Avery's POV
It was Friday night which meant it was time for our family movie nights, as Bentley liked to call them.
We all gathered blankets and pillows from every part of the flat and created a sort of fort-like thing in the living room with snacks that would fill me up for fucking days.
It was pretty fun if I'm being honest. Gave me something to do I guess.
The only issues was, we could never agree on a movie. Ever. And the majority of the time these "movie nights" ended up with someone having a black eye while we watch Dr.Phil.
Dr. Phil, our peacemaker.
And just like any other Friday, the routine followed as suit.
"Don't you dare insult the god of all gods like that again you piece of shit!" Bentley yelled flailing his arms around furiously.
"I don't really think snoopy is the "god of all gods". " Victor tells him in air quotes, with a slightly freaked out look on his face, trying to settle the debate but only making it so much fucking worse.
"Victor," Bentley says all too calmly. "If you ever disrespect that glorious little doggo again, I will not hesitate to shove a cactus down your throat while you sleep."
"OKAY!" Elliot shouts jumping in front of Victor and holding his arms out to Bentley in a stop motion. "That's enough guys."
Dawson just sighs in his spot next to me and flicks to the Dr. Phil show, once again.
And almost immediately, everyone settles down and focuses on the show. Except for one dipshit.
"Aye Keegan, turn off the phone and get invested into this petty drama. Someone's about to get arrested." Axel tells him munching on popcorn, not really caring what Keegan was doing, as his only concerns were on the tv.
"Yeah, sure." He mumbled still smiling at his phone, paying absolutely no attention to Axel.
Callum looks to me then to Keegan with a devious smirk on his face and I shake my head at what he's about to do and turn to the tv once again.
Callum quickly leans over and peaks at his phone before Keegan realizes and immediately shuts the screen off.
"Is that-" he starts with wide eyes and a smirk on his lips before Keegan grabs him in a headlock, shutting him up before he can share anything.
"Aye!" Callum yells throwing his legs around, accidentally kicking over the popcorn.
"Asshole!" Axel yells staring at his snack on the ground in despair. He looks up to Callum and Keegan with a glare and says "Kill him." then he picks up some popcorn off the floor and angrily turns back to the tv.
"Should we stop them?" Victor asks munching on his sour strings.
"I'd usually say yes, but we don't any more bruises tonight," Elliot tells him quietly with a wince and shake of his head.
Victor just nods and looks away from Callum struggling vigorously.
"I still have the power here bitch!" Callum yells. "You were texting-" then suddenly he's stopped when Keegan let's go and shoved a pillow over his face, muffling the screams.
Everyone sighs.
"Keegan." Elliot groans in a fatherly manner. "Let him breathe. We don't need the paramedics here again."
With a very dramatic roll of his eyes, Keegan releases the pillow and ultimately, Callum. And Callum being Callum immediately takes in a loud and dramatic inhale of air, coughing with it while grasping at his throat.
I feel my phone buzz and pull it out of pocket while looking between Callum and Dr. Phil, not paying much attention to either though.
I see an unknown number with the following text, "Meet me outside. Gotta talk to you about the fag."
I feel myself clutch the phone tighter at what he just called him and get ready to send a hateful text to him about how I could still ruin his life if I wanted. But then he texts again.
"Sorry. Homosexual."
What a Fucker.
I roll my eyes and tuck my phone back in my pocket standing up.
All eyes turn to me as I head opposite of the kitchen and to the front door instead.
Too many questions from everyone are thrown at me so I just look to Dawson and smile, "I'll be back soon.
Forgot my charger at Mona's." I say waving my phone in the air, praying the screen doesn't light up in the process.
"You could use mine?" Elliot offers. And I shut that down quickly, maybe a little too quickly to come off not well...suspicious.
"No! I mean," okay it's fine Avery, just clear your throat and they won't think anything, "I'd rather just have mine. Thanks for the offer though."
And without anyone being able to say anything I rush out the door, hopefully not causing too much speculation. Knowing them would they believe me? Well, some were dumb enough to do so. But I was also pretty sure the rest of them just didn't care.
So I rush down the hall then stairs till I get to the same bench that Callum and I say at in the garden when we discussed what was going on and how he felt for the first time ever. Pretty much the start of our friendship, so Thomas better not ruin that memory for me.
Finally, I see him standing in the corner with a bored look, scrolling through his phone mindlessly.
I walk up to him, give off an uncomfortable-looking smile, and punch him in the arm as hard as I can.
He drops his phone and groans as he rubs the spot on his arm with squinted eyes. "What the fuck was that for?" He barely breathes out.
