Tybee resident, AVIANA LOPEZ.
AVIANA’S PERSONAL INFORMATION
FULL NAME: Aviana Sofía Lopez
GENDER: Cisfemale
PRONOUNS: She/Her
AGE: 30
BIRTHDAY: November 12th
BIRTH ORDER: Second
RELATION: Full Sibling
TYPE: Twin
ORIENTATION: Heterosexual/Heteromantic
JOB TITLE(S): Co-Owner of Fusion Dance Academy
FACECLAIM: Naya Rivera
Pregnancy in general is risky. In fact, for many women, the chances of even managing to conceive at all are incredibly slim, so when Maribel and Miguel Lopez learned they were blessed with twins, despite being ecstatic, they were also terrified. What if something went wrong? What if Maribel’s small body wasn’t capable of growing two healthy babies and delivering them safely? Throughout the pregnancy, however, they remained positive, and it seemed it had paid off, right up until one cold November evening, when Maribel went into labor. Her due date was only a couple days away, and having been told it was common for multiples to arrive weeks before they were due, she and her husband were feeling pretty lucky. Until their second twin was born, no crying filling the room to join her sister’s.
Before they’d even gotten the chance to look at her, their daughter was being whisked away by medical staff who got to work on figuring out why the baby wasn’t crying. She wasn’t moving or doing much of anything, in fact, but an eventual short breath, followed by a loud, piercing cry began to fill the room, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Both Maribel and Miguel got to hold their baby girl and call her by her name, Aviana, before she was taken away for tests. The conclusion was that, due to some unseen complication in the womb, Aviana had been born with a hole in her heart, and would need corrective surgery as soon as possible. The thought of putting their newborn through surgery was terrifying, but it was necessary, so her parents waited with baited breath for news that everything had gone according to plan only a few days later.
Fortunately, the surgery had been successful, but Aviana would always have what her parents explained to as she reached early childhood as ‘a special heart,’ and would require more surgeries in the future and regular check-ups, but that was okay. As long as Aviana got to live, that was all her parents cared about, and it seemed she was never going to let her health get the better of her, either. Quickly, Avi had developed her own personality, and it was an incredibly bright and bubbly one. She was constantly smiling and radiating happiness, the type of person to have a whole room giggling along with her. She had a lot of energy, too. Thinking of that sickly newborn with tubes attached to her tiny body in comparison with the way four year old Avi was, it was like looking at two different people, though her parents were admittedly very cautious as far as what they allowed her to do.
When Aviana learned what dance was, and that there were classes she could take to do it, she of course wanted to sign up. Her parents were hesitant, not wanting their baby to exert herself too much, but it was her grandmother that reminded them that they couldn’t keep her in a bubble her whole life; what was the point in a life that she couldn’t actually live? Eventually, they caved, meeting with the teacher of a local ballet class and explaining their daughter’s health issues. The teacher promised that she’d go easy on Aviana, and would make sure to tailor her routines for her. It turned out, however, that Avi had no intentions of holding herself back, and before anyone knew it, she was outshining the rest of her ballet class with her natural ability. She was growing and soon enrolling in various other dance classes, defying the odds and displaying precision and talent the entire time.
Aviana made it to high school before she learned that she had to slow down. Her whole life, she’d attended hospital appointment after hospital appointment; check-up after check-up, all without complaint. Avi remained a bright and bubbly person, made friends easily, and just generally adored life. In spite of everything, she captained her high school’s dance team, and continued to participate in competitive dance outside of school. Her bedroom was lined with ribbons and trophies before long, and the Lopez’s were traveling to places like New York City to watch their daughter on stage, dancing like her life depended on it and earning further first place trophies and titles. It was evident that dance was her life, and she had big plans to continue it well into adulthood. Unfortunately, it was during a dance show at school, choreographed by Aviana and a couple other girls, that that dream came to an end for her.
The full details have remained hazy; all Avi remembers is that one moment she was up on stage, dancing with the rest of the team, and the next she was waking up in hospital with her parents sitting by her bedside. She’d already applied to colleges, all to major in dance, some of which had scouted her personally, but the doctor informed her that she couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t dance, it was taking too hard a toll on her body and on the heart that would never be normal, and Avi felt like her world had caved in around her right at that moment. She was smart, but no other career paths interested her. If Aviana didn’t have dance, she didn’t have her identity, and the inevitable crisis followed shortly after.
