Stella's POV
Later that night, after I had showered and gotten ready for bed, my bedroom door inched open. I was sitting on my bedroom floor, because I am a floor person, and I was looking at the pictures from the Manila envelope I had taken from the kitchen earlier. When I saw it was Ava coming into my room, I quickly stashed the pictures back in the envelope and shoved them under my bed. Part of me felt guilty for having them around Ava. Ava didn't have any baby pictures of herself and for a long time that's something she and I had in common. Baby pictures of me started when I was 3, baby pictures of her started when she was 6. We used to say neither of us had proof that we were ever actually babies. And now there was proof I was a baby. There was me in Troy's arms at the hospital the day I was born. There was a picture of me in a baby swing and Louis just leaning over on the couch watching me. There was my first Halloween, my first Christmas... all these things that I now had that Ava didn't, so I felt weird about looking at them around her. We had shown them to her when we first got them of course and she ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the cute ones and teased me for the embarrassing ones, but other than that I tried to avoid looking at them around her. I didn't need there to be another thing that divided us. There were already so many things already.
"Hey." I said.
"Hi." Ava said with a sigh, sitting down on the floor next to me. Oh no. Sighing is how all disappointing conversations start.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Stella, tonight was the best night I've ever had in my entire life." She said. I smiled a little.
"I'm glad you had fun." I replied.
"I'm so glad you chose me to be your best friend." She said, falling onto my lap. I laughed a little.
"It wasn't so much of a choice as you forcing me into it, devil girl." I told her. She took a deep sigh and I thought she was going to say something else, but she didn't. She just closed her eyes and lay there.
"Ava... I have to tell you something." I told her.
"Hmm?" She asked, not opening her eyes.
"I bought a house." I said. She opened her eyes now. It was as good a time as any to tell her. I was planning on moving in next week before Louis and Ava headed off to Europe.
"What? Where?" She wondered.
"A couple blocks away from here. It's really pretty. Me and Peter have been looking at houses for a while now and..."
"You and Peter?"
"He's just been helping me look, he's not going to move in there or anything. Not right away."
"How come you don't want to stay living here?"
"I love it here, Ava, I really do... but I've spent my whole life being dependent on you and Peter and now my brother and I really just need to figure out how to be on my own." I explained.
"Wait." She sat up. "You don't want me to come with you?" Her voice sounded sad, like a little kid's.
"Ava, you're so happy here and..."
"Stella, I don't know how to be without you."
"I think that's whole thing, Ava." I replied. "We need to be our people, we can't just be dependent on each other. But hey, you can visit any time you want and you won't be alone, you'll be here with Louis and Oli and..."
"But it won't be the same. You're going to be in a different house and I'm going to be here and we're going to say we're going to see each other and then something will come up and you'll be busy and I'll be busy and we'll drift apart. I don't want to drift apart from you Stella."
"There's a difference between drifting apart and getting some space and boundaries." I replied.
"I don't want boundaries." She pouted. I chuckled a little bit.
"Yes you do. We both deserve them. Come on, cheer up. You'll love my new house."
"What about when I need to borrow clothes?"
"The new house is close enough you could probably ride a bike there." I shrugged.
"You're not funny." She replied. I smiled a little, thinking of that one time we tried to teach Ava to ride a bike and she fell into a cactus.
"Look, Ava, you're welcome at my house any time you want. I'll even make you a key, okay?"
"I guess that's okay." She pouted.
"And guess what else?"
"What?"
"Taylor Swift made me a gift basket." I had Peter and Flash sneak it out before Ava could see it.
"NO WAY!" She exclaimed. I grinned.
"Wanna go through it with me?" I asked, getting up.
"Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes." She said. I grabbed the baby blue basket from my closet and plopped it down in between Ava and I. In it was the basic ass merch t-shirt of course and a thick baby blue cardigan with birds on the back.
"I want it!" Ava immediately blurted.
"Want what? The t-shirt?"
"No, the cardigan. The 1989 cardigan." Aw. I actually kind of liked that cardigan. I should've tucked it away for myself. I didn't even get to do that before I decided to show Ava the basket.
"You don't even wear cardigans." I pointed out.
"So maybe I'll start." She shrugged. I sighed.
"Fine, you can have it." She casually started looking through things, but seemed distracted.
"How come you always let me boss you around?" She asked, not looking at me.
"I do not! I just convinced you we had to wear tutus to the show!"
"Stella, I hate to break it to you but there's no way I would've worn a tutu to that show. If you hadn't ditched me yesterday to hang out with Taylor Swift..."
"I was rehearsing." I corrected, even though I was doing much more hanging out with Taylor Swift than rehearsing.
"I would not have let you leave the house in that fucking tutu." She assured me.
"Well... you don't boss me around all the time."
"Most of the time." She corrected. I didn't say anything, just looked down.
"You should have the cardigan." She decided.
"But you want it."
"So do you and it's yours, Taylor gave it to you."
"You'd appreciate it more."
"Stella, you've already given me the best night of my life. You don't have to give me anything else."
"But I want to. I want to share everything with you, the good stuff, the bad stuff... that's what best friends do."
"You're too good of a friend, Stella." She sighed. "I would never wear it. It's preppy as fuck. This is 100% Stella Fowler vibes. You can wear it with some Abercrombie ass skinny jeans and curl your hair and everything." She teased. I pushed her a little bit.
"You're annoying, you know that?"
