Ava looked at me as I got in with a smile and started the car up. “Hey,” she said, turning down the radio and backing out.
I buckled my seat belt. “You didn't have to pick me up,” I told her.
She shrugged it off. “It's fine. It's not like I had anything better to do,” she told me with a laugh.
“Get ready for your date?”
“He's not picking me up until six or seven. It's doesn't take me three hours to get ready,” she replied.
I didn't look convinced. “It's a night date though. Don't you have to get really dolled up for the night time?” I asked.
Ava rolled her eyes. “You're such a guy. Sometimes I wish you would have been my sister,” she told me, shooting me a glare before turning her attention back to the road.
“No girl would deal with having this face,” I told her. “Not even a mother can love this mug.”
I expected a comeback, or a laugh, or something. All I got was silence. When I looked to her, she looked more on edge than humored. I watched as she casted me an apologetic look.
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that,” she replied, her voice soft.
“Ava, I was joking,” I told her quickly, reaching over to touch her arm. “I was only joking.”
“Were you really? Because half of the so called jokes you make sound more like insults to yourself,” she told me, raising her voice.
I dropped my hand. “They are jokes. Just because they're true doesn't make it an insult,” I told her.
She whimpered, shaking her head. “But they're not true. You're the only one that thinks you're a monster,” she replied.
Julie's lovely monster. She didn't know that though. She wouldn't understand it the way I did. She wouldn't realize it's significance.
“I'm not like I was before, Ava. I'm not trying to hurt myself,” I said, looking at her. When she looked at me, she looked frightened, and worried.
“Good, because you don't deserve that. You deserve to be happy, and love yourself the way I do,” she said to me. I could hear the sincerity in her voice as she said it.
I wouldn't tell her, but I doubted that I would ever love myself.
I wasn't sure if I was happy yet, but Julie was doing a good job at pushing me toward it. She made it seem possible for me to achieve happiness. Nothing else ever had.
♥
I ate a sandwich while Ava got ready. I cleaned up my room too, and straightened up the house for Ava, which she recognized quickly as my nervousness for Julie coming over rather than trying to be nice and help out.
Dr. Marstens came by before Ava was finished. I had tried to tell her to start earlier, but she had called me a guy again and waited.
“Come on in,” I told him, holding the door open. He came in, holding a bouquet of red roses in his hand. He looked strange out of his white doctor coat. Even a button up shirt and dark jeans could make him look like a completely different person.
“Still getting ready?” he asked, and I nodded as I rolled my eyes. He laughed and stayed by the door.
“Ava! Dr. Marstens is here!” I called to her, sitting on the couch again.
I looked to the clock, and felt my pulse beating quicker. I had texted Julie the directions when I had gotten home, but she hadn't texted me back since then. I knew she was suppose to be here at any moment, but I was still nervous.
She could always change her mind.
“You can just call me Jesse. Doctor seems too formal,” he told me.
I nodded slowly. Fat chance, I wanted to tell him. I didn't though.
Ava came down the hall, and we both turned to look at her. She looked like a woman going on a date. At least, that was how they always looked in the movies.
“You're beautiful,” Dr. Marstens replied. She was.
“You should have have seen how she looked before,” I told him.
“Falon!”
Dr. Marstens laughed, and came to her side. “I'm sure she was beautiful then too,” he told her, and they looped their hands together.
“You don't have to lie, doc. She's a bum without all of the make up,” I assured him.
If looks could kill, I would have been dead a long time ago.
“I think the next surgery you need is for your mouth. Sew it up,” she told me, glaring.
I shrugged it off.
Meanwhile, Dr. Marstens was simply smiling at our exchanges. He laughed at us. “You sound like my sister and I. When we get together, we banter like this,” he told us.
I smirked. “He thinks we're bantering, Ava. You can't even spell 'banter',” I said.
“Shut up.”
We laughed, and it felt nice. It felt nice to see my sister hugged up to a guy too, and to see him staring at her like she was perfect. I hadn't seen that much with the guys she usually dated.
“Well, have fun. I'll be here when you get done,” I told them, flipping through the channels.
“You sure you don't need anything before we go?”
I shook my head. “Trust me, I'm fine. Go, get lost,” I told them waving my hand at the to leave.
They laughed, and said goodbye. Dr. Marstens opened the door, and I heard the excitement in my sister's voice as she said, “Oh! Hi, Julie.”
I jumped from the couch, standing to see Julie in the doorway with her hand up as if she had been about to knock. She slowly dropped her hand, smiling at Ava.
“Hi, Ms. Walker. And Dr. Marstens,” she said, smiling. She had sounded amazed
