Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
“That’s fine,” I mumble, immediately castigating myself for thinking about Avril. Separate rooms would mean I’d have more individual time with her, and it’s not good to be thinking that way at all.
How in the fuck I’ve become Andrew in this situation and he’s become me is beyond any logic I can fathom. I suspect it’s because Avril and I do share that one thing that I don’t have with Andrew, and that’s her knowledge about my father coming to see me and how that affected me.
Andrew knows the general story that he abandoned me and I was raised in the foster system. He knows things such as I’d never really celebrated holidays. The first time I was invited to Thanksgiving at his house, it was totally awkward for me. Granted, over the years, I’d been invited to spend time at both Avril and Andrew’s family homes, and I’m very fond of their families. But Andrew also knows, same as Avril, that my lack of experiences accompanied with some abandonment issues is what keeps me guarded and closed off from wanting a relationship or a family of my own. I don’t need fucking counseling to know that’s true as I’m a pretty self-aware guy.
Avril knows more about the situation, though. She’s the one who was there the day my dad showed up out of the blue at our apartment. She’s the one who saw my reaction. She’s the one I had no choice but to show my vulnerability to, and she’s the one who stepped up to the plate to protect me.
Avril’s the one who, when it was all over, didn’t force me to talk about it. She respected my need to keep that private, and I was more grateful to her for that than anything.
Except there’s one other thing that had set Avril apart from Andrew over the years, and she doesn’t even know I know about it.
It was toward the end of our senior year at Berkley, and I needed some post-it notes. I was fresh out but as is the way of good friends and roommates, I knew I could borrow some from either Andrew or Avril. They weren’t home, but we were freely allowed to borrow stuff from each other. Andrew’s room was closest to mine, but he didn’t have any.
Avril’s room was neat and orderly, without anything out on her desk. I started rummaging through her drawers. In the last one I found a stack of post-its. I also found a folder that had the name “Lyndon Hawthorne” written on the tab.
My father’s name.
I couldn’t help myself. I pulled it out and opened it up, stunned to see several pages of notes all in Avril’s handwriting. She had apparently tracked my father down at some point after he left and had his whereabouts, including an address and a phone number. She also had a sheet of paper entitled “Pros and Cons” and it looked like a list she wrote out debating whether or not to turn this information over to me.
Some of the pros were things like “will help him heal” and “he can have a family one day”. Those fucking words made my nose sting as I realized she was keenly aware of my walls caused by my father when he abandoned me.
The cons were things like “maybe it’s too late” and “he didn’t ask me to nose around in his business”.
At the bottom of that sheet was a line that read: “Conclusion: I don’t know what to do.”
I flipped through more of the documents, which included a criminal record check on my father showing he’d spent some time in prison for drugs, as well as notes from phone calls she’d made to people to check him out. It looked like he did home inspections or some shit like that, and she had pretended to call for references from people he’d done work for. I remember they were all good things like “dependable” and “on time” and “good quality work for good price”.
I must have sat at her desk, reading over everything three, maybe four, times to soak it all in. I wasn’t pissed she’d done it, but rather amazed she would think to. When she pushed him out of the apartment, I didn’t give him another thought, but she had.
Avril had ultimately decided not to tell me. From what I could make of her notes, she had done all that research within the first few weeks after his visit. She’d held onto that information for months, apparently having decided not to share it with me.
It was that knowledge that made me realize I loved her for the first time. It had become clear that the bonds of our friendship were forged in steel, and that Avril cared about my entire well-being.
I never told her I found the information. I put it back in her desk, borrowed the post-its, and went on with my life.