Wrong Quarterback | ✓

18 | expiration date

          "There's an expiration date, isn't there?"

Avery glances up from her phone, swallowing back the lump that's been in her throat the past couple of days as she catches the look on Ethan's face where he's stood in front of the wide open refrigerator door. Something tells her he's not talking about the box of milk in his hand.

He lets the door fall close behind him, setting the carton onto the counter before leaning back against it. He rubs a hand through his hair, an exhale resembling a sigh escaping his lips. "This. Us."

         Her jaw clenches as her tongue presses to the roof of her mouth. Slipping her hand, her phone ends up screen down on the marble counter of the built-in bar in his kitchen. The sentiment of the words isn't exactly foreign to her. Variations of those words have hounded her more times than she can count the past week. Lingering at the back of her mind, ready to sneak up on her when she least expects them too. Still, hearing them spoken out loud is different. Hearing them leave his lips is different.

She opens her mouth to respond only to close it again, pressing her lips together, not sure where to begin. He's right. He is. She knows he is. They both know he is. Summer is drawing to a close – these last couple of days have been enough proof of that.

With the remaining summer days numbered, one would think the town should feel less crowded but never before has Acebridge seemed so small. While the tourists are gone, the locals seem to be everywhere – filling up Beans & Bagels from morning to night, reuniting over pizza on a picnic blanket in the park, communicating in short sentenced shouts from one end of Main Street to the other upon seeing someone they know. Friends, classmates, colleagues and neighbors. The town is beginning to fill up again, the excitement of the upcoming fall seeping into the salt air.

School's just around the corner. As everyone else, her friends are soon to be on their way back too.

Summer's drawing to a close. This makes sense. Them, this – whatever this is – has to end with it.

         "Waters, say something."

She blinks, trying to puzzle together a string of words that will make a sentence. A coherent sentence at that. She swallows, letting a shaky breath escape her lips.

"Yeah," Her voice is thick as she speaks and she fights the urge to avert her eyes to her hands, forcing herself to keep her gaze locked on him where he's stood. "Yeah, I think there is."

He shifts on his feet, shoulders sloping ever so slightly as a loud exhale of dejection leaves his lips. "So what now?"

So what now? Her lips fall into a tight line, tongue once again pressing to the roof of her mouth. What now? She doesn't know how to navigate the beginning to the end – especially not when it's the end of something that was never truly anything to begin with.

This is nothing. What they're doing. It's never been put into words. It's nothing.

They're nothing.

        There's a heavier beat to her heart now. As if someone's taken a tight hold of it's ventricles, interfering with it's job to keep her functioning. Her chest rises and falls slowly with her breath, her brows knitting together slightly as her mouth falls into a faint pout – trying to untangle the web of thoughts taking up her mind.

"Now we..." She trails off, thinking back to this morning and her mother's giddy expression upon announcing 'Tammy and the gang' had just hit the road for their two day trip back home. Avery can imagine Luke has already grown tired of being squeezed into the 7-seater with his siblings and parents only a mere five hours into it. In two days he will be here. Lea's arriving the day after that and so is Nic. Callie will be here by Sunday.