I made a series of terrible decisions that very afternoon.

For one, I walked out of the coffee shop shortly after Dad gave what he seemed to think was a reasonable explanation. "Heart failure," he had said, staring at his fingers intertwined on the table instead of looking up at me. "Ten months before the accident, she got diagnosed with a heart disease and—"

"Ischemic Heart Disease," Mom cut in, and Dad nodded. "It's a coronary artery disease."

"She didn't experience the symptoms until much later after she developed it, according to her doctor. We tried everything. She even had this, uh, surgery procedure—"

"Angioplasty," Mom interrupted him. I scowled at her, annoyed at her repeated mentions of terms I could not care for at the moment and that I would probably forget two minutes later.

"Right," Dad said. "We thought the surgery worked because she was okay for a while, but then—"

This time, I had been the one to interrupt him. "Surgery?" I repeated, scoffing in disbelief, as I tried to hold on to the denial that would make sense of this entire conversation. "That's impossible. I would have known."

Even as I said that, some specific scenes flashed in my mind. When she would leave our room any time she was stressed; when she would place her hands over her chest, as to calm it down after laughing too much. When she would rest on the grass at the park, and her skin would pale after skipping around and running.

"You look sick," I would joke, and her eyes would snap open.

"What? No, I don't," she would answer defensively. "I'm just tired."

And I believed her. Of course, I believed her.

"The week-long senior class trip last year, in December?" Dad asked. "She made that up so that you wouldn't know."

Our school had never done anything like this before, so why did I even believe it? Maybe because I would have never thought that she could lie to me.

Riley Taylor didn't do lies, and her honesty was the one thing I thought I could rely on.

"What made it worse," Dad continued. He was oblivious to the fact that everything that I had so neatly organized in my mind—everything that I held as truth—was now crashing down to a disgusting mess.

"What made it worse," he repeated, "was that we didn't discover it in time. The sports. The intense physical activities. Her tendency to stress about everything. Her upbeat energy. They all played a role in making her condition much more advanced by the time we learned about it. I know you weren't listening to whatever the doctor was saying that day, but she mentioned that Riley's heart failed from the stress of the impending accident long before the truck hit her."

Dad had continued to go on about it, but I had blocked his words way earlier. All I could think about was that she hadn't told me about one of the most important things that she had been experiencing.

"You're my best friend, Avery," she had said, looking over her shoulder with a reassuring smile. "We tell each other everything."

Everything.

Everything. The word echoed through my head, deafening my ears to whatever Dad and Mom were now saying.

I jumped off my stool, nearly tripping over as my legs met the ground. I was sure they stared at me as I stepped away from our table, but I couldn't see them. I couldn't see anything. I needed air, and I knew I wouldn't get it in here.

Perhaps listening to all this had been my first bad decision that day, but it was definitely not the worst one.

Because as I walked out of the café after wrestling blindly with the door, I thought I knew what I needed. I thought I knew exactly what would kill the voice in my mind that repeated that one word, Everything, over and over again in a terrifying and never-ending loop.

I thought that the only way I would forget today ever happened was to drink it all away. I knew nothing about alcohol, and I had seen what it did to Avan, yet I seemed to think it was fitting.

At this mid-afternoon hour, the only bar still open was nearly deserted.

Perhaps my legs knew better as I stumbled past the door, nearly tripping over an empty beer can. Some part of me hoped someone would ask me for an ID as soon as I entered, but there were barely any staff members inside.

A middle-aged man stood behind the counter, wearing an apron that matched his dark hair, wiping the bar counter with no energy.

"What d'you want?" he asked, not bothering to look up.

And the reluctant part of my brain wanted to scream, "Look at me! I'm underage. You should ask for my ID."

But I heard myself answer, "Uh, beer?"

If anything, the inexperienced and hesitant tone should have indicated that I had no business being here, but he looked too exhausted to care and poured me a drink.

As I stared at the beer mug and sat at the counter, I wondered why Riley would go to such lengths to make sure I wouldn't know. Our close relationship had been one of the things that kept me sane this past year. In a way, we were going through this grieving process together, even though she wasn't really there. I thought I knew everything about her well enough to assume how she would react in any situation, but she chose to hide one of the major events of her life from me.

I brought the mug to my lips and took a sip. The taste was unpleasant, and I hated everything about it, yet I continued to gulp it down, letting the bitter liquid dry up my throat and set my lungs on fire.

"Woah! Slow down." The sudden interruption made me jump in my seat, and I turned around.

I recognized him as the guy who talked to me at Victoria's party, a couple of weeks ago. Strands of his hair stuck out everywhere, defying the laws of gravity, probably from an unhealthy habit of raking his fingers through it.

"Rough time, huh?" Ryder asked, and I shrugged as my head started to spin, imitating the hands of the clock, hung on the wall above the dartboard.

