[cis woman, she/her] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [AVERY RHODES]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [EMILY BADER]. You must be the [TWENTY-SEVEN] year old [FRONT DESK AT AURORA BAY ART MUSEUM]. Word is you’re [RESILIENT] but can also be a bit [BITTER] and your favorite song is [YOUR NEEDS, MY NEEDS BY NOAH KAHAN]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [FISHER'S COVE]. I’m sure you’ll love it!
tw: parental death, tw: cheating
Avery was born the only daughter to her parents and while she'd been wanted at the time by both of them, Avery was barely nine months old when her mother, Robin, left them. Her father, Connor, was heartbroken of course and he was angry, rightfully so, but despite all that, he put Avery first. Being a single dad wasn't easy, but he stepped up and made it work and honestly, Avery couldn't find a single thing to complain about when it came to her childhood and being raised alone by her dad. Connor was loving and patient (if not in a little over his head sometimes) but he always meant well and always tried her best and that's all she could ask for.
Avery was seven when they moved into a quaint little house in Seabrook, right next door to the Callahans. The two families immediately hit it off, Gerrard and Connor quickly becoming close friends with mutual interests and his wife, Delia, quickly took a liking to Avery, and with her preteen years just around the corner, Avery couldn't have been happier to have a psuedo-mother figure in her life. And for years, life was good, steady. Avery did well in her classes, had friends, a support system. She was happy. And that happiness followed her into high school and her teenage years too--until it didn't.
She was fifteen when everything changed. When she was woken up on a hot summer night in June to the sound of fire alarms and smoke curling in the air, choking in her lungs. It was an electrical fire, the officials told her, but she didn't remember the details. Instead what she did remember was how raw her throat felt from her trying to scream for her dad between coughs. She remembered her father bursting into her bedroom, the panicked look on his face. She only had time to grab her stuffed rabbit she'd had since she was a baby and a photo of them she had framed on her bedside table as he grabbed for her, hauling her out of her room seconds before it went up in flames. She remembered the terror that outweighed the pain as they had to run through their burning house, flames licking at her arms and legs until they were on the grass outside, and the sound of fire alarms was replaced by the sound of sirens and cries for help. She then remembered getting loaded into an ambulance, the adrenaline still making it so she didn't really feel the pain of the burns on her skin.
The adrenaline was soon replaced then with shock, with sheer disbelief that in a matter of minutes, her home was gone. It left her numb enough that the doctors and nurses could tend to her, feeding her oxygen and treating and wrapping the more severe burns along her body. And it was that numbness that prevailed too when more doctors came into her room, faces more somber when they broke the news that her father didn't make it. He'd inhaled too much smoke and had had a heart attack, passing away on the table. And yet again, in a matter of minutes, her home was gone.
The Callahans were there before she even realized it, Avery still stuck in the shock and numbness of it all to fully comprehend that not only was she homeless, but she was now orphaned. She wasn't even sure what conversations had been had (or if there'd even been one between the husband and wife) but when Avery had been discharged, there was a social worker there granting the Callahans to take her with them.
In hindsight, it was 'for the best' that it happened in the summer at least, because it took Avery a few weeks to even speak let alone to come to terms with it all. The Callahans had been endlessly patient with her though, so much so that when she finally screamed at them and ultimately broke down sobbing, they were there to hold her, to pick up the pieces of the broken girl they loved so much. And after that, it was still a test of patience, and a lot of struggle and a lot of nightmares and tears (especially as school started back up), but Avery and her foster family made it work.
Years went by and before they knew it, Avery was graduating high school and going off to college, choosing Oregon State amongst the various schools she'd been accepted to. And it was in her senior year there that she met Owen. He had just graduated the year prior, was charming as hell, and the rest, as they say, was history. Avery was 22 when she graduated with a history degree and a positive pregnancy test and despite her worries, Owen assured her they'd be fine and so, instead of moving back to Aurora Bay after graduation, Avery decided to stay in Oregon with Owen, the two of them getting a little house in Portland. Their daughter Quinn Connor Rhodes was born soon after moving and again, for a few years, life was good. Until, again, it wasn't.
