A Chorus Rises Read online

  “Homecoming.”

  I don’t have to feign confusion. When my forehead creases and my eyes dart around, it’s because I really am not sure what the eff he’s talking about.

  “She didn’t go to homecoming, remember? You broke up. You wanted to know if they showed how you dumped her right before? Because they didn’t.”

  He shakes his head and then drops it into his hands.

  “Priam. What are you asking?”

  He’s really going through it. He rakes a hand through his shorter hair, looking up at me and then closing his eyes like he can’t stomach it. For a moment I think maybe what I’ve started feeling was contagious. Like maybe my Eloko boyfriend is also starting to feel the wind in his core, almost like hearing it, and maybe the pseudo-nausea it culminates into really is an Eloko … thing.

  “Premium … what is it?”

  “Not what happened at the dance. At the game.”

  “What ab—”

  “Did they say anything about what happened at the game?” he blurts out in a raised voice, like cutting me off wasn’t bad enough.

  I lean against the back of the bench and catch my head against my fist, drawing my own knee up onto the seat slow as syrup.

  “What happened at the game?” I ask.

  I don’t feel the wind now. I feel a kind of hiccup in my chest, yes, because when your boyfriend’s been cagey and weird, you get worried. But it’s finally coated in a warm anger I much prefer. That, I know what to do with.

  “You said you broke up with Tavia because she wasn’t Eloko—”

  He starts to interject.

  “Yes, yes, an admitted oversimplification, but pretty much?”

  “In a way,” he yields, but then lets out a very labored breath after which his shoulders sink.

  “But either way. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? Because it’s not like you thought she would be. And anyway I’m the one who detaches easily, right? The one with impossible standards, who everybody’s always trying to please, according to New Gavin, not that I asked anybody to try.”

  He doesn’t say anything when I leave space, so I nod.

  “But it turns out something happened. At the homecoming game. Junior year. That you’re only just now bringing up, because you’re irrationally afraid it’s in the movie.”

  “Why irrationally?”

  “Because you’re making it pretty obvious that it’s something bad, and since we know literally everybody but you has seen it, I’m sure it would’ve gotten back to you if Tavia outed you.”

  Now it’s Priam’s eyes darting around, as though to facilitate the computing process. And then, slowly, he begins to nod.

  “Yeah,” he says, nodding some more. “I guess you’re right.”

  “So I guess your secret’s safe with her.”

  He’s visibly relieved a moment longer before it finally dawns on him that maybe he shouldn’t be.

  “Unless, I mean. You wanna tell me.”

  “Yeah.” But then he pushes his hand through his hair again in a way I’m starting to suspect guys do to buy time.

  I hate it, but the Fed Up I’ve been rather enjoying gives way a bit to the anxious concern his behavior’s been causing. Priam’s working up the nerve to make his confession, and pinching Jamie’s licorice rope between his fingers even though the soft red candy is staining his fingertips a bit.

  “I shouldn’t be embarrassed to tell you,” he’s saying, but then he waits some more.

  “Okay, so do it.”

  “Yeah. We were at the game, and we were having a really good time. And we started making out—”

  “You can skip that part—”

  “Well, I can’t … because it’s when I bit her.”

  I squint. “You bit her.”

  “Hard. Or hard enough to … she bled a little. I don’t really know how.”

  “And she freaked out.”

  “No…”

  “Wait.”

  “I did.” He runs his hand through his hair yet again, which only serves to draw my attention to how much shorter it is since prom, and how unexpected it was when he cut it off. Except that suddenly it makes sense. If he was worried about someone playing him in a movie, and wanted to look as different from the version of himself they’d be playing as possible.

  “You freaked out. Because you bit her?”

  He just nods, absently studying the red residue on his fingers, and then rubbing them together so that it smears and spreads.

  “I don’t get it.” I’m talking about the mess he’s making right there at the table, and the one he apparently made at the game.

  “I’ve always been sensitive about the lore, I guess. The mythos about Eloko being cannibals back in the day. Aren’t you?”

