Episode 1212: State Of Grace

Continuing to stir, Ava turned at the sound of Sebastian rummaging through their extraordinarily messy catchall junk drawer in the kitchen.

“Do you want help finding something?” she asked.

Sebastian rummaged a bit further before stopping and facing her. “Um, well,” he grimaced a little, “don’t overreact to this, but did we keep the invitation to my mom’s masquerade gala thing?”

Ava didn’t want to overreact any more than he wanted her to, things had been too silent and tense around their household since each of them had done an about face in regards to Sebastian’s father and whether or not to confront him.

“You never really said whether you wanted to go. I do realize that it wouldn’t have been fair of me to decide that for you so I kept the invitation,” she said, “plus the invite just looked too fancy to toss it into the recycling. It’s tucked away in my stash of ephemera for my journal. I’ll go grab it, it won’t take a minute.”

Ava walked into the living room, pulled open the end table drawer and sifted through the pages underneath her journal, finding what she needed. With a quiet sigh, she headed back to the kitchen.

“I’m not actually going to the gala,” Sebastian said. “I just don’t know if someone other than Lila will be manning the doors so I thought I might need the invitation to get inside without drawing a bunch of attention to myself. I’m just going there to have that overdue conversation with my dad.”

“You don’t have to do that. Especially not tonight when they’re having a party.”

“Yeah, I do need to do this, and the sooner the better, even if it means crashing their good time. I want to fix things with you and I and that’s starts with figuring out this thing with my dad. I’m not saying this means I’m cutting ties with him though, I don’t really want that.”

“It’s okay. I should have said it’s okay days ago. Maybe you can just spend time with him on your own, I don’t know, we’ll figure out a compromise if this is a relationship you need. You shouldn't have to sacrifice time with your dad for me, I shouldn’t keep making you feel like it’s either him or me. It’s not.”

“I totally get why you find him toxic, I feel that way sometimes, too. But yeah, maybe a compromise, we’ll see. That’s why I’m going to put it all out on the table with him, check out his reaction, see if he apologizes and seems to really understand that it’s not acceptable. I’ll judge from there where he and I stand going forward. So that’s why I’m going to the gala, not to perform prodigal son duties or anything, it’s all about getting in there and grabbing my dad to talk since I know that’s where he’ll be and he won’t skip out on my mom’s event for work, use that as an excuse not to talk.”

Episode 1213: Torn