Part 1-- Roadkill outline
The plot of Ava’s adolescence, so far.
Warnings: Cancer, death, depression, child abandonment, divorce, child neglect
Ava’s grandmother is diagnosed with cancer
She will die slowly and not without hope. Ava’s grandmother is a cancer survivor, only to have it come back again. Ava’s mother is insistent that her mother will get better, because she did before.
Ava’s mother leaves her father
Perhaps it was the stress of her sick mother that finally caused her to break, or perhaps it was a long time coming. But finally she snaps after a violent argument with her husband over her refusal to accept their adopted son Eli. She takes her daughter Ava, but leaves Eli. Like her mother told her, he is not blood.
Ava and her mother move in with her grandmother
Suddenly under the care of two women, Ava is the center of her mother and grandmothers world. She misses her father and brother, though the toxic words of her mother and grandmother make it hard to preserve her good memories.
Even as it becomes very clear she will not get better it never really occurs to Ava’s mother that the grandmother is going to actually die. It is a year or so tug of war between life and death, that is especially painful as Ava, who still very young, has to gain the understanding that her grandmother is going to die, even as her mother holds on to the increasingly delusional belief that she will get better.
Feeling confined by her family struggles, Ava attempts to go outside her comfort zone and kisses a boy from her school.
The introduction of Raquel should come right at the death of her grandmother. Ava meets Raquel outside of school, school being a place where she is very much a loner and outcast—mostly by choice and a feeling of inadequacy. Raquel is something different, dropped out of high school already and working at the grocery store, which is where Ava meets her. At first it might not seem like much, just someone who pays a little more attention to her than she’s used to from people close to her age.
All of a sudden, Ava has more freedom than she has ever know as her mother sucks more into herself with grief.
With her mother barely functional, Ava starts taking care of things around the house. At the grocery store, Raquel checks her out. Noticing she does not have her usual motherly shadow with her, Raquel asks questions.
Raquel has her own loss (Her mother was deported). Ava sees Raquel, who is several years older than her, as someone who gets it. In the absence of her mother, Ava grows attached to Raquel. She wants Raquel to like her and Raquel likes having someone who listens. While it may not be immediately clear to Ava, Raquel is struggling with her mental health. While she is very charismatic, and her hints of suicidal tendencies is something Ava never looks too deeply into (because her mother has a tendency of expressing similar desires), there is a feeling of instability to Raquel, a lack of permanence, a desire to leave and go nowhere at all. Its a very one sided relationship, with Raquel only being there for Ava when she wants to be, but even so it is more attention than Ava gets anywhere else.
Ava has never really though much about her sexuality. She never really had the time with her mother and grandmother. She’s has a liked boys before, but never with real devotion. However, when Ava sees Raquel kissing a girl, something is stirred in her-- jealousy. Ava understood that Raquel was more experienced than her, but seeing it in person brings out her own feelings of inadequacy as well as questions about her own sexuality.
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