After Nineteen Years of Nothing

📅 Spring Of 2020

[ᴍᴀssɪᴠᴇ ᴛʀɪɢɢᴇʀ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ ғᴏʀ ᴄʜɪʟᴅʜᴏᴏᴅ sᴇxᴜᴀʟ ᴀʙᴜsᴇ]

David was six years old, nervously sitting by himself at an empty plastic table in the cafeteria. The school day had ended; it was aftercare. At recess, another boy had splashed him with mud. Now, that same boy pointed across the room at David’s pants and whispered something to one of his friends. Laughter rippled outward in the group that heard. David felt his face flush and he stared determinedly at the tabletop, swinging his legs and urging himself not to cry.

Kohao sat bolt upright in bed, petrified and sweating. His sheets felt suffocating, like a funeral shroud, and he struggled to disentangle himself from them. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want this.

David sat, alone as always, at a table separate from the other kids; he’d begun to understand they didn’t want him here. He wished for the wildflower fields back in Montana. Aftercare still had instructed busywork, and he was meant to be coloring a barn and apple orchard, all inside the lines. Someone had taken both his red and green crayons. He felt deeply that if he ventured onto a limb with purple, he’d be scolded. He bit his lip. 

Kohao freed himself from his bedding by falling out of bed and he stumbled out into the hallway with his heart pounding in his chest as though desperate to escape the confines of his ribcage. He needed to find Chey. And Anarchy. Or maybe the bathroom: He’d be spilling his guts in one way or another. 
He groped his way to Anarchy’s bedroom and shook uncontrollably, bracing himself against the doorframe.
“Chey?” he called into the dark; his choked voice sounding frail and young; “I’m sorry, I just—I said I’d come find you if I needed to talk—” His bleary eyes adjusted in time to register Anarchy’s startled expression and to see Chey vault out of bed in his haste to cover the distance. Kohao collapsed into his arms and buried his face in his friend’s shoulder.
  “Is something coming back to you?” Chey murmured softly.

“You’re not looking all that happy today, young man. Are you ok?” An older man came in from the hall and leaned down next to David.  
“I'm fine,” David said, not looking up. He felt aware of the other kids pointing. Why was this man here, drawing attention to him? David wished he was invisible.
“You’re looking a little less than fine,” the man said, stepping expertly between the other children and David, obscuring their line of sight and becoming a human shield. “How about we go and talk about it?”
David looked up at him. The man gestured with his thumb at the unkind kids behind him and made a goofy face.
“...Yeah, okay.” David took his hand.

A painful, keening noise escaped Kohao’s throat and he clung to Chey like a scared child. Maybe that’s what he was. 
“Make it stop,” he choked out, his tone bleeding desperation, “I don’t want to remember, please, make it stop, make it stop, MAKE IT STOP—” he grew louder and more desperate, and Chey held him tighter as his shoulders shook harder in the hurricane-force of memory. 
“I WAS A CHILD!! I WAS A FUCKING KID! HE HAD NO RIGHT TO TOUCH ME!” Kohao screamed into Chey’s shirt, his voice wrenching itself raw with a sob that ripped its way out of his throat. He had more to say but couldn’t say it; all he could do was shatter. He sobbed into Chey’s shoulder, every ragged gasp for air painful.
“I know, Gunner, I know,” Chey soothed softly, gently stroking Kohao’s hair with one hand, “He didn’t. You didn’t deserve that, no one does. I can’t make the memories stop, but I’m here, okay? I’m here. Come sit on the bed with me...You’re safe.” He gently guided Kohao to the edge of Anarchy’s bed, keeping one arm around him always—keeping him safe, keeping him close. Anarchy looked deeply concerned as he scooted over so they could sit down together, and Kohao quickly reburied his face in the crook of Chey’s neck, trying to stop crying and regain control. It felt like a losing battle. Chey just gently stroked his hair and murmured, 
“You’re safe. You’re safe.” 
“We’re here, K-O,” Anarchy added quietly, “Both of us. No one...no one can hurt you.”

Gradually, Kohao’s ragged breaths and gasped sobs calmed. He could feel the heat of Anarchy’s body nearby and he clung to the safety he promised; the strength of his presence. Between him and Chey’s gentle hands, after a few minutes Kohao finally managed to stop crying. The quiet hung for a couple more before Chey broke the silence.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked softly, “You don’t have to, not at all. You don’t have to think about it anymore if you don't want to. But if you want to talk, we’re here.”

