Avery the Immortal: Part Ten (special preview)

Iggy holds his hands around his face. “I look like some slab of roadkill peeled off the asphalt and left to leather. I know that. Everyone who sees me does.” He hangs his head lower. “I’m so fucking aware of it too, especially when Yael is around.”

I tilt my head down. “Have they said something to you?”

“No, I don’t think they would ever say anything mean really. They’re like Mama like that.” He cranes his jaw back and forth. “But they’re so beautiful and sexy,” he whines, cocking his head up and whacking it against the wall.

“Oh! You like them.” It clicks for me, a little slow yes, but I’m aware of such things because of my talk with Mama.

“Yes,” he growls. “How could I not? Yael is just so...perfect.”

“I dunno,” I murmur. “They wear too small of underwear sometimes.”

Iggy gapes at me. “How the fuck would you know that?”

“They walk around in them at night a lot.” I then see Iggy’s eyes are growing wider and his tongue is pressing behind his teeth at the corner. “They need to go up a size,” I say slowly. “Because it feels like they’ll pop out at any second.” I lean towards him. “You ok?”

“I need to go upstairs more often.” Iggy flops over onto the bed and covers his head with a pillow. “This is hopeless!”

“What is?” I ask. 

“I told you,” he grumbles. “I’m hideous, I’m roadkill, I’m a teenager mutant ninja werewolf.” He sighs heavily and sniffles. “But I’m so lonely, Avery.”

“I’m right here.”

Iggy tosses a pillow at me and glares at me. “That’s not what I mean!” He barks. “I’m lonely, I want someone! But I know it will never happen because I look like-” he waves his hands down his body and shrinks again. “I just need to get over it and start getting used to always being alone.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmur.

He shakes his head. “I know you’re not good with these sort of things Avery. No need to try and force it.”

“No, really,” I move closer to him. “You are my friend, really my only one,” I sigh. “So...i do want you to be happy. I really am sorry you think this way.”

“What other way is there?” He tosses his head side to side. 

I think for a moment then look at him. “Maybe you just need to come out of hiding more. Maybe like...if Yael knew you better, rather than as the creepy guy in the basement, they’d also like you too.”

Iggy gives me a sad, kicked puppy look. “They said that?”

I shake my head. “No, that’s just what you seem like. Isn’t it?”

He grimaces. “You think I’m creepy?”

“I mean, sometimes.” I then catch myself. “But the point is! Yael doesn’t know you, so how can they like you? Sometimes it takes more than face value to see someone’s worth.”

Iggy sniffles, wiping his face. “Where did you learn that? That actually sounds useful,” he laughs.

“I think it was Barney.” I scrunch up my face as I try to remember. “Maybe it was Mr Rogers?”

Iggy laughs a little harder. “You need to get out more.”