Ava and Gideon confide in and comfort each other

Ava and Gideon confide in and comfort each other during an evening at Gideon’s house, converting a tentative friendship into a moment of mutual trust. Their exchange brings hidden injuries into the open: Ava identifies Lincoln Waititi as the person who bruised her cheek, and Gideon describes how bullying contributed to his family’s move. The encounter’s deepest change is not that either can repair the other’s pain, but that they offer one another attentive, physical presence while grief and fear remain unresolved.

The evening’s fragile beginning

Before the conversation, Ava and Gideon have worked three shifts together over the weekend at Magic Kebab. Banter and laughter have helped restore their friendship after the awkwardness surrounding Ava’s poem and her earlier departure. Even so, spending the evening at Gideon’s house, alone in his room and on his bed, feels like a risk. Gideon has just left his last session with Robbie for a while, carrying a new notebook and strategies; the timing places this exchange alongside his effort to manage his own difficulties.

Ava proposes that each reveal a secret in return for the other’s. Gideon feels anxiety despite being comfortable with her, and his attraction to her intensifies the sense of exposure. They agree to the exchange and shake on it. The gesture gives their conversation a simple, mutual rule: neither is being asked to disclose alone. When Ava hesitates, her clenched teeth and pained expression make the effort visible before she speaks. She admits that she does not think she loves her mother. Gideon starts to respond, but Ava covers his mouth; he licks her palm, and she pulls away, laughing. Their playfulness does not erase the seriousness of the confession. Instead, it lets them remain together through the discomfort of having said it.

Secrets brought into the open

The exchange moves between comic embarrassment and disclosure. Gideon tells Ava that Annie once walked in on him masturbating shortly before she left. He had thought he was home alone, had his headphones on, and the two have never spoken about the incident. Ava responds that his family needs to learn to knock. Gideon tries to hush her, and they collapse into breathless laughter. The anecdote gives their exchange room for ordinary awkwardness as well as painful history, without making either kind of vulnerability seem disqualifying.

Ava then sits up and names the bruise on her cheek that Gideon had seen earlier. She says she was not oblivious: Lincoln Waititi caused it. She covers Gideon’s mouth with both hands while he absorbs what she has disclosed. He is shocked and furious. He resents that Ava still speaks to Lincoln and sees Lincoln moving through school as a macho figure whom others admire. The disclosure changes Gideon’s understanding of the injury, but Ava’s choice to keep speaking to Lincoln also complicates his response: knowing what happened does not give him control over her relationships.

When Gideon takes his turn, he explains that his family moved because he was not all right. At school he had been picked on for being tall, for having two mothers, and because his sister was smart. In Year 7, after he became very sad, he wrote a story about a sad moon during an eclipse. Other students copied it and posted it around the school. He describes the harassment as small incidents, but emphasizes that they happened repeatedly, all the time. His account gives the family’s move a personal cause and shows how humiliation accumulated through acts that might each have seemed minor in isolation.

From disclosure to comfort

After revealing their secrets, the two remain close rather than rushing to explain away what they have said. Gideon acknowledges that the problem is in his brain; Ava connects it to Kelly’s brain. He lies on his side, and Ava stays where she is before crawling over to face him, their faces close together. The movement is quiet but decisive: she does not withdraw from the painful comparison, and he does not have to keep speaking to be accompanied.

Ava tells Gideon that she thinks he is amazing. He closes his eyes, swallows, and begins to sob. He turns away and cries into the pillow; Ava puts an arm under his, rests it on his chest, and holds him tightly. She takes the role of the big spoon as his body heaves and he struggles to catch his breath. Neither speaks. Gideon eventually places his hand over hers, draws it closer to the middle of his chest, and intertwines their fingers. The comfort is reciprocal even before it is verbal: Ava holds him through the sobbing, and he chooses to keep her hand against him.

Their whispered conversation frames care as something broader than solving an individual problem. Ava says they should deal with each other’s difficulties; when Gideon asks whether she means the two of them, she clarifies that she means everyone. Gideon keeps hold of her hand and tells her that, although there is nothing she can do to change the situation, she can be present. Ava begins to cry too. Gideon turns toward her, watches her struggle to catch her breath, and assures her that he is not going anywhere. She nods and cries in his arms, frightened of losing him and wanting to believe his promise. Her grief remains complicated: even as she feels deeply for Gideon, part of her still wishes he were Kelly.

The meaning and limits of their closeness

The scene makes care concrete through small actions: a handshake before the secrets, a hand placed over a mouth, an arm around a shaking body, and fingers held against a chest. These gestures accompany disclosures neither character can undo. Gideon cannot erase the bullying or its consequences; Ava cannot change what Lincoln did or settle her grief for Kelly. The comfort they offer is therefore not a cure but a way of staying with another person while distress continues.

Their exchange also binds intimacy to unresolved contradiction. Gideon is moved by Ava’s praise and receives her closeness, while Ava’s fear of losing him coexists with her longing for Kelly. Her promise-seeking tears do not simplify those feelings, and Gideon’s assurance cannot guarantee what the future holds. The scene’s significance lies in the presence they establish in the face of that uncertainty: each has disclosed something difficult, and each responds by remaining beside the other.