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humansofhds · 3 years

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Don Abram, MDiv ’19

“In the same way that the Black Church has been queer through its very existence—by operating on the undersides of power, by existing in the margins, by advocating for the least of these—me advocating for LGBTQ rights is simply an extension of that tradition. It is an extension of that Black, freedom-loving tradition. I want to be able to walk congregants through this as we center the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ folks in the Black Church.”

Don Abram, MDiv ’19, is the founder of Pride in the Pews, a nonprofit that seeks to amplify the voices and experiences of queer Christians in the Black Church.

A Call to Identity and to Faith

I grew up on the far South Side of Chicago, and I was raised by a single mother and a very active Jamaican grandmother. Every Sunday I attended a hand-clapping, toe-tapping Black Church right down the street from my house, within walking distance. I attended every Sunday, initially reluctantly because I didn’t like waking up in the morning. I would come up with a myriad of excuses and reasons for why I could not attend on Sunday, including not being able to find matching socks or not being able to find the right tie. It never worked.

At the age of 14, I was called to preach. I moved from the pews to the pulpit, which was really a paradigm-shifting change, especially in the Black Church, wherein the Black pulpit is often centered over and above other positions and places in the congregation. At the same time that I was called to preach, I was also introduced to my sexuality. But what I knew instinctively was that I could not embody both of those identities without losing both my community and my calling.

So to put it simply, I did not embody both of those identities, at least not on Sunday mornings. When I would preach in my church or go to different churches for revivals, I was a straight preacher. Outside of the four walls of the Black Church, I was able to explore my queerness – still in the shadows, but not nearly as tucked away as when I was in the pulpit. Frankly, I didn’t have an opportunity to explore the theological foundations I was brought up under until I arrived at HDS. That was the first time I was able to take a deep dive into toxic theologies, unpack them, and reconstruct a theology that spoke to the fullness of who I am. And I did all of that from within the radical Black religious tradition.

I was reading folks like James Cone and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as folks like Fannie Lou Hamer—all of these amazing scholars who took seriously the Black Church as an institution. Not just what transpired at the spiritual level, but the ways in which the Black Church showed up in the public square. And the Black Church historically showed up pursing justice and pushing back against systems of oppression. I was able to reconstruct this theology and I loved it. I was able to reconcile my faith and my sexuality. There was no distinction between the two. I saw them as inextricable.

An Invitation In

I would also travel back home, to the far South Side of Chicago, to the same old hand-clapping, toe-tapping Black Church, where folks did not have access to the same sort of conversations I was having at HDS, or to the same thinkers or luminaries who were engaging in prophetic critique of Black Church theology. I wrestled with how to invite my church into these conversations around the intersection of race, religion, and sexuality.

At HDS, we didn’t talk a whole lot about how to translate what we were learning, or how to engage in conversations with folks who didn’t have access to that space. And that’s really where Pride in the Pews emerged. I wondered, how might we think of a sustainable way to engage congregants, on the South Side of Chicago and in cities like it across the country, in these conversations that are central to our theology and our understanding of ourself as an institution? That is where it began.

And then came the George Floyd murder, after which I was protesting. Alongside me were Black pastors and clergy, and they were chanting along with me, Black Lives Matter. My immediate retort was, does my life matter to you? As a Black queer man who shows up Sunday after Sunday to a sanctuary where my sexuality is demonized and condemned? I realized that now is a great time for the Black Church to recommit itself to pursing justice for all people—for those who exist at the margins of society, for those who are on the underside of power. I launched Pride in the Pews in the hopes that in this particular socio-political moment, we would be able to take a deeper dive into our commitments and the way we carry them into the world.

Different Faiths, Same Justice

Religious communities like the one I come from—Black Baptist, fundamentalist communities—are quite skeptical of “out-there,” liberal places like HDS. There’s this fear that you’re bringing folks of all different faiths together, and they’re just going to steer you away from Jesus. Steer you away from God. But what I found was that being in conversation with Buddhist, agnostic, and atheist colleagues, with folks who practice Indigenous African religious traditions, did not bring me away from my faith, but actually brought me closer to it. My colleagues were asking questions and framing the pursuit of justice in ways that pushed me to ask, how might Jesus see this? In doing so, it actually gave me permission, or offered an invitation, for me to think more critically about the values that I hold as a Black Christian—and more specifically, a Black, Queer Christian in the Black Church.

For me, this was an opportunity to take a deep dive into my convictions, both theological and philosophical and spiritual, and begin to ask the scary questions. The questions that would lead to answers that I didn’t already have. Being willing to engage in that humble inquiry, that audacious questioning, presented an opportunity for me to say, ok, let me re-imagine the way I’ve interpreted the gospel. Let me reimagine the way I understand harm and violence and white supremacy and homophobia.

I got to the place where I was able to see both my queerness and my faith as inextricably connected, but also where I was able to go broader than that. I was able to say, when I’m talking about the injustices caused by queerphobia in the world, those are intimately connected to white supremacy. Those are intimately connected to patriarchy and homophobia and transphobia. These things are not separate and independent from one another. What we are really talking about is interlocking systems of oppression. My colleagues from different faith traditions and I, we were able to work together and agree on the fact that we should be pursuing justice. We should be doing good in the world. Whatever it is that we deem ministry or our calling or the philosophical tenets that we subscribe to, it should all work toward a world where we are safer, more whole, and more free.

