Chapter 11 Avonna
eleven
Avonna
That Same Night
The bulletin board in the student union promised a hundred dollars.
For three hours of singing, if you could imagine.
I lied when I called. Said I’d played dozens of times and here I am.
To say I’m terrified is an understatement. If I didn’t need the money so bad, there’s no way I’d have the courage to follow through with it.
Desperation wins, I guess.
My stomach’s so upset with nerves and hunger, I feel like I’m gonna throw up.
It’s the first time I’ve ever played in front of people and the first time I’ve ever played pop songs.
Over the past six days, I’ve holed up in a room at the library and taught myself as many hits as possible. Now all I can do is pray…
No. I can’t think this way.
I’ve left my old life behind.
I take my place on the cracked stool, wrap my arms around my guitar and tune it by ear, humming to check the sound against memory and instinct. It’s probably twice as old as me. Beat up, wood dulled, strings changed who knows when.
Eight weeks ago I escaped the place I grew up in. It feels like a lifetime.
Truthfully, this outside world scrapes against my skin like raw wind.
It’s loud, fast and too full of color and noise.
Lights burn all night. No one prays before touching merchandise on store shelves.
For the past two months, I’ve been walking through a foreign land, desperately trying to learn the language without giving myself away.
Now I’m in this strange house. The air is thick with sweat, cigarette smoke, and something sweet and rotting underneath. People shout over each other, drink from bottles I’ve only seen in whispered warnings and grind their bodies together like animals.
It’s chaos. Senseless, wild chaos.
Every flash of bare thigh feels indecent. Also, dazzling. Back home, a woman showing her ankle would be caned. Here, women compete over who can wear less clothes. They laugh with their mouths open wide. Kiss men openly. Laugh with their heads thrown back.
My prior self screams you shouldn’t be here.
The sinful part of me thinks maybe I belong.
The only thing I know for sure is I won’t go back.
Even if they find me.
I’d sooner die first.
“Hey, are you the singer?” A baby-faced boy is suddenly in front of me. “You can start any time. Find me after and I’ll pay you.”
He’s off without another word. With his directive to start, I need to do as he says. I don’t want to lose any of this money. My life depends on it.
On the first song, a ballad by a singer named Justin Timberlake, my voice shakes, but my fingers somehow remember the chords. As I continue, to block out the dark cloud, I squeeze my eyes shut.
My set is filled with other people’s hit music. To me they’re brand new. When I sing, I pay attention to the words and pour myself into it. Try to exorcise pain I’ve hauled around since long before I tore my name off like old skin and started fresh with the one I found on a gas station receipt.
Avonna Parilla.
It’s beautiful. Close enough to who I was, but far enough from who they’re still looking for.
After about an hour, I open my eyes to realize nobody at this party is really listening to me. Not the guy with the broken glasses sprawled on the couch. Or the girl pouring something into a red plastic cup. Certainly not the boy in the corner sketching tattoos on his arm.
I’m background noise. Which is fine by me. The less conspicuous the better.
It’s comforting, actually. None of these people know my name’s not real or I’m only sixteen. They probably assume I’m a student enrolled at the college trying to pay tuition.
It’s no one’s business if I’m sleeping in a storage loft above an abandoned mechanic’s shop with a backpack full of clothes I stole from a laundromat.
Besides, I’m used to being ignored and fading into the background. Considering my circumstances, it’s probably for the best.
By the time I play the last few songs, my fingers smart and I’m ready to leave. I long for the solitude and quiet of my own space, where I can carefully plan my next move.
Then my eyes are drawn to the kitchen.
Two boys who don’t interact like the others. They’re not loud or obnoxious. Both move in tandem. There’s a quiet tension between their bodies like an invisible thread pulls them together, the rugged one carries unleashed emotion like scripture, his dark curls brush his shoulder.
He has secrets too, of this I’m certain.
The other guy is solid and grounded, confident in his own skin. Capable. Kind.
I can’t help but stare at the way they lean together. How their feet mirror one another’s stance. I feel their energy from here, across the entire room. Something deeper than attraction. A closeness I’ve never witnessed in real life. Intimacy never spoken of where I come from.
I notice the way the one says something and the other boy laughs, head bowing for a breath. It’s gentle. Beautiful. They don’t even touch, but my whole body lights up. Like an awakening, of sorts.
I’ve never seen two men together like this. Where I come from, love only counts between a man and a woman. Anything else is wicked. Unnatural.
A stain on the soul.
The kind one leans into the boy with secrets and the air bends around them, thick with something warm and sacred. They kiss. Right there in the kitchen like it means something.
I nearly stop singing, I’m so shocked.
This doesn’t look like sin, it looks like truth. Like they never have to hide anything from anyone. When their lips part, both of then smile. I see it. Desire, real and holy.
Exactly what I want.
I feel it, so far inside I almost miss it.
The first crack in everything I was ever told about sex.
Boys like them were beaten and sent away. Master Prophet preached how they were broken. Touched wrong. Possessed. Sinners who could infect the rest of us, like mold on bread.
But the way the two of them lit up? It didn’t look sinful. Didn’t look wrong. It looked like something I want but never thought I’d have.
I manage to keep singing, but my voice’s gone strange in my throat. I’m not jealous. I’m not sure what I am. Except maybe even more unsure of everything. What else did my people lie about?
After the set, I pack and get my money. I walk home fast before someone asks too many questions, keeping to the shadows with my hands in my sleeves to try to stay warm.
When I reach the shop, I climb the broken stairs past the plywood still nailed across the windows. I sleep with my stolen coat on. Breathe fog when I wake. Count the days since I ran.
Figure out how much more I need to save to get to Seattle. Or Portland. I’m too close to Idaho to feel safe.
As I fall asleep, I remember the way the boys looked at each other like their love wasn’t forbidden. They weren’t afraid to be judged for loving each other.
I’m still frightened beyond belief.
Of being found.
Moreso, what I might do if I stop hiding.
Tonight gave me something I didn’t expect.
Hope.
I’m not safe—
Maybe someday, I will be.
Until then, I need to unlearn everything I thought I knew.