. I know because he told me so. He accused me of stealing his best friend. I told him it wasn’t stealing if he’d already thrown her to the curb like a piece of garbage. We almost came to blows over it. The only reason I didn’t punch him was because it would hurt Avery, and she’d been hurt enough. But again, Avery saw his anger and blamed herself.

On Friday, Aiden left the cafeteria early. I hadn’t been paying attention, so I wasn’t sure what Avery meant when she said, “He didn’t eat any of his lunch.”

“What?” I asked.

I followed her worried gaze just in time to see my brother skulk out of the room.

“Aiden,” Avery explained. “He didn’t eat any of his lunch. He just threw it out. Has he been eating at home?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t come out of his room at all this week except to pick fights with me. If he’s having a hard time right now, I say let him suffer. Maybe it’ll make him think twice before he acts like such a jackass in the future.”

Avery set down the apple she’d been nibbling on. “He’s all by himself right now, Grayson. You’re mad at him. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. Our friends tolerate him, but it’s clear they’ve all taken my side; and now that he’s broken up with Mindy, he doesn’t have any of his new friends, either. I snuck into his debate yesterday for a few minutes just to check on him, and it looked like Mindy had turned his whole team against him. He doesn’t have any friends anymore.”

“He did it to himself, Aves.”

“I know, but I still feel bad for him.”

Avery sighed.

“Why don’t we go do something fun tonight?” I suggested. “Or we could do something for the experiment. We haven’t worked on it in forever.”

Avery cut me a grave look. “Working on the experiment is what made this mess so bad in the first place.”

It was hard for me not to lose my patience. I was so tired of this. I’d been mostly joking the night I asked her to kiss me for scientific reasons. Yeah, I really thought it would help her, but mostly I just wanted to kiss her. I thought she understood that, but she’d clung to the idea that our kiss was nothing more than a case of trial and error ever since it happened. I guess she thought if she told herself it meant nothing, then maybe Aiden wouldn’t be so disgusted with her for kissing me . . . you know, since clearly he considered me the ultimate scum of the universe.

The problem was that our kiss hadn’t meant nothing. Not to me. I’d wanted it so bad. I’d waited for the exact right moment when I was sure it was what she wanted too, and I’d thought of nothing else since it happened.

“Do you regret kissing me?” I blurted suddenly, surprising everyone present, myself included.

Avery’s face paled as she took in all the curious stares. She looked down at her lap without answering me. I felt bad for the audience, but now that I’d started this I had to finish it. “I know you feel guilty about it because of Aiden, but do you regret it? Do you wish I hadn’t done it? Do you think I played you?”

She flinched at the last question and looked up at me with her big blue eyes full of concern for me. “Of course I don’t think you played me. I know that’s not what that kiss was about. You were trying to help me. Just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean I’m mad at you for it.”

“But do you regret it?”

It took her a minute to answer. She couldn’t meet my eyes, and when she spoke, it was so quiet that if she hadn’t shaken her head, I might not have understood her.

“No. I don’t think so.”

When I let out a breath, I realized how much I’d needed that answer. I didn’t like the “think so” part, but at least it wasn’t a yes.

“Good,” I said. “Because I wouldn’t take it back for anything.”

She looked up at me again, surprised by my confession, and I asked her something I’d never asked any other girl before. “Will you be my girlfriend, Avery? Officially, I mean?”

Avery wasn’t the only person around the table to gasp. I did my best to hold her eyes with mine so that she wouldn’t pay attention to the people watching us and freak herself out.

“But . . .” Her shock turned to confusion. “You don’t do the girlfriend thing. You always say that. You’ve never had one before.”

“A guy can change his mind if the right girl comes along, can’t he?”

“Um . . .”

“I know I have a reputation.”

Someone snorted and a few others snickered, which really didn’t help my case any, but I was determined. “I’ve never been interested in a girlfriend before, Aves, but you make me want to try it. Will you give us chance?”

Pam and Chloe both sighed like I’d just said the most romantic thing in the world, but Avery didn’t melt like they did. She cast a quick glance toward the door that Aiden had just walked out of.

I suddenly wanted to punch something very, very badly. “You can’t possibly still want him.”

“It’s not that,” she said. “I’m just really mixed-up emotionally. I’m scared and confused and still just really, really hurt. I’m not over it. I’m not over him.”

“How can you not—”

“I want to be,” she said quickly, not letting me finish. “I try to be. I even thought I didn’t want him anymore for a while, but then he broke up with his girlfriend and some sick part of me that loves torture got hopeful.”

“Aves—”

She shook her head, still not letting me interrupt. “It’ll never happen. I know that. I’m past denial, remember? I hate that I feel this way. I hate that he can still affect me.”