While the school humored her by keeping her involved in the dance team, she couldn’t actually dance with them. All Avi could do was choreograph from the sidelines and help out with outfit choices for competitions. Truth be told, she hated it, and threw herself harder than ever into what had already been an active social life for her. The only person to keep her truly grounded was her best friend, someone she’d viewed as a brother since childhood. Generally, she’d spend her time partying, drinking way too much especially for a person with her condition, and although she kept up a positive outward appearance—she did have a bark, of course, but for the most part, Avi is harmless—she did find herself pushing people away, including her boyfriend. She didn’t even want to break up with him, but gave him some speech about how she was a strong, independent woman. Truthfully, she just didn’t want to drag him down with her.
He was a year older than her, so he’d graduated already and gone off to college, with Avi not concerning herself in where he was or what he was doing. Though it’s hard to believe, it was by pure chance that she found herself enrolling in the same college as him. Avi had always been a free spirit, and wanted to go somewhere outside of her hometown, but to appease her parents, she made sure to stay in Georgia. Emory University, in Atlanta, was far enough away that she wasn’t on their doorstep, but close enough to keep them happy, and offered the classes Aviana wanted to take. Of course, she would much prefer to be dancing, but since she couldn’t, she decided to embark on a new dream, one that would see her owning a huge dance school someday. Avi majored in Business with a minor in Dance Theory in the pursuit of making that happen.
Try as she might to leave it behind, though, dancing was in her veins, and when a harmless night in a strip club with a few friends resulted in her landing herself a job where she’d be able to dance on stage in her panties and swing around a pole for money, Aviana felt she’d found something to quench her urge. It was a stupid idea; it was dangerous for her health, and Avi made sure her parents would never find out about it. Luckily, she was able to make it through her job there unscathed and with no more surprise heart glitches, probably in part thanks to her ex. On a night out with his own friends one night that brought them to the club, he saw Avi dancing and literally carried her out of the place, warning her that what she was doing could be super harmful. She knew he was right, though it didn’t stop her from breaking down and telling him that it was the last dance thing she had left. While Avi agreed to quit, she had no idea that the cogs in his mind had begun turning.
Sure, maybe she’d broken up with him, but Lincoln had always been a weak spot for Aviana, and although they didn’t jump back into anything romantic together, they did pursue a friendship, which in later years would grow into a partnership. Not the romantic kind, though. Together, they begun discussing business ideas, with Aviana telling him about her dream dance school, and by their late twenties, they were purchasing the space to make that dream a reality. However, they may have gotten a little too carried away when it came down to celebrating their business success, considering a glass of champagne turned into a bottle, then night turned to day and they were waking up in bed together, their business plans being put on hold shortly after when they found themselves faced with a positive pregnancy test.
Aviana had always dreamed of having a happy marriage and a kid or two, but she’d pictured it much differently to this. In her mind, she’d been older, maybe mid-thirties and happy to slow down her dance career some, but that clearly wasn’t going to be the case. There was no question about it, the two decided unanimously that they would keep their baby, and that they would co-parent and stumble their way through. Eight months later, their daughter, Isabela Faith Adams was born, and as they waited tearfully to meet her, Avi and Link were met with silence, the same way Maribel and Miguel had been when Aviana was born. In an almost identical turn of events, tests showed that Isabela had been born with a hole in her heart just like her mother’s, and would suffer the same condition throughout her life, too.
Devastated doesn’t even begin to cover how Aviana felt for her daughter, but as she has with everything else in her life, she knew she would just take it and roll with it the best she could; even better this time, since it was for her daughter. It’s said that a baby does change a person’s life, and in Aviana’s case, that’s absolutely true. Everything she does now is for her daughter; Isabela being the motivation she and Lincoln needed to get back to whipping their business into shape. Isabela is now a year old, and Avi and Link seem to have gotten the hang of co-parenting, while also dedicating as much time as they can to their business. It isn’t what they want it to be yet; it’s just a building with rooms that they rent to dance teachers to teach their classes, but they have big plans to expand it to a real school someday. They both know it’s going to happen, but like everything, it will just take time.