Page 14 of Choke

What truly unsettled me, though, wasn’t the memories of her. It was the echo ofthem—two men whose names I haven’t dared speak aloud in two years. Two men I once believed could see every fractured part of me… and maybe still do.

Two men I miss more than I care to admit.

“Why is he wearing sunglasses inside a coffee shop?” Ari's question pulls me from my thoughts.

I shrug. “I’m sure he has his reasons. Maybe he just had eye surgery.” I wiggle my eyebrows. “Maybe he’s checking you out?”

Ari snort-laughs. “That’s instant serial killer behavior. Oh, my god, what if he wants to kidnap you? Or me? I love the whole Stockholm Syndrome trope in books, but I don’t want to live that fantasy. With my luck, Mr. Hotstuff over there would take me to a seventy-year-old Hugh Heffner type who would chain me up in his basement and force me to do disgusting things to his shriveled penis.”

Laughter bursts out of me. “The issue isn’t the kidnapping, but that the penis could be of the geriatric variety?”

Ari slaps her palm to her face and lets out an audible grasp. “I’m so sorry. I’m such a lousy friend.”

My lips tip up in a reassuring smile. It’s interesting how people react to what I went through two years ago. Apparently, being kidnapped by a money-hungry cult leader is a taboosubject for those who’ve never experienced it. “It’s not a big deal. It was years ago. We can be normal about it all.”

Ari sips her iced coffee while she studies me. Silence is something that’s always bothered me. I hate it. There has never been a moment of comfortable silence in my life. I sit with my discomfort, fighting the sudden urge to crack open her head to figure out what she’s thinking. I wish people would ask what they want to know instead of being so damn weird.

“You never talk about it, so I assumed something bad happened, you know?” Ari finally says. “In my experience, avoidance is usually due to trauma.”

Ari isn’t wrong. I have trauma. A shit load of trauma. The healthy thing would be to tell my therapist and work it out, but I’m Persian, and we don’t like people to know our secrets. Oh, the way of Persian people? Bottle it up, swallow it, put it under the rug, cover it with a blanket—anything other than revealing the chips and cracks in your armor.

I always thought it was stupid to feel that way. But the thought processes are lodged in my DNA. My mother tried so hard to break us of it. Growing up, nothing was too shameful or taboo to discuss. My mother’s only rule was to not lie to her. She promised we wouldn’t get in trouble as long as we told the truth. That woman even accepted my sister having three boyfriends.

Even with a mother like mine, I wanted to pretend it was all okay, and if it weren’t, I’d fabricate a story to convince myself it was.

This moment feels perfect to shed the heavy burden of those few weeks when I was kidnapped. But a nagging doubt creeps into my mind, whispering that my struggles were insignificant compared to the other women.

Those women were abused in violent ways I don’t think I would ever recover from. Those memories keep me silent about my suffering, which was nothing in the grand scheme of things.So what if I fucked two hot guys to keep myself safe? Two hot guys who were kind to me for the most part. Two hot guys who saved me.

I glance at the man in the glasses briefly before lifting my gaze to the clock on the wall above his head. “Oh, crap. I’ve got to get going. I have a shift at the shelter.”

“So, I guess you won’t be coming out with us tonight?”

“No.” I shake my head.

“You never come out.”

I laugh. “It’s just not my scene.”

“Dinner with people your age isn’t your scene?”

I close my eyes momentarily. “I just need to focus on work for now.”

It’s hard to explain to Ari that I’m not the same person I was two years ago. Back then, I was out until all hours of the night, usually drunk. I was soaking in life as if I had nothing to lose. Two years ago, I didn’t know what I know now. I was still living in denial. I was oblivious to the world’s harshness despite being my mother’s daughter and having a sister who risked her life for years to save the very women I witnessed being brutalized and did nothing to help.

Ari nods and gives me a quick hug before I head out the door.

I didn’t help those women back then, but I’m determined to help anyone I can now.

13

MONA

“Do you have Persian food every night?” my sister asks as she scoops rice into Lev’s plate.

I’ve always found that amusing about my sister. She’s married to three capable men who worship the ground she walks on, but she still insists on taking care of them like children.

I watch as she carefully places the kabob, grilled tomato, and raw onion away from the rice. She treats them like babies. Their food can’t even touch. “You gonna chew up that rice and kabob for him, too, or can he manage that all on his own like a big boy?”

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