Nous sommes nos choix
📅 late Spring 2019
〚ᴛᴡ ғᴏʀ ʙᴜʟʟʏɪɴɢ ᴀɴᴅ ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴs ᴏғ ᴀʙᴜsᴇ/ᴠɪᴏʟᴇɴᴄᴇ〛
“When I first met you, you reminded me of Chey. I think that’s half the reason I trusted you so easy,” Anarchy had told Athena the previous year. It’d been just after Chey had first shown up, maybe in some unnecessary move to ensure she accepted the new addition to their weird little family. She already liked Chey, so it wasn’t a problem that needed solving, but she didn’t quite know him yet and so she’d asked, “No shit? How so?”
The comparison had already moved her; she saw how Anarchy’s face lit up when looking at Chey—as did almost anyone’s, except the most shut-off and cynical: He was one of those people who just radiated positive energy.
“You had the same sort of smile,” Anarchy explained. “And the way you talk to people, like you’re already friends, so you end up making them without trying. You’re both such...people-people.”
It was a compliment and a half and delighted Athena, but even as a definite people-person, she didn’t feel it ended up being entirely accurate. Because Chey...Well, Chey was the peoplest. He’d “come with” Alaska and Reggie and Nate; his foster sister and her partners, and they all seemed equally attached to him. Even Nathaniel, with his bizarre monotone, managed to appear “perked up” in Chey’s presence. Once on the scene with Edge of Infinity, he easily endeared himself to most everyone he was introduced to, and he tended to have such convivial conversations with groups of strangers at bars, clubs, or venues that Athena almost always ended up surprised when she asked how he knew those friends of his as they left and he’d answer, “Oh, we just met tonight. I should have asked for their numbers...”
He was the reason everyone now had met Sylvie and Jett, two recent and eccentric additions to their apparently ever-widening circle of friends. Chey had reunited with them not too long ago and would be DJing for them that night at their club, so of course Athena was going to go and support him. Sylvie and Jett seemed a lot like him, really, fun people in their own rights, and they’d turned a helluva page on their old lives—just like he had: They’d spent a long time in sex-or-at-least-sexualized work, dipping in and out of drug use, frequently facing the prospect of poverty. But they’d climbed out of that pit and managed to open a queer quasi-nightclub that looked like it stood a chance at giving House of Yes a run for its money. Honestly, Athena was game to support them, too.
The only drawback was that it threw a wrench into a potential date-night with Teagan, who didn’t particularly want to go to a dance club—or not so soon after her last water aerobics class of the day. So they decided to go out for a quick date around lunchtime instead. Teagan had a swim class in the early afternoon, about the same time as Athena’s next client, so they opted to buy at the counter of the cafe they’d ducked into instead of taking a table.
As they stood in line, possibly for longer than it would have actually taken to be seated, they couldn’t help but bear witness to the cause of the hold-up: Despite the queue only being three people deep, some overbearing man in front of them had taken it upon himself to drag the wait-time out to accommodate his loud critique of the pastries on offer; snootily going on in a thick French accent that back in France, mille-feuille simply never had chocolate creme, and that it was utterly disgraceful to sacrifice authenticity for the sake of catering to American consumers, and what right did this place think it had to be calling itself a French cafe?
Athena and Teagan side-eyed him while the woman behind the counter murmured some customer-service platitudes that he talked over, and Athena had just about decided to step in and tell the guy to lay off when a male waiter sauntering back from the dining area, dishes in hand, beat her to it:
“Excuse me, sir,” he said to the overbearing man, with barely a pause to take in the scene, “Pardon my French, but you’re being a bit of a douchebaguette.”
Athena and Teagan both cracked up, as did a woman in line behind them, and the Frenchman retreated from their laughter, cursing and fuming as he stormed out the door.
“Javaid, really, you can’t do that,” the woman behind the counter chided the waiter, who beamed back at her and failed to look scolded.
“What, Savvy, I’m supposed to just let him yell at you ‘til you give him free cookies? No thanks!” He merrily continued on his way while his coworker scrubbed a hand down her face.
