Ava and Gideon’s first kiss

Ava Spirini and Gideon’s first kiss is a turning point in their growing intimacy: an impulsive act of affection that makes their mutual feelings visible, but does not immediately settle what either of them will do with them. The kiss follows a conversation about grief and a shared joke about poetry. It ends abruptly when Gideon’s mothers arrive, leaving Ava to wonder whether his withdrawal signals embarrassment or regret. A small arrangement of Skittles, discovered after he has gone, gives the scene its clearest answer: Gideon had feelings for her, even when he could not express them face to face.

Grief and the Need for Connection

The kiss takes place against the continuing loss of Kelly Waititi, not outside it. Six months after Kelly’s death, Ava feels that time has slowed and worries that her sadness may last for the rest of her life. Her grief is not an abstract backdrop: it shapes what closeness means and makes moments of relief difficult to separate from thoughts of the person who is gone.

Ava has already recognized that being with Lincoln Waititi can briefly make the rest of her troubles recede. She also knows that this attraction is bound up with Kelly’s absence: she thinks the connection would never have unfolded in the same way if Kelly were alive. That does not make the feelings simple or interchangeable. Rather, it shows how the relationships left behind by a death can change, while the absent person remains part of the meaning of what happens next.

Immediately before the kiss, Ava is upset about Lincoln and angry that he seems to expect her to resume their intimacy without addressing what has happened between them. She tells Gideon that she wishes he could have known Kelly, and that she wishes he had known her before Kelly died. She describes the loss as having taken part of herself with it. Gideon answers not by trying to solve the grief, but by holding her while she cries. That quiet acceptance creates the emotional space in which their later playfulness can emerge.

From Comfort to a First Kiss

Gideon offers a way of imagining grief as weight that may become easier to carry, even though it does not disappear. As he speaks, he makes an A out of Skittles on the carpet. The gesture is modest and playful, but it gives their conversation a physical focus: grief has been named as something lasting, while the candy turns the moment toward the possibility of connection.

Ava jokes about writing a poem. Gideon answers with a deliberately bad rhyme that calls her pretty sometimes, then briefly holds her gaze before looking down. The exchange lets attraction surface without requiring either of them to make a serious declaration. Ava responds by beginning a question about what Japanese people do with good friends, then kisses him. The narration presents the kiss as one she has wanted intensely; Gideon kisses her back, and she experiences it as the best kiss she has had.

That mutual response is the scene’s decisive change. Until then, their closeness has appeared through consolation, humor and shared poetry; the kiss makes the romantic possibility explicit through action rather than discussion. Yet it does not erase the uncertainty each has shown around intimacy. The moment brings them closer, but its interruption prevents it from becoming an easy, settled declaration of a relationship.

The Interruption and the Skittles Message

A car horn sounds, and Gideon recognizes that his mothers have arrived. His face flushes; he gets up, leaves without explaining himself, and goes out to the car. The abruptness unsettles Ava. She considers whether he may have been embarrassed or may not have wanted the kiss, but she also distinguishes it from other unwelcome kisses she has experienced: this one did not feel unwanted. Her uncertainty is real because Gideon’s departure supplies no spoken reassurance.

After he is gone, Ava notices the Skittles on the carpet. The arrangement reads G 4 A, turning the earlier playful gesture into an indirect declaration of Gideon’s feelings. The object matters because it answers what his silence in the car moment could not: he had expressed affection, but in a form Ava only understands once he is absent. The scene therefore moves between evidence and doubt—his returned kiss and the candy point toward mutual feeling, while his exit leaves her temporarily unable to know what the moment means to him.

The narrative also lets the reader see Gideon’s immediate self-reproach. He replays the kiss as something wonderful, then berates himself for walking away from the person he likes. His thoughts recast the departure not as rejection but as a response he regrets. This information changes the weight of the interruption without making the encounter magically uncomplicated: Ava has not heard his explanation, and his private feelings do not automatically resolve her uncertainty.

Significance in the Larger Arc

The kiss brings affection and grief into the same scene rather than treating happiness as proof that loss has ended. Ava has recently described how being happy with Gideon can abruptly remind her of Kelly, who would have wanted every detail and laughed with her about it. The possibility of new happiness therefore arrives with an ache: Ava can want closeness and still feel the absence of the friend with whom she would have shared it.

Later, Ava describes her feelings as still present—sadness, hurt, anger, confusion, grief and love—but not necessarily larger than all the other parts of her. That later perspective helps locate the kiss in a continuing process, not as a cure for bereavement or a clean break from the past. Its significance lies in the small but consequential shift it makes possible: after offering comfort and sharing an awkward joke, Ava and Gideon act on an attraction that had been communicated only indirectly. The candy message preserves the tenderness of that change, while the sudden departure preserves its uncertainty.