Chapter Text
March 14th, 2023
"The broken hearts club," Nate muttered in a sad chuckle as soon as Ava suggested it "Maybe we are" He looked at the sky, the upset look he refused to show broke Ava's heart a little bit more.
It has been a way to describe Ava for almost all her life, every time she meets someone with a heart as broken as hers, she names them an official member of the club. It was nice, it was a bad feeling turned into something else. Something nicer.
Even if the club only counted with, like, six members at most.
"Yeah, we are," she said, looking at the dark clouds that started to hide the barely-there shining stars.
"I wanna hear the story, if you don't mind" Nate whispered, the night sky shining in his eyes, "About the one who broke your heart".
Ava looked at the last stars in the sky, it was a beautiful night. The perfect night for a sad story. She usually didn't think about it too much, Ava had refused to think about her probably the second she realized she wouldn't get her back. How much time did Ava spend to reach that conclusion? Probably longer than what she cared to share.
"It's been a long time since this happened, you know" she looked at the boy, "I was young, maybe too young, and we weren't strong enough, I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't smart enough, but she was perfect in every single way" she started, cigarette forgotten in her hand, “She was part of the school band, and the archery team, and she was like in a trillion clubs and I was new in town…" she sighed, it been a while since she talked about her “I knew I was gonna go to this fancy ass school in london, a private one, and I was nervous… especially since I was new in year 12 you know, I felt like I was gonna be an outcast for the next two years, it was a nightmare, but I refused to let my mom think she didn't have my support” and then, at Nate's curious look she added, “My dad was an asshole, they got divorced and me and my mom moved because of a job offer, it was for the best”.
Nate stayed silent as she started talking.
"It was maybe twenty years ago, I was sixteen when we met, she was seventeen" Ava smirked, "It was my first week in London when I first saw her… she took my breath away", it always put a small smile on her face to think about her, even if they didn't have the best ending, there were some things that not even the pain it caused her were gonna erase.
"She used to work at a music store just like this one" Ava pointed inside the store, the kid smiled warmly still looking at the sky, "I used to think it would make me look cool if I had some vinyls records with me, just so I could make some friends and be all mysterious and I don't know… edgy" Ava shrugged.
She could almost make her face in the blurry memory, an annoyed, bored, impassive blank expression, the perfect contrast for Ava's eager one at the time.
"Was it instant love then?" He asked in a hopeful whisper. As if maybe Ava lived the craziest love ever and then life took its course. Like a sad ending fairytale.
"God no, I can still almost hear her irritation from when we met" she laughed, "she didn't like me one bit, I'm pretty sure she knew I was all fake confidence and not a bold music collector as I intended" she joked, her eyes moved with mirth back to Nate's face "But she was, she knew everything there was to know and more, I sometimes wonder if she still plays" she bit back a smile "she made me love music on a deeper level, she made it special".
She turned her face back to the sky, a little bit embarrassed by the still enamored tone she used to talk about someone who hasn't been in her life for more than 18 years. And who probably would never come back to her.
"We met again at school, just a few weeks later, right after first period, her locker was right across from mine" she could almost make out a foggy image of her surprised face across the hall in her head, gone was the mask of indifference she had when they first met, the second time she looked two seconds away from running far far away.
The school was this fancy all in facility, her mom said it was the best in all London, and since she was making so much money she wanted Ava to have the best. Lockers, although incredibly useless, made for a great excuse to be close to Beatrice at the time.
"I tried to talk to her as soon as I saw her thinking maybe we could be friends, but she ignored me, and then ran to her friends" it was clear, as not many things from 20 years ago were, —her face transforming from surprised, to panicked, to calculating and then deciding on putting the mask back on, then just pure indifference—, that the girl had just panicked.
"What a bitch!" Nate said, indignation clear in his tone, Ava could tell he felt insulted on her behalf. She couldn't help but giggle.
"Relax!, And don't call her that, she was… well, spoiler alert, she was actually super shy and I was… I was intense, I got up all in her face and asked a million personal questions, she panicked" Ava explained, she felt like she had to defend her honor somehow. She didn't want her to be the bad guy, she was never the bad guy in her mind.
"Did she tell you that?" The boy deadpanned. Ava looked once again at the stars.
"Yes and no" Nate looked at her confused "She told me after our first kiss that she liked me from day one, but she never admitted she was anything close to shy, but she was, even if she did everything in her power to prove she wasn't" she said amused, remembering with clarity every single moment Beatrice spent proving she wasn't shy.
She remembered how her golden eyes often avoided her after kissing her, or when Ava told her that she liked her and she got all red faced and stuttering. Usually, the moment things started to get too flirty or overly sweet, she would get all weird and flushed.
"The more I got to know her the more I realized that she wasn't the best at talking about her feelings or even acknowledging them" she said with a chuckle, "but she tried very hard to tell me she liked me".
Nate looked contemplative to the sky, his mouth in a fine line as he took in her words. "So, how did you get her to talk to you?".
