Lost Avalon: A Finding Nolan Novel (19 page)

             
She took box number four from me before I could put it away. “I like this stuff. It’s sweet.”

             
“So is grape juice. Can’t help but feel like that might as well be what you’re getting here.”               I had come to terms with the fact that my mother was an alcoholic several years ago. This was after spending the bulk of my teens begging her to quit and then checking her into rehab twice after I had the money to do so.

It never stuck. Mostly because she didn’t want to quit. Somewhere along the way she had made the switch from hardcore tequila to the more mellow wine and I had accepted it. Unlike Blaise, she didn’t drink to get shitfaced. She just drank. Consistently. Daily. For hours on end. But she didn’t drive. She didn’t miss work. She wasn’t stupid about it. In fact, she was surprisingly functional. And honestly, I think she’d insisted on keeping her fulltime job even after I’d offered to support her financially because it kept her that way. Like she needed the structure of the routine or something. Either way. It was her life and she wasn’t hurting anyone else. Anymore.

“Are you having some with me or not?” She was standing at the cupboard, door open, hands on the glasses.

“Yes, please.”

She pulled down two mason jars and filled them both to the top. My mother didn’t mess around.

“Where’s Timmy? Still working?”

She laughed. “Please, that man never works past noon. Happy Hour down at the pub starts around then. Of course, he’ll be over at C.J.’s by now for two dollar drafts. You’ll see him sometime before the night’s over I imagine. Provided you’re still here.” She glanced over at me, the question written on her face.

“Yeah, I’ll be here. Probably for a few days if that’s okay.”

She turned and started walking toward the living room. I followed.

“That depends. Why are you here?”

“Just taking some time off.” It was sort of true.

“Weren’t you just on vacation? Pretty sure I saw some pictures of you relaxing on some tropical island. With Blaise.” My mother had taken to stalking me via the internet from the moment the paparazzi had made it possible. I was always just a phone call away and yet, she seemed to deem TMZ’s highlights more entertaining and forthcoming than a chat with her own daughter.

“Pictures can be very deceiving, Mom.” I sipped my drink. She was right. It was sweet. It was like the Kool-Aid version of wine.

“Must have been. Because the pictures made you two look like a couple.” My mother’s lack of subtlety was nothing if not endearing.

I sighed. “We are. Or, we were. Shit. I don’t fucking know anymore.”

She chuckled. “What’s to know? You’ve been in love with the boy since you were just a kid.”

“I have not,” I huffed.

“Of course you have.” My mother gulped her wine. She looked blissfully contented. I wasn’t sure if it was due to her beverage or her level of enjoyment due to the topic of conversation.

“Mom, Blaise and I were never more than just friends. At least not until recently.” I set down my glass, suddenly feeling the need to keep a clear head.

“Oh, I know.” She grinned to herself.

“Then what are you talking about?” It was starting to be infuriating.

“Being in love and acting on it, are two completely different things, Ava. I have watched for so long while you closed yourself off to the possibility of really falling for him, or anyone, I was starting to think you’d never be able to open that iron clad heart of yours. But then I saw those pictures of the two of you holding hands on some beach in paradise. Ava, I can’t tell you how happy that made me.”

“Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but we’re not together anymore. And right now, I don’t know if we ever will be. We both have a lot to figure out for ourselves.” I let myself sink into the cushions of her sofa. This had always been the magic couch. You couldn’t lay on it for more than fifteen minutes and not fall asleep. The way this conversation was going, I was sincerely hoping it hadn’t lost its power over the years.

She nodded thoughtfully. “Alright.”

“Alright what?” One mason jar in and she already wasn’t making any sense. For booze that came in a box she was certainly getting more than her money’s worth.

“Alright you can stay here. I was going to say no because I thought you were just running away, trying to avoid your problems, but if this is something you need to do, take a little trip down memory lane to face your past so you can get to your future, then okay.”

Oh the fucking irony of that statement. If one more addict wanted to dole out advice on how I could deal with
my
issues, I’d probably flip my shit completely.

“Gee, thanks. I’m glad I was able to sway you. Not that my old room isn’t the first place that comes to mind when I think comfy and cozy hideaway, what with all the creepy pre-pubescent boys plastered on the walls now, but no, I didn’t come here to hide out.”

She stood up from the couch. “Listen, you’re going to need to do something about this pissy mood you’re in or your visit isn’t going to be much fun for me.” She smirked. “Now drink up, you’re already falling behind.”

I watched her amble off into the kitchen to refill her glass, then peered over at my own which was still filled three quarters of the way. It wasn’t the first time I was envious of her ability to drink herself to her happy place. Unfortunately, alcohol had been the problem in my life for far too long to ever be the solution.

              After an hour of sipping on the same glass of wine, I finally found a way to make a graceful exit when Timmy showed up. We said a brief hello while my mother went to grab him a beer and then I slid out of the room into the hall. I was up the stairs before my mother even noticed I was gone.

             
Of course, attempting to relax in my old room while there was still daylight was pretty much pointless. Harry and I were mid stare down when I decided he wasn’t my intended target. Two seconds later and I had the phone to my ear listening to the ringtone.

             
“Yellow.”

             
“Hey Addy. Harry says what’s up.”

             
“Eda.” She’d been calling me that for the last seventeen years. Apparently she still couldn’t pronounce her A’s and V’s. “You better not be messing with my stuff!”