Again, silence fell. But eventually Kohao sat up straighter and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes.
“Pieces have been coming back for a couple months,” he said, “Just pieces. I...I think I said so the other day. I’d just kinda shove them away and try to forget again. But they all just kept falling back together. And then it was like...more and more pieces, fitting into everything, and my camming and all, and more and more until suddenly I realized it wasn’t just a bunch of fragments anymore—I knew, and it was real, and…” He took a deep, shaky breath.
“I was a kid,” Kohao choked out, his voice strained, “I was six, I didn’t know any better.” He stared down at his hands, desperate to be anywhere else. Chey squeezed his shoulder gently, but stayed quiet and let him talk. 
“My parents didn’t have time or something,” Kohao continued, “I was in the school’s aftercare program. It wasn’t that long after we moved here. Someone, a teacher or staff member of some sort, I can’t remember, just...someone the people in charge of aftercare trusted—came in one day. Started talking to me because I was sitting alone. He said I looked sad. He told me to go with him to talk.” Kohao swallowed hard. He wanted to be told it was okay to stop, that he didn’t need to say this all out loud and it would be okay to shove it back into secrecy again. He knew he needed to keep going.
“He took me to an office, so maybe he was an administrator. Or a counselor. He talked to me a bit more; I think I told him how the other kids were mean to me. He pretended to care. Or maybe he did care, in so much as anyone cares about things they have a use for. He started to come get me during aftercare, after that, sometimes. I liked not having to be around everyone else...” Bile rose in Kohao’s throat. He wanted to press himself to Chey’s side again but felt dirty.

“At some point one day I had to go to the bathroom. I was six years old, I was a kid, it was normal enough to have an adult walk you to the bathroom at that age. So I didn’t think anything of it. He was being nice to me. He had listened to me. Had gotten me away from the other kids.” Kohao felt weak and defensive and he curled into himself; shoulders forward, head bowed, crumpled like a gutter-tossed copy of yesterday’s newspaper. 
“He told me he needed to check if I had cleaned myself properly,” Kohao said, hating himself, his eyes burning with shame. “It was just the first time so he was...testing the waters, I guess. He touched me, my...my penis, you know, told me I’d done a good job and asked if I liked it how he was touching me.” Kohao’s voice wavered and Anarchy reached out: The gentle hand Kohao felt on his shoulder shook with the rest of him. He needed to keep talking. If he stopped now he’d never start again.
“I was a little kid, you know, I was...and...This guy was an adult, an authority figure. My dad had already started to take his shit out on me. I wanted approval. I didn’t want him to be mad. I wanted him to like me,” Kohao said, his voice cracking, “I just shrugged at him. I said ‘I guess?’ He smiled and acted like I was really special, like ‘I knew you were a smart boy, I knew you’d understand me.’” Kohao gagged on the words in his mouth.
 “Fucking understand what? I was six!” he spat, choking on the shaky breath he took before he haltingly continued: “I don’t remember how soon after that...it actually...began-began. But it...it did, and that’s when it started feeling wrong. I remember...more stuff, in bathrooms? But...maybe I thought...that was okay.” Kohao sniffed. “I told him I wasn’t sure about it anymore when he started...when he touched...” Kohao went silent for a moment, unable to manage the words—until finally he just spat them out in a single breath, because maybe if it all was forced out quickly enough then it wouldn’t hurt to say: “—whenhestartedtryingtofingerme.”

He still gagged at the end and Anarchy squeezed his shoulder, starting to draw breath for words of comfort. Kohao heard Chey do the same, but Kohao didn’t let them speak, couldn’t let them speak: He kept going himself, fervent and forced, because he had to, had to, had to get it out:
“He just told me not to worry, that it was normal to doubt a little bit, but that he knew I was smart and if I stuck it out I’d like it; ‘c’mon Davie, you’re a good boy, aren’t you? You’re a big boy now, too, huh? I bet you could carry a gallon of milk all by yourself real easy, right? And this is easier than that.’” Kohao forced the words through his clenched teeth more than spoke them. His stomach churned and he knew his nausea was audible.
“‘Davie.’ Fuck you. No wonder I grew up hating my name, you fucking rapist. ‘Good boy, Davie,’ ‘Good job, Davie,’ ‘I think a six year old sucking cock is hot because I’m a SICK FUCK, DAVIE.’” His last words became a scream, all venom and pain, and finally the tears started coming again. 
“I was fucking six! Was it fucking sexy that I was still learning how to add and subtract with double digits? I can finally read See Spot Run all by myself, does that make your dick hard?!” Kohao pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and tried to choke back a sob but couldn’t. He slammed his fists down into his legs in desperation.
“I was perfect,” he spat, “I was fucking perfect for it. I had no friends and no-one else I trusted; I was fresh out of fucking Montana and my parents didn’t give a shit about me...God, I was a PERFECT FUCKING PREY ANIMAL!” Kohao’s voice welled into another wrenching scream at the end of his sentence, all his emotional agony tearing up his lungs again. 