“Can I Get a Witness?”

I started Pride in the Pews not only when this country was confronting a racial reckoning that was catapulted by state-sanctioned violence against Black bodies. It also happened when we were seeing unprecedented and historic attacks against the Black community, with a specific emphasis on attacks on the rights of trans-folks to exist. At the same time as we saw this racial reckoning, we saw these concerted attacks across the country on LGBTQ folks. That’s the intersectional context that Pride in the Pews emerged into. That intersectionality makes Pride in the Pews so powerful. We recognize that we’re fighting on multiple fronts. We’re fighting for our right to exist as Black people, and we’re fighting for our right to exist as queer-embodied people. For me, that context was key. It gave this push power.

Context is important. Since I’m trying to reach folks in the Black religious tradition, any content that I create, any story that I tell, any voice that I lift up, needs to reside within that tradition. One thing that is central to our tradition is storytelling. It is with this in mind that we started with the Can I Get a Witness Project, which aims to capture the stories of 66 Black Queer Christians within the Black Church. Whether it’s my enslaved ancestors who didn’t have access to the scriptural texts to be able to read them, who accessed the word of God through story; or whether it is my African ancestors who were passing on sacred religious traditions, not by writing them down, but through word of mouth—that oral tradition is rich. That’s the one I’m centering in this project.

When we’ve collected all 66 stories, we hope to take all of the wisdom, all of the insights we’ve been able to gleam from our conversations with Black queer Christians, look at the trends and salient points, and turn that into a curriculum. A curriculum that is shaped and fashioned by the Black religious tradition.

The Black church was born fighting systems of oppression and dehumanization. I want to bring that history in. I want to bring in the history of folks like Reverend Jesse Jackson, who was the first Democratic politician in this nation’s history to ever advocate for LGBTQ rights. That’s a part of our tradition. And I want to bring in the history of Dr. King, the freedom fighter, truth-teller, and table-shaker who decided to speak truth to power, and in doing so, lost his life. These are the traditions we are part of. I want to lift that up and say, in the same way that the Black Church has been queer through its very existence—by operating on the undersides of power, by existing in the margins, by advocating for the least of these—me advocating for LGBTQ rights is simply an extension of that tradition. It is an extension of that Black, freedom-loving tradition. I want to be able to walk congregants through this as we center the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ folks in the Black Church.

We are going to turn some of these stories into case studies. We are going to read and hear the stories of the Black queer folks as sacred texts. We’re going to take them seriously, to wrestle with them, and to create tools that combat queerphobia and transphobia and homophobia as it shows up historically in the Black Church context.

A Call to Action

I would like to invite folks to participate in the Can I Get a Witness Project. If they identify as Black, Queer, and Christian, we’d love for them to be a part of this work and of this project. We have just over 30 folks that we’ve interviewed, and we have just over 30 to go. And of course, for all the allies out there who don’t identity as Black or Queer, you can support us by following the work that we’re doing, contributing financially to the work we are doing, and sharing our work. Our work will spread by the willingness of folks to share their stories and to open up those spaces where liberation and love do not abound, so that we can make it abound.

Interview by Gianna Cacciatore; photos courtesy of Don Abram

#harvard #Harvard Divinity School #Black Church #queer #christian #faith #chicago #Religion #large

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colitisandme · 5 years

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“I thought you said that this was going to be a nice, gentle walk” I gently enquired to my husband through gritted teeth, eyes bulging and frankly sweating so much I could have filled a swimming pool. He looked encouragingly at me as we entered an area of forest that could easily have been the prime setting in an Enid Blyton story book. The sun dappled the ground, making patterns of light through the trees, surrounded by the glorious Snowdon mountain and lakes, making it look like a fairy glen. It truly was glorious and I was trying to soak it all in, whilst trying not to fall over or cry at the thought of trying to encourage my screaming body up another steep incline. My face must have given away my fear and my pain, because my Husband held me close, and whispered in my ear “I am so proud of you.”

It was my idea to come to Snowdonia. I knew that if I attempted to climb the mountain, I would have become the star of ‘Welsh Mountain Rescue’ and I had no wish for 7 well trained, probably disgusted huskies, to drag my poor bedraggled self down the mountain by their teeth. As I try but fail to hide my shame and my face from the camera crew, while my husband attempts to deny all knowledge of my existence let alone marriage to what could only be described as a cross between Worzel Gummage and Stig of the dump. So the ‘gentle walk’ was a compromise. However after 3 hours of steep inclines, tromping up jagged rocks, hauling myself up hills and singing to my husband the ‘push the Jess, push the Jess, push the Jess right up the hill’ song, I had come to the conclusion I was not Bear sodding Grylls and that if this ‘gentle walk’ didn’t live up to its title soon, I was going to have a serious temper tantrum or just resign myself to the fact I was going to have to become a cliff dweller because there was no way I would have the will or energy to get back to the cocking car park.