             
“Your stuff? What the fuck happened to MY stuff?” Not that I wanted any of it. I was strictly inquiring on principal.

             
“I dunno. Check the attic. I just threw it all in boxes. No clue what Mom did with it after.” Probably threw it out. “Meanwhile, what are you doing home anyway?”

             
I dug through one of my bags until I found a bright red lipstick which I promptly began to apply to Harry. “Just visiting.”

             
“What does that even mean? You live like twenty minutes from there. Why do you need to stay for an overnight visit?”

             
I mumbled an ‘I don’t know’ without ever opening my mouth which sounded a lot like ‘m-m-mm’ and moved on to the other boys with my lipstick.

             
“Does this have something to do with those pics I saw of you and Blaise on some fucking beach? Are you guys like a thing now? Because that would be seriously weird.”

             
She caught me so off guard with her statement, I accidentally drew a red line straight across this poor kid’s face. Niall I think was his name. I’d remembered it because I’d thought it was short for ‘In denial’. And I meant that in general. Anyone who smiled that much was clearly in denial over something…if not everything.  Anyway, to make it up to him, I used my finger to smudge it out and make it look like he had some color in those cheeks. He needed it. I was doing him a favor.

             
“Listen chicklet, there is nothing weird about Blaise and I being a thing. And when you grow up a little and stop fawning over boys who sound like they’re still waiting for their balls to drop, I’ll tell you all about it. In the meantime, stop stalking me in the check-out line at Wal-Mart. Those magazines are all photo-shopped and fictional.” I ended my rant by drawing a mustache on the final dude and I was pretty sure this was the first time he’d ever had one.

             
“I’m confused.” And she sounded it. “Are you and Blaise together or not?”

             
“Yeah, I’m confused about that, too.”

             
“That’s not really an answer.”

             
I sighed. “I know. Let’s talk about something else. Like what it’s going to take to get you to broaden your musical horizons.”

             
She laughed. “What, like I need to listen to Finding Nolan more? Just because I don’t hang posters of the boy next door up on my wall, doesn’t mean I don’t dig their music.”

             
“Nobody is asking you to hang up posters of Blaise. THAT would be weird.”

             
“Agreed. You know what wouldn’t be though? If you hooked me up with some life size images of Angel. I wouldn’t mind using his face for wall paper. Or his abs.”

             
“Addy!”

             
“What? You just said I needed to stop fawning over boys. Pretty sure Angel qualifies as a man.” The fact that she was giggling like a pre-teen girl already had me rethinking that statement.

             
“Yeah…well, you’re not ready for Angel. More importantly, Angel’s not ready for you.”

             
I mean, I loved Angel, but he was a fucking manwhore if there ever was one. Not exactly the type of guy I wanted my baby sister gushing over. Even from a distance.             

***

             
It had been a solid week since anyone had heard from Ava. Royce and I had agreed to treat her absence as time off for personal reasons and had said as much to the others. We still had Francis and she was more than capable of covering for Ava for the time being. So there was no need to make it anything more permanent than that just yet. Hopefully ever.

             
Even though Royce had mentioned it almost just as frequently as Ava, I still hadn’t come clean to Derek and Angel about my past recreational interests, however I had been meeting with a substance abuse counselor on a daily basis. The sessions were via Skype with this chick doc who called herself Doctor Rae. And I went with that since her last name included a slew of astrological elements which made me want to break into an Earth, Wind & Fire song every time I saw it pop up on my screen. To be perfectly honest I wasn’t entirely convinced that she
was
an actual doctor, but Royce had hooked it up and I wasn’t exactly in a position to make extra demands since I was running low on friends as it was.

             
“How are you this evening, Blaise?”

             
I was good. Which I would tell her just as soon as I could stop staring at the strange feathered headdress she was wearing pinned to the side of her head.

             
“Fine, thanks.” I still couldn’t take my eyes off of it. Partially because I was trying to determine if the bird was still attached. “How are you?”

             
“I’m wonderful, thanks so much for asking. Let’s get right to it, shall we?”

             
I nodded. “Sure.”

             
“Tonight’s session is going to be a quick one. I want you to think back about the last time you truly felt like you were of value. I want you to think about what you were doing. Who you were with and what it was about that moment that made you feel so significant.”

             
I opened my mouth automatically, certain I would bullshit my way through her question just like I’d been doing from the start, only nothing came out.

             
“It’s okay if you don’t have an answer yet, Blaise. I’d rather you take the time to really feel it out. Then, when you discover what it was, I want you to find a way to duplicate it. It doesn’t have to be a repeat of the first experience, but in some small way I want you to find a way to establish that same feeling once a day.”

             
I nodded. Not because I was agreeing with her. Mostly I was just being polite.

             
“Alright, well, it’s a full moon tonight, so I’m going to go burn some stuff. Do some clearings. I recommend you find a process of your own choosing to do the same.”

             
As usual she ended our session by calling on the angels and ascended masters, none of which I was familiar with, but all of whom she seemed to know on a first name basis. Then she wished me well and sent me on my way.

             
Next, as was quickly becoming part of the routine, I pulled out my cell and called Royce.

             
“What the fuck, dude? Tonight that little pyromaniac told me to go out and burn shit. What does that even mean?”