Page 13 of The Backup Plan

Marshall

Not the flex you think it is, Hammy. Sit down.

FOUR

The Charleston Battery

AVERY

Avery checked her watch, her phone, and her watch again. Her fingers still jittered with first-day excitement, and she didn’t want to make a stupid mistake and mis-read a time in her schedule. With forty-five minutes until her next class in the building she was already in, she decided to nose around for a lounge to sit in and set alarms on her phone so she remembered when to leave.

She wandered the second-floor hall and peered through the narrow panes of glass into the studios. On the first day of classes, the hall was fairly quiet, and near a door to the stairwell, she found an unoccupied lounge. Two pairs of couches sat back-to-back, with a low table between the center set. The outer couches faced walls strung with gallery wire, and Avery selected one facing a display of student work of what looked like perspective exercises—charcoal on paper. She flopped on her back and texted Justin to confirm their lunch plans when she heard a litany of muttered curses.

Peeking over the edge of her sofa, she saw him as he entered the lounge and headed for the couch back-to-back with hers. If he hadn’t been grumbling, she wouldn’t have heard him approach. He was light on his feet for a guy his size, she noted—broad across the chest with muscular arms that caught her eye. His Southern accent smoothed the flow of harsh words he strung together like a broken record. Dammit fucking shit goddamn this fucking?——

He dropped his backpack and kicked it, then dropped into a seat so hard he shook her couch, too.

Stretched out with her head on the arm of her couch, she could just see his head as he yanked off his glasses and tossed them on the table. He flipped his orange ball cap backward and dragged his hands over his face.

His frustration was visible, audible, even palpable when he rattled the couches and the floor, but hurt swarmed him like an aura. That invisible pain was as familiar to her as the breath in her lungs, and he was somehow familiar to her.

She drew in a deep breath and focused her attention on a picture. The artist had drawn in charcoal a waterfront of row houses that might have been along the Battery in Charleston, South Carolina. Avery’s fingers twitched for a brush and some watercolors to wash each house in the candy pastels of the city. She would even paint the ocean blue, she decided—a bright cerulean for a sunny day and cheerful water that celebrated life rather than taking it.

Shadows once nudged her to the edge of the boat and the hypnotic whirlpools below, but not anymore. Turning away, she screwed her eyes shut tight and pictured a cornfield, earthen and solid and smelling of mud. Avery gritted her teeth and heard the mantra in her mind. Not anymore.

Isaac was gone, but Justin was safe, and she’d see him soon. She exhaled and made a mental note to talk to her advisor about water-related art and the best way to approach some fears she was determined to fight, and when she opened her eyes, the boy in the orange hat was looking at her.

“Hi,” she said, pushing herself up.

He didn’t respond, but turned his attention to his backpack. Avery noted his earbuds and wondered if he hadn’t heard her greeting, but he was on his feet before she could speak, and disappeared down the hall.

She met Justin for lunch, went to another class, met her roommate Natasha for dinner and dragged her to a mixer in their residence hall, all while the boy in the orange hat made himself at home in her head. She wondered what frustrated him to the point of juvenile grumbling. It distracted from but didn’t hide the hurt that lay over him like a blanket, and despite her annoyance, she felt a sharp pang of sympathy.

The following day, her advisor suggested visiting the student counseling center for guidance on exposure therapy, and was pleased to learn Avery had not only already done so, but had collected a list of useful readings. With those in hand, the advisor added that a quick e-mail to her instructors to let them know up front would be better than trying to tough out any discomfort and winding up triggered on a bad day.

Down the hall from her advisor’s office, Avery situated herself on the couch and stared at the picture again. ‘Trigger’ was a word she refused to lean on anymore. Everything felt better in her new home, and not just being close to Justin again. The air smelled better. The campus was teeming with life. Even a drawing of the Atlantic Ocean was somehow more palatable, if not yet beautiful, in a place so full of hope. It was time to stop being triggered and find her way forward.

“Well, shit.”

That whispered drawl. Way-ull. She spun around, and the boy in the orange hat stared at her.

“Hi,” she said, and offered a wave when she saw his earbuds peeking out beneath a mop of brown curls. He might have thought she couldn’t hear him.

He didn’t reply, but sat back on the same couch as the day before, back-to-back with hers. Her couch moved as he shifted to find a comfortable position lying down. The couch was too short for him, and his bright white sneakers dangled over the end. When she rose a few minutes later, he had his hands folded behind his head, and the orange cap was tipped forward over his glasses, hiding his eyes.

“Nice to see you again, too,” she muttered as she stood to leave.

The boy made a slight, unintelligible mmphm and didn’t move.

“You have a new friend, Avie,” Justin announced as they sat down for lunch after the first full week of school. She’d seen the boy in the orange hat every day when she visited the lounge, and every day, he ignored her and she made herself comfortable anyway.

She figured he had to be an art major or he wouldn’t be on the second floor by the studios, but she snuck a look while he was sleeping or pretending to, and didn’t notice any telltale marks of drawing or painting materials on his hands. He smelled too good to be hanging out in the studios all morning—like he’d just showered and came to the lounge to dry.

But more importantly, Justin had his first football game of the season the next day, and Avery was focused on collecting new friends to go with her. She’d become a minor celebrity in her hall because of her handsome brother’s visits, and several girls angled for an invitation in case they would see him after the game.

He’d be disgusting after the game and she wouldn’t see him until dinner, but Avery wanted to make friends, and didn’t think anyone else needed to know the logistics.

“Who’s my new friend, and are they coming to the game?”