Duet: an Avi Kaplan fanfic

Fears and Admissions

 A/N: Hey, this one will be a little sad. Just a warning. You'll get to delve into a bit of Avi and Arya's pasts. Hope y'all enjoy.

-Emmi

It’s been a few hours since the “Why didn’t you tell me?” incident and Esther looks around like she’s got a question.

“What are you most afraid of? I don’t mean like phobias, like seriously, what are you guys most afraid of. I remember Avi’s answer from a few years ago, and I wanna know if it’s changed, but, he’s gotta go last.” She says.

“Um, I guess I’ll go first? I am terrified that something will happen with my classes or that I won’t have the right number of credits to get my Master’s degree in 2015 like I planned.” Mel says.

“I am scared of the idea of a higher power deciding my fate. What if they are deciding based on how I act and I’m not a good enough person? The thought terrifies me.” Livvie says.

“Babe, you are a great person, if that’s how things work, then I guess life will be good to you.” Scott assures her.

“Not reaching my full potential. Like, I could always do better but maybe I won’t ever do my absolute best.” Kevin says, Esther agrees.

Scott, Mitch and Kirstie all give variations on “I’m afraid I won’t be good enough…”

I confuse the shit out of everyone, saying, “I’m not scared of failure, or not being good enough, or that I won’t be happy. None of that scares me, because I got used to it. What scares me is getting all of that. Getting happiness and success, being good enough, reaching my full potential…those are the thing that scare me.” They all stare at me like I’ve lost it. Which doesn’t help my self-esteem.

“I guess it’s my turn then. Never finding my true love. Or if I do/ have, then I don’t realize it. That’s what scares me.” Avi says, blushing. I feel like that should offend me somehow, but it doesn’t. I mean, he’s saying that I’m might now be his true love, or at least he doesn’t think I am at the moment. But, oddly that doesn’t bother me. Yet.

“I want to take a moment to see what’s up with Arya and that fear. It makes no sense.” Kirstie says

, saving me from focusing on Avi’s for too long.

“Well, of course it makes no sense to you. You are successful, you are so incredibly talented, your life is so…I won’t say perfect, because nothing is perfect, but it’s closer than I ever got. I mean like, what kind of grades did y’all get in school. I know that at least Kevin, Mitch, Scott, Livvie, and Mel were better students than I was. The only reason I’m not adding you, Avi and Esther is I don’t know what kind of students you were.” I say.

“Well, I think all three of us were A and B students. I mean, it’s not like we were like Scott, who was almost always straight A’s or Kevin who went to Yale. But we were pretty good. I’m sure you did well enough too.” Avi tries to comfort me.

“Yeah, no. Let’s see, I failed English three times. I failed history almost every year. Oh, and science in ninth and eleventh grades. Most of the time, the majority of my grades were the just passing kind. Except art, math, and choir, which I always got A’s in. My GPA floated around a 2.1. I was a terrible student.” I retorted.

“Seriously, you wanna bring up the things you failed? Do you remember why you failed? Was it because you didn’t get it? Was it because you didn’t understand what was going on? No! It was always because you didn’t give a fuck! I remember seeing all the teachers’ comments on the report cards. ‘Arya is a brilliant girl and would readily succeed if she would just apply herself,’ and ‘Arya has an incredible scientific mind,’ and ‘Arya’s writing is amazing. If she would just turn things in and apply herself, I could see her becoming an author someday.’ Every fucking comment was Arya is so smart, but she is too fucking lazy and doesn’t care enough to do her shit!” Mel yells at me, breathing hard.

“Ahh, bringing up those years are we? Do you remember what Dad was like then?” I scream back.

“Yeah, but you didn’t see Livvie or Sean or Carissa slipping did you? It was always you! Don’t try to blame it on your dad! Just because he was losing his fucking mind doesn’t mean you can throw yours away!”

“You were never there.” I whisper. “You never saw what he did. After the first few times, he left them alone. I was the one who would fight back, so he went after me. And every time he did go after someone else, I couldn’t just ignore it like everyone else did. I would try to stop him. And if I couldn’t, I would feel terrible and cry myself to sleep that night, thinking about how he hurt them. You never saw it, so you have no right to talk.” I hadn’t even realized we had gotten up, that we had ended up practically nose to nose.

“You know what, Arya, I wasn’t there. True, but I still know that seeing you get hurt, it killed Livvie, she would call me at midnight, crying because you were falling into bad habits. You were just sitting there, not doing anything at all when he wasn’t even around. You wouldn’t take your free time to get your school stuff done. You just didn’t give a fuck.” Mel hissed back.

I am about to say something else when Avi puts a hand on my arm. “Babe, come on. Calm down for a minute. What were you talking about?” he says, his voice soothing.

“We were talking about my dad.” I say. Livvie goes still. Soon she’s crying. “Dad went crazy and then died due to a brain condition that essentially ate him from the inside out. But his compassion and empathy were the first things to go. Then, he got aggressive, started hitting us all. I couldn't bare to see Mom and my siblings getting hurt, so I took most of it. But, even if he didn’t hit them, he still made Sean, Livvie and Carissa’s lives hell. He called them weak, called Sean nothing but ‘fag’ never called him by his name, called Cari a whore a lot because she had her first kiss when she was only ten. Screwed us all up pretty bad. Funny thing was, he liked me. He said I was his favorite solely because I would hit him right back.” I am crying too, but I hate myself for saying it.

“Oh, my god.” Scott mutters, wrapping his arms around Livvie. Avi pulls me into a hug.

“Arya, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.” He mumbles into my hair, them presses a sweet kiss on my lips.

That night, when Avi and I are getting ready for bed, I ask “Why is that your greatest fear?”

“Huh? Oh, because, love is special. With life, imperfection is just fine by me, but love…I want only the best. I’m not going to ask anyone to marry me if I’m not sure she’s the one I’m meant to be with. I mean, I almost made that mistake once and I’m not going to do it again.” He looks at me and sees how badly I want to know the story. “There was this girl, Sarah, that I dated a few years back. Before Pentatonix even started; I was twenty. I was so sure that she was the one and she made me feel incredible. But I found out that, because I hadn’t slept with her, she had been cheating for months. Just before our one year anniversary, I broke up with her. Now I always feel like I need to be more careful. What if I gave too much and then we couldn’t stay together during tour? What if something just doesn’t work out right for us and I just can’t keep going like I did before? Those are the things that scare me with you.”