“If it’s not him misinforming customers that the cafe is named after some Magic: The Gathering race, then it’s something else,” she muttered, shaking herself off and straightening up as Teagan and Athena approached the counter. “Bonjour! What can I get for you t…Oh my goodness, no way. Athena?”
Athena blinked, then balked. She hadn’t recognized Savannah at first, not with her mostly facing away—and also what with the fact that she was wearing her natural hair, now, in a beautiful Angela-Davis-esque afro that bore exactly no resemblance to the fine, straight weave she’d worn back in school.
“Oh. Savannah,” Athena offered, trying and failing not to sound too uncomfortable.
“Javaid, can you grab Devon, s’il vous plaît, and then take the counter?” Savannah requested, quickly turning to the waiter; “Or is the dining area busy?”
“Wee-wee, I can go get Dev,” Javaid replied, twirling an imaginary mustache. “And nah, there are only two tables and they’ve been served, it’s all good.”
Athena had barely had time to wrap her head around the fact that Devon was also going to be present when it seemed like Javaid had done nothing less than summoned her, and Athena was faced with awkwardly side-shuffling down the counter to, apparently, have a conversation with her two old friends. Devon had also abandoned her high school hair; trading her straight, platinum-blonde weave for long, black braids. She apparently had given up on contacts, too, and now sported a chunky pair of thick-framed glasses. Both she and Savannah were wearing far warmer expressions than the last time the three of them had talked, too.
“Um...Hi?” Teagan offered in response to their hellos and Athena’s balk, finally spurring her into attempting awkward introductions.
“This is, uh, Savannah, and Devon; they’re...childhood friends,” Athena explained.
There was a stilted quality to how not only she, but Savannah and Devon as well, filled Teagan in on their history. They’d been friends from late elementary school onward; in conversation they’d met at school and started hanging out. In practice, Devon’s mother had been French and rather proper, much to Namibia's liking; Savannah’s father the same sort of way, and there had been a degree of parental networking present in their friendships.
It wasn’t that they hadn’t been friends at all—they had—but talking about “being friends” had an uneasy mouth-feel when looking back, especially when avoiding mentioning any of the bad; how the friendship had seemed to get more fragile in middle school as cliquery became an expectation, for one, everyone’s competitive natures for another—and Athena had just about decided to sum up the way things fell apart in high school with “we sort of drifted” instead of reaming the two of them out for their behavior back then, because even if she still carried bitterness over it, she’d rather just ditch the conversation. Chancing a glance at Teagan, she didn’t know if her girlfriend would even quite understand anyway, because Teagan and Kohao didn’t get along at all—but she hadn’t known him back then, and it just hadn’t been fair…
He’d been a fourteen year old they didn’t know: Sometimes shy and quiet, occasionally caustic, frequently on the ground or facing fists. Back then Athena had felt like the underdog even in her own layer of the high school social hierarchy; more rough-and-tumble than even “sporty” girls were meant to be, a tad too potentially-queer and loudly opinionated. She didn’t try to appease any of the boys around her, but it didn’t tend to come off to many of them in a “hard to get” or “thrill of the chase” way that could have earned her their favor—not that she’d wanted that, but it didn’t. She laughed off jabs from around her, and she’d always been the type to just talk to people, so it wasn’t like she expected anything fucking haywire to happen just because she stuck up for this outcast kid once.
She’d been sick of Trent for a while, anyway; his crude jokes sucked, he made his buddies less likeable by proximity, and his tendency to call anything he found unsavory “gay” or “faggy” didn’t lend any polish to his shit personality. The guys roughed each other up all the time; Athena didn’t have any qualms kicking him in the ankle.
But she hadn’t been supposed to. Especially not for David Winters.
The consequences had come immediately; as soon as the next period after that lunch she started to be trailed by jeers over her new choice of company. There was a snowball effect to it and within the week she felt like she was getting a real taste of what Kohao must experience every day. Homophobia was thick in the air; heavy, like a raised club.
“Why are you shacking up with him, you mistake him for a girl?” someone sneered at her during gym, throwing a basketball at her stomach with far more force than necessary for a casual pass.
