Chapter Text
January in Chicago sucks.
Plain and simple. It’s cold as hell and windy as fuck and Ava genuinely wonders why anyone lives here.
That said, she’s lived here for almost sixteen years now and if anyone talks shit about her city she’ll fight them.
Still, it fucking sucks and she hates it.
Especially today, because today, she made the dumbass decision to surprise her boyfriend in the middle of the coldest afternoon of the year.
Ava’s been super busy at work the last few weeks, with Hans taking a vacation and then coming back from said vacation with a cold that’s kept him down for another week - she’s been working basically every night.
She doesn’t mind it really, her checking account certainly doesn’t mind it - the tips have been rolling in with people looking for just a smidgen of fun in this shitty fucking cold weather.
Still, she’s neglected JC and they’ve had troubles enough as it is with him constantly badgering her to finally move in with him.
She’s been a little hesitant about it. She likes her apartment. It was the first thing that ever really belonged to her. It’s nothing special and she certainly won’t win any homemaker of the year awards, but it’s hers.
JC’s place is nicer, it’s closer to her work and he has a much better bed than she does.
Every bit of common sense she has tells her that this is a no brainer - but every time he asks she tells him no. Which upsets him each time, but Ava is very good at distractions and she manages to sidestep it.
She just needs more time to decide, to figure out exactly why she needs to move in with him.
So far she hasn’t come up with anything substantial to really push her over the edge, but any day now she thinks.
Any fucking day now.
Despite all that, she does feel guilty about being so busy the last few weeks. So she’s going to make it up to him.
Which is why she’s walking through the streets of Chicago, freezing her tits off with some very expensive and uncomfortable lingerie underneath of her Chicago Bears jacket.
Warming her hands up, Ava goes to press the buzzer for his building when she sees Mr. Thompkins open the door from inside. “Ava! I thought you’d dumped that boy, I hadn't seen you in so long.”
“Not quite yet.” Ava says with a smile. Mr. Thompkins lives on the first floor and Ava constantly sees him coming and going as he works across the street at a flower shop. “Been a busy week at the bar is all.”
“Surprised people are even going out in this weather.”
Ava laughs. “Gotta go out in this weather, have to find some way to ignore how miserable it is.”
“No ma’am, this is the kind of weather that makes this city great! Builds character.”
“All I’m building are icicles in my hair!” This makes him laugh as he holds the door open for her. “I might swing by your shop when I leave, my place is severely lacking in green at the moment. Think you can recommend a low effort, super cute plant to go in my kitchen.”
He grins at her as she passes by. “Most definitely, shops open till six, come on by!”
“Will do, careful, the crosswalk is slippery as shit.” This makes him laugh deeply, eyes bright under his glasses. “See you soon.”
They part ways as Ava makes her way inside. When she steps in the elevator she’s grateful to be alone because she has to reach into her pants and pull the thong out of her ass. It’s not like a regular thong, not as comfortable and a little tighter- the whole fucking thing is tight.
She hopes JC gets his eyefull and strips her out of it quickly because the thigh clips might be cutting off her circulation.
Four floors later, Ava is making her way down the hallway towards his apartment.
It could be her apartment, she thinks. Their apartment.
Instead of walking all the way here in this cold ass weather, she could just live here. Come home here every night and climb into bed with him.
Then she wouldn't have to put on shit like this to make up for not being around much.
She could wake up next to him every morning. Listen to his obnoxious routine of situps and pushups before he spends two hours in the shower doing his hair and shaving his…everything.
The guy shaves more than she does.
Not that she hates it, she doesn’t - he’s gorgeous.
Still, by the time he finishes in the bathroom it’s almost ten and any nights Ava does stay here she has to set an alarm to wake up at six just to get a good hour in there to herself.
Could she live like that every day?
Yeah, she’s not ready to commit to it yet.
Any day now though.
Thankfully, Ava has a key so she can slip in and surprise him properly. She assumes if he worked this morning that he’s probably playing video games - Call of Duty or…Warzone…something came out today. She’s not sure, he was excited though.
