Audre & Bash Are Just Friends(9)

Sometimes, Bash felt like he was watching his life happen to someone else. Like he was the subject of a Hulu documentary about an Olympics-bound track star’s harrowing fall from grace.

“Are you listening to me?” asked Clio, snapping her fingers in front of Bash’s face.

“I’m sorry, I’m a little… fucked-up.” He sat up and ran his hands over his face. Then he peered up at the window. “Do you think they’ll go home soon?”

Clio laughed at this. Her smile was radiant, with an adorable gap between her front teeth. Micro-locs tumbled to her shoulders, a few decorated with gold cuffs. Her laughter was always contagious. Despite himself, Bash chuckled with her, shaking his head.

“Why’d you invite a bunch of high school kids to your house on the last day of school if you didn’t want them to party?”

“High school kids, like you’re so beyond this,” he mocked with a sleepy grin. “You’re a freshman at Cornell. This was you last year.”

“This was never me. I wouldn’t show up to somebody’s house and break shit.”

“You will show up and lecture me, though.”

With a sigh, Clio drew her hand into a fist and gently pressed it against his jaw. “Stubborn.”

“I know you’re just worried about me,” he admitted.

“I am. After everything that happened, the drama and the scandal… I just, well, I worry about your state of mind. You barely graduated. Your track plans are off the table. You used to be so driven. So ambitious.” She pointed at him. “Now you’re sitting outside your own party, high as fuck, feeling sorry for yourself.”

“I don’t feel sorry for myself,” mumbled Bash, trying to hide his hurt feelings. “I don’t really feel anything right now.”

“Whatever,” she sighed. “Call Milton. What he did to you? Unforgivable. But it’s not about forgiving him. It’s about getting closure so you can have peace. I don’t want to hear you complain about your life until you’ve done it. I’m done.”

She swung her canvas tote over her arm. It was embroidered with floral letters spelling out BLACK, BOOKISH, WITCHY.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I have work early in the morning. Plus, this conversation’s going nowhere.” Clio was clearly annoyed. “I’ll text later.”

“Please stay. Just for, like, five minutes.” He didn’t want to be alone.

“Okay, but…”

Just then, Bash’s phone buzzed. It was his mom on FaceTime. Unfortunately, in his altered state, he reflexively tapped the green button instead of the red one. He grimaced, whispered fuck through gritted teeth, and then quickly flashed a smile at the screen.

“Bash! Oh! Hi!”

Jennifer was the one who called, but she sounded so surprised to see him. It was as if she was startled simply by the fact that he existed.

To be honest? Bash wasn’t used to her presence, either. This blond-haired, blue-eyed white lady was related to him? She was his mother? Surreal. Growing up, he didn’t think of her a lot. It was hard to miss what he never had. But in his loneliest moments—late at night in a strange bed in a strange hotel in a strange track-meet city—he’d wonder what kind of mom would allow her ex-husband to move across the country with her baby. Rarely to be seen again.

Didn’t she ever miss him? Did she ever feel sorry or sad about it? Bash didn’t have the answers. But he didn’t know how to ask the questions.

“How are you?” FaceTime-Jennifer trilled from his phone. “Having a quiet night?”

He glanced at Clio. She rolled her eyes.

“Quiet’s probably not the word. But, uh, you’re still coming back next week, right?”

Jennifer was independently wealthy. Rich, really. So, she didn’t need to work. Instead, she spent her time volunteering at community centers for disadvantaged Black and brown kids. It took her all around the country. And she always stayed away long enough for Bash to throw a party—and then clean the apartment from top to bottom. Honestly, cleaning was the only fun part. After a messy, destructive rager, it was so satisfying to sweep, mop, and dust. Make everything look perfect again.

Maybe that’s a metaphor, he wondered. I can’t put the pieces back together in my real life, so it feels good to repair a trashed apartment. Clio’s right. I do need some fucking therapy.

“I’m staying in Philly a few extra days,” said Jennifer. “The UARYOC are especially in need of my time right now.”

UARYOC, as in underprivileged at-risk youth of color. Jennifer had invented the term. It had yet to catch on in social justice circles, but not for her lack of trying.

“Working with underprivileged, at-risk youth of color really puts everything in perspective,” she continued passionately. “But it’s draining. Today, I was mediating a conflict between a fourteen-year-old kid and his mother, who was just released from prison after a decade. It’s a bummer, the way the prison industrial complex rips mothers from children. That baby boy needed her. Can you imagine being abandoned by your mom?”

“Sounds traumatic,” he said neutrally. Clio motioned shooting herself in the temple.

“Maybe you’d like to mentor one day, Bash. You’d have so much to teach these kids as a light-skinned, Black-presenting biracial.”