Twisted Love

At the party, women compete for Alex’s attention, but he does not return their interest because he knows that they would not be able to handle his preferences: “Not hard-core BDSM, but not soft. No kissing, no face-to-face contact. Women agreed, then tried to change it up halfway through, after which [he]’d stop and show them the door” (13). Suddenly Ava’s “silvery laugh” draws Alex’s gaze to her and leads to his lengthy, disdainful appraisal of her personality. Despite Alex’s conviction that most people, including himself, are fake, he realizes that Ava is genuine and pities her, believing that “[t]he world would eat her alive once she left the Thayer bubble” (15).

Josh asks Alex to protect Ava during his gap year as a medical volunteer in Central America. Josh does not trust Ava’s friends—Stella, Jules, and Bridget—to do the job properly, and because Ava’s ex-boyfriend has been harassing her lately, Alex is the only person Josh completely trusts to make sure that Ava is safe. Alex promises, even while knowing that he will most likely regret it. He rarely makes promises, but when he does, he fully commits himself to them. Alex has a flashback to a traumatic event that occurred years earlier. He recalls standing in his living room, covered in blood and staring down at three dead bodies lying at his feet. A call from his uncle, Ivan Volkov, interrupts the memory. Ivan asks whether Alex has completed their plan to get revenge on the man who destroyed their family, but Alex has not yet accomplished this. Alex’s desire for vengeance has dominated his life for 16 years, and he is determined to achieve this goal even while protecting Ava.

Ava and her close friend Jules help Josh finish moving out of his rental house, which is right next door to Ava’s place. Ava sees many similarities between Jules and Josh, which is why she has always found it strange that the two cannot stand one another. While they never mentioned why, Ava “suspected it might be because they saw too much of themselves in each other” (25). Josh and Jules trade some hostile, witty jabs meant to provoke each other as the three work to load Josh’s remaining belongings into an SUV. When nothing remains but a single, massive painting, Ava asks if Josh will donate it, but Josh instead says he will leave the painting there because Alex likes it. Ava is stunned to learn that Alex is taking over Josh’s lease and protests this arrangement because she knows that Josh is tasking Alex with being her “babysitter.”

Two days have passed. Determined to form a more cordial relationship with Alex, Ava bakes red velvet cookies. He invites her inside his house, giving her a glimpse of his private life. She expects to see evidence of his move just a day earlier, but there are no personal items or photos. He insists that he doesn’t need any, because all of his memories are perfectly preserved. When Ava mocks his ego, Alex admits that he has HSAM, an innate ability that allows him to remember nearly every detail of his life. Ava wonders what it would be like to remember everything, musing, “It would be wonderful. And terrible. Because while there were memories I wanted to keep close to my heart, […] there were others I’d rather let fade into oblivion” (34-35). She then reflects on how opposite she and Alex are. Her memories “were so twisted [that she] remembered nothing before the age of nine, when the most horrible events of [her] life had occurred” (35). When she asks what Alex’s memory is like, he tells her it feels like a movie: sometimes drama, sometimes horror. He then tells her to go home and stay out of trouble.

Two weeks after Josh’s departure, Alex is in Krav Maga training, a hand-to-hand combat technique that brings him comfort. Ralph, the owner of the gym and Alex’s only friend aside from Josh, tells Alex that the gym is opening classes up to beginners. Alex believes that Ava will benefit from such a class, and it would help lessen his worry about her and keep him focused on his plans for revenge.

Alex texts Ava about the Krav Maga class for beginners before starting his session with Ralph. An hour later, Alex checks his phone and sees no incoming messages from Ava. Her radio silence triggers a bloody memory of his family and heightens his anxiety for Ava’s safety. Alex heads for Ava’s house, where he finds Jules. Jules feigns ignorance as to Ava’s location, but when Alex threatens to ruin Jules’ law internship, she tells him Ava is with a friend. Alex finds Ava and Owen, a male photographer friend of hers, in the middle of a boudoir photography session. Ava is clad in lingerie, which catches Alex off guard. He confiscates Owen’s camera and deletes every photo before demanding that Ava get dressed and leave the room. Ava’s anger results in silence during the car ride home.

Ava and her best friends Jules, Stella, and Bridget convene for their weekly meeting to catch up with each other’s lives. Jules recounts the boudoir photography incident with Alex and Ava to the other girls. Meanwhile, Ava receives another text from her ex-boyfriend, Liam, which she ignores. Jules stresses how angry Alex seemed, mentioning that Alex rarely shows emotion. Stella interjects with her theory that he might be a psychopath, and to Ava’s own surprise, she finds herself defending Alex. Jules comes up with the idea for “Operation Emotion” and suggests they all create a list of emotions for Ava to try and elicit from Alex, as though they are “giving him an annual physical to make sure he’s functioning properly” (53). Jules manages to convince a reluctant Ava to start phase one in three days.

That night, Ava is awakened from a nightmare in which she is a young child, drowning in a lake, screaming for a mother who never comes to rescue her. Awakened by the noise, Jules offers to stay up with Ava, but Ava convinces her to go back to bed. Ava is unable to sleep for the rest of the night.

Alex ruthlessly fires Andrew, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Grumman Enterprises, while Andrew pleads for empathy. Alex internally judges Andrew for conflating business with personal life, believing that “[p]ersonal appeals had no place in the corporate world. It was eat or be eaten” (60). Alex hangs up on Andrew, unbothered by the fact that his own company, Archer Group, would soon take over Grumman Enterprises. Despite his belief that business and personal life should remain separate, Alex justifies his decision to fire Andrew by asserting that the Grumman CEO “was an asshole” who had “quietly settled with several of his past secretaries out of court over sexual harassment charges” (60). Alex also plans to fire his own assistant tomorrow for giving out his number so freely.

Alex remembers October 29, 2006—his first birthday following the murder of his family. He doesn’t care for birthdays, but when his family was alive, they always made sure that birthdays were special. The memory chronicles his first birthday as an orphan. In the memory, his child self sits at the arcade with his uncle Ivan yet refuses to play any games. Although Alex’s uncle was nice enough to take him in after the deaths of his parents, Alex rarely saw him before that day because Alex’s father and the uncle had an unexplained falling out when Alex was seven. In the memory, Alex asks for one birthday gift: revenge. In the present day, Alex recalls the years he spent seeing therapists, all of whom advised him to let go of his obsession for revenge in order to heal. However, Alex has no interest in healing; he just wants vengeance.