“No, he mistook her for a dude, hahaha!” his friend responded.
“Whaddya mean ‘mistook?’”
The mocking laughter after such comments was cruel and harder—much harder—to shrug off than any jabs had been before. Really...things were feeling scarier. Suddenly the guys who were only annoyances before seemed more threatening; even the ones who had been decent when not in the company of their “bros” didn’t seem to have their sunny sides on show when flying solo anymore. One of them—someone who’d previously been kind enough and even bought her something from the vending machine once before—shoulder-checked her in the hallway and snapped, “Don’t touch me, dyke.”
Another—maybe jokingly—asked her out, saying that maybe if she went for it then Trent wouldn’t “wreck” her. That had been a scary kind of ambiguous verb, and she’d gone to Savannah and Devon then, to complain about injustice and hopefully find support. But boy, had she been met with a shock...
“What are you talking about? Just ditch this boy you’re with, he’s basically socially diseased,” Savannah said in response to Athena’s rant, recoiling as though the cruel metaphor had some kernel of truth to it.
“What?! No he’s not, he’s nice!” Athena snapped back, affronted, “I don't know what everyone’s problem with him is.”
Savannah and Devon exchanged a grimace. “He’s just gross, ‘Thena, and weird, okay? You need to stop hanging out with him.”
“Why? He’s less gross than half the dudes on the football team as far as I can tell!”
“Athena, he’s a freak. I heard he cuts himself in class sometimes,” Devon said; “and that’s not even going into, like, the gay stuff—”Both comments easily set Athena off; neither being gay nor cutting oneself made them a freak. Bristling, she responded to the one she could without the risk of explicitly outing herself.
“You know about Sethy though, Dev, so is he a freak to you?” she spat. Were her friends calling her brother names, too, without her knowing?
Devon glanced uncomfortably at Savannah, who frowned, too.
“Well of course she’s not saying that,” Savannah said; “but it's not normal, is it? And it’s different, like we’re talking about David Winters here, he’s just crazy. There's a reason he has no friends. You need to ditch him, honestly, it's for your own good.”
“I’m not going to ditch someone because the fuckin’ rumor mill tells me to!” Athena snapped, lifting her chin.
Her friends’ expressions grew yet more chagrined. “Listen, Athena, if you stick with him we really can’t keep hanging out with you, like, that’s just a total mess. Sorry.”At first all Athena could do was gape at them, but finally she managed to force out a scoff. The Numb music video she’d discussed with Kohao at their first interaction felt more and more relevant, and it was surreal to watch it play out.
“Fine,” she said, turning on her heel; “Enjoy your hard won reputations, I guess! I’ll enjoy being a decent fucking person!”
Blinking herself back into the present, Athena looked at them both and went to say what she’d planned; that they’d ‘drifted’ in high school—but before she had the chance, Devon’s apologetic eyes caught her gaze.
“I’m sorry, you know,” Devon said, while Savannah glanced at Teagan and offered a nearly-timid;
“We did wrong by Athena in high school, I don’t know if she was going to say—or if you’ve heard.” Savannah looked back to Athena. “Je suis désolée; I’m sorry too, Athena, truly.”
Athena had mentioned some of her high school experience to Teagan, but few names and likely it hadn't been a topic of conversation often enough to merit memorization; Teagan looked appropriately bemused and raised an eyebrow at Athena, who shrugged uncomfortably back before returning her gaze to her old friends.
“Uh, well, you know—thanks,” she said, rather awkwardly.
Both Savannah and Devon tried to limp more small talk along, looking sad behind the eyes. Athena couldn’t help but be aloof, though; Savannah had ended up dating Trent for some period of time and Devon had at least once been in the back seat of her own boyfriend’s car when he and his friend had thrown trash out the window at Athena and Kohao as they sat in the parking lot together.
“...Are you and David still in touch at all?” Devon asked tentatively, as if sensing the memory’s presence.
“Yeah. We’re in a band together.” Athena frowned.
“Oh, chouette! Is...How is he?”