“Never again, though,” Chey said softly. He looked unbelievably sad and he’d flinched at Kohao’s wail, but now he pulled Kohao closer, leaning his cheek against the top of Kohao’s head. “That will never happen to you again. You’re twenty-four now. You’re not helpless. And you have so many friends, K-O, and we’re all here for you.”
Anarchy gave Kohao’s shoulder a gentle squeeze of agreement.
“I can’t say anything that will take away what that sick fuck did, but Chey’s right. I’m here, okay?” he added, “I’m here and no one will ever hurt you like that again: I’d fucking kill them.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Kohao choked out, pulling away from Chey, “He fucking ruined me. It doesn’t matter that I’m older now or that I can defend myself, he made me into someone who looked for that. All the nights getting drunk at fucking bars...He handed me the gun and I put it in my slut mouth like it was just another cock.” Both Chey and Anarchy winced and Kohao hated himself for it, but his skin was crawling with self-disgust that he couldn’t quell. He wanted to puke. He wanted to blood-let. He wanted everything inside him out.
“I don’t know what to do now. I wanna die. I didn’t know why I couldn’t deal with love; I didn’t know why I couldn’t say ‘I love you,’ why hearing it said to me felt like a gun to my head, but now I know. I know and I wish I was dead.”
“Oh god, Kohao, he didn’t…” Chey whispered. He sounded as shattered as Kohao felt.

“...Yeah,” Kohao said brokenly, tilting his head back as he tried and failed to keep his tears in his eyes, “Yeah, he’d say ‘I love you’ and ask if I loved him too. I knew I was supposed to say yes. So I did. Who else was saying that to me as a kid? Not my parents. Who was the one person who told me they loved me? My rapist. That’s who I heard it from.” Kohao shook his head and drew a despairing breath. 
“I’m supposed to have grown up and been able to say it? To anyone? To Fawkes? With that being where it started, with him being who I said it for first? I was supposed to say it to her with this fucking mouth? Now I know why I never could, why I felt like I’d be giving her something tainted!” He wrenched his head around and stared at Anarchy, whose devastated expression seemed to ache. 
“I’m supposed to have been able to hear it? From you, ‘Key? As if it hadn’t been fucking poisoned by him?” Kohao asked, his voice pitching upward until it cracked. He tore his eyes from Anarchy’s. “I’m ruined.”

“That’s not fair,” Chey said suddenly, sounding almost as upset as Kohao himself, “That’s not—Those words aren’t his. He’s not allowed to have said that to you!”
“He did,” Kohao said, and though his voice was raw, his confusion at Chey’s distress managed to wash some of the brokenness from his tone.
“I know he did! I’m undoing it!” Chey shook his head, sounding desperate and looking agitated. “Love is—Love is the best thing life has to offer, whether it’s platonic love or romantic love or familial love, it’s pure, it’s good! And he thought he had a fucking right to yours, thought he had a right to take it and twist it and turn it into something sick, something that hurts you…? No. Fuck that. I’m undoing it.”
Anarchy and Kohao stared at him, his rare display of discomposure seeming to catch them both off guard.
“Chey,” Kohao said, “You can’t just undo—”
“I know I can’t make it not have happened. But those words aren’t his, he’s not allowed to have them, to have them hanging over your head! What he said, what he forced you to say, that wasn't love! He’s not allowed to have that!” Chey ground his teeth for a moment, then turned to look Kohao in the eyes.
“We became friends on a day, Gunner, because that’s how you do things; it wasn’t gradual, it was a day. Do you remember what you asked? You said, ‘What upsets you, Chey, what does it take to make you angry?’ ...This, Kohao, fucking this. The fact that this sick motherfucker has tried to make it so that if I tell you—you, one of my best friends—that I love you...you’ll have to think about him, what he did. No. I love people, I love my friends, that’s what I do. And the love that I feel for them, the love I feel for you—is mine. That sonofabitch isn’t allowed to have control over it.” Chey looked away and dragged a hand down his face as though to give himself a moment to collect his thoughts, then found Kohao’s eyes again. 
“Look at me. Listen to my voice. Mine, okay? You are loved. You are lovable. You’re my friend and I love you,” he said, and though it was spoken firmly, his tone had returned to gentleness.
Kohao looked away in something akin to a flinch and lowered his gaze to the floor. 
“You’re not getting it, Chey, I’m fuckin’ sorry, but you’re not. It’s not that easy. Anyone can tell me that and it’ll hurt no matter fuckin’ what; I know what I was made for and ‘love’ isn’t it.” Kohao’s throat burned. “...The first memory that I got back wasn’t even him. Would you believe I got assaulted in middle school, too?”

