How We Deal With Gravity (5 page)

Max is bundled in his weighted blanket, fast asleep. He’s
always been good at falling asleep, and I feel lucky. Many kids with autism
struggle, and I don’t know how their parents survive. I need these few hours in
the evening—alone. I need the
me
time to let my brain stop, though I often spend those hours finishing up
homework or researching something for Max. But that’s my choice—and at
least I can put my headphones on and just be.

Max and I sleep next to one another in a set of twin beds.
The separate mattresses make it a little easier—this way he won’t be
disturbed when I crawl in and out of bed. I grab my headphones and my laptop
and nestle into my pile of blankets. I was planning on reading, but that course
changed the second I heard Mason playing the guitar.

It only takes me a few minutes to find the file—I
converted most of my old recordings to digital files last year. I never
listened to the ones of Mason, though. I was too afraid of how it would make me
feel, and I’m pretty emotionally spent as it is most days.

I double click the folder open and pause, not sure if I’m
ready for this. It’s like my hand has other plans though, because in seconds, I
see the “Wild Horses” file open up on my play screen and Mason’s guitar is
filtering in my ears. It’s more beautiful than I remembered—his voice
sounds so young, but his playing was perfection. And even though he was just a
teenager, there was so much emotion to every word that left his lips.

His band website is still up, even though the label dropped
them. The links are to personal email addresses, so I decide to take a chance
and open one to him. I attach the file and then stare at it for about 20
minutes…starting, stopping, and deleting until I find the right thing to say.

You know me, always
have to prove I’m right. Thought you might like to hear what I hear.

-A

Send. It’s done. The adrenaline pouring through my veins now
is thick, and I swear I could run a marathon. I just opened a door that I’m
pretty sure can’t be shut. I just hope it’s a safe door, and doesn’t come with
regret. I push my laptop to the side and shut the screen before snuggling
deeper into my covers. I’m going to be getting up early in the morning and
doing my best to leave the house before anyone else—
Mason
—is awake.

Mason

Two hours, if I’m lucky. That’s how long I slept last night,
AKA this morning. I sat there on the other side of my door thinking about Avery
Abbot until the sun was almost up. I thought about Avery Abbot because she
thought about me. And I liked that she thought about me.

I didn’t get her email until this morning. That’s probably
good, because now my head is all kinds of fucked up trying to figure out what
to think about it. She has wanted to do nothing but stick a staple through my
neck since I ran into her at Dusty’s my first day back in town. But last
night…I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading into it, but I think somewhere, deep
down, Avery Abbot cares about me. And I think maybe I care about Avery Abbot.

At first I was just fantasizing about having a little fun
with her, maybe getting her drunk and fooling around. But now I kind of just
want to kiss her—like a real kiss, not the kind I usually give out just
to make some chick think I’m into her so she’ll sleep with me.

I’ve listened to the clip she sent me a dozen times. The
first six, I rolled my eyes, not even letting it play all the way through. But
something kept calling me back. My young hands didn’t even know what they were
doing back then, picking around the strings trying to make something sound
good—sound different, unique. But there was something there, underneath
my inexperience.

Somewhere along the way, I lost my passion, and Avery was
right. I hate that she’s right. Or maybe I love it. Fuck, I don’t know. But it
had me watching out my window this morning, just waiting for her to get in her
car with Max and leave the house so I could pull out my guitar without her
thinking she had anything to do with it.

She had
everything
to do with it. But she doesn’t need to know that.

By the time noon rolled around, I had played through
everything I’d ever written, and covered about twenty of my favorites just
trying to find myself again somewhere in this mess I’ve made. And now I just
need to convince Ray to let me go on tonight. I need to see how it
feels—in front of an audience. See if my heart kicks again…like it used
to.

I’m a disheveled mess, my hair wet from the thirty-second
shower and my shirt half tucked in when I walk into Dusty’s. I always liked the
lunch crowd. It was nothing but locals and regulars, people who actually came
here to get drunk early and eat the food. I look like I fit right in.

“Thanks for hanging on to my stuff, Ray,” I hear a familiar,
grating voice say from the other side of the swinging door. If I could wish
myself to have one super power right now, it would be invisibility. But since
that’s not an option, I do the next best thing and duck behind the counter
while Ray and my mother walk around the other side.

“Sure thing, Barb. You know you’ve always got a place here,”
Ray says, holding the door open while my mother follows him through. I can see
the top of her copper hair as I crouch and slide my way around the opposite
direction of the counter. “So, you good startin’ back up tonight then?”