"I didn't" no matter how hard she tried, she always refused to talk, all she had to do was wait "She wouldn't even look at me in class, it was just good old fashioned biology class that started the defrosting process" Nate looked at her confused "We had to do a project together" Ava explained.
"Oh"
"Yeah, oh" ava smirked "We sat in a library for hours, I offered to meet somewhere else but she always opted for the one place where we couldn't talk, librarians were stricter back then, she would barely let us breath, but I complied, it was what she wanted after all".
"Did you get to be friends then?" He asked "after the project?".
Ava remembered the girl picking her books the moment the project was done and with a cut nod, just walking away.
"Oh no, I used to think that by the end of it she actually hated me even more. It was way later, we were six months into locking eyes in the hallways when we had our first conversation" Ava recalled.
"What was it about?"
"I found her crying after class, behind school, I was just exploring the school and she stayed for band, or one of her clubs, I don't know, but we were both there, looking at each other, and then she got up and left".
"She left you standing there?".
"She was crying in front of a stranger, she got embarrassed" Ava explained, "She escaped to the closest bus stop. I don't even think she knew where it went, but the bus didn't stop, it was full" She smiled "So I offered to give her a lift".
"And she accepted?" He asked warily, even though he already knew the answer.
"She refused, so I stayed with her, waiting for the next bus, it was getting late and I didn't want her to wait for it alone, another spoiler: the bus never showed up"
Ava thought back to that day and smirked.
"Actually, it probably did, but I convinced her and gave her a lift before the hour passed"
"Did you guys talk then?"
"I tried, but she almost bit my head off, trying to get her to say something felt like pulling teeth" Ava remembers with intense clarity Beatrice's eyes daring her to say another word, even though she was a lot less intimidating with her eyes bloodshot and tears in her eyes. Ava just wanted to hug her.
She remembered her face, just as stoic as always, but her eyes, her eyes told stories she never could, she always was so nervous around her, that if Ava didn't know she was a first dan —or something of the sort— she would have thought she was afraid of her.
"I wanted so bad to be her friend that I instantly started asking questions, she didn't liked it, she told me "Please shut up" and I did, I drove for an entire hour in silence with a girl who would only speak to tell me to turn to the right and to stop even though we were still six blocks away".
"Did she thank you at least?".
"Before she got out she thanked me and apologized for being rude, I didn't even think she was rude, I was too busy trying to look cool while driving" Ava looked back at Nate, the boy looked surprised by her comment "I told her it was fine and she excused herself and got out, then she was gone before I could even ask for her phone number".
"That's the big talk? Just her running away again?" He sounded disappointed, “I feel there's something you are not telling me” he accused.
"Hey I'm telling you everything, I had to tread carefully then, and it worked, I mean kinda, she couldn't look at me a week straight after that, and then, at lunch… she made the first move" Ava said.
"She asked you out?".
"Why are you so rushed in?, No, she didn't, I was the first one to make a move in that way and it was like a year later" Ava said "No, she bought me a orange gatorade, a glass one, and left in on my table with a note that said "Thank you for the ride" I kept that note in my locker for months" she remembered feeling mega pathetic about it, but she just couldn't help it, she was in love.
The sky turned stormy as she looked at it. Maybe they just could close and call it a day. There was almost no chance of selling anything else tonight.
"After that day, we would buy things for each other, like I don't know, I brought her candy, she didn't eat those but she appreciated it, she told me in a note the same day she gave me some chocolates".
She used to cherish those notes, she was sure some of them were still somewhere at her mom's house. She used to love reading them and rereading them, she is sure that at one point she knew them all by heart.
"When did you guys have your first moment?".
"I found her crying in the bathroom like three months in, and I just couldn't stop before I just hugged her" Ava looked at the ground "She was stiff as a board, but she relaxed into it" she remembered tense arms hugging her back with a force so great they almost flushed together. Ava could feel her pain.
"Did she tell you what was bothering then?".
"No, she didn't" she remembered those golden eyes looking at her with so much pain that she just couldn't get herself to ask, she just hugged her harder.
"Why was she playing the mysterious game?" Nate said, annoyed.
"She wasn't, she was just really closed off" she said again, "She needed time to process and then to heal, and I tried to respect that" Ava said, "My wish to know was dimmed because of my necessity to see her good, and safe".
"Did you ever get to be her friend?".
"Not that summer, no" It started raining as she looked at him, "But we were, for a short time".
"When?".
"Senior year, 2004".
"So, after summer?".
"After winter break".
She remembers hanging out at her place, or at school, it was when her eyes shined the most, at Ava's or behind some tree during recess.
"We stayed that way for weeks just giggling and talking to each other dumb things, until one day she pulled me aside in gym class, after her gym class, before mine and told me t-"Ava looked at him.
Suddenly aware that this was not something a teen boy should ever hear from his employer.
