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/ December 2018 /
The hot stage lights flashed over a screaming audience, settling unforgivingly on Avery at center stage. She swiped the back of her hand over her forehead beaded with sweat and smiled. With a squinted eye, she tried to get a better look at the sea of people before her, and paused for a moment to catch her breath before starting the next song, an arm resting on the top of her guitar. Somehow, a whistle caught her attention amongst the roar in the air, and Avery snapped her head to her left. Jake. He tapped his pedal board with a booted foot, his Gibson hanging from his neck, and one corner of his pretty mouth pulled upwards in a half-smile. He was looking at Avery through his brow with those eyes... that look... lightning in his gaze. Avery's heart stuttered, it always did. He tilted his head towards the audience, a nudge to start the next song... her favorite song. She nodded back, and Jake began to play. Avery stepped up to her microphone, and as she opened her mouth to sing out the first word, a deafening beeping sound filled the entire auditorium, and the room went dark. "The power went out!" She heard herself say. The beeping grew louder. "Avery!!" Jake screamed into her ear...
Avery jerked awake with sweat sliding down the sides of her face. Dazed, she looked around for the beeping, and found the alarm on her phone was the culprit. She silenced it, and let all of her held breath go into the dark space around her. When she gathered her bearings, Avery looked to her bedroom window. The sun hadn't risen yet, it was only five in the morning, and she felt like she had gotten no sleep at all. Granted, she didn't get to bed the night before until well after midnight, but the dream didn't help. The dream... It always started out the same, always ended differently, but the one consistent thing was that it occurred every single night. Avery rubbed the sleep from her eyes and tossed her legs over the side of her bed. Toast, who was curled up in her blankets, meowed softly as she got up and made her way to the bathroom to shower. Avery had the opening shift at the diner that morning. The apartment was hushed, Alex and Ericka sleeping soundly still, but Avery welcomed the quiet as she silently got ready for the day. The dream tended to shake her up a little, some days more than others, and today was one of those days. It made her eyes drift towards her guitar in the corner of her room when she returned from the bathroom. She hadn't touched it in months. Avery sighed and reached over Toast to grab her bag before leaving for work.
The on-foot commute to the diner was not a long one, but Avery kept her pace a little slower than usual, despite the freezing morning air causing her nose to go numb, and wrapped her scarf around her neck an extra time. She loved to be outside when the sun came up, something about it made her feel new, and that was a feeling Avery had been chasing since she got home from the program. The fallout from the incident was complex to say the least. The previous almost-year had been filled with therapy, as required by the program, meetings and a lot of routine... which inherently meant Avery's music career had come to a screeching halt. In fact, she hadn't been able to bring herself to even strum a chord on her guitar in well over half of that time. She felt stupid when she thought about it. That's the thing about trauma... it alters something inside of you, but somehow you always seem to feel like you made a big deal of nothing... like it didn't shift your world off it's axis. A knot would always form in the pit of Avery's stomach when she thought about Lucas, or the tour, or the drugs... She was sober, or at least mostly, save a little marijuana here and there. Alex accredited her sobriety to the program, but Avery wasn't sure if it was that or the sheer fear she had developed for how easily the drugs made her controllable... vulnerable. Regardless, it was over now, and so was her music. She was shivering when she stopped to check a new notification on her phone screen...
J: One more day.
Avery's entire face lit up behind her burgundy scarf as she read the text over again. Jake was coming home, and he had been counting down the days for weeks. She grabbed her earbuds and queued up Anthem of the Peaceful Army, the bright and shining newest album by her very best friends and favorite band. Her life may have been entirely turned upside down in the previous year, but one thing stayed the same no matter what... arguably Avery's favorite of all things... Jake. The band was headed home for Christmas and the New Year, which meant she and Alex had plans to go to Frankenmuth the next day and see them. It was the thing keeping Avery going through the tangled up mess she had been walking through, and quite frankly, it was all she could think about. She typed a quick reply with ice-cold fingers...
A: You know I can't wait... enjoy your shitty hotel coffee this morning...☺️
J: Absolutely uncalled for... Have a good day at work 🩶
Avery grinned and continued on towards the diner, a new lightness in her step. She hadn't seen Jake, or any of the others for that matter, in person since she left tour. The thought of being with them again made her feel like her heart would shoot right out of her chest, and made the work day seem to drag on forever before she could finally go home and pack for the morning trip to the Kiszkas'. Alex lifted a concerned eyebrow in Avery's direction as she fluttered about the apartment with loads of laundry in her arms that evening. He felt inevitably conflicted about their plans for the weekend for several reasons. On the one hand, he was just happy to see Avery happy again. It felt like she hadn't been happy in a long time, which was equivalent to breaking Alex's heart over and over on a daily basis for him. On the other hand, however, Alex was worried about how being back with the guys could trigger Avery, especially when they find out she quit music. He watched her grumble at a sock falling to the floor from the load she was carrying back to her room from the washer. She was fragile, his little twin, and he couldn't bear to see her fall to pieces again... not after she had finally seemed to heal a little alongside her sobriety.
"Ave..." Alex followed her into her room, which looked like her closet had exploded.
"Hmm?" She didn't look up as she folded a sweater and stuffed it in an open suitcase on top of her bed. Alex leaned against her doorframe.
"Have you told him?" He spoke tenderly, as if lifting a bandage from a wound. Avery glanced up from folding another sweater for a brief moment, confusion flashing across her face.
"Told who what?"
"... Jake... Have you told him that... well, you know... that you..." It suddenly dawned on Alex that he hadn't said it out loud, no one had.
"That I quit music?" Avery cocked her head, her voice painfully casual, "No, I haven't." She shrugged and turned back to her suitcase. Alex stood upright. He was shocked by how easily she threw her words around as if music hadn't been her one and only dream since she could open her mouth to sing. The record label hadn't exactly dropped Avery or given up on her. They were much more forgiving about her recovery than Alex could have asked for, but he knew even the most generous of labels couldn't hold out forever. He secretly wondered if they had forgotten all together.
"Are you going to? Tell him?" Alex asked.
"I mean, I'm sure he'll figure it out eventually if he hasn't already." There was a bit of an edge to Avery's voice, a sting of annoyance. Alex decided to back down, He didn't want a fight before they left in the morning, not when he knew how excited Avery was to see her friends again. She finally had color in her face again, light in her eyes.
"We leave first thing in the morning, right?" He spoke after a moment's pause. Avery looked back up at him, flashing a smile he hadn't seen in too long, and nodding excitedly. Alex's heart swelled. He had missed his sister.