“Honey, I’m always ready,” she says, her overt flirtation
like a wet fish slapped in my face. My mother always threw herself at
men—doesn’t matter that she’s known Ray for years. He has a penis, no
wife, and a decent job. That made him fair game. At least until some
millionaire shows up.

“You can’t hide here forever, ya know,” I hear behind me as
a foot kicks my ass lightly, just enough to push me off balance and onto my
hands and knees. I turn around to see a tiny brunette with short bobbed hair
and her hand on one hip, her tray balanced against the other. “That’s your
mama, Mason. She’s going to know you’re back in town eventually.”

“Yeah, I know…” I say, studying her face and looking for
recognition.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” she says, popping a giant
bubble with her gum. I know I know her, but damned if I could remember her name
right now. She’s one of Avery’s friends—I saw her the other night, and
I’m pretty sure not recognizing her now is not going to do me any favors when
it comes to Avery.
Shit, I hope I never
slept with her!

“I remember you…it’s just…been a while,” I say, standing up
and dusting off my jeans, racking my brain…
nothing.

“Uh huh. Sure you do,” she says, walking past me with a
smirk on her face.

“Carrie,” I take a stab in the dark. The look she shoots
back at me tells me I’m not even close.

“
Claire
, Mason!
Good lord, at least you got the first letter right. I’ve known you since sixth
grade?” she says, loading up her tray with drinks, straws, and napkins. I
decide to help her, hoping my gesture might just earn me some points.

“Yeah, that’s right. Sorry. I knew you…I just couldn’t get
the name to come up. Sorry,” I repeat, sheepishly. It’s better to just own up
to this.

She gives me a short half-smile and pauses for a second or
two before shrugging and lifting her tray. I follow behind with a stack of
menus. “So, Mason. What are you doing back in town?” she says over her
shoulder, dropping off a few drink orders before seating a group of
construction workers at a booth.

“You know, just figuring some things out. Not sure if I want
to tour any more or maybe work on some solo stuff,” I say, not really ready to
lay my failures out for her.

“Uh huh,” she says, her smile just dripping with
condescension.

“I’m not with the label any more, so it’s a good time for me
to take a break,” I keep going. Fuck! Why do I feel the need to justify myself
to this chick?

She just keeps going about her business, dropping off
napkins for one table and bussing another, and I keep following her, like some
new kid who doesn’t fit in. That’s me—somehow, I’m the new kid! I used to
kick my feet up at the corner booth, and skip school until it was time to go
on—college chicks lining up just to sit on my lap. And now here I am,
begging for approval from a waitress, who clearly couldn’t give a shit who I
am.

I finally drop the menus I’ve been carrying around into the
bin at the hostess desk and sit at one of the nearby stools, pulling out my
phone so I can look busy and find a way out of this sudden feeling of
inadequacy. Then I hear the stool drag closer, and seconds later Claire is
sitting right next to me, leaning on one elbow—staring. I squint at her
and grimace, probably a little rudely, but I’m done trying to impress her. So
what if she’s Avery’s friend.

“Avery told me you blew it,” she says, completely deflating
me and annoying the fuck out of me at the same time.

“Yeah, well, what does Avery know,” I say, flipping through
my ESPN app just trying to find something
else
to occupy my attention. Funny how many times I’ve asked myself what Avery
knows over the last 48 hours. Turns out she might just know me better than
anyone.

“My god, Mason. Are you really that clueless?” Claire asks.

“Apparently,” I sigh, continuing to flip through some story
on human growth hormone lawsuits and baseball. Claire’s not taking the hint
though, so I close the app and push my phone back in my pocket to give her my
reluctant attention.

“You, like…really have no idea, do you?” she says, with this
faint, cocky smirk. I’m starting to hate this chick.

“Nope,” I say, folding my arms up a little defensively now.

Claire’s smile gets a little bigger, and now she’s scooting
closer. She starts looking around, making that face chicks make when they’re
gossiping. For some reason, it’s starting to make me nervous as hell, so I
start looking around, too. Finally satisfied that we’re alone, she props her
chin up on her hand, cupping it a little for even more privacy. I’m starting to
think she’s about to tell me that she’s a transvestite, she’s acting so
strange—when she drops an even bigger bomb.

“Avery was totally in love with you,” she says, a
half-whisper. She says a few other things after, about how Avery used to write
my name on her notebook and shit, but all I keep hearing—over and
over—is that Avery Abbot loved me. Avery Abbot…
loved me?
Where the fuck was I?

