Pip and Ravi • agggtm

Too Young To Know It Gets Better

A/N this is Ravi's part, also my apologies for breaking off from the 12 fics of winter thing I am sick and burning out ghjkwqbikfwbjkaejkr I'm still trying to do it but ik I've missed a day I hope y'all are okay with this and I will pay reparations with fanart that was supposed to go with my normal hcs. These are prob gonna get shorter btw. Have a nice day!!!!

Ravi was the last to know Pip was back in town. It felt like hell when Becca Bell told him. He thought he'd been fine. He thought he'd gotten over it in October when he stopped stalking her instagram and asking Becca for updates every single day. That was why they started talking in the first place. So he could know Pip was doing okay. He'd told her not to leave Pip alone so she would have someone to talk to. Still, it felt like he was being suffocated to know that he wasn't a part of her life anymore.

  He moved to an apartment just out of Fairview last month. He finally got what he wanted. To be out of that dreadful town, but he was never far enough. For one, he'd stayed friends with all of the murder squad as Cara had dubbed them. Even Connor even though he was very obvious about being in love with Pip. He was supposed to be back for Pancha Ganapati today, but he couldn't go back. Luckily he went to college outside of Fairview so he didn't have to come back every day, but every weekend he came back to visit his parents and leave flowers at Sal's grave. The one that was newly replaced after being constantly desecrated after an obnoxiously insistent and naive girl knocked on his door. Sal would have loved her.

  He was doing better, he really was. He oddly didn't feel any remorse or guilt for what he'd took part in. It was funny how he'd become his worst nightmare but it didn't bother him. What did was that even though Pip was gone from his life he wasn't any more distant than from before. She didn't trust him enough to tell him how badly she was struggling with Stanley's death, and how she'd fallen into taking illegal Xanax's from Luke fucking Eaton. The worst part was how he didn't even comfort her when she told him. He was just upset she didn't tell him sooner.

What kept him going was studying. He was the only one in his class who actually knew how to get away with murder. He'd put all of his devotion into it. He'd never be the type of person that Sal was, but it helped to feel like he was close. On Wednesday mornings he'd go to the bookstore near his house, and pick out a book to read, always something sweet and hopeful. Then when he came to Fairview to see his parents he'd spend at least an hour with Jamie. He had a nice routine set in place, and he was fine.

He was fine except for nights like these. Nights where it got too hard to handle, and he went out to a bar. This is always what happened. Even when he was barely fifteen and Sal died. It helped to be inebriated as opposed to sad. The bar owner, an old guy named Patrick, knew him by name. He felt bad for the kid. He never watched the news, but from the slurred words of the freshly twenty one college student he knew about Sal. He knew about Pip too. Not the whole story, but he knew how she couldn't handle the world that seemed to have hated her. He knew how Ravi couldn't save her no matter how hard he tried, and he knew how Pip had tried her best to save him.

This particular evening he learned about Becca Bell's updates. How Pip was in town for the holidays, and it was insufferable yet hopeful. He learned how Ravi had always loved Pancha Ganapati, but couldn't bear to bring himself back home to celebrate because of the past. Then, he cut him off like he always did. He couldn't have a dead kid on his hands. At least not another one. What Ravi had learned from his various nights was that Patrick was an Irish immigrant. How he'd come here after his wife broke down and left when their four year old son died. It was never really spoken aloud, but they both knew how Patrick treated Ravi like his son because it was all he had. They knew how they'd both seen each other at their most vulnerable, and that made them somehow close even though they never talked once Ravi exited the bar.

The freezing cold outside didn't bother Ravi. It didn't bother him that he had no one to warm up. He'd hooked up with a girl last month, but it only made him feel sick. Like he'd cheated in some way. Then, he decided he didn't need anybody. Yet, he pulled out his phone and called the one person he couldn't.

She didn't pick up, as expected. Her voicemail rang out, the same one she'd made in July where her voice was unnaturally high pitched. He left the tone beep before speaking.

"Hey trouble. It's me, Ravi. I don't know if you deleted my number yet, but I don't care. I heard your back in town. Becca told me, and you know I really missed you. I really fucking missed you. You didn't have to protect me you know, I don't really care if I get sent to jail. Oh no I'm saying that on a voicemail what are we gonna do. Bla bla bla. I'd still marry you you know. I don't care how fucked we are. What am I talking about, I don't even know if you miss me. You probably don't. You're really not okay, and I hope you get help. Don't ruin any more lives okay. I love you."

The moment he said it he regretted every word aimed directly at where it would hurt her the most.