When the door opens, Ava is already out of her jacket and halfway through unbuttoning the long sleeve shirt she wore underneath. “Hey Jay? I thought you might want -”
She stops, the key in her hand that she unlocked the door with falls to the ground.
Because there’s music on the stereo, playing over the sound of her voice, and JC is propped up on the arm of the couch with his pants around his ankles, and there’s a girl with his fucking dick in her mouth.
A thick, twisting rot settles in her stomach. She came all the way over here, spent all this money on lingerie for him because she felt guilty and he’s here getting a blowjob from someone Ava’s never seen in her fucking life.
Two years, two fucking years she gave him - she trusted him when she was just starting to get herself settled as a fucking person. She dealt with so much shit from his friends, from Randall and Zori hating her guts, they still do - she knows they do.
All those parties she hung off his arm to impress people at his business meetings. The godawful fights all over the country to help him promote his work.
All of it, she gave him all of it and he couldn't give her two fucking weeks of being busy before he had to stick his dick in someone else?
In her building rage, Ava sees the bowl of keys next to the door and spots the key fob of his car - his pride and fucking joy.
She snatches it and puts it in her pocket before grabbing the bowl and throwing it onto the ground.
The bitch chokes on his dick when she hears it, gagging as she stumbles away from him.
“Ava,” he practically falls over trying to pull his pants up. “Shit, I - it’s not what it looks like.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” She sees the girl standing up, arms crossed over her chest and staring at the door - Ava standing between her and an escape. “Not what it looks like? Was she sucking snake venom out of your cock, JC?”
He sighs, like she’s being ridiculous. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…it wasn't -”
“Don’t, don’t you fucking apologize to me. I cannot believe this shit. Two weeks? All it takes it two fucking weeks of me trying to work hard and hey.” Ava sees the girl trying to slip by her and snatches her by the arm, driving her into the wall.
“Ava!” JC trots over behind her to stop her, but she has a forearm pressed into this girl's chest.
“I didn’t know!” She shouts, her eyes wide with fear like Ava’s going to hit her. Because she has considered it multiple times. “He - he never told me you existed. I thought he was single, we met at a bar a few days ago!”
“It’s true,” JC says and Ava’s heart sinks. He’s been pretending she doesn’t even exist?
Just like the rest of the goddamn world.
Ava lets the girl go, steps back and watches her race out of the house, not even bothering to grab her shoes at the door.
“I’m sorry,” When JC touches her shoulder, Ava turns so fast her back tightens, but it’s worth it when her fist connects with his jaw and sends his ass onto the fake hardwood floor.
Her hand hurts, her back hurts, her stomach is turning over like she might puke and her boyfriend is bleeding from the nose.
Ava has never felt lower to the ground. “Fuck you,” she says. “I gave you everything. I gave you-”
“No you didn’t,” JC wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “You never gave me shit about yourself Ava. I feel like I barely know you, after two years.” He stays down, scooting back and pressing his back into the side of the couch.
“I gave you more of myself than I’ve given anyone else! I gave you…” she can't even form the words right to make him understand.
She trusted him, she gave him that and nobody has ever gotten that from her before.
He did and he wasted it.
“I think that says more about you than it does me.”
It hurts, it hurts so fucking much because he doesn’t understand how hard it is for her. He doesn’t get it. He never fucking got it.
She turns away from him, furious, and slams the door behind her on the way out.
Tears start to well in her eyes as she fights with her jacket as the elevator door opens and she steps in.
She moved too fast to punch him and tweaked her back, plus one of her fingers might be broken, but none of it will matter if she freezes to death because she can't get her goddamn jacket on.
“Motherfucker!” She shouts, finally slipping her arm in only as the door opens and a few older women are standing there with handfuls of groceries. “What?!” She barks at them, and they part ways to let her pass.
Stepping back outside is almost a blessing because the chilly air hits her like a bus. She can feel the chill press into her cheeks, lifting her head up to stare at the sky and will her tears down.
JC cheated on her.
JC cheated on her with some stranger and told this person that she didn’t even exist.
They were going to go to a Bears game in two weeks. She has a fucking ticket at home to a game to go with him.
