Diksha Sundriyal
In Max’s ‘Turtles All the Way Down,’ Aza and Davis’ friendship from their brief time together in a summer camp a few years ago is rekindled when his father goes missing, and she tries to locate him with her best friend for the reward money. While there are clear signs of an attraction between them, things are complicated for both. Davis is trying to make sense of his father’s disappearance and wondering when, if ever, he will return. Aza, on the other hand, is learning to live with her OCD, but it is a daily battle, which she sometimes feels she is losing. Despite their personal challenges, Aza and Davis decide to give a chance to their relationship, but does it mean they will have their happy ending? SPOILERS AHEAD
Aza and Davis Embark on New Chapters of Their Lives Separately
Aza’s obsessive behavior and falling into thought spirals make it very difficult for her to connect with someone else, especially when it comes to dating. She is convinced that she will never find the romantic love that easily comes to other people because even if she finds someone she likes, the idea of kissing them and being intimate with them is too much for her to bear. The simple thought of her exchanging bodily fluids with someone else invokes a terrible spiral of all the bacteria that will enter her body and potentially kill her. How can someone be with such a person? But then, Davis comes along, and he tells her to focus on the now, not the forever she is fixating on.
Dating Aza is a welcome distraction for Davis, who likes hanging out with her, knowing she is not in it for money. Not anymore, at least. The thought of his father is on his mind, and he worries about his brother, who is his priority. The uncertainty of their future occupies him all the time, and while their father had never really been there for them since their mother’s death, he does hope for his return and for things to settle down into some sense of normalcy.
In the end, when it is revealed that his father is dead, Davis’ fate is sealed. As long as his father was alive, he and his brother had a house and the money to support them. According to his will, all of his wealth would be donated to the research institute, but that would happen in the event of his death. Davis and his brother could be in Indianapolis as long as he was considered alive. But then, when it turns out that he’d killed himself, there aren’t many options left for Davis. When his brother receives a spot in a great school in Colorado, he knows there is no other option but to move there and start anew. But this would also mean the end of the relationship between him and Aza, even snuffing out any possibility of it in the future unless they cross each other’s paths again.
Considering how their lives seem to fork in different directions, only a stroke of fate could bring Aza and Davis back into each other’s orbit. Aza wants to go to Chicago for college, which doesn’t bring her anywhere close to where Davis will be for the next few years. Being on the opposite ends of the country means that the only way for them to be together is in a long-distance relationship. This would actually suit Aza rather well as she had never been too keen on the intimacy part, although she did want it at some point in the future. For Davis, however, being next to the person and having that intimacy, if not sexual intimacy, was important, which he’d clarified to Aza when she proposed the possibility of dating but from a distance.
Considering all the factors, there is no doubt in both of their minds that they will probably never see each other again once Davis leaves Indianapolis. So, the night before he is supposed to depart, he visits her and gifts her the painting of the spiral she’d admired when she visited his house. It is a goodbye, with the hope that maybe someday they will bump into each other again, but it feels more final this time, and both the teenagers know it.
Read More: Turtles All the Way Down Title Meaning, Explained
