Chevelle's Story

chapter 14

It's always a strange feeling being the only person in a space that is unseen. Like, for instance, me—literally all the time.

Up until now, I had (in a very strange way) made my peace with it. Not like I enjoyed being unseen, but rather, I had figured out how to use it to my advantage. How to maneuver through spaces silently and make mistakes that nobody was ever watching. It was nice. Or at least I had convinced myself it was. As I sat across the table watching Farah sip happily from Jared's drink though (at my birthday dinner, might I add), that lie became harder to make myself believe.

I had always found it odd how people could pretend so easily like they didn't know somebody they had once shared the most sinful parts of themselves with. Like, I get that people change, but that couldn't have been what this was. Not when it had happened so quickly.

So maybe it was just me. Manman had always told me I was an odd child. That she had never really known what to do with me the way she had with my siblings. She warned me that my strangeness would cause trouble for me in the future, but I never listened to her. I didn't like to think of myself as strange; I preferred to think of myself as liminal. As, not Chevelle—not the girl sitting across the restaurant table from my sister and ex-boyfriend—but as the water droplets running down the glass of the cocktail they were sharing. Both inside and outside of my body. I was somehow a part of their relationship, but still, so insignificant. Like, even though it was my birthday and technically we were all here for me, I could up and leave and the night would not change in the slightest.

Farah wouldn't look at me.

All night she avoided my gaze, and this kind of unseen made something in my stomach turn. She usually had no problem meeting my gaze. No problem kissing Jared's cheek or grabbing his ass and then looking me square in the eyes. I liked to think that it wasn't malicious. It was easier that way. Easier for me to focus on the fact that she was 19 and hard-headed, but everyone else knew better. My brother, our parents—they understood that Farah knew what her relationship with Jared meant, and that she just didn't care enough.

And Jared, he had no problem looking at me. He caught me watching him and smiled gently as Farah took another sip of his drink.

I could feel myself dying as I sat there, emotionless, desperately trying to hold it together. I wanted to scream. I wanted to rip open my chest so I could finally breathe again—so that somebody other than myself could bear witness to what had become of my heart. I wondered if the fact that it was my birthday meant I was allowed to act out just this once. To choose my own peace over everyone else's. I knew that my parents cared much more about having an uneventful meal than they did about me truly enjoying my evening. I was clearly the only person at this table willing to actually look out for myself, and surely, on my birthday, I deserved at least that.

And so I stood up from the table abruptly, knocking Jared's drink right into his lap with the movement.

"Shit, Chevelle, look what you've done!" Farah exclaimed, grabbing tissues from the table to dry Jared's pants with.

I smiled at my work—a small smile, but still.

"Oops."

"It's okay," Jared said, his eyes still on me as Farah dabbed furiously at his crotch. "Don't worry about it."

"I wasn't worried," I replied, turning to face my dad. "Papa, I'm going to the bathroom. Ti momen."

He nodded. "Dakó," he said, shooing me away in attempt to diffuse some of the tension.

Weaving through the tables, I made my way to the back of the restaurant where the bathrooms were, only cracking a smile once I was out of my family's field of view. And even though it was considerably more crowded near the back of the restaurant, I found it much easier to breathe once I was away from the disquiet of that table.