By this point I had walked 12 glorious miles in 3 days and my body and I were not friends. I had decided to defy its incessant wailing, whining and imploring, and thought if I used encouraging soft tones, gentle voice and using the beautiful scenery as a incentive it would sulk and huff but eventually, reluctantly come round to my way of thinking. Nope. Not today. It had had enough. It felt like it lay down, dug its nails into the carpet and refused to co-operate.

The last time we came to Wales, we walked for miles. We did nothing but walk and explore and immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of this beautiful country and I so desperately wanted to do the same this trip. This trip was different though because I was different. At first the difference was in the luggage I took- pants, soft trousers, pants, pads, soft fabrics, pants, enough pills to start a herbarium, remedies, did I mention pants. Then another difference. The food. Last time, I ate what I wanted. I enjoyed ice creams, cheese, wine, scones, I gorged pasties, fish n chips, luxurious breads and meats... I indulged completely. Not this time... It’s funny when you are forced to scavenge for your food like a scrabbling, starving, rodent I realised that most food in Wales is designed to make me explode! Like everything. EVERYTHING! I have discovered that Wales is a land of wheat and gluten. Everything has sodding gluten in it or dairy. Everything delicious is out of bounds. This holiday I have watched my husband tuck into delicious pastas, ice creams and cakes with murderous eyes, quietly muttering phrases like ‘life insurance’ and ‘divorce’ and I was forced to eat what can only be described as cardboard in various flavours. When my mum and dad joined us in Wales, I had to watch them and all the other happy tourists who don’t have bowels like lit sticks of dynamite, tuck into cakes, breads and glug down wine and beers joyfully, explaining in great sodding detail how truly delicious it was as if I was watching an episode of food and drink, witnessing the guy next to us transform into Oz Clarke before my eyes. Meanwhile, I was forced to grumpily eat plain prawns out of a cup, stare longingly at the piece of bread and butter, perched on my plate, and cry over the lack of selection of gluten free and dairy free cakes available in grabbing distance. At one point I remember staring with rage at a mum enjoying a giant slab of cake, with her child on the next table who had decided to cover himself and the table in milkshake, wondering if it would be completely inappropriate to push the adorable family out of the way, lick the spillage off their table, steal the mums chunk of cake of her plate, then run away and hide in a corner stuffing the cake into my face at 300 miles an hour like a fat hamster making inaudible sounds of joy and ecstasy like that scene in Harry met Sally, growling at anyone who attempted to come anywhere near me, as frightened mother’s cover their children’s eyes and back out of the restaurant, probably calling animal control to report me.

Next difference - my energy levels. My energy has certainly dwindled in the last few months. In fact at times, I feel that a 109 year old with one working hip has more energy than me. My husband, however has more energy than 5 Duracell bunnies, which is why he explodes out of bed with joy and verve at 5am to propel himself to his Cross fit sessions before work, and I, well. I do not.

And so, here I was, sitting on a rock in the middle of the forest, eyes watering, sweating, swearing under my breath, smelling like a kennel and desperately imploring and willing my poor tired body to make it to the end of this walk without turning into a puddle. I was hurting. Not just aching, but every fibre in my body was on fire and I was concerned that my belly was making the familiar gurgling noises of a swamp monster. I had no desire to s**t myself in the woods, but I was bloody determined to finish this. I said at the beginning of this journey that this disease will not defeat me and I have scrapped, fought and clawed like a feisty, feral animal for that not to happen. Even though at times, it has definitely felt like ‘Colin the Colon’ has begun to take over my Jessness, sanity, equilibrium and tastebuds, I have always fought back against IBD and my hyperactive immune system. to remain standing, or sitting in this case. And so with determination and stupidity, I gritted my teeth and hauled myself up, scrabbled up the last hill, no doubt, looking like a creature from the black lagoon, and flailing like a drunk at 2am, staggered back to the beginning of the trail. My husband beamed at me as I practically fell into him, covered in sweat, crying, legs shaking and bones searing. He knew how much it meant to me. How much it hurt. It may have just been a walk in the park for someone else. It may have been a regular daily exercise, a joyful romp around the mountain filled with songs, hiking music and laughter. For me it was everything. It was massive, It was another victory. Another chance to say to my IBD ‘I will not let you win today.’ Another test, I have overcome. Another joyful moment experienced. And at a time when a disease is trying to claim victory, set up a flag and camp in my body, joy is everything. And despite having to eat beige food, stuff pants into every spare space of my suitcase, and become a walking advertisement for a holistic remedy emporium, this holiday has been full of joy, full of laughter, full of love and full of adventures. IBD has not tainted that. So as I dragged myself back to the car and collapsed into my seat, my husband turned to me, hair rugged, eyes shining and said “I loved that, that was amazing.” I turned to look at him, trying to catch my breath, hair on end, desperately willing the normal feeling to return back to my screaming limbs and said with as much sweetness as I could utter... “Tomorrow we are having a rest day.”

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coeurdastronaute · 7 years

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Giant: Ch. 5

When you leave someone Their love lