Chapter Text
Silence settles in the car. It fills the space between Ava’s body and Deborah’s, falls heavy over both their shoulders. Deborah’s gaze is trained on the road, and Ava steals glances at her as she tries to disappear into the passenger seat. She searches for signs of anger, of regret, of anything, but the older woman’s face is a perfect mask of Deborah Vance nonchalance.
Ava almost wants to shout at her, because she knows that Deborah feels something. How could she not? Deborah would die before giving even an inkling of it, but Ava is greedy for her anger, her tears. She feels a sick kind of ownership over the older woman’s current emotional state. Ava’s the reason for it, so shouldn’t she have to bear witness to the fallout?
Bob Lipka’s words echo viciously in her mind: …throwing away an entire career! For what? For her?! Ava shudders at the memory of the hateful stare he had given her. Clearly he didn’t think the trade-off was worth it.
Does Deborah? Even if the answer now is yes, how will she feel when she finally has a quiet moment alone, to sit down and really process what, exactly, she's chosen? One awkward girl versus a brilliant, decades-long career. Bile rises in Ava’s throat as she realizes that she agrees with Bob on this one.
Maybe, she thinks, it’s not too late to fix this. She can talk sense into Deborah, make her turn the car around and go back, talk to him. She can write Deborah a retraction, something that strikes the perfect balance between humorous and heartfelt, and then she can step down from her job and…
“Shit,” Deborah says. Ava cocks her head over to the driver’s seat, bracing herself for whatever is to come. She is shocked to find that the older woman looks perfectly calm, if a bit perturbed.
“I just realized I missed your exit,” elaborates Deborah, “A while ago, actually. We’re closer to my house now than yours.”
“Oh,” Ava says, unsure how to respond. Deborah, thankfully, talks for both of them, thinking aloud: “I could turn around, but that’s going to be such a pain in the ass. Would you want to just stay the night at my place?”
That…is not where Ava had expected the conversation to go. Ava thought that Deborah would take her back to the mall, drop her off and then peel away, eager to be rid of her. The offer to let her stay over is unexpected, but when Ava gives it even half a thought, she realizes that she would, actually, be more comfortable at Deborah’s than her own place, which has never felt like anything close to home.
“Yeah,” she says, giving a nervous little nod, “Yeah, let’s do that.”
The rest of the drive to Deborah’s is quiet, and Ava slips back into the darkness of her ruminations. Maybe agreeing to spend the night at Deborah’s was a mistake. It could be that Deborah will take tonight to think about things and then wake Ava up in the morning with a pistol to her head. The one thing that Ava is sure of is how insane with anger Deborah is going to be once she fully processes what she’s done. And she’s just volunteered to be right in the middle of it. Oh fuck…
Her breath catches in her throat as they drive through the gates of Deborah’s mansion. As they pull up in the driveway and park, Deborah unbuckles her seatbelt and says, somewhat redundantly, “We’re here.”
Ava doesn’t move. She knows that she should, but when she tries to, her legs turn to water beneath her, and her stomach gives a lurch as her hands begin to go numb.
“Ava?” Deborah reaches over to put a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. It’s such a simple touch, but the second she feels the weighted heat of Deborah’s palm through her blazer, Ava chokes out a pitiful, animal sob.
“Ava, what—?”
“You shouldn’t have done it, D.” Ava tries to speak like a normal person, but her voice comes in a panicked whisper. “Not for me.”
“Oh God.” Deborah does what she always does, and tries to defuse the situation with sarcasm. “You Zoomers and your egos. I didn’t do it for you—”
“That’s bullshit,” Ava argues, though her words are punctuated by a rivulet of snot running from her nose, “If I hadn’t screwed up with On The Contrary…”
“Don’t,” Deborah snaps, “You are not taking responsibility for this.”
“But Deb—”
“No!” Deborah’s voice wavers, and when Ava looks up, she sees that the older woman’s eyes are sparkling with unshed tears. “What happened tonight was my doing, do you understand? I was given an ultimatum, and I chose how I handled it. I did it as much for me as for you.”
Ava responds with another heavy sob, and she feels like the biggest, neediest piece of shit on planet Earth. Deborah lost her dream tonight, yet here she is trying to calm down Ava, who can’t stop crying like a child. It’s ridiculous, and Ava hates herself a little for it.
Deborah, surprisingly, doesn’t seem to mind. She moves over in her seat, leaning over the console between them to raise one hand to Ava’s cheek. She should be disgusted by the wetness she finds there, but Deborah’s index finger skims gracefully along the girl’s jaw before cupping her cheek in her palm. Ava can’t help but lean into the warmth and comfort of her.
“We’ll figure something out,” Deborah promises, “Don’t let Bob get in your head. We’ll find a loophole. There’s always a loophole.”
“How can you be so optimistic?” Ava asks.
“I don’t know,” replies Deborah. It’s the first time all night that she’s lied to the girl.
One thing she will admit to nobody but herself is just how easy it was for her to pull the plug on her own show. As soon as Ava’s name came out of Bob’s mouth, she knew what the score was, and she made her decision. She needs Ava. She wants Ava, and there was never any way she was going to let a man like Bob fucking Lipka tear them apart.
She can say exactly none of that to the younger woman, though, so she simply swipes her fingers once more over Ava’s wet cheeks, collecting tears as they fall at a steadily decreasing pace.
“It’s okay,” Deborah whispers. Her hand leaves Ava’s face and moves to stroke through her hair.
“I feel like I took something away from you.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Deborah echoes her monologue from earlier, her fingers still combing delicately through Ava’s russet strands.
“Why did you choose me?” asks Ava. She looks up at Deborah with tears caught in her eyelashes. “Why would you do that, D?”
Deborah bites her lip. There’s calculation behind her cornflower irises, her brain spinning like a roulette wheel as she tries to land on the perfect response. Eventually, she finds a truth that she feels too stripped-down, too raw to excuse away: “There was never any choice.”