  “No,” and that makes his eyes snap up to mine. “Literally never. It’s silly, and no one believes it anyway. It’s something people recall to jokingly keep us humble, and they don’t even really anymore.” I shrug. “Everybody wants to be Eloko, Priam.”

  Something almost starts in my center, like the wind is going to start up again, but I keep talking. I say it again, like it’s an affirmation that can undo the past year.

  “Everybody wants to be Eloko. I’ve, like, flirtatiously nibbled on boys as a joke, that’s how unconcerned I am that someone will freak out about it.”

  “Well, I was concerned,” he says, shrugging one shoulder in a way that doesn’t at all convey ambivalence. Especially since he can’t look at me. “And when it happened, it just made everything worse, and I didn’t wanna wait and see if she believed it.”

  “Cool.” I slide out of the booth. “Well, I’m gonna Uber home now.”

  “Wait, what?” Priam awkwardly tries to stand and I have to skootch across the bench before he can, at which point I’m already skate-stomping to the shoe exchange, as one does. He grabs my arm, and I turn back to look at him. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you leaving? And why can’t I just take you?”

  “Oh, because you’ve been weird and pressed and obsessing over whether Tavia Philips thinks you’re a cannibal all this time, and that’s the grudge you’ve held against her, which, I’m gonna be totally honest, reeks of unresolved feelings, and I’m past tired of being cast as the jealous girl just because I’m observant. So I’m gonna get on the plane tomorrow and fly to Boring-Desert-Crap-Town, and you can get over both of us.”

  “Naema…” His eyebrows knit handsomely, but like. Sometimes guys are cute. That doesn’t mean they’re worth it.

  “I’m not mad, Preemie. I’m vindicated.” I wait. “Can I have my arm back? I need to get out of these skates.”

  And he lets me go.

  “I’m taking you to the airport.”

  “No, you’re not,” I say, and when he opens his mouth to argue, “Uber’s got it. Sleep in. Bye, Priam.”

  When I take a seat on one of those carpeted stools that’s designed to look like it grew out of the floor, I can still feel him behind me. And I can feel the wind beginning to swirl. It isn’t like me to change my mind even if I’m wrong— What? A girl can’t know her own faults?—but I know that if I hear a certain kind of rush, I’m gonna think this is a mistake. And I don’t wanna take back a breakup in less than five minutes. That’s such an embarrassing, internet drama thing to do. Even if I don’t wanna be doing it in the first place.

  I like Priam. The old Priam. The one I crushed on before the Tavia romance. Back when he was more like me. Confident, charming. Okay, and cocky. That Priam would either have brushed it off, or known exactly what to say to prove I’ve misjudged him. But that Priam started shrinking before we got together, and now he’s taking an abrupt breakup—justified, but still—with what I assume is silent confusion and a gaping mouth. So I just don’t turn around.

  I don’t look back.

  I swap my skates for my shoes, balancing one socked foot on the other because there is already a mother of a blister forming on the ball of
my right foot. The consequence of being a dancing queen in a pair of house skates.

  Just because I make things look easy doesn’t mean they are.

  Chapter X

  Love Account: Thegavinshinn

  [Group selfie: Gavin, Jamie, Priam, and Naema]

  [Caption: No defense required.]

  MRSGavinShinn: YES!

  LOVEgrl456: Love. This.

  LOVEgrl456: #ElokoStrong

  Luvgrrl325: I love how Gavin used a radial focus to make himself slightly clearer than the others. Please don’t ever change.

  ELO_VE2021: Whenever I see pictures of these four together, I mentally insert myself. Your magical faves could never.

  GavinsOTP123: Imagine you and your three best friends not just being Eloko, but also literally the hottest, coolest people alive, hands down, forever.

  GavinsOTP123: Hottest coolest ftw.

  EloTrash9: I don’t know about Naema, but sure.

  MRSGavinShinn: We don’t do that here. Please return to the ether with that.

