Chapter 2 GOODBYE, AVERY.

~~~AVERY.

For the first time since Jon died, I forced myself to walk into his room.

Nothing had changed. His hockey stick was still leaning against the wall by the door, and a half-packed duffel bag sat right beside his desk. His Ridgeway hoodie was folded neatly over the back of his chair. The room still smelled faintly like him, a mix of laundry detergent, his cologne, and the peppermint gum he always chewed.

I sat down on the edge of his unmade bed. My chest tightened, and hot tears spilled over my cheeks. I wasn't crying because he was dead. I was crying because this room still expected him to come home.

Pulling a cardboard box onto the floor, I started packing his things. I carefully wrapped his medals, his old captain’s armband, and photos of us laughing as children. But when I reached the bottom of his desk drawer, my hands froze.

There was a sealed white envelope. Written on the front in his messy handwriting were three words, For Ave.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I stared at it, desperate to tear it open. After several agonizing seconds, I forced myself to slide it deep into my backpack instead. Not yet. I couldn't handle whatever was inside. Not until I finished what I started.

“Once you walk out that door with these, Avery Riley disappears.”

The family lawyer, an old friend of my father's who knew how to make things happen quietly, laid the documents out on the wooden table. A new birth certificate, a fake student transcript, a driver’s license, and a hockey transfer file. All of them bore the exact same name. Avery Quinn.  

He looked up at me, giving me one last chance to back down. “You can still walk away, Avery. No one would blame you.”

“I am not walking away,” I said, my voice steady. I picked up the pen and signed the papers without hesitation.

When I got back home, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror with a pair of scissors in my hands. My long hair had always been a part of me. Jon used to tease me relentlessly because it took forever to dry after my own hockey practices. A choked laugh escaped my throat at the memory before I made the first cut.

Thick strands fell into the porcelain sink. I didn't let myself hesitate. I cut again and again, the heavy weight lifting off my shoulders with every snip until the girl I had known my entire life was completely gone.

Next came the transformation. I pulled the tight compression binder over my chest, flattening my curves until my torso looked straight and boxy. I threw on a pair of loose athletic shorts and an oversized grey hoodie, hiding the rest of my frame, and pulled a baseball cap low over my short hair.

I looked into the mirror, cleared my throat, and lowered my voice into a deeper, raspy register.

“I’m Avery,” I murmured. No, that’s too soft, and feminine.

I swallowed, forcing the pitch lower into my chest. “Avery Quinn.”

I repeated the name until it stopped sounding like a lie, practicing the exact tilt of my chin and the slouch of my shoulders. Looking at the boy in the mirror, I almost believed it myself.

When I walked downstairs, my father was sitting at the kitchen table. He looked up, and for a terrifying heartbeat, his eyes widened. He wasn't seeing his daughter, he was seeing the shadow of his dead son.

“Don’t do this,” he whispered, his voice cracking.

“If I don’t,” I replied, looking him dead in the eye, “no one will.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but the words died in his throat. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pressed a heavy metal object into my palm. It was Jon’s old hockey keychain.

“Bring the truth home,” my father said quietly, turning toward the back door before I could see his tears fall.

I stood in the hallway, gripping the keychain until the metal dug into my skin. Upstairs, my mother was asleep under heavy medication. I lingered outside her closed bedroom door for a single moment, whispering a silent I'm sorry before I walked out into the cold afternoon.

Hours later, the old grey Greyhound bus pulled up to the curb on campus. The doors hissed open, and the chaotic noise of university life flooded in. Students were laughing on the quad, music blared from portable speakers, and a group of guys were shouting about the upcoming hockey tryouts.

Life was moving on perfectly fine without Jonathan Riley.

I stepped off the bus, gripping the handle of my single suitcase as the massive stone entrance towered above me: RIDGEWAY UNIVERSITY. This was the place Jon had earned his way into and the place he never got to call home.

I adjusted the tight binder beneath my shirt, pulled my baseball cap a fraction lower over my eyes, and stared at the gates.

“Goodbye, Avery,” I whispered to the wind.

I took one step forward, then another, pushing past the crowd of fresh faces. Behind me, Avery Riley was officially dead and buried. Ahead of me, only Avery Quinn remained.