Page 33 of Resilience

“And he agreed?”

“Not easily, but yes. He says he’ll follow my lead.”

That made her mom smile a little. “He’s a good boy.”

“The best.”

Mom’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep sigh. “I’m not going to ask details about what happened, unless you want to tell me”—Athena shook her head fiercely at that—“But I need to ask this: Did you get some emergency contraception?”

The question made Athena’s stomach do a somersault. She hadn’t. She’d been so stunned that it had happened and so tangled in the rat’s nest of her head, and then in something like denial as she focused on trying to act like everything was normal, that it hadn’t occurred to her for a few days. And when it finally did, it was too late. But Hunter was diligent about using condoms. He’d been drunk, and he’d forced himself on her, so maybe he hadn’t been so diligent that night, but Athena could not think about that right now.

Nor could she think about the half-remembered—or maybe only dreamt—feel of something trickling out of her as she’d sat on the floor that night.

“Hunter always uses condoms.” It was a dumb thing to say, and to think, but it was the closest thing to hope she had.

“Oh, starlight.” Mom started to sign something else but stopped.

If, in addition to fucking raping her, Hunter had also knocked her up, that would be gross and infuriating, but it wouldn’t be an unsolvable problem. She had no qualms at all about getting an abortion. Unfortunately, Oklahoma was doing its damnedest to rush back to the nineteenth century, arm in arm with Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, the states closest and most familiar. Since the Supreme Court had overturned Roe, abortion was illegal in all four. The voters of Kansas had stepped up, though. She’d have to work out some logistics, but the question of what to do if she got pregnant had had an answer before it had needed to be asked.

She was almost certain she never wanted to be a mom, regardless. The thought of taking care of a baby she couldn’t hear scared the shit out of her. Lots of Deaf women did it, but Athena couldn’t imagine it for herself. Plus, could she even carry a baby when she didn’t weigh as much as ninety pounds? She didn’t want to find out the hard way that she couldn’t.

“Okay,” Mom signed. “We’ll deal with that if and when we have to. We both need to get to work soon, anyway. But I’m going to look into some things myself. If I can find a way to deliver some justice on that polished turd of a meatsack that does not put our loved ones at risk, will you consider that?”

Athena felt like the dumbest person in the world. Her mother was awesome at fucking over fuckers. There was so much she could do—a lot of it was legally grey, but it wasn’t violent or actually illegal. She could do Hunter in a way that really hurt him without harming a hair on his pretty head—or putting anyone she loved at risk.

If she came up with a good plan, they might even be able to hold Dad off if he found out. In fact, that was a way Dad could help—he often did the tech stuff for something Mom was working on. Athena still didn’t want him to know, but so far she’d done a terrible job keeping the secret. It calmed her a lot to know that, if he did find out, they could point him in a direction that didn’t lead to his gun.

Athena had been thinking of her family as the Bulls, settling everything with blood. But her family was more than the club. Her parents had other, better skills.

They could really do something to make Hunter pay.

“Yes. Please. Please help me.”

Mom still looked close to tears, but she didn’t like to cry, either. She pulled Athena close again and they both held on.

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~oOo~

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Athena’s single threat—that Hunter quit his job and completely disappear from her life or face the wrath of the Brazen Bulls—wasn’t revenge so much as self-preservation. She loved her job and didn’t want to leave it, so he had to go. And he’d taken the threat seriously. He’d apparently emailed the headmaster of the school before the weekend was over, and when Athena arrived on Tuesday morning, the halls were full of gossip about why the most popular teacher in the Lower School had up and quit two weeks into the new school year.

Athena had blocked all his contact points on the way back to Tulsa that weekend, as soon as she’d thought to do it, so she had no idea if he’d tried reach out to her and worm out of quitting. He was gone, and that was what mattered.

However, everybody at school had known they were together, and several of her coworkers had been at the cabin for the party. They had heard the first iteration of her cover story: that they’d had a big fight and broken up that night. A few of her most gossipy work friends had taken the little bit they’d known and run with it. Thus, Athena had spent most of the week fielding greedy demands for details and correcting ridiculous fictions. Gossip was so very gross.

Nobody made a fuss about her neck because they didn’t know about it. Sam had helped her figure out an imperfect but minimally satisfactory way to cover it at the cabin (he’d simply tightened the string on her hood so it gathered around her neck), and she’d raided her mother’s closet for some cute scarves to wear at work.

She’d tried covering it with makeup, but cosmetics were not among the tools she used well. She rarely wore more than mascara and never foundation. Her attempt to cover a bruise that was quickly claiming half her neck only drew attention to it. But scarves over the makeup helped.

On this morning at the end of the week, most of the gossip had finally waned. Olivia and Kenneth, the only two coworkers she legitimately counted among her real friends, checked in with her to see how she was holding up almost a week after what they assumed was a painful breakup (and they were halfway right), and Kenneth brought her a yellow coffee mug with a silly stuffed monkey in it. The saying on the mug read “A HUG IN A MUG,” and it made her laugh.

The mug was cute and sweet, the attention of her friends was calming, but what truly made Athena realize she was feeling a little bit better was her mom. Letting Hunter get away with what he’d done with no consequence more than a job loss was an open sore in her brain. Sam had been angry that she wouldn’t let him go after the asshole, and she’d wanted to say yes, rip his legs off and beat him to death with them. Beat him until his eyeballs fell out. Cut off his stupid, raping dick and feed it to the animals at the zoo. But any of that would have put Sam at risk.

Mom, though, of course! She could do all sorts of things to fuck Hunter up. Athena felt a little rush of power simply imagining the bloodless pain Jacinda Durham-Armstrong could inflict from afar.

She’d wanted to keep it a secret. She hadn’t wanted anyone to know. She’d told herself it wasn’t shame but worry that had propelled that wish. But now, with both Sam and her mom in the know and in her corner, Athena understood that there was some shame, too.

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