I’m stunned. “You’re saying that your stories—”
“No, I mean—look, it’s complicated.” His eyes dart around, like he’s afraid that someone will overhear. He takes a deep breath. “It was more like—okay, look, here’s an example. So we’d get into fights, right? Stupid stuff, like her dog allergy, or having joint finances—anyways, it felt so important at the time. And I’d yell something desperate, something vulnerable, only to find those same words published in a short story the very next month. Sometimes, when we fought, she would give me this very cool, narrow-eyed look. I knew that look, because it was the same look she got when she was drafting a scene. And I never knew if she was really there during our relationship, or if the whole thing for her was some kind of ongoing story, if she did what she did just to document my reaction. I felt like I was losing my mind.” He presses his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Sometimes she would say things that made me upset, or ask about things I’d been through—and as time went on all I could think was that she was mining me, using me as fodder.”
It’s hard for me to really feel sorry for Geoff. This is, after all, the same man who once threatened to leak nudes of Athena on Reddit if she didn’t back him up against a Locus reviewer. But I can see the truth in his eyes, the pain. Athena always thought that what she did was a gift. A distillation of trauma into something eternal. Give me your bruises and hurts, she told us, and I will return to you a diamond. Only she never cared that once the art was made, once the personal became spectacle, the pain was still there.
Suddenly my eyes flash up to the window. My breath halts and my hands clench before my brain catches up to what I’m seeing: Athena, dark curls loose over her shoulders, draped in that same emerald-green shawl she’d worn to my book launch. Her eyes glimmer with amusement. Her berry-red mouth forms a jagged hole in her face. She’s laughing, jeering, at the sight of me with Geoff.
She lifts a hand to wave.
I blink, and then she’s gone.
“You all right?” Geoff half turns toward what he thinks I’m looking at. “What were—?”
“Nothing,” I say, rattled. “I just—sorry.”
I take a deep breath. The window’s empty. There’s nothing I can point to, nothing that proves I’m not going mad. I have the fleeting urge to get up and sprint to the door, to chase this apparition around the block—but what if no one’s there? What if I’m simply losing my mind?
Geoff gives me a sympathetic look. A silence passes, and then he says, leaning forward, “Look, June. You probably don’t want to hear advice from me, but someone’s got to say it. Go work on something else. Don’t—I mean, just get out of her shadow. Leave this all behind.”
It’s decent advice. I imagine that’s what he’s been trying to do for the last two years. He’s not on Twitter anymore, so I haven’t heard much about what he’s up to, but from what I gather from others he’s making some decent money for himself writing for TV. He doesn’t go to literary conventions anymore. His name isn’t a punch line anymore, just a tired reference. He’s freed himself from Athena’s web.
But Athena is the reason for any modicum of success I’ve ever had. My career as an author does not exist without her.
Without Athena, who am I?
“I’m trying,” I say in a very small voice. “I just—I don’t think she’ll let me go. Or these trolls, whoever they are—”
“Ignore them, June.” Geoff looks so tired. “Just block them out.”
“Do you—do you think I should respond? Try to get in touch?”
“What?” He sits up straight. “No, of course not, why would you—”
“Just to see what they want. To see if they want to talk, I mean—”
“There’s nothing to say.” Geoff seems inordinately angry; far angrier than this response justifies. It scares me a bit. I wonder what’s going on in his mind, what ghosts of Athena’s he’s been struggling with himself. “All right, Junie? This road leads to nothing good. Just leave it alone, I swear to God. Don’t encourage the crazies.”
“All right.” I exhale slowly. “You’re right.”
For lack of anything better to do, I finish my tea in silence. Geoff never orders a drink. He pays my bill without asking, then walks me out to the street. He gives me this long look as we stand waiting for my Uber, and I almost think he’s going to ask me to come home with him. I imagine, for a fleeting moment, the act of sleeping with Geoffrey Carlino, the messy industry of clothing removal and frantic stimulation of parts. Shared trauma brings people together, doesn’t it? Are we not both victims of the same narcissistic bitch? He’s attractive, of course, but I feel no real twinge of desire. If I fucked Geoff, I’d only be doing it for the shock value, for the narrative wrench it would throw in this whole mess. And, though I can’t quite articulate why, I know the only winner to come out of this would be Athena.
“I guess I’ll see you, then,” I say. “Around. Maybe.”
“Maybe.” Geoff glances down at me. “And June?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s going to be fine,” he says. “These things always feel like the end of the world when they’re happening. But they’re not. Social media is such a tiny, insular space. Once you close your screen, no one gives a fuck. And you shouldn’t, either, all right?”
“I—all right, Geoff. Thanks.”
He gives me a nod and walks off in the direction of the bus stop.
Maybe I’ve been too harsh. Maybe Geoffrey Carlino isn’t such an asshole. Maybe he was just young, and insecure, and caught up in a relationship he wasn’t ready for. Maybe Athena really did hurt him quite badly, and maybe we all judged him too quickly because he was a wealthy, cishet white guy and Athena was Athena.
What’s more, Geoff is one of the few people on earth who also understands the unique pain of trying to love Athena Liu. The futility of it all. Like Echo looking at Narcissus. Like Icarus, hurtling straight at the sun, just to feel its warmth on his skin.
Twenty-Two
ATHENA’S INSTAGRAM STARTS POSTING AT LEAST ONCE A DAY. They’re always impossible photos of Athena, alive and well, positioned near objects that are deliberately dated—newspapers, recent New Yorker issues, books released after her death. Sometimes she’s winking or waving, taunting me with her insouciance. Sometimes her face is contorted in grotesque expressions; eyes wide, tongue wagging. Sometimes she’s clutching her throat, eyes crossed in mockery of her death. She always tags me at the end of her captions.
How ya doing, @JuniperSong?
Miss me, @JuniperSong?
I try to take Geoff’s advice. I mute the account, and then, since I still can’t stop myself from scrolling through the photos on writing breaks, I buy a timed safe in which to lock my phone during the day. I try to take refuge in my work. But I can’t lose myself in the words like I have before. All my happy memories with Athena are tinged now with niggling guilt, so all I can bear to dwell on are the bad ones—of awkward exchanges, of social snubbing, of constant stabs of jealousy in my gut. Of Athena, laughing obliviously as she asked about my floundering career. Of Athena, dying on the floor of her kitchen while I stood by, doing nothing.
I dream of Athena every night. I see her in her last moments: her wide panicked eyes, her fingernails tearing at her skin, her feet drumming against the floor. Powerless, helpless, literally voiceless. She works her mouth, desperate to make me understand. But no words come out, only a series of awful, strained gurgles, until her eyes roll up to the back of her head, until her convulsions dwindle to a faint twitch.