avery !

Gross! No way, tell me that you’re kidding! Is it alive? I don’t kill things, Avery! You do it!

I wish I was! No way! I don’t kill things either! Uh, uh, do we have a paper towel or something? I could put it outside, that way it would go back to it’s, uh, family? I think? Or we could just change um, rooms?

Pretty gross, I think is what you mean but I guess I can forget considering that you were just fetus or whatever. That’s gross by the way.

Mmm, snacks, candy, food.. I don’t know whatever you – yes, a dog. I really want a dog, and I know that we haven’t seen your dad around town lately but, it’d just make me feel better.. a big dog would make me feel better. I’m uh.. still kind’ve scared but.. maybe it can alternate between our beds, okay?

Fine, fine. I may have been, or am, gross. But at least I was sort of cute as a baby? Don’t have much going on now. 

Look, it’s not like I enjoyed it either. No,  not that gross all the time, but you did some pretty gross stuff. Plus when I was pregnant with you, you had me eating apples, spray cheese and chocolate chips together. Sounds good to me, I think I’ll grab stuff tomorrow before the stores get busy for the holidays. so just add whatever you want! We can if you want, but we don’t have to. It’s the twentieth of December tomorrow, pal so it’s getting up there. I don’t know, you tell me what you want to do.. I was thinking we could go to the animal shelter.. and.. get a dog? If you want to.. just for fun, and so we aren’t so lonely.

But, Mama, I was a literal fetus. A gross, slimy fetus who didn’t know what those foods were but...yeah. I guess that is pretty intense. 

Uh, what do I want? I don’t know. I want all the kids at the shelter to get what they want for Christmas and um, maybe some new tap shoes and some books. I don’t like asking for much.

Well, I have a lot of favorite and best memories with my mom. So it’s hard to pick just one. It’s the earliest memory, I think. There was one day we sat on the dock at the beach and we have this cute photo...well, what you don’t see or know is that I was trying to wriggle out of my mom’s arms and catch the fishes in the water, or so I thought and my mom kept holding me back and then later that day, we went into the water to look at the fish. 

You once threw up in my mouth, so yeah.. you’ve made bigger messes. You used to be kinda gross, all in all. Oh yikes, that’s gross maybe I can buy some more tomorrow and we can make some cookies for the kids at the shelter and stuff. You’ve got it, kid. You haven’t got school again until after the new year, we should do everything christmas that we couldn’t before.

In your mouth? Gross!  No way, I couldn’t have been that gross, all the time. But that sounds pretty disgusting. I’ll add it to the shopping list and we can make some extra cookies today for the kids at the shelter too. Are we helping out on Christmas Eve with the dinner thing? Oh, it’s that time already? I kind of forgot about it. Everything? That means we a have ton of stuff to do then. What were you thinking we do first?

I guess that isn’t that bad, I’ve seen a worse mess. You totally could’ve used the chips anyways, silly. The sink was clean, but I’ll be in, in a second. Maybe we can make ginger cookies too? What do you think? I know there’s only two of us, but god I love cookies.

Well, that’s comforting. I’m sure baby me made even bigger messes. I know, I know, but they were kinda soggy. The sink was clean but kind of damp. I started the cleaning process so less work for you too. We can! We’ll need to make more cookie dough though. Do we have ginger in the house? Me too. 

I don’t know if excited is the word I’d use...I mean, yes. Relieved, maybe. He was out drinking most Christmases anyway. 

He drove by my school a few times before I started homeschool. But other than that, no. I hope I never do. I get scared sometimes, still. 

Dance is going great. Abby’s still...Abby. But I’m still on top of the pyramid and working hard. I avoid her wrath mostly. There might be a cool thing happening soon...with Sia? She reached out to my mom. But I dunno, probably won’t go anywhere.

How big are we talking here? ‘Cause I mean.. if the cookies don’t suck.. then I might help you clean it up.

Well, if you don’t count an inch of flour dusting the floor, egg shell guts on the counter and a pile of chocolate chips in the sink because they spilled as big. The cookies are pretty delicious, I thought I was making chocolate chip ones till I spilled the chips, so now, sugar.

So what you’re telling me is, we can’t do anything all summer then? Our first one without you know — and we’re doing dance things?

No, it’s all while you’re at work I think? And I don’t think it’s every weekend. We should still have time to do other things.

“Okay, great. Sorry for feeding you as a parent should? I guess when I said say when, you probably should’ve communicated.  Stop it, okay? She’s not my girlfriend, I broke up with her.. and I’m not trying to make you feel crummy. Is this a joke? You seriously think I left your dad so we could live with Val? Yeah, I totally risked my life just for a lady. But hey, if you want to go back home with dad, I’m sure we can. I bet he’d welcome us with open arms. Should I call him? I bet the family reunion would be great. I’m not doing this. You’re being ridiculous.” 

“....I can get my own if I want it. Well, if she isn’t your girlfriend officially anymore, she’s probably your friend with benefits or something. It’s not the only reason we moved, obviously. Don’t joke like that. But it was the biggest reason. If you didn’t know about the bruises, we wouldn’t have left when we did. I’m being ridiculous? Really? You’re just saying that because you don’t want to be accountable.”

“Mhmm, but fine. No more cereal. You could’ve just told me that instead of pulling this I’m not hungry thing.  I’m not – sh. Look, we’re going to stay somewhere else. In a hotel until I find an apartment. I did what you wanted, Avery. There’s no reason to be acting this way anymore.” 

“But sometimes, I’m really not all that hungry. And that was a big bowl of Cheerios. Great, I’m glad. Now you’re going to proceed to make me feel guilty about having to leave your girlfriend. It’s not just about what I want, you didn’t even ask me what I wanted and now that you do, you’re just trying to make me feel crummy. Like living just the two of us was never what you wanted and you just wanted to move out of our house to go live with her.”