Athena didn’t know what to make of the question. “...Fine?” she said, even though Kohao was rarely fine. But he did appear to be doing better, a bit. He seemed a little less volatile with her, and he was going to get to put out a ‘goal’ album of his, most of which was well enough troubling but apparently cathartic for him. He’d let her write a song, too, though, and give input on another. And things with Nightshrike were feeling smoother; Kohao had even allowed Gabe to guest on a track; Locker Fires.
Highschool. Highschool highschool highschool…
“Good! That’s...that’s good to hear,” Devon said; “He, uh...he’s welcome to claim a free coffee or two here.”
“Sure, yeah, uh...I’ll tell him that, then,” Athena answered, with next to no plan to actually do so, because why on earth would he want to do that? What would that do to that semi-stability he seemed to be fostering? She nudged Teagan and jabbed her thumb towards the door. “...Anyway...well...ya know, we really gotta go…”
Despite the awkward air, Savannah and Devon’s expressions turned towards crestfallen and they both seemed reluctant to let her leave so quickly.
“Um, well, here—our numbers, anyway?” they offered.
“...Yeah, okay…”
Honestly it was an uncomfortable situation overall and she wasn’t quite certain how she wanted to handle it. Mulling it over the rest of the day didn’t give her much in the way of certainty, and Kohao seemed to be having a good enough time at Chey’s dancing gig that she didn’t want to dredge up the past with him by mentioning it—not that she’d even concluded that that was a good idea. She opened Savannah and Devon’s contacts in her phone a few times but didn’t send anything, held back by some sense of apprehension...and some sense of guilt.
“...I don’t know how I feel about it,” she said to Teagan the next day, passing pre-lunch-date time at her girlfriend’s apartment and asking for input: Teagan trended towards level-headedness and Athena welcomed her point of view.
“Because, you know...On one hand, I do appreciate them apologizing. And I kinda do want to know...what they've been up to, and what’s...maybe here. But it’s like...I just don’t feel right about actually re-engaging with them when...there’s K-O.” Athena frowned. “He should get a ‘sorry’ too, and maybe I’d be okay with testing this all out if he got and accepted one, but...but I chose to take the hand they ended up dealing me, in a way. He didn’t get that choice. He deserves the apology more than I do.”
“...Maybe you can get him one, then,” Teagan offered. She wasn’t a fan of Kohao and it came out in her cool tone, but she was still willing to hear it all out and be on his side for Athena’s sake.
“I could, I mean, I think that’s what they were offering, but I’m worried about telling him about it,” Athena confided. “The past can hit him really hard, and he’s actually seemed to be doing...better, this year. I don’t want to slap him in the face with a couple old names and have him lose his shit.”
“Anticipating how he’ll feel isn’t your responsibility,” Teagan said matter-of-factly. “How he reacts is his business. All you’re doing is giving him information. And potentially an opportunity.”
“Opportunity” was the word that really won Athena over, because an opportunity was exactly what he hadn’t been afforded back in school. And though she was apprehensive, and his initial reaction to being told that she’d reconnected with people from high school was “Why are you telling me?” he ended up surprisingly receptive to her response that she wanted him to get an apology before making any decisions of her own.
So...she brought him for a rather awkward re-introduction at Aven Cafe, where he allowed them to apologize. It wasn’t a panacea, and at first he stayed chilly despite the apology—but eventually Savannah ended up sharing as an aside that she happened to know that Trent was dead-ending in life and she was glad to see it too; a new warmth found the conversation after that and they all ended up talking about where all of their own lives were at these days.
Savannah and Devon didn’t know about EoI, obviously, though it turned out they had heard a bit about Gabe and Gracian—not an immense amount, however, having been overseas: In France, actually, for university. France had been in both their bloodlines and an important thing to their parents; growing up with the language and re-upping their understanding of it through classes in middle and high school had mainly been superficial, though, they said, and they hadn’t actually held much interest for the place until it was about time to be really thinking about colleges.
“Like...I suppose it was Junior year…? I don’t know, stuff here was...ah...how to say it...un gâchis; a mess?” Savannah said, wincing slightly; Devon grimaced.