"My best quality." She beamed. And I'm starting to believe that just like in every universe I was destined to love Peter, I think in every universe I was destined to be plagued with an annoying sidekick. Either Ava or my brother.
And honestly I wouldn't have it any other way.
//
Ava's POV
"And it's time once again for Ava and A-"
"Shhh!" Louis laughed, interrupting me just before I misspoke. He always knew the best time to interrupt. "I don't want you waking up Stella, she'll just come down here and bother us."
"Right. Sorry." I replied, then I gave him a kiss and prepared to start my whole introduction again, "it's time once again for Ava and Louis' cooking show!" I stage whispered. Then I walked over and hugged him and he gave me a kiss. I loved that I could do that.
"Can we please have a podcast?" I asked.
"A podcast is not the right move." He said.
"A YouTube channel then. I can be like Hailey Bieber!"
"Who's Hailey Bieber?" Oh. Shit. Ever since I fell into that alternate universe I felt like I had all kinds of memories of things that didn't actually exist in this universe. Like Peter having friends other than me and Stella, or like an aggressive amount of real superheroes like dudes in metal suits and dudes with red white and blue shields. And Kylie Jenner dating Timothee Chalamet. Weird stuff like that.
"What? Oh. I guess she's from another universe. Anyway, she has a YouTube show where she does things, I think we could have a YouTube show." I suggested.
"I think" he pecked a kiss on my lips "you're delusional" he kissed me again "if you think my next big career move is YouTuber." He said. I sighed and stretched up on my tiptoes to kiss him again.
"You're right. You're no Mr. Beast." I said.
"Who?"
"Nevermind. Anyway! Ava and Louis' cooking shoooow!" I sang. He smiled.
"The cooking shoooow!" He sang back. Louis and I had been doing this for a while now, since going on break from tour. I used to do cooking shows with my Abuela and after she died Stella tried to do them with me but it never felt the same. Most of my life was filled with Stella and I didn't mind it, but when it was me and Abuela's time it was only me and Abuela's time. Stella used to ask to hang out with us and I would always tell her no, sometimes less than nicely. So the thought of doing the cooking show with her always felt wrong. But then one morning Louis came downstairs while I was mixing up some waffle batter for our breakfast and he asked if he could help and I couldn't say no. Now it just felt right so we were doing it more and more. It wasn't really that early, so it was kind of weird that Stella hadn't come down yet, but we were trying to keep it that way. I didn't want her to get sad I was willing to do the cooking show with her brother but not her.
//
Stella's POV
They were making bagels from scratch. I knew because Louis and Ava were talking the pretend audience through it. It was their cooking show time. They had been doing this for what felt like weeks now, and I had been doing the same thing I did when Ava used to have her cooking show with Abuela. I was listening. I used to sneak into Ava's bedroom to listen, now I sat on the stairs just out of view. They were goofy together. I had never known my brother to be so goofy. And Ava giggled like she did when she was a little kid. She didn't invite me to these cooking shows, but listening was good enough. Plus, when they were done they always made a plate for me and one of them would come up to my room and harass me to come downstairs. I think it was good Ava had something that was her own, not an Ava-Stella thing, and that thing was her cooking show. Maybe things would be okay when I moved after all. Maybe we'd truly get to be our own people.
//
Ava's POV
"Did Stella tell you she's moving?" I asked, as the bagels baked. We were making bagel sandwiches, so Louis was standing over the stove babysitting some eggs and bacon. I was wiping down the counters from all the flour mess we had created.
"Yeah, she told me. She told you?" He asked.
"Obviously. How come you didn't tell me?"
"That's something that was between you and Stella."
"She told me she didn't want me to come with her." I informed him.
"Yikes, so what are you going to do? Move in with Flash and Peter?" He asked. I froze. I didn't realize that Stella moving meant that I was essentially moving in with my boyfriend. Before it was like I was just being roommates with Stella and her brother but if I stayed with Louis it would be like me and my boyfriend living together. That's commitment. That's real. I hated things that were real like that.
"I'm kidding, love." He smirked, looking over at me.
"Yeah... I know." I said quietly, absently playing with the flour covered rag I had been cleaning with. He came over and hugged me from behind, kissing the top of my head as he did.
"Hey, I'm kidding. Of course you'll stay here. Just you, me and that pesky attic rat... I mean Oli." He teased.
"Moving in together is a big commitment. You can't even commit to not burning eggs." I told him. He instantly let go and went back to his eggs.
"They're not burnt." He said. "And in case you haven't noticed, we already live together."
"Yeah but it's different if it's just us."
"How?"
"Because you won't just be my roommate anymore. I won't be living with my best friend and her brother, I'll be living with my boyfriend." The timer went off on the oven and Louis pulled the tray out and put it down directly on the counter, which I personally wouldn't do but I guess it doesn't super matter.
"Ava... I've been in love with you since the day I met you. I'm not scared to live with you, just you. But if you're scared, I don't want to force you into anything you're not ready for, so I'm going to remind you of this. If you wanted to, you could go back to New York and live with Paul, or you could buy your own house here. Whatever you decide to do, you're not going to get rid of me. You're not going to scare me away."
"You're not going to scare me away either." I mumbled. He took the eggs off the burner and came over to hug me again.
"So will you pleaaaase stay here with me?" He begged.
"It's so scary." I whispered.
"You can do scary things." He said. I nodded.
"I can do scary things."