All that talk about moving in with him and starting a life with him. His bullshit about introducing her to his parents and how much his mom would love her.
None of it fucking mattered now.
Nothing ever matters, in the long run, for Ava.
Everyone and everything that ever steps into her life is temporary.
As she sticks her hands in her pocket to protect them from the cold she feels the key fob sitting there and her eyes move to his car - parked just outside the building. He brags about this fucking parking spot more than he bragged about her.
Pulling out the fob, Ava turns it over in her hands a few times.
She closes her eyes, thinking about seeing him like that. Thinking about what he said to her.
“I think that says more about you than it does me.”
Like he has any fucking right to judge her. He has no clue how hard it was for her to let him in. He has no clue where she came from or what she dealt with.
Because she didn’t give him the chance too. Because she kept everything to herself.
Because she thought small secrets were enough. She thought telling him her mom died when she was young counted as letting him in.
So what if she failed to mention that she watched her die.
That she looked into her mom’s eyes as she bled out.
How the look on her mom’s face was almost desperate, like she was waiting for her seven year old daughter with her broken fucking back to magically save them both.
He doesn’t know how much Ava still hates herself for not being able to.
No, no no no no.
She’s not going to let him win. She’s not going to go down that road and let him hurt her.
She’s tired of the world fucking hurting her.
So she unlocks his car and climbs into the driver’s seat, starting it up and taking off.
Ava has no idea where she’s going.
------------------------
JC likes to golf.
Well, JC likes to pretend he golfs. He has a set of golf clubs in the back of his car from the last time he pretended to golf and dragged Ava out at seven in the morning to walk across a giant ass golf course for six hours last summer.
Fortunately, he never took the clubs out of his car and Ava is grateful for that today.
She just drove, drove out of the city just enough to find a space where nobody else really is.
The car is parked on a bridge, a few cars have come and gone but nothing for the last five minutes or so.
Ava’s spiraling a little, she knows it, but if she’s being honest, she welcomes it.
Because fuck JC and fuck that girl who slept with him.
She’s so done with people. Just all of them.
With one of JC’s golf clubs in her hands, Ava paces back and forth.
The easy choice would be to smash his windows in with this thing. Maybe dent the fuck out of his side paneling or bust his headlights.
But it doesn’t feel like enough. She needs to do something crazy. She needs to let all of this out in a way that makes him fucking hurt.
A way that makes him hate her guts.
Then it’ll be easier.
“Fuck it,” she whispers and gets back in the car, setting the club on the passenger seat.
Ava takes the car and positions it facing the side of the bridge, if any cars come by right now they're just going to have to fucking wait.
She gets out of the car, leaving it on but in park and grabs the club. From there, she presses it up against the back of the seat and carefully rests it on the gas pedal.
The engine starts to rev.
Ava looks out at the bridge again, it’s not a far drop, but it’s enough.
She reaches in, grabs the shifter and yanks it down before falling backwards as the car takes off.
She sits on her ass on the hard pavement and watches JC’s car go full speed off the bridge, taking out some of the railing in the process.
When it hits bottom, the noise is louder than she expects - the splash of his precious baby isn’t nearly as satisfying as she hoped it would be.
In fact, it only seems to make everything feel worse.
Then she hears the siren and the car pulling up on the bridge.
Ava hears the crunch of footsteps approaching her. “Ava, what the fuck?” JC’s voice is there, above her, angry.
Good.
She looks up at him and sees him glowering at her. “You stole my fucking car?”
“Ma’am, please stand up.” Someone else says, Ava looks beyond JC and sees the cop approaching. “Right now, Ma’am.”
So she does, because Ava’s not here to get tased or anything stupid like that. She just wanted JC to feel what she felt.
“I cannot believe you, Ava! Jesus fucking Christ, my car?! After one mistake!”
“Don’t fucking talk to me.”
“Ma’am, did you drive his car off of this bridge?” The cop, with his bald head and sunglasses asks her and Ava gives him a slow nod. “Alright, turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
She does, keeping her eyes on JC the whole time as he just…glares at her.
Maybe she went too far, but when hasn’t she?