“Wait…wait. What? Avery can’t stand my ass! And in high
school, she barely talked to me. Even when I stayed at her house, she’d always
run away, hide in her room. That’s why I called her Birdie, because she was so
chirpy and mousy all the time,” I say. I’m pretty sure Claire is full of shit
on this one.

“True. And she never liked it when you called her that. In
fact, the first time you did, she came over to my house after school and cried
her fucking eyes out,” Claire says, instantly sticking a knife through my gut.

“Damn, I never knew that. I thought she always liked it when
we called her that. She never said anything…” I say, looking down, a little
embarrassed that I now have
ASSHOLE
stamped across my forehead.

Claire laughs lightly and nudges me to get my attention.
“Don’t beat yourself up over that. She had pretty low self-esteem back then.
Not the same girl that will tell you where to stick it today,” she says, with a
wink.

She’s right, too—my first few days with Avery since
I’ve been back in town have been nothing but her telling me
exactly
what she thinks of me, no matter
how harsh, which is precisely why I can’t believe Avery ever
loved
me.

“Alright, I get it. I teased her. And you say she loved me,
which…whatever, I’m not buying that. But why the hell is she so anti-Mason
now?” I ask. I want to get to the heart of Avery’s beef with me—if for
nothing else to make the next couple weeks a little more bearable.

“You are unbelievable!” Claire says, letting out a piercing
laugh just to punctuate how stupid she thinks I am. I just stare at her
blankly—I’ve got nothin’. “Mason, don’t you remember Nikki Thomas’ party
our sophomore year?”

Yeah, I remember that party. That’s the night I slept with
Nikki Thomas, pretty much the hottest piece of ass in our high school. And that
was the night I realized exactly all of the doors being a musician could open.
It was the night I decided that the second I had enough money I was leaving
Cave Creek and heading straight to LA. But something tells me those aren’t the
things Claire—and more importantly, Avery—remembers about that
night. So I just nod slowly and wait, hoping she’ll fill me in.

“Everyone was playing that drinking game, and you and Avery
got dared to be locked in the closet for 30 minutes. You remember that?” she
asks, and I have a vague imprint somewhere in the back of my mind. I’m pretty
sure I wasn’t sober that night—always one of my regrets about sleeping
with Nikki Thomas; I only remember bits and pieces about sex with her.

“Sort of,” I say, scratching at the back of my neck. This
isn’t going to be good—I can tell.

Claire just sighs and shakes her head. “Jesus, Mason. You
sat in that closet with her for 30 minutes. That was like…her dream come true.
And you just sat in there, with your feet crossed out in front of you, like you
were taking a nap. You didn’t even talk to her! You practically lived at her
house, and you just ignored her so you could endure some goddamned bet you
lost!”

Fuck!

“When they opened up the door, you walked out and told
everyone she kissed like a bird, too. You said she just pecked at you, and you
had to push her off of you. Then you said she begged you to go all the way,”
Claire is even ashamed saying this shit out loud. The worst part is I can’t
deny any of it. I don’t really remember it—actually, I kind of do, just
not clearly. But I can picture it—it’s exactly something I would do. And
I haven’t changed a goddamned bit.

The bar is starting to fill up, so Claire kicks back from
the bar and scoots in her stool, patting her hands on the counter a few times
before speaking. “I gotta get back to work. But whatever you’re trying to
figure out
while you’re here, Mason?
Make sure you don’t have to tear Avery down just to get there, okay?”

I nod at her, my breath pretty much knocked out of my lungs.
I thought Ray held up a pretty brutal mirror when he showed me those articles
the other day. But Claire just trumped that. Avery might have loved
me—once. But I pissed all over that, just like I do everything that’s
good in my life.

“Hey, Claire?” I catch her before she heads into the
kitchen.

“Yeah?” she asks, pausing halfway through the door.

“You think I can fix any of that? I mean—I know I’m
way
beyond saying sorry now. But, I
guess…you think maybe I can get her to
not
hate me?” The words sound pathetic as they leave my lips, but I’m all right
with that. Turns out, I
am
kinda
pathetic. And the fact that Avery said the things she said last night makes me
an even bigger asshole—because I don’t deserve them, but she’s a fucking
saint for saying them anyway.

“You can always fix it, Mason,” she says, her lips curled
into a half smile. “That girl—she’ll always see the best in you. Even
when she doesn’t want to.”

The door swings shut behind her, and despite sitting in the
middle of a crowded restaurant, I feel completely alone. I have to find Ray.
And I have to get him to let me go on tonight. Because I have to go back to the
beginning and see if I can get shit right this time around. And I’m pretty sure
it all starts with Avery Abbot.