Leave What Was Found

5: The Wrongs & The Right

Avery had not seen Julian for the past couple of weeks, which was probably a good thing. She was not in the mood to deal with him. Avery spent most of her days alone, which was how she preferred it. She woke up to an empty room because Nikki was typically already gone, she skipped breakfast, she went to class, ate lunch alone, had more classes, and then spent the evening doing her homework and catching up on all the work she had never done. Uncle Mark did not like that Avery refused to make friends. He said it was unhealthy.

"Avery, you just lost your father, you are starting over in a completely new place, you need friends," he had urged.

"My dad said he never had friends in high school," Avery had pointed out. "He said I was all he needed in life anyway."

"Well, that was different, he had me and Gracie in school," Uncle Mark had argued.

"And look what good that did," Avery had muttered. "I was the only one there when he died."

Uncle Mark stopped bothering her about her isolation after that. She had probably hurt his feelings. Avery didn't really care. She barely knew the man, and she was not interested in a new father figure, particularly one that looked like her father but wasn't. 

When the bell for lunch rang, Avery gathered her things and went to the cafeteria. She grabbed her food and left immediately. Avery learned quickly that if she did not leave the cafeteria before Nikki found her, she would have to endure painstaking small talk with Nikki and her friends.

Avery did not mind Nikki's friends. Brady and Cole seemed okay. They were not as happy and perky as she was. However, they were all insanely obsessed with basketball and it was all they talked about. While Avery used to enjoy basketball, it was hard to listen to them talk about the sport that had been the shared interest of her and her father. He was the one who used to talk her ear off giving basketball commentary. It was her father who used to give her the play by play. Now he was gone and she had to listen to other people talk about a sport her father always knew best.

Avery had almost made it to the door, but she was too late. She heard a familiar cheery voice call her name. Avery froze and her shoulders tensed up.

"Oh Avery, finally," Nikki said brightly as she practically bounced over to her. "I've been trying to find you at lunch for days now."

"Yeah, well, I have a lot of homework to do," Avery mumbled. "I was going to go work on it in the library."

"Oh, don't be silly. We all have the same amount of homework and you don't see us running to the library at lunch," Nikki said with a cheerful smile. "Come on, my friends are over there."

There were two reasons Avery liked eating lunch alone in the library. The first was that she had skipped almost two years of school and needed the time to catch up. The other reason was that Avery just did not like talking to people and there was nothing wrong with that. Well, unless of course you were Nikki who found it absolutely tragic that Avery did not like to socialize.

"Hey guys," Nikki said as she sat down. "This is Avery, my roommate, you remember her, right?"

Cole and Brady both smiled and nodded. Avery sat down without a word to them and began eating.

"Yeah, so she is not much of a talker," Nikki said with a frown. "Not sure what is up with that, you can hear us right, Avery?"

"Well, then she would be mute not deaf, Nikki. I'm pretty sure Davidson has ears," Julian said as he came over to them and took a seat next to Cole.

Avery rolled her eyes and grew annoyed that the one person she was hoping to avoid had just sat down.

"You have ears, right?" he asked.