Owen couldn't pick up Quinn from daycare because he was too busy at work, would get mad when Avery was too tired to make dinner (or too tired for anything else). Any semblance of date nights were few and far in between. Some nights, Avery would go to bed alone, and most mornings she took care of Quinn on her own while Owen kept on sleeping, It wasn't even until Owen forgot Quinn's birthday in October that she started to call him out on things, but when Owen chalked it all up to being stressed from work....she believed it. In fact, she even apologized for lashing out at him.
In hindsight, she should have lashed out more.
He didn't want to take Quinn trick-or-treating, would be on a work trip the week of Thanksgiving, and while her Christmas present had been an outrageously-expensive perfume, Quinn's had been a toy from a movie she hadn't even liked for over a year. Owen was just....checked out. It all came to a head on Valentine's weekend. There was a charge for a lavish bouquet of roses, and Avery...she was allergic to them. Not to mention that Owen hadn't even bought her flowers in well over a year. And this time when she called Owen out, not only did he not deny things, he came clean about everything.
He'd been having an affair with a coworker for nearly a year. They were in love, he wanted to marry her. Avery had been with him for seven years, had given him a daughter, had tried to build a life for them, and marriage was never once mentioned outside of playful jibes from family and friends. And yet...
That numbness Avery had felt when she was fifteen and her life had been upended was settling into her bones once again and it's what fueled her as she took care of every next step with succinct precision.
Owen offered to leave but she beat him to it, no longer wanting to live in the house they'd bought together. He and his girlfriend could have it. It could burn down too for all she cared. He didn't fight her on custody either because he didn't even want Quinn, which was glaringly apparent once Avery started looking back at how detached Owen had been over the last couple years. He didn't stop her as she quit her job at the Portland Art Museum and packed their bags. She didn't care about child support either. She just needed to get away. She needed to go home.
The nearly 17 hour drive was done in two days only because Quinn deserved to sleep in a motel bed and not cramped in the car with nearly everything they owned crammed inside and in the early morning hours, Avery and Quinn arrived on her foster brother Hunter's doorstep in Fisher's Cove. She hadn't even told him she was coming, nor did Delia and Gerrard know she was back in town. And it wasn't until Quinn hurtled herself into her uncle's arms did Avery finally feel herself starting to crack, her breakdown imminent as she once again found herself without a home and her life upended and turning to the Callahans for help.
She's only been in Aurora Bay since the beginning of March, settled into Hunter's home until she could sort out a place of her own. Quinn's been enrolled in preschool to try and get some semblance of normalcy back into her young life and Avery has recently taken on a job at the Aurora Bay Art Museum, a place she found solace in growing up. And maybe third time's the charm when it comes to trying to have her life stable and good.
@aurorabayaesthetic
Extras:
full name: Avery Jane Rhodes
nicknames: Aves, Ree, AJ
birthday: November 26, 1998
height: 5'4
daughter: Quinn Connor Rhodes (October 9, 2021)
parents: Connor Rhodes (deceased), Robin Rhodes (née Murphy. Status unknown)
burn scars on both legs near her shins, on her left forearm, and back of her left hand.
hometown: Aurora Bay, CA.
her father Connor was killed in a house fire in June 2013. she was fostered by the Callahan's soon after.
AB High class of 2017. went to Oregon State University from 2017-2021
lived in Portland until late February 2026, then moved back to AB mid-march 2026.
pinterest board
Connections:
@hcnter - foster brother. currently living with him in fisher's cove
@noah-atwood - hunter's cousin, close friend
@loreyoon - childhood friend and now mom-friends
@orianacperez - childhood friend
@rcwan - ex-childhood best friend, drifted apart after the fire
@hinataxito - trauma bond friends