  EloTrash9: Unpopular opinion, I guess. Didn’t know those weren’t allowed on LOVE. I love Eloko as much as anyone else, I’m just saying some people’s identity is complicated. She’s not just Eloko …

  EVOLme: You know Gavin’s gonna block you right …

  LuvLee1: Not sure about that.

  ShinnStain7: Gavin’s tryna get at Tavia Philips, lmao! Cute group photos aside, I don’t think he’s caping for Naema anymore, y’all. #staywoke

  LOVElorn: Naema’s queen of the Eloko. #staymad

  LuvLee1: That’s not what LOVE said …

  Chapter XI

  NAEMA

  I’m at PDX.

  By which I mean the literal airport.

  True to my word, I Ubered—no recent ex-boyfriend pickup required—and true to their word, my parents aren’t coming. About which, in her last-ditch effort to curry forgiveness or favor or whatever she was going for, Mommy informed me that I out of everyone should understand why they’re staying behind.

  And I didn’t say as much, but. I’m really not sure I do anymore. I have absolutely no doubt somebody would argue I’m just throwing a princess tantrum because I’m no longer universally loved—and just really quickly, how is it my fault I’m accustomed to a status they gave me??—except that’s not even what I’m talking about.

  I don’t wanna think about the stone, let alone talk about it, but. It was real facts.

  Someone else’s power made my melody disappear. And ever since I got it back, it’s been real hard to miss how it’s all we have—whether I wanna throat-check the non-Eloko professor who decided to question it in mixed company or not. It hasn’t gotten much traction—certainly not as much as digs aimed specifically and uniquely at me have—but if this past year has taught me anything, it’s that things change. So if all Eloko have is this melody that makes the world adore us, and the world’s adoration … I’m sorry, that’s supposed to be enough, but it really isn’t?

  And then, every time I think about it, I get that other thing. The Maybe Eloko-Related Rush Of Wind that is getting stronger, and louder, and thicker, if that last one is even a possible characteristic of wind?

  Except we’ve firmly established Portland is the Eloko capital of the country, and I’ve never heard anything about it in Portland. Of course, there’s the possibility that it isn’t an Eloko thing in the first place. In which case bringing it up would just intensify the whole You’re Not Enough messaging I’ve been getting loud and clear since prom. Which, trust, doesn’t change me? But I sincerely can do without.

  Anyway.

  I have never been in an airport.

  Okay, kind of. I’ve never been on an airplane, and therefore have never been on the other side of security in an airport. So being at PDX is a super weird experience made weirder by the fact that I’m not livestreaming. I still refuse to feed LOVE, though I will continue to strategically delete posts and remove captions because that’s just good business, so I’m not capturing it, but like. The chaos and randomness of TSA alone.

  I do think I’d feel slightly more like myself with a camera in my hand, and knowing the (mostly) faithful were with me moment by moment. It might improve what simultaneously feels like being borderline anxious, lightly confused, and ridiculously bored. But alas. I remain convicted in my semi-boycott.

  Which is why the LOVE staff messaged me first thing this morning.

  See, I am apparently an important content creator, or, as they said, Member Of The LOVE Family. Who, despite their pledge to Reevaluate How Their Branding Impacts The Larger World, they’re clearly worried about losing.

  Pick a lane, friends.

  Anyway, during the two hours I have to kill before my flight—and, if you’re equally new to air travel, you super do not need to be multiple hours early for a domestic flight, you just don’t—I log into LOVE and graciously read the slew of notifications they mentioned in their shameless plea.

  Please come back!

  Where has the Queen gone?

  I s2g if Naema is done with LOVE then so am I

  I can’t help but smile. As intended, there are notifications on all of my posts, but there are hundreds of new comments on what is now the latest—a video of Priam and me riding to prom, because that’s what I posted immediately before the livestream that got taken down.

  And some of the comments are about that. Whole conversations, actually.

  FOH everybody who thought she was chasing stats posting that footage only to find out she was one of the Stoned! You’re the reason she’s gone!

  It has been a Y E A R. If her friends weren’t here, we wouldn’t even have seen what she wore to prom or graduation! I am P I S S E D!