“Was that when Trent started hitting you?” she asked, causing Savannah’s dark expression to deepen.
“Grabbing my hair and throwing me, more. He didn’t start hitting until after I got used to that…”
Athena recoiled; Savannah had implied Trent’s manhandling of her earlier, but the more graphic description turned Athena’s stomach. Kohao’s eyes were dark and unreadable while Savannah and Devon continued along the same vein, expanding on high school social life having become rather bitter and scary; with sexual pressure from boyfriends, academic pressure from teachers; performance pressure from coaches, social pressure from everywhere.
“Wonder what all that’s like,” Kohao said, not as sharply as he could have but still only as gentle as his steep frown was. He huffed a sigh. “I know it's different for women. But Athena would have gotten it. Junior year? Bet she would’ve heard you out even then.”
Athena chanced a glance at him, touched by his loyalty to her, while Devon dipped her head with a quiet, “...Probably she would have.”
“Eh, I dunno, I had a lot going on then,” Athena joked, gesturing vaguely; “K-O and I had to share a room, ‘Key was still sleeping on the sofa and going to the clinic every day, we were all working on an album… Also I was pretty convinced you both were fake as hell at that point. Sorry.”
“It’s not as if we didn’t give you reason to think that was true,” Savannah said, “Really, we were fake, still, just...we were also real under the façade.”
The pair of them relayed further how they’d found themselves spiritually shrinking away from what felt to be ever more stereotypical American high school culture; frequently seeking refuge in one another or teachers who felt nonthreatening: Devon apparently ended up crying to her ceramics teacher, a luckily literary woman who recognized the deep need for both authenticity and identity and encouraged them towards a re-tracing of roots. So...through poetry and prose, they reacquainted themselves with France.
“Somehow the visual arts were just calling us, though,” Devon said thoughtfully, glancing toward Savannah, “We started with poems by the Césaires but ended up at paintings by Beauford Delaney...He was gay, did you know?”
Athena and Kohao exchanged a swift glance. He appeared no more familiar with the name than she was. “Ah...no.”
“Mm, yeah, Black and gay in the early 1900’s. You might enjoy reading about him, honestly, he was living this double life here in New York City...Gay bohemian with white friends in Greenwich Village, but closeted up in Harlem with his Black friends...I don’t know. He made an impression on me.”
While Athena reflected on the potential parallels between her high school experience and the life of this ‘Beauford Delaney,’ Savannah and Devon bantered back and forth about the various influences had on them by Suzanne and Aimé Césaire; Fatou Diome and Barbara Chase-Riboud, the last of whom had been their stepping stone from political poetry into the visual arts:
“And then that—it was this thing,” Savannah said; “Take...Henry Tanner and Beauford Delaney: Both children of former slaves, both artists, both moved from the U.S. to Paris… Totally different art styles and, well, lifestyles, but still, the commonalities were the thing. Or maybe the differences were, too.” Savannah gave a soft, nearly nostalgic sigh. “Art had become Dev’s and my...secret passion, essentially—like the one spot we were able to be real was talking about the arts, and our parents supported us in it, so...we decided to apply to art schools abroad.”
“It was also a good excuse to get away from Trent,” Devon softly imparted; Savannah sighed her acknowledgement.
“It was.”
They both had studied the arts in France, travelling to the landmark spots of famous artists for their studies, including Pont-Aven, the namesake location for their café. Minors in comp lit had been both personal interest and safety netting, but potentially unnecessary. Upon returning to the US, Savannah and her MFA managed, with only slight string-pulling from her father, to get accredited with ASA as an appraiser, specializing in ethnographic and fine art.
“So why open a café, then?” Kohao asked, though his tone failed to be as confrontational as his words.
“Seemed a more solid bet than an art gallery, honestly, but we’re going for the slow metamorphosis,” Devon smiled. She gestured to the various acrylic, oil, and watercolour paintings which decorated the walls, and then pointed to the small price tags and business cards that accompanied each work. “We’re unofficially partnered with our old university’s art program. So, we’re essentially functioning as a gallery for work produced by students now. Ideally we’ll eventually manage to just be running showcases, auctions, and networking events for aspiring artists in collaboration with various schools.”
