Audre & Bash are Just Friends

Audre and Bash go to his secret tattoo parlor in the Just Because stockroom. Until recently, Audre never thought that she would ever get a tattoo due to her aversion to needles and her discomfort with making such a permanent commitment. She hopes that the tattoo will help her feel grounded because every part of her life, except for her connection to Bash, seems unsteady. Bash admits that he’s dreamed about sharing his art with Audre in this way. 

As Bash inks the number 333 on her wrist, Audre feels powerful and joyfully immersed in the present moment. After Bash completes and bandages the tattoo, Audre teasingly asks him how his dreams about having her in his tattoo chair went. Taking care not to disturb her wrist, Bash climbs on top of her. The teenagers’ kissing is interrupted by a text from Eva demanding to know if Audre read her manuscript.

Audre rushes outside the gift shop and calls for a rental car. Bash encourages her to make things right with her mother, but he wants to discuss their relationship before she goes. He asks her to be his girlfriend, and she says yes. 

Just then, Clio and Reshma walk down the street. Clio announces that she broke up with her boyfriend, and both Reshma and Audre assume that she’s referring to Bash. Clio explains that she and Bash are half-siblings: Milton had three ex-wives before he married Jennifer, and Bash has half-sisters in several states. Clio’s repeated calls and texts to Bash have been attempts to convince him to make peace with Milton before he dies. Bash didn’t explain the situation to Audre sooner because he was worried the truth would lower her opinion of him. Audre is surprised to learn that Bash deals with insecurity and reassures him that she understands.

Bash mentions that Clio wanted to make her boyfriend jealous this summer, which makes Reshma feel used. Audre makes Reshma admit that she started pursuing Clio because she thought Clio was dating her best friend’s crush. Reshma insists, “I fell for you. For real. I’ve never felt like this before” (320). Clio storms off, and Reshma leaves with a defeated air. Audre and Bash share an “airtight, healing hug” before Audre goes to face her mother (321).

When Audre returns home, Eva is the only other person in the apartment. She conceals her tattoo before joining her mother in the kitchen. The teenager opens up about the severe pressure to be perfect she’s felt all her life, and Eva says that she hid their family’s history because she was worried her daughter would repeat it. She shows her daughter a shoebox full of family mementos she’s gathered while researching her book, including photographs of Great-great-grandmother Delphine, Great-grandmother Clothilde, and Grandma Lizette. Eva explains that each of these women was powerful but complicated. Delphine was subjected to an exorcism when she was 13 because the people around her didn’t understand her migraines, and she murdered her husband years later. Clothilde entered New Orleans’ affluent society by passing as white and died by suicide. After Lizette grew too old to compete in pageants, she became an escort and uprooted her and her daughter’s lives every time she found a new arrangement.

When Shane and Eva dated in high school, they enabled one another’s destructive behavior. She overdosed after they ran away together in 12th grade, and the police ordered her to be committed to a psychiatric hospital as a result. She apologizes for hiding much of their family history from Audre and explains that she did it because she wanted the past to be a source of strength rather than a burden. Audre forgives her mother and praises the strength with which she fought to protect her and Baby Alice from generational trauma.

Audre opens up to her mother about the way she felt replaced by Baby Alice, the incident with Ellison on prom night, and the panic attacks she’s had ever since. Eva identifies a doctor who can help with the panic attacks and promises to try to be less overprotective about boys. When Audre asks for advice about her self-help book, Eva suggests that she write the book for herself since most of her rules are personal and specific to her experiences. When Eva notices the bandage on Audre’s wrist, the teen gives her an honest answer about her tattoo. Her mother is furious because she sees this as proof that Bash is a bad influence. She orders Audre to break up with him because she refuses to let him “unravel all [she’s] worked so hard to instill” in her daughter (332). Audre feels hopelessly torn because she loves Bash, but she obeys her mother.

The narrative moves to Bash’s point of view. As he carefully repairs the Smurf lunchbox, he looks forward to his and Audre’s movie date that night with giddy anticipation. During a phone conversation with Clio, he encourages his half-sister to forgive Reshma since both girls were keeping secrets. He reveals that he turned down Mack Rhodes’s offer so that he could stay in New York.

Bash decides to email his father, but he isn’t sure what to say to the man who is both his “first champion” and “fiercest enemy” (338). Looking at the repaired lunchbox, he realizes that he wants to write about how his father’s abuse made him obsessed with fixing everything around him. Bash closes the message by saying that he forgives his father but won’t waste his time trying to repair their broken relationship. He feels powerfully liberated when he sends the email.

Later that afternoon, Bash meets Audre at the cinema. When he tells her that he turned down Mack Rhodes’s offer and is staying in Brooklyn for her, she sobs and tells him that they have to break up because of her mother. Bash feels as if his “world crumbled to dust” when she says those words (343), and he pleads that he needs her. Audre tells him that she’s sorry, kisses his cheek, and leaves.

The narrative shifts to Audre’s perspective. Audre spends the week after the breakup crying on the couch, reading relationship self-help books, and despising her mother for destroying “her only real chance at happiness” (345). On the seventh day, she gets dressed and goes to the library to work on her book. She titles it What I Learned This Summer and pours her heartache into the pages. She discusses the ways the women in her family faced hardships and broke rules. Based on their history and her relationship with Bash, she now believes that the secret to life isn’t to invent more rules but rather to “learn from your bumps in the road” (348). As the days pass, Audre works diligently on her book and feels her heart stop every time she sees a stranger with a passing resemblance to Bash.

One day, Audre decides to try art again. Reshma finds her while she’s painting in Prospect Park. Audre has been ignoring her for days because she’s still upset that Reshma went behind her back and didn’t believe that she could win Bash’s heart on her own. Reshma apologizes for trying to orchestrate drama and admits that she loves Clio. Audre isn’t ready to forgive Reshma completely, but the friends reconcile with a hug. Audre encourages Reshma to make up with Clio and bring her to Eva and Shane’s wedding. 

Ellison texts Audre, and she blocks his number. Thinking about how Bash punched him makes her feel better about the situation, and she resolves to finally tell her therapist what happened at prom so that she can find closure.

Eva and Shane’s wedding reception is held in Prospect Park. Clio accepts Reshma’s apology and attends with her. Audre plays her role as the cheerful, dutiful daughter during the ceremony and the reception, but she’s inwardly miserable about Bash and angry at her mother. While the adults dance, she takes care of her baby sister. Audre warns Alice about the pressure that she’s likely to experience from their mother when she grows older and encourages her to be her authentic self rather than conforming to others’ expectations and ideas of excellence.

Audre is astonished when Bash arrives at the reception wearing a tuxedo. He explains that he felt lost after their breakup and that he joined Shane’s mentorship group to help him work through his problems. Shane convinced Eva to give Bash a chance instead of making the young couple “pay for crimes Shane and [she] committed a thousand years ago” (361). Eva invited him to the wedding to make amends. As Audre embraces her mother, she feels lighter than she has in months.

Shane and Eva give Audre and Bash some privacy, and Bash tells her that he’s written his own list of Experience Challenges that he’d like her help completing. The first challenge is to find an apartment in Brooklyn because he got a job at a tattoo parlor in Bed-Stuy. The second challenge is to help Audre and the construction team finish her bedroom. The third is to practice his public speaking skills. The fourth is to apologize to Sparrow because she mistakenly believes that he likes her. The fifth and final challenge is to “[t]ell the most important person in [his] life how [he] feel[s] about her” (365). Bash sweeps Audre into an embrace and tells her that he loves her. She tells him that she loves him, too, and they share a kiss.