"Is it a guy?" he went on, like he did back at the party, barely giving me an opportunity to talk. "Let me tell you: not worth it. Don't trouble yourself over him. Give him a call and ask him to get his act together."

I merely stared at him. How I wished this was about a guy!

It sort of did include a guy. Dad had not been honest with me either. Both he and my sister chose not to tell me, and they were the only ones that could— Only then did it occur to me that Avan had probably known about too.

I looked down at the last drops of beer left in the mug and willed myself to move and drink the rest, but I lacked the energy and the desire.

So instead, I chose to make one more decision. I took my phone out of my pocket, and Ryder nodded in approval, thinking I was taking his advice.

I dialed Avan's number, clearing my throat to speak, an aftertaste of the disgusting beverage still lingering.

The second he picked up, he asked, "Avery? Is everything okay? Are you alright?"

"You knew," I said, ignoring his questions. The other end of the line remained silent. "You knew, and you didn't tell me."

"What are we talking about?" he asked, and if the circumstances had been different, maybe I would have felt bad about his perplexed tone. "Do you need to see me?" he continued. "Where are you?"

"You're always speaking about how necessary it is to admit... to admit the truth to ourselves to make any progress. The truth?" I scoffed, not caring that Ryder was still here. "The truth? How could you not tell me?"

"Where are you?" he asked again, a little more impatiently this time.

Ryder mouthed the name of the bar to me. I scowled at him for eavesdropping but reluctantly told Avan where to find me.

A few minutes later, he entered the small room and located Ryder and me at the counter. When he reached us, he acknowledged Ryder with a nod and turned to me, his eyes lingering on the beer mug in front of me.

"How much did you drink?" His voice was like that of a parent struggling to be patient with a difficult child.

"Not enough," I said, even though it had been enough to make me decide that I would never try one again. The taste remained on my tongue no matter how many times I tried to swallow it away, reminding me of my poor judgment.

For a moment, none of us said anything. Then, I cut through the silence with the calmest voice I could muster right now. "You knew about her disease."

He nodded quietly, his hands in his pockets as he stood in front of my stool.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Riley didn't want you to know. She didn't want you to treat her differently."

Those were invalid excuses, and they wouldn't stand if this had been a formal class debate.

"But after she died, you had plenty of opportunities to tell me." I hated that my voice cracked. I hated how I always felt close to tears during an argument. And most of all, I hated that I was so aware of his proximity. "All these long talks and walks...  You could have said something."

"You're right," he said, and instead of adding anything else, he pulled me into an embrace and hugged me tightly, as though he was scared that I would slip out of his hold if he let go even for a second. I wanted to sob as my arms fell limply at my sides, but I lacked the strength.

"I'll drive you home," he said when he pulled away, and I got off the stool.

As we were about to leave, the bartender stopped us in our tracks. "Is anyone going to pay for this?" he asked, pointing to my beer mug. Even now, he seemed completely disinterested.

"I got it," Ryder answered, and gave me a small wave when I thanked him. "Take care."

Avan led me out of the bar, holding my hand, and I tried to ignore the tingles it gave me and the growing feelings that this implied. I knew it had been a platonic gesture, yet there went my mind, overthinking it.

I tried to remove my hand from his as subtly as I could, which meant nothing because subtle was not a word my brain was familiar with.

As I climbed into Avan's car, I decided to be as honest as I had wished Riley had been with me. I decided to follow the advice I had been giving to my friends since the beginning of the year about being direct.

So, I made the last terrible decision of that day. As he shifted behind the wheel to get comfortable and started the car, I asked, "How do you feel about me?"

As usual, the second I spoke, I instantly regretted it and wished I had kept my mouth shut.

I knew he couldn't like me because I knew just how much he loved my sister, but maybe that was exactly why I asked. I knew he would be honest, and hopefully hearing the words from him would kill the growing feelings inside me.

"What?" He coughed and drove from his parking spot onto the road.

"Do you have feelings for me?"

"I do," he said, and if I had been drinking anything, it would have been all over his dashboard right now. "But, for all the wrong reasons," he added, and this somehow relieved me from the initial shock. He stopped at a red light and turned to me. "I like you because you remind me of her. You two are so different, yet when I'm around you, it feels like she's around too... alive.

"I don't want to lead you on, Avery. I still... I love her and that— that's not going away anytime soon. And it wouldn't be fair to you to like me. You deserve better."

I couldn't even feel hurt. That was exactly how I wanted it. I was glad that he cared about her that much. Maybe, in some twisted way, that was why I liked him.

A/N: Thanks for reading!

So this was what I meant, back in chapter 13, when I said I dropped a hint. I referred to Riley's symptoms.

General info: CAD is a very common disease. Few people diagnosed with it live longer than 10 years with the condition. 50% of them do not live longer than 2 years.

-D.T. ➷