"I sometimes forget you are not a grown man" she said apologetic, "Any ways, she broke my heart shortly after that, almost as soon as I knew what was bothering her"
"When was that?" he asked, eyeing the sky.
"She told me in our graduation, that year, before summer" Ava remembered like as if was yesterday "It was a big thing, and it was bad, I promised not to tell anyone, and I didn't, I gave her my number, if she ever wanted to call, if she needed a friend, hers were assholes".
"Did she ever call?".
"No, not even once" Ava murmured at the sky, "We had spent an amazing year making out and getting to know each other, and after graduation she was gone, and I never saw her again"
She remembers the pain, and the deception, she felt like shit.
"But every once in a while a text from an unknown private number would make its way to me, and in a hundred character or less tell me if it was a bad day or not, sometimes I would go I buy vinyls or a band t-shirt just to try and see her for a few minutes, but she quitted the job that same week, the texts stopped after that too" it was the worse summer of Ava's life.
"Did you ever try to find her?" Nate asked.
"I tried almost everything to get in contact, I never went to her house, I knew it was too much to ask, knowing what I knew and all, if she ever wanted, she knew where to find me"
"But she never did…" he guessed.
"No, and I never saw her again, it broke my heart, but I knew she knew I would be there if she needed me" Ava shrugged, "I also knew she didn't want to ever see me again, otherwise she would have said something, but she just went to college, last thing I heard was that she was doing fine with some guy in Ireland" She couldn't keep the bitterness out of her tone.
"Ouch".
"Yeah, ouch" Ava looked at the sky again, "welp, that's the story".
Nate looked at her and gave her a sad smile, “Thanks for telling me… makes me feel a little better, I still see her”.
Ava laughed and pushed him away, “Come on, I’m taking you home, the storm is getting closer”.
The drive home was silent, Nate mostly occupied his time looking out of the window, deep in thought. His shoulders were slouched and he hugged his backpack. Ava waited for a red light to ask.
“Are you okay?” Ava has never been good at comforting people.
“Should I let her go?” His voice was so small that Ava had to lean a bit to hear him.
She didn’t know what to say, Nate told her about this girl a few months ago. She loved the bond they had, she was almost like a big sister, a very old big sister. But a sister nonetheless.
He talked about this girl the same way Ava used to talk about the one that got away. She couldn’t think about her name sometimes without getting sad. She hoped he could say her name everyday in the future.
Apparently this girl, Lisa, was a mean girl, who was only soft for him. Ava had her reservations but it seemed to work for him so she said nothing. She actually met her one day, a month ago. She was super sweet and a bit timid, so imagine her surprise when today Nate comes into the store for his shift with a big frown and says nothing for four hours straight, just a few minutes before closing he told her. Lisa didn’t want to see him again, no explanation, no nothing just a bunch of mean words and that was it. It broke her heart to see him so sad, but there was nothing she could say to him that would make this better.
“Should i?” Nate asked, when he was met with silence.
Ava thought about it for a second and then said, “I can’t answer that for you but I have spent all my life missing someone who doesn’t even want me in her life”.
Nate nodded, thinking about it, "Mom said if she doesn't want to see me that means I should probably just let it go, it's only gonna be more painful later".
Ava frowned, that was something pretty shitty to say to a sixteen year old, who was only discovering love, "I can't speak for her but you can't win love unless you fight for it".
Silence instantly clouded the car, Ava hadn't personally met Nathan's mother yet, even though he had almost a whole year working half time for her, but she wasn't too preoccupied about it, the only thing concerning her was that whenever she heard about his mother she always gave him awfully bad romantic advices.
Ava drove the rest of the way in silence, only listening to Nate's quiet directions to his house, the rain was heavy and loud outside the vehicle.
As soon as she parked outside a beautiful two-story house with a magnificent front yard, full of colorful flowers and a few fruit trees at the sides, a woman came running carefully though it with a black umbrella over her head. An umbrella so big that half of her body was hidden by it.
"That's my mom," Nate murmured.
Ava, who was already looking at the woman, nodded, she looked too young —at least her body did— to have a 16 year old boy. Nate opened the door as soon as the woman tapped the window.
"I called you", a strong British accent accused, so different from Nate's barely-there accent.
"My phone died, Ava offered to give me a ride home" the woman murmured something to herself, that Ava didn't her, before offering the umbrella to her son.
"Get inside" and then she leaned inside the car.
Imagine Ava's surprise when the woman who was getting drenched in the rain, while her son —Ava's employee for almost a year— ran toward the house, was the same one who broke her heart all those years ago.
Beatrice looked surprised too, not necessarily shocked, more like… like she didn't want to be looking at her.
"Thank you for bringing him home safe", and then, without even waiting for a response, she was walking inside her million dollar house.
So that's where she disappeared, Beatrice had a son, a house and a life, and Ava had just a broken heart.
"What the fuck?"
Was this a joke? Universe, this isn't funny.