AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you just going to stand there like you’re carved out of stone? Like I don’t mean anything to you? Like your heart isn’t fucking broken just like mine?” Avery’s voice had a slight tremble to it but aside from that he looked calm. From the corner of his eye, Ethan noticed that his dad had dropped his hammer and looked in their direction, watching intently.Fuck.He couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t.
“What do you want me to say, Avery? Huh? That I’ll come with ya? That I’ll leave this place and my family and my job? And then what? What’s your grand plan, Avery? Tell me! I wanna know.” The words had come out harsher than he’d intended, but it felt like he was slowly losing his cool. One more look or word from Avery and he wasn’t sure that he could keep up the wall that he’d built around him. Between them.
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t have some masterplan. But I know that I’m in love with you and I want to fucking be with you, you stubborn idiot. I know that I don’t want to be without you. And the rest? We’ll figure it out along the way, okay? That’s what people do when they care about each other. They figure it out. Please tell me that you want that too, Eth.”
“That’s it?We’ll figure it out?Well, that’s just not good enough, Avery. It isn’t. Life isn’t just fucking rainbows and roses. Real life is hard. It isn’t some fairytale and this… you and me…” Ethan motioned with his hand between them, “there’s not gonna be some fairytale ending if that’s what you came lookin’ for.”
Avery nodded quietly, burying his free hand in his pocket. Even if Ethan had hit him across the face, Avery couldn’t have looked any more devastated.
“Okay… I guess I was mistaken then. I shouldn’t have assumed that you felt the same way about me that I feel about you… It just felt like it for a while, on the road. That this, us, that it was something.” Avery released the denim jacket and took a step backwards while shaking his head in resignation.
Ethan twisted the worn material in his hands, as he stood frozen, his eyes suddenly blurry. Briefly, Avery parted his lips as if he was going to say something, but then he turned around towards his car. Opening the side door, he got in, about to close the door.
“Avery! Sweetie, wait a second,” his mom came bolting through the open door, a glass of cold iced tea in her right hand filled to the brim with ice cubes. As she hurried down the porch steps, tea spilled all over the place, splashing the front of her green cotton dress. Ethan couldn’t recall that he’d ever seen his mom sprint like that before, always hollering at him and his younger brothers that they shouldn’t run inside or down the steps. Placing the now half-filled glass on the dusty roof of Avery’s car, she leaned against the side door, catching her breath while tapping lightly on the car window.
Rolling down the window, Avery glanced briefly at Ethan before he turned his gaze towards his mom.
“Please don’t go like this, sweetie. At least stay for dinner. You’ve come all this way, Avery.” She gestured at her husband who was walking towards Ethan, a determined look on his face. “Everything’ll be just fine, honey. You’ll see.” She nodded reassuringly as she reached to open the car door.
“Jesus, Mom!” Ethan yelled, kicking at the dirt ground.
“Ethan Emmanuel Bishop, I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again. I’ll not have you take the good Lord’s name in vain! Not on my watch.” Her green eyes beamed fiercely at her eldest child.
“Emmanuel?” Avery mumbled. “Your middle name is Emmanuel?” A small smile started tucking at the corner of his mouth as Avery got out of the car. His eyes had a moist sheen to them as he blinked at Ethan’s mom in amazement.
“Yes, it’s a family name,” his mother chirped. “You see, sweetie, my grandfather, Ethan’s great-grandfather, Emmanuel, was a proud and stubborn man—not unlike someone we both know,” she mimicked while nodding in Ethan’s direction.
“Aww, for fuck’s sake,” Ethan shook his head as he turned on his heel and headed for the cornfield behind the small farmhouse. He was done with this shitshow of a meet-the-parents or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be. If his own parents wanted to treat him like a child who couldn’t decide for himself, he sure as shit wasn’t gonna act all mature and grown-up. If his mom wanted to recount the entire family history to Avery, he might as well just go hide away some place. Once his mom got started about her ancestors, there was no telling when she would be done.So fuck it. Fuck all of it.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Ethan – Now
“SO, YOU’RE JUSTgonna let him leave like that? After what that boy just told ya?” His dad stood in front of him, where Ethan was sitting, hiding away in the cornfield. It wasn’t often that his dad voiced his opinion about anything—he usually left it up to his wife to tell their four children off when they screwed up or misbehaved.
“Dad, please...” Ethan brushed at his hair, dusting invisible dirt off.
“I’ve always been proud of you, son. And I’ve always supported every decision that you and your siblings have made. Even when you chose to drive across the country to find Matty. But this time, I don’t know what the heck is going on in that stubborn head of yours.” As if to emphasize his words, his dad shook his head, sighing deeply.
“Dad, it’s my life and I’m a grown man and I can make up my own damn mind…”
“You’re a pissant, is what you are!”
“Jesus, Dad, tell me like it is, wontcha?” Ethan’s cheeks heated up, his mouth going dry.
“Well, you are. Did you not just hear that young man? Are you slow? Or are you just too young and careless to give a damn?”
“I’m not careless, Dad…” he murmured, kicking his cowboy boots at the ground. He’d started wearing them again as soon as he’d returned home, hiding his hiking boots all the way back in his closet.
“Yeah, I know you ain’t. And you sure ain’t slow either. Top of your class. Then what is it?” He raised his eyebrow at Ethan.
“I’m… It’s not gonna work.” Ethan shrugged, still avoiding eye contact with his dad.
“How do ya know that when you haven’t even tried?”
Ethan’s eyes started burning and briefly he squeezed them tight, shutting out the world and his dad’s voice. When he felt that he could speak without bursting into tears, he continued, his voice shaking.
“Because… Avery is everything that I’m not. He’s a freaking professor, Dad! He knows about all sorts of things that I’ve never even heard about. He comes from an entirely different world, Dad. Okay? And he’s older than me. I’m just this kid from West Texas and he’s…” Suddenly all the excuses seemed insignificant. Lame, even. Because that was exactly what they were. Excuses. Ethan searched his mind, but it was all a blur by now, the valid reasons escaping him. Looking at his dad, the man he’d looked up to all his life, Ethan was met with nothing but understanding in the older man’s eyes.
