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Avery sat alone in his room, door locked. He isn’t sure why exactly he was in college. Hastur was right. At first he tried to help Avery, but Avery was stupid. Helpless. Hastur gave up and now, anytime Derek tried to help Avery all he can think about is Hastur’s comments. How he wasn’t smart, which was correct. Nothing came easy to avery, not like it did with derek. Derek could easily get perfect marks. Even Hastur didn’t struggle as much as he did.
Derek had tried to help but still, Avery wasn’t doing perfect. It felt like at his best, avery was only doing half the work that everyone else around him seemed to be doing.
Derek knocked at his door, calling out to him. Avery called back telling him to go away. “Are you alright? You’ve been in there the past four days.” Derek called, avery could hear him resting his shoulder on the wall.
He got up, taking his notebook with him. He needed to study, needed to be better— to be good. To be worth something. He unlocked the door and pulled it open. Derek was leaning against the door frame, his eyes tracing over avery’s face. He looked worried, which avery internally slapped himself over. He was worrying derek now too. When would he ever stop failing.
“Yeah i’m fine.” Avery told him. “Is something wrong?” He asked, not understanding why derek was standing outside his door. Derek stood taller as he stopped leaning against the door, he pushed the door open more with his shoulder as he walked in. “You’ve been isolating yourself in here for so long. You’re not sick or anything. Why are you hiding out?”
“I’ve left my room” he argues.
“Oh really? Where have you gone.”
“To class?” Avery suggests.
“You’re a terrible liar, avery. It’s spring break. What classes are you attending when they’re all done and everyone’s gone home.
Shit— avery had forgotten. Of course he had. “Well yeah but i—“ he stuttered, but he couldn’t even come up with a justifiable excuse. “I’m just studying.” He says.
“All you ever do is study, avery.” Derek points out. “Studying all the time isn’t going to make your grades any better— come on. Let’s go out.”
“Out?” Avery repeats. “Derek i can’t go out. I have like no friends” derek cuts him off. “I’m right here.” He points out “and i’m your friend. And we’re going out. C’mon.”
—-
Derek dragged avery to the cities library off the schools campus. Avery thought it was a little dumb at first, because he could just study there. Yet when he went in there were a whole bunch of people there. He looked around, trying to figure out what was going on— yes it was a Library. But how often did you see crowds and swaths of people in a library at ten in the morning on a weekday.
He noticed how it was a lot of little kids. And some of their parents. But mostly teens who seemed to be waiting for something. If their periodical glances at their phones hinted anything to him.
Derek led Avery over to the group. And people moved out of their way, shooting them weird glances. As if they both already didn’t know they were out of place. Derek didn’t seem to care how they were looking at him. So Avery squared his shoulders and tried to convince himself that he didn’t care at all either.
The crowd parted for them like the red sea. It was stupid and yet so perfect because it allowed avery to see what everyone was here for. A small QNA for a writer who seemed about as weird as Avery did.
“Why are we here?” Avery asks, pushed up against derek’s side to avoid getting too close to anyone else. People who were scared of him.
“Well, you’re always talking about how you’re not smart enough for college” Derek says “but he’s a successful writer and director who never actually graduated high school.”
Avery was shocked. Hastur had always made it seem like in order to be good, you had to be— well, perfect. If you didn’t do everything perfectly, exactly how it was meant to be done. Then you were doing it wrong. If you didn’t graduate college taking all AP courses you were bad. Avery was bad.
But yet, here he was looking at someone who hadn’t even finished highschool— which Hastur referred to as “the ‘school’ for idiots” sometimes. And the crowds were estatic to be able to speak to this person. To ask questions even though Avery figured they’d have to be smarter than the man who hadn’t finished high school.
—-
On the walk home after the library, the sky was darker. “What do you think?” Derek asks avery.
“Hastur would’ve hated it.” Avery says, but he doesn’t say how he felt. Uncertain of his own emotions— or perhaps he just didn’t want to admit to himself and more importantly Derek, that his tactic had worked. That getting Avery out of the dorm had helped him feel a little less like a failure. And a little more human.
“I got this book for him” derek dismisses holding up a book. Avery reads the title, “the king in yellow.”
(he feels something, pushing underneath the surface and trying to get out but he can’t quite place it.
This whole thing feels so familiar, as if this had already happened once before. But Avery had just forgotten.
He shakes that thought out of his head. He was making it up.)
Tommorow, Avery will wake up with some type of headache, and not remembering what happened the day before. Hastur will tease him for this. Asking why the slime wanted to be human if he never seemed to remember anything.
Tomorrow, the library and the book will be nothing more than a forgotten memory.
But tonight, the sun is setting. Derek is smiling at avery. And for once, college doesn’t loom over his head.