Chey let out a distraught breath and Anarchy leaned his forehead against the hand he’d placed on Kohao’s shoulder, with the gentlest murmur of “We’re here for you.”
“It’s not as bad,” Kohao said quickly, “Or maybe it’s just not as bad in comparison. But...I got bullied real bad, you know. Got called a faggot a lot. Skinny kid with long blond hair. Faggot. I think it was early seventh grade...Older kid calls me a fag, shoves me into a bathroom. Bad luck with those, seems like. I thought I was just gonna get beat up, ya know? I was on my ass on the floor and he looked at me and was like, ‘Eh, you look enough like a girl’. ‘Cause God forbid the guy you’re about to assault thinks you’re gay, right?” Kohao shook his head, forcing bitterness to avoid total devastation. 
“Whatever. It’d been 6 years since I’d been forced into giving a blowjob, so I guess the universe thought I needed a refresher course. Passed with flying colors and then puked into a toilet. Repressed everything. Good boy, Davie.” Kohao let out a short, humorless, hopeless laugh. “Just five years after that I was getting myself fucked by strangers from bars so...I guess I finally learned what I was good for. It doesn’t matter anymore who tells me they love me or what weight there is behind it. It’s all wasted. I’m a thing, that’s all I’ve ever been. A literal fucking cumdumpster.”

“Don’t,” Anarchy said, sitting up straight, sadness choking his voice, “Don’t say that about yourself, please. That’s not ‘what you’re good for,’ it’s not. You’re worth so much more than that.”
Chey picked up where Anarchy paused to draw breath:
“‘Key’s right; You’re not a thing, Kohao. You’re a person, and an incredible one. You have worth in and of yourself, not as a notch in a bedpost or—anything else, anything worse. God, I wish you could see it. You don’t know how talented you are—as a lyricist, as a singer, as a guitarist…”
Kohao hunched forward, eyes averted, feeling hand-shy and cowed, and Chey went quiet for a moment.
“...Sorry,” he said softly, “you don't need us to go straight into telling you that you’re feeling things ‘wrong.’ I just wish you could see what I see. What do you need, Gunner? What do you need right now? Anything, we’re here for you.”
Kohao sighed and scrubbed his hands down his face, desperate for forms of escapism entirely unavailable to him. 
“Knee-jerk response? Vodka. A lot of vodka. Or everything out of the nearest drug dealer’s pockets. Both. But that’s not the right answer, is it? I guess...I just need to not be alone. I don’t want to be alone.” His voice pitched towards fragility, risking cracking. “It keeps coming in waves. Think about it, break down, feel numb, feel like it doesn’t matter. Realize it does, break down again. Repeat. It’s making me seasick. I don’t want it to have happened. I don’t want to have talked about it. I’m so tired.”
“Stay here tonight,” Chey offered softly, raising his eyes over Kohao’s shoulder to look at Anarchy, who nodded. “Sleep here. We’re all tall as fuck; it won’t be comfortable—but please, stay. You’re not alone. We’re here for you. You’re never alone.”
“...Does it ever stop?” Kohao asked, somewhat brokenly, “Or—does it ever get easier? Is tomorrow gonna hurt this bad too?” He made a choked sort of noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t want tomorrow to be this hard.”
“No, of course it gets easier,” Anarchy said, “It has for me.” Chey nodded in agreement, albeit slowly.

“After running away from my foster home, I repressed a lot, too,” he said. “It started coming back just a bit…Well, a bit before I started shooting heroin, and I don’t recommend dealing with it like that. But yeah, no, in my experience, once you remember—once you let yourself remember—you notice the ways it messes with you and you can address them.” He gently rubbed Kohao’s shoulder. 
“I think it gets easier faster if you see someone; a therapist, y’know—and I’m more than willing to help you find one, Gunner—but I know that’s a big step and you might not want to right away. So whatever you do, just know that we’re here for you. However hard tomorrow is…we’ll be right there with you through it. And I know you can make it through this. Past this. You’re so much stronger than you think.”
“I’m not as good with words as Chey is,” Anarchy said through a sigh; “I can only echo that. But I’ve said it before, K-O: I’m with you all the way; you’re my best friend. Getting clean was the hardest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever had to do, and you were with me every step of the way for that. I’m with you through this.”
Kohao took a shaky breath and swallowed hard; it felt like a struggle to find his voice. 
“‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem like enough,” he said finally. “I don’t...I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.” He sniffled.

 “For tonight?” Chey replied softly, soothingly, “Just lay down. Get some sleep. When you wake up it’ll be one day further away. And we’ll be here for you.”