“Yeah?” Kohao smirked, “So, the concept’s that someday you’ll have stopped serving coffee without anyone noticing? Replaced the baked goods case with watercolours, no one the wiser?”
“That's the idea. And hopefully at that point all our regulars suddenly realize they’ve been millionaires this whole time and are just dying for new art to hang in their mansions. Otherwise we’ll have to go back to pastries.”
“Hm. Maybe you should keep the pastries as a safety net.”
---
Departing from the meeting ended up being pleasant, with mutual promises to stay in touch that Kohao didn’t sneer at or go back on during the trip home. When he parted ways with Athena in the parking lot of their apartment complex, he gave her a hug and a soft “thanks” for the reintroduction.
Really, Athena was markedly impressed with Kohao’s allowance of Savannah and Devon’s apology; with him engaging, letting both himself and them be...people. They even seemed to have enjoyed his company. He even seemed to, maybe, have enjoyed theirs.
It was remarkable just in contrast to even the previous year, where he’d been tailspinning like it was his only option; more erratic than he’d seemed even as a teenager and rabidly biting at any hand that tried to feed him. But the waters were calmer, now. Something, or somethings, had settled them.
Chey’s presence was for certain a boon: He was lively and optimistic; it seemed good for him and Kohao to be sharing space. And truths were coming out, too...Anarchy had come out as gay, Nightshrike had laid bare the reasons for all that had transpired, and even more than that, last year Seth had finally confided in Aetos—and then Athena—about his abuse...and had been opening up to everyone else, too, afterwards. He was talking more, joking more, and even if he was unfortunately not drinking less, there was a greater sense of stability to him. To all of them.
So maybe it made sense that Kohao was doing better, seeming a little more mature, or at least a little less explosive. Maybe he could pack all the shit from high school—the violence, the hurt—into an album and an accepted apology. Push it out, let it go.
Let it go…
Her mind drifted back to a conversation she’d had with him the night he moved in with her and Seth, nearly eight years back…Things had been so different, then. She’d gone into the living room that night, before he’d had a bed of his own; found him on the sofa and asked him about the kiss.
And he’d said he knew he shouldn’t have done that.
That he knew he “didn’t have a chance.”
Because he was dangerous...
“Don’t try and let me down easy,” Kohao said swiftly; “It’s fine. I know what choices I made.”
“Can you not put words in my mouth?” Athena responded. “I never told you that you didn’t have a chance. And I never said that I thought you were too dangerous.”
“No, you didn’t. I did,” Kohao replied, still avoiding her eyes, “But are you going to say you disagree?”
“What if I do?”He sighed and it stuttered; there was grief in the air that left his lungs and it weighed on the words he spoke.
“Then I tell you I’m sorry. That it isn’t about you, that it’s not that I’m indifferent—clearly, I kissed you—but that we shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t try and be...something. And then you agree with me. And we let it go.”
“Because you think you’re dangerous.”
“Because I know I’m dangerous,” he said, finally looking up at her, some level of desperation creeping into his tone, “Come on, Athena, you do too. Less than twelve hours ago I’d come to terms with the fact that I was going to kill people. That I might have to hurt ‘innocent’ people, like, I knew that. It’s not that I think I’m dangerous. It’s that I’m dangerous. Full stop.”
“You’re still you, though,” Athena said; “I know you. Who you were before you started thinking—““Who I was before all this doesn’t matter. I’m not him anymore,” Kohao replied. “I’m not—I’m not saying this for kicks or to be edgy or any of that bullshit, but I destroyed a lot of myself in order to become someone capable of doing what I was going to do. And I didn’t make room to survive it. Just because I look like the kid you met in ninth grade doesn’t mean I’m him. ...Like, honestly? He’s probably the only person I managed to fucking kill. Y’know, I—I think that ditching your humanity in the way I did is...is something you can’t ever quite come back from. Not completely.”
You can come back from it, Athena thought at him, across the parking lot and through the apartment walls between them.
You can. You are.