Audre & Bash are Just Friends

Bash sprints to the restaurant where Audre is waiting for him, and he arrives right as she’s debating leaving and never speaking to him again. Audre’s bearing is cold and distant. When he asks her about the lunchbox, she says that she needed to do something that frightens her to complete the fifth challenge and that she wanted to prove that she was strong enough to do this without him. Audre tells Bash about the memoir and how it makes her question everything she thought she knew about herself, her mother, and their family.

Bash apologizes for the way that his secrecy has contributed to her confusion and pain. He opens up about his father’s obsession with turning him into the Olympic champion Miton couldn’t be. Milton abused Bash by making him go a day without food or sleep on the bathroom floor if he didn’t win every race. By the time he was 14, he’d already endured countless athletic injuries. His father despised his love of art and surfing, his gentle nature, and his powerful emotions.

Milton belongs to a church with a virulent antigay bias, and he disowned Bash because he kissed a boy named Jaden, who was on a rival track team.