Rolling my eyes I tell him exactly why he deserved that. "In case your tiny brain already forgot, you said some not so nice words about friend mere minutes ago." I motion with both my hands to his arm, "Thus, me punching you."
"I said sorry!" He yells out now looking at me but still clutching his arm.
"Oh please, like you meant any word of your so heartfelt apology," I tell him holding my hand to my own heart and speaking as if it was the best thing I've ever read.
He doesn't respond but just picks up his phone and sits down on the bench.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
"Now. What the hell did you call me out here for? Because unlike you, I have a life to handle and stuff to do." I cross my arms after taking a seat next to him. Well, as far away on the bench as possible because I didn't wanna catch whatever he had. AIDS or idiocy. Because I'm sure he has both.
"Sometimes you really wanna make me just tell everyone everything about you and your asshole friends." He says letting out a deep sigh.
"I know you feel like that regardless of what I do or say. It's just in your disgusting nature. Now." I pause to look at him, "the point?"
He rubs at his forehead. "I'm not gonna be able to get people to believe me. About Callum, I mean. It was hard enough shutting down the shit about Dawson but no one's gonna believe me bout the other one."
I stopped and looked at him. What the fuck did he mean he couldn't get rid of what he started? There was nothing that told people about Callum and who he liked before Thomas.
"You started this and you're also gonna be the one to end it. You're the one who told people about him and started these rumors and you're the only one can shut them down."
"It's not that easy." He tells me aggravated.
What the hell did he have to be aggravated about? He was the one who started the rumors. About both of them. No one held a gun to his head and said go talk shit about them. He did it on his own. Cause he knew he could.
"I don't know what you want me to tell you. There needs to be more than that."
I sigh and pull at my hair, an old and bad habit of mine when I couldn't control the situation. "Fine." I eventually spit out. "I'll handle it."
I stand up and stomp my way to the door when I hear him call out for me. And as much as I really would've liked to just ignore him and go back up to where my friends and food were, I stopped.
"What?" I ask him spinning on my heel with my arms crossed and eyes narrowed. I was pissed. Which he already knew but I wanted to reinforce that fact even more.
He bites his lip and looks down, like for a second he's genuinely sorry. But I know that's only because it's his family's and best friends ass on the line.
"Get him a girl." He raised his eyebrows to me like it was a blatantly obvious plan that was indefinitely foolproof.
"Excuse me?" I ask him almost stunned. Did he not realize how jeopardizing that plan was for all of Callum's relationships? For mine?
"You act like you know everything Avery. And good for you for standing up for yourself and what you believe in. But while you've been running around with your new little friends after your fallout with-"
"Don't." I stop swiftly with a hateful look.
He rolls his eyes but listens. "After your fallout with them, you stopped keeping up with people. With things. You don't have the influence anymore and you don't know anyone with it. Except me. So if I'm telling you that I can't even fix this on my own I think it's best you fucking listen to me when I try and give you real advice."
I let his words sink in. Let the reality take over.
But I don't give him confirmation of whatever the hell he was trying to do.
I turn to leave and right as I begin to open the door, I'm plagued with a question for him. So I stop. I turn my head and I ask him, "Why are you suddenly being nice? Helping me. Helping him."
His answer was quick. Short. And suddenly cold.
"I'm not. If you've already forgotten, I got people I care about too. And once this is all over, and my family's off the hook, I'm not gonna be...'nice'." he says in air quotes.
He paused, like he was waiting for something. Like he was almost contemplating telling me something.
"Ya know Avery, we're a lot more similar than you'd like to believe."
"Don't you dare compare me to you," I tell him letting the rage fill my voice once again. I clutch at the door handle tighter until something cuts into my palm.
"We both love very few people and would do anything for those exact people. Everyone else is just collateral damage. And we don't really care what happens to them. Because at the end of the day, it's our people who matter the most."
I stood stunned for a minute at his point. He was...not wrong. But that didn't mean I was anything like him. I knew Thomas and I knew he hurt people for the fun of it. He did it on a daily because he had nothing better to do.
"I'm nothing like you." I tell him coldly and then slam the door.
***
Okay was it just me or was that a heavier chapter than usual?
It's been over a month since I updated and I'd like to blame that on being busy but that's a flat out lie lmao
Okay and one more random little a/n but does anyone have any predictions for what'll happen in the future? Cause I feel like I'm a generally pretty predictable writer and I kinda wanna test that theory out.
OH WAIT ONE MORE, I just wanna thank all my new readers and all my readers in general because in the past 48 hours we've gained about 15k reads and over 400 votes which is absolutely insane so thank you everyone for coming and taking a chance on my book, I honestly never thought THIS many people would actually enjoy anything I could put into the world so thank you guys