  This platform will literally hemorrhage members if she’s gone for good.

  It already has. This platform’ll FOLD if LOVE turns on Eloko like they’re planning to.

  That’s so unfair—where do we go then? It’s supposed to be about them!

  And the next several comments read like spam. They’re repetitive and link-laden, and don’t answer anyone in particular.

  They read: KnightsOfNaema KnightsOfNaema KnightsOfNaema.

  Okay, Knights of Naema.

  Whatever that means.

  Below them, my followers and commenters continue their conversations as though uninterrupted. There are inquiries from local journalists about my raw footage since LOVE took down the original prom livestream. They’re polite and carefully worded and a complete joke, because despite asking permission, they didn’t actually wait for it before sharing the video on every network. There’s a new crop of them now, and I guess they’re hoping there’s more where that came from, since by now it’s been seen and spliced a dozen times. As if I’d respond to any of them after the year they’ve put me through. Choke.

  I glance up from my phone at the older man sitting across from me at our departure gate, because I can feel when I’m being watched. When he finally has my attention, he holds up his fingers and pretends to blow. Because he wants me to use my bell charm, and play my melody.

  Is it just me or is Portland actually a city of users?

  Is being Eloko just dancing, all the time, always at the ready, and I somehow missed it all my life? Because this man is smiling expectantly, and my natural response is to take hold of my charm and play it for him.

  Me.

  Naema Bradshaw.

  My first reaction is to obey. I hate the feeling of that word, because that’s not how I would ever have described my life in Portland before. At the thought, the wind sweeps up inside me so quickly that the hair at the back of my neck stands up, and I know. Even if that is what being Eloko is about? It isn’t me.

  “Sorry,” I tell the man, and still curl one side of my mouth upward like I’m smiling.

  “I thought you guys were supposed to be friendly,” he says so quickly it’s like he had the retort locked and loaded. He smirks, shaking his head and opening his airport-purchased tome of a book.
/>   I really do try to look somewhere else, mostly because I’m afraid I’m gonna combust if I don’t distract myself, and what do you say to someone who would say that in the first place? Where do you begin picking apart the stupidity and audacity, when anybody capable of reason wouldn’t have thought it was cool to say at all?

  What about not performing on demand is unfriendly, and why do I need to field his disappointment?

  I am seething.

  And I don’t say any of the above for the same reason I haven’t defended myself before now, not publicly and not when the donna said I could. I don’t serve clapbacks indiscriminately. Despite popular opinion, not everybody deserves the honor. Because seriously. What would I look like explaining myself to people who do not matter?

  So I just stare daggers into him. I know he feels them because he clears his throat one too many times, and keeps adjusting in his seat. When the intensity of my gaze doesn’t let up, the man furrows his brow like he’s really concentrating on the eleventy-first thriller about a grown woman the title still refers to as a Girl.

  He’s running out of I Totally Don’t Realize I’m Being Watched gestures fast.

  He straightens his glasses, and I just keep staring, until finally he gives up. The coward gathers his carry-on and jumps up, heading toward the restroom like something just crash-landed in his colon. I don’t see him again until we’re boarding and he pretends to be thoroughly engrossed in his boarding pass as he passes my seat.

  Good. Not everyone can feel shame, and those who can’t should at least feel stupid.

  The weirdness of air travel doesn’t end with boarding. I’d thought finding and taking one’s seat was a pretty straightforward endeavor, but I was wrong. Because there is a type of traveler who, immediately upon taking their seat, realizes they desperately need something out of the luggage they stowed overhead. Now they have to get it down, but this troubles the passenger whose luggage is right beside theirs, and they offer to help, which is more an alert that they are aware of the turmoil, and do not wish their things to be touched by a stranger. Then there’s the dude who decides he’s gonna put more things overhead, and so he decides to open compartments the flight staff have already closed, which even an airplane newbie can assume means that compartment is sufficiently crowded, but the dude knows better, no worries, and he opens it anyway. This is when the Tetris championship begins.