The relationship between Ava Spirini and Gideon Franks-Myer

The relationship between Ava Spirini and Gideon Franks-Myer develops as both a source of intimacy and a test of how much grief and fear two people can carry together. Their closeness gives Ava room to imagine a future beyond Kelly Waititi’s death, but it does not erase her attachment to Kelly or make love uncomplicated. The relationship becomes real through small acts of trust, then ends painfully when Ava recognizes that she cannot continue; its final shape is defined by both Gideon’s boundary and the enduring importance of what they shared.

Grief at the Center of Their Closeness

Ava meets intimacy with Gideon while her life remains organized around Kelly’s absence. She remembers the 5:37 a.m. phone call that woke her, and the moment seven minutes later when Ava’s father came into her room and told her Kelly had died. The news leaves her unable to move or properly hear what follows. By the time she reflects on her closeness with Gideon, she has counted thirty-one Sundays since Kelly’s death, each carrying the same recurring weight. Their romance therefore begins not in an emotional blank space but amid grief that Ava experiences as continuing and defining.

Gideon’s care does not resolve that grief, and Ava is painfully aware of the limit. When he tells her he is not going anywhere, she cries because she wants to trust him and fears something happening to him. She also acknowledges a divided longing: part of her still wishes he were Kelly. That admission makes the relationship’s emotional stakes unusually clear. Ava’s love for Gideon can be genuine without replacing her love for Kelly, and the novel lets both attachments remain present rather than treating one as proof against the other.

Their vulnerability also runs in the other direction. After Ava tells Gideon she thinks he is amazing, he closes his eyes, takes several sharp breaths, and breaks into heavy sobs. He turns away to cry into a pillow; Ava lies behind him, puts an arm under his, and holds him as his body heaves. He then draws her hand to the center of his chest and intertwines their fingers. The scene makes care reciprocal: Ava is not only someone being steadied by Gideon, but someone able to stay with his pain without demanding that he explain or contain it.

Choosing Each Other

Their first kiss arrives in a moment of intense desire, but its abrupt ending leaves Ava uncertain. Gideon kisses her back, and the kiss continues until a car horn sounds. His mothers have arrived; his face flushes, and he leaves without saying anything before getting into their car. Ava cannot tell whether he is embarrassed, regrets the kiss, or has been rescued from an awkward goodbye. She understands the moment through a pattern of alternating access and retreat: each seems to let the other in and then pull away. That uncertainty is not resolved by the kiss itself.

Ava’s decision to pursue him becomes clearer in her conversation with Nola. Asked what she wants rather than what she fears, Ava answers after a long pause that she wants Gideon; she recognizes that wanting all of him and a relationship with him is frightening. The hesitation matters: choosing him is not a sudden escape from grief but a conscious step taken despite the possibility of being hurt.

The relationship becomes explicit when Gideon asks Ava to be his girlfriend. She answers with an affectionate, qualified yes, and he takes her by the shoulders and kisses her. The exchange gives their bond a name, but it does not remove the uncertainty that has accompanied their approach to each other. Their commitment begins with mutual desire, while the earlier pattern of fear and retreat remains part of its context.

The Breakup and Its Immediate Cost

Ava eventually tells Gideon that she cannot do this anymore. He hears the words as the end of the relationship and pleads with her not to break up with him. His distress becomes more damaging when he tells her that he loves her and does not know whether he will be okay if she makes this choice, adding that something bad happening to him might be her fault. Ava’s face turns white; her response combines pity and anger. The scene shows how love and fear can become entangled in a way that places an intolerable burden on the person trying to leave. His pain is real, but Ava is not made responsible for preventing it by remaining his girlfriend.

Afterward, Gideon establishes a boundary: he respects Ava’s decision and understands why she made it, but cannot be around her or talk to her for a while, and asks her to respect that choice too. Ava nods, holding back tears. His distance is not presented as proof that the relationship meant nothing; it is a condition he says he needs after the breakup. Before the conversation ends, he also says he will never let Kelly waste away. The reference returns their separation to the grief that had accompanied their closeness: even as their romance ends, preserving Kelly’s memory remains important to Gideon.

What Remains Afterward

At graduation, Gideon explains that he read Ava’s poem for Kelly partly because people needed to think about Kelly and what happened, but chiefly because he loves the poem and finds parts of it expressive of his own feelings about Ava and himself. Ava wants to ask what those parts mean and whether he still loves her, but cannot bring herself to ask. The poem thus carries feeling that the former couple struggles to state directly. It is at once a tribute to Kelly and a means by which Gideon can communicate something about his relationship with Ava.

Ava continues therapy with Nola every fortnight. Looking back, she regards breaking up with Gideon as the right choice even though it hurt intensely. She sends him one final letter to thank him, apologize for hurting him, and tell him that he helped her laugh, feel beautiful, and recognize that her life was not wholly wasted. She credits him with helping her want to sort herself out and become better, and thanks him for his poems and for helping her gather the pieces of her broken heart so that she could begin putting it together herself. Gideon does not reply. Ava thinks he may have moved away and begun university, as he had planned, but she still misses him at work and tells him that Ricky misses him too.

Ava’s understanding of the relationship settles into neither easy friendship nor erasure. She accepts that the breakup was right while recognizing the profound help Gideon gave her, and her final letter is an expression of gratitude rather than a demand that he return. Later, a pale blue envelope addressed to Ava contains a small rectangular card. Its invitation to text the sender like a normal person brings tears of happiness, a marked contrast with the grief that has so often made her eyes well. The moment offers the possibility of renewed contact, but does not establish that the two have reconciled or resumed their romance. Their ending remains open: care and love have mattered, and the boundary between them has not simply disappeared.