Maybe she was tired of letting the world kick her while she was down again and again.
Just once, she wanted to kick back.
Now she’s being handcuffed and read her rights and a cop is dragging her into his car as he calls out on his little radio.
Ava complies, doesn't fight or argue, she doesn't care anymore.
The cop presses her head down to guide her into the back seat of his patrol car and Ava sits as the door is shut.
Suddenly, everything is quiet and it all soaks in.
She drove JC’s car off a bridge. She damaged city property and destroyed a perfectly good set of golf clubs.
The last thought makes her laugh, which she does for a good minute before it shifts and suddenly her eyes are burning.
She won’t cry though. Not here, not in front of him or this cop or the other two cops that have shown up and keep looking over at her through the window.
It’s almost forty minutes later when the cop finally takes her away. JC gets a ride with another one. Ava wonders if she’ll ever see him again.
She doubts it, if she does she might hit him, or he might hit her.
About halfway to the station she remembers she’s still wearing fucking lingerie.
------------------------
“Cabbage pizza?”
“Yeah!” The sweet, very large man sitting next to her in the holding cell is so fucking excited about this. “It sounds weird, but the cabbage is just replacing the crust. You cut it into slices and put a mixture of pizza herbs like oregano and stuff on each side, fry it up a little, then put some sauce on it and cheese, pepperoni or whatever pizza toppings you like. It’s a very delightful, low calorie alternative.”
Ava can't deny she’s curious. “I might have to give that a shot. I wonder if pineapple and cabbage go well together.”
He pulls a face. Whenever Ava brings up liking pineapple on her pizza it’s a 50/50 that the person she tells is going to make a face. “You’re one of those huh?”
She laughs. “You know, usually when I hear someone say that to me it’s because I’m bisexual.”
“That I’m fine with, pineapple on pizza though? Shameful.”
“Have you tried it?”
He scoffs. “I was married to a vegetarian, we tried to make pizza work between the two of us for years. Pineapple did not make the cut.”
Of course, because trauma exists in every nook and cranny of Ava’s life, she suddenly finds herself in the memory of making JC try pizza rolls for the first time. He bitched and moaned about it for the entire time Ava had them in the toaster oven.
It felt more like she was preparing him poison than food.
Then he ate them and gave a simple “hmm, not bad” and that was the end of it.
Suddenly, there were pizza rolls in his fridge every time she came over.
She never saw him eating them again, but they were still there.
No, no she can't do this to herself. She can't think about the good stuff because today proved they were fucking broken long before she walked into his apartment today.
Now she’s in a holding cell at the police station, waiting to be processed and get her fucking phone call - talking to a man with a tattoo on his head about pineapple on pizza.
The fuck even is today?
“Silva?” Someone calls out and she looks to the bars where a cop is standing there, an older woman with red hair and pretty good sized arms. “Come on, you can make your call.”
Taking a breath, she pushes to her feet. “Save me a seat?”
The man laughs. “Nobody will touch it.”
He’s the biggest person in the cell so Ava believes him.
When the officer led her out of the cell, Ava put her hands out like she was ready to be cuffed again, but instead the cop rolled her eyes and guided her down the hall to a more isolated room where a phone sat on a table next to a single chair.
“You’ve got one call and ten minutes.”
She expected the cop to leave, but instead she just closed the door and stood there.
So Ava shrugged and sat down, still not entirely sure who she was going to call.
She’d become so ingrained in JC’s life that all of her friends were his. Instinct told her to call Chanel, she loves Chanel so fucking much and mostly, that felt mutual.
But Chanel was JC’s friend first and Ava cannot imagine a scenario where she picks Ava over him.
Which fucking sucks because she really really liked Chanel.
Still, all the people she met through JC were out. She wouldn't be able to explain away what she did.
So she picks up the phone and hopes the number she remembers is still the same.
It rings once, twice, and then on the very end of the third ring, she hears the click. “Hello?”
Ava swallows the lump in her throat. “Mary?”
The silence that follows stretches for so long Ava thinks Mary hung up on her.
She’s not sure her heart could take that.
“Where are you?”
She closes her eyes. “What?”
“This number, I don’t recognize it. Where are you?”
Ava can feel her foot tapping nervously beneath the table, her heart in her throat. “I uh…I got arrested.”
Another silence. “You got arrested.” Mary says it so flatly, almost like she saw it coming. “What precinct?”
“I’m not sure…” Ava looks back to the officer at the door. “What precinct is this?”
“11th, Harrison.”
“It’s-”
“I heard her,” Mary cuts Ava off. “I’m not in the city right now, and won’t be until late tonight. I’ll come get you, but it won’t be until the morning.”
For as much as Ava wants to beg, to plead with Mary to come get her and take her home - she knows she barely deserves the kindness of Mary offering anything at all.
“Oh…okay, thank you…thanks. I’ll be alright for tonight. Probably deserve it right?” She says with a lame ass laugh that makes her feel two feet fucking tall.
Mary sighs. “I’ll be there in the morning.”
“Of course, see you then.” The line clicks before her sentence finishes and Ava hangs up the phone, exhausted. She pushes to her feet as the cop walks over to her, still not a drop of sympathy on her face. “I guess you’re stuck with me tonight.”
“Mmm, well let’s take you to your suite then.”
--------------------------------
Ava wakes up early, so early that she’s not entirely sure it counts as sleeping.
The ‘bed’ she sleeps on has the world's thinnest mattress on it and the cell is freezing cold. She’s so bundled up in the blanket they gave her that she’s pretty sure she’s going to fuse with it at some point.
Beyond the cell, she can see movement in the next room where the night shift is still working.
She’s in jail. Sure it’s just a separated holding cell, but she fucked up enough that she had to spend the night here and she’s burned so many goddamn bridges that Mary didn't seem to care all that much that Ava had to stay.
How the fuck did she get here?
Stuck somewhere and all alone, god it’s so terrifyingly familiar she can't help but think she really is cursed.
Sister Frances told her that once, years ago - when the boy Ava was sharing a room with got really sick and had to be taken to a hospital and moved to a better facility to handle his care.
Frances told her she was a disease. That bad things happened to people who spent any amount of time with her - to anyone that gave a shit.
To hear that at thirteen years old, after a boy who was genuinely very kind to her had to be stretchered out of the building, broke something in her.
A lot of things are broken in Ava.
When the sun finally starts to rise, Ava decides to be hopeful that Mary won’t make her wait too long.
She gets up, needing to find some warmth, and starts to do push ups.
This is not something she does regularly, but JC does almost every morning and he says it’s great for getting warm in the morning.
Meanwhile Ava would drag the whole fucking comforter on her back with her to the kitchen for her morning coffee.
Ava’s not in terrible shape by any means. She walks everywhere and tries to do yoga with Chanel. “It’s good for your back!” Chanel would always say to her, and maybe it is but christ it’s painful.
Still, she can manage a decent amount of push ups and though she’ll never see JC again to tell him, they do help warm her up.
It might be another hour, maybe two, before she finally sees someone coming to see her.
Two people actually and oh thank god one of them is Mary.
When the door opens and she sees her, Mary only gives Ava a passing glance before she gestures to the cop to let Ava out.
The cell door creaks open and Ava steps out, she wants to hug Mary, to tell her how grateful and appreciative and sorry she is - but she knows better.
That’s not something that’s afforded to her anymore. “Thank you,” is all she says and a nod in return is all she gets.
Twenty minutes and a stack of paperwork later, Ava is free to go with a $300 fine for the bridge and 100 hours of community service.
All in all, she gets off lucky since JC decided not to press charges.
The walk of shame out of the station and into Mary’s car is worse than just about anything though, because she feels like shit. Her back hurts, she’s dirty and gross, she’s still wearing lingerie instead of real underwear and Mary hasn’t said a word to her.
Ava, who is never great with awkward silences, can't keep herself in check. “So out of all the places you’ve had to pick me up from, where does this one rank?” She smiles, she wants to see Mary smile or laugh or…something.
Instead, all she gets is a sigh. “Right up there with the edge of that fountain you passed out on a few years ago. You remember the one, where you were a few inches away from drowning in your sleep.”
“I like to think drowning would have woken me up.”
Mary looks over at her. “You were blackout drunk, Ava. You didn’t even wake up when Shannon and I carried you to the car.”
Right, she really doesn’t remember that night at all. Just that she had been to a football game at Northwestern (she didn’t even go to Northwestern) and a lot of people bought her a lot of drinks at the after party.
She kind of wishes she had a lot of drinks in her right now. “Well then maybe this isn’t the worst one.”
“It’s up there,” Mary says as they pull up to a stop light. She feels Mary look at her, regarding her, and Ava looks at her as well. “So what happened? “
Here we go.
“I uh…” she sighs, the longer she sits with what happened the shittier she feels. “I caught JC cheating on me and…maybe stole his car and drove it off the Harrison Street Bridge.”
“What the fuck?”
Ava winces. “I know, it was…it was stupid.”
“No shit,” Mary presses a little harder on the gas pedal than needed when the light turns green. “You went to jail for that fucking guy?”
“What does that mean? I gave him almost two years of my life!”
Mary snorts. “Look how that went for you.”
“Hey!” Ava doesn’t need another goddamn lecture. “Don’t pretend you know anything about what JC and I’s relationship was like!”
“How could I?” Mary snaps back and Ava suddenly remembers she has exactly zero high ground to stand on. “You made it pretty fucking clear that once you were with him and his little posse you had no fucking use for me and Shannon.”
Oh god it hurts, it hurts so much because Ava knows it’s true. She didn’t do it on purpose. Not really, but Mary and Shannon had their shit together so well, they were more like big sisters than friends most of the time.
JC and his friends just let her be, she felt more freedom - like she was her own person.
She got lost in that, too lost, and then suddenly a year had passed and she’d ignored dozens of calls and texts.
“Mary I’m sorry, I know-”
“Let’s not do this right now, alright?” Mary’s tone leaves Ava no room to argue. “You didn’t want to talk to me for the last sixteen months, I don’t want to fucking talk to you for the next sixteen minutes.”
Ava closes her mouth, fighting off every urge to cry and instead just focusing on the buildings as they pass her through the window.
Another shitty day and it’s not even nine yet.
---------------------
Everything hurts.
Her back hurts. Her head hurts. Her feet hurt. She’s got pinch marks on her thighs from the buckles she wore for the leggings of the lingerie she was stuck in all night.
Ava is, quite simply, done with the human race for today.
So when she made it home without another word from Mary, she went up to her apartment, showered for about an hour and put on her comfiest sweats and biggest t-shirt before wrapping herself up in her robe and opening a bottle of vodka.
Now, she’s about three quarters of the way through it watching a documentary about foxes and debating whether or not to order a pineapple pizza.
When someone knocks on her door a few minutes later, Ava looks at it for a minute trying to remember if she already ordered a pizza.
She definitely thought about it. She pulled up the app on her phone and looked through them, but she doesn’t remember buying one. She didn’t get out her debit card and pay for one.
Ohh, maybe she was on the app long enough that they just knew! Maybe…maybe they saw her staring at that pretzel crust pizza for like ten minutes and just decided she earned it.
When the knocking on her door happens again, Ava gets up, nearly tripping over her coffee table.
She races to the door, still holding out hope for a free pizza.
Instead, what’s waiting for her on the other side is Chanel. Chanel as in one of JC’s oldest friends.
Chanel who is like six feet tall and looks incredibly upset.
“H - hey…” Ava casts her head down, this is going to suck.
“What the fuck, Ava?” Chanel snaps at her and Ava winces. She’s pretty sure she’s about to get her ass kicked.
“I know,” Ava tries, shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”
Chanel takes a step towards her. “You better be fucking sorry.” When she’s too close, Ava tenses up, ready to be hit. She’s seen Chanel beat up chicks that fuck with her friends before. She’s been one of those friends getting support before.
Now she’s gonna get punched.
“What are you doing?” Chanel’s voice softens, the anger fades a bit and Ava looks up tentatively.
“Is…isn’t this the part where you usually fuck someone up for fucking with your friends?”
Chanel’s eyes narrow. “No, I just came from there. I laid into JC’s ass for like ten minutes. Why are you cowering?”
Ava’s so confused. So fucking drunk and confused. “I drove JC’s car off a bridge. I…I figure you’re here to kick my ass for that.”
“What?” Chanel yells again and Ava’s head throbs. “He cheated on you with a fucking movie theater usher! He cheated on you even though you went to a fucking NASCAR race with that boy to watch cars go around in circles while you wore the ugly ass uniform of his pathetic little start up company all day.”
Oh god, that really was the longest day of her life. She’d almost take another night in jail over that.
“You’re not…mad at me?”
“Oh no, I’m fucking pissed at you.” Chanel’s voice raises a little. Ava gives up trying to predict anything. “But only because you didn’t call me after the fact. Instead you went and stole his car, drove it off a bridge and got arrested!”
Again, the more she hears about it, the worse it sounds. “I know, it was stupid.”
“Yeah, it was. You know that boy isn’t worth it.”
“I thought you loved JC.”
“Oh I do, I’ve known him since he was fourteen - which means I also know he’s a douche who thinks he’s some hot shit business mogul when the truth is, all he does is manage social media for lame ass energy drink companies!“ Chanel steps over to her again, this time Ava doesn’t back away. “You deserve better than him. Period. And yeah I’m fucking mad that you thought I’d pick his fluffy haired ass over you.”
In what can only be described as a deadly combination of drunk and tired and still kind of thinking about that pretzel crust pizza, Ava jumps into Chanel’s arms.
Thankfully, Chanel is built like a tree and catches her easily enough. “I’m sorry,” Ava cries, because she’s wanted to cry for like eighteen hours. “I should have called you or went to your place. I was just so upset and uncomfortable - Chanel, I was in lingerie for him and I had to spend the night in jail with panties so far up my ass the tag was tickling the back of my throat.”
She hears Chanel laugh in her ear. “You’re such a dumb bitch. Lingerie in Chicago in January?”
“I know,” Ava sighs when Chanel puts her back down. “Sorry, sorry I drooled on you a little. I’m drunk, by the way.”
“No shit, Ava it’s not even eleven yet.” Chanel rolls her eyes but moves deeper into Ava’s apartment and closes the door behind her. “I am sorry this all happened.”
“Thanks,” Ava moves back to the couch and sits down, or rather falls down unceremoniously. “It could have been worse I guess, I only got a little fine and some community service.”
“Oh that can be gross though, any idea where?”
Ava shakes her head. “No, they're supposed to contact me and tell me where to go. Maybe it’ll be something cool like…at a zoo or something. I can sweep those little fake streets and watch the monkeys play or...what?”
Chanel pats the top of her head. “Nothing, babe, you just live in a really cute little dream world sometimes.”
“Hey, don’t patronize me! The universe owes me some good! You watch, I’m gonna get assigned to the zoo, or oh! Maybe like a strip club or something!”
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“A homeless shelter?” Ava stares at the little document the cranky old lady at the city office hands her.
There is no sympathy or guilt in her eyes either, no in fact Ava’s pretty sure she could catch on fire right here and this lady would ask her to take a few steps back and burn alive out of reach of her desk.
“You’ll start Monday morning, be there by ten to start your shift. You’ll work four hours a day, two days a week until the conclusion of your required hours of service.”
Okay, so not the zoo or a strip club (Chanel was very quick to point out how dumb that sounded). Still, she could make this work. She was going to.
Her life was in complete fucking shambles and she’d be going from working at the homeless shelter in the morning to working at the bar at night for the foreseeable future, but she could make this -
“Sister Beatrice will be the one monitoring your attendance and effort, informing us of your compliance with the required fulfillment of your service.”
Oh good, more fucking nuns. She made some very inappropriate gestures the last time she saw a nun. Granted, Frances probably didn’t know what they meant, but it sure made her feel better.
Ava can see it now, Sister Beatrice is probably some old hag who sucks on lemon candy and smells like feet. She’s going to hate Ava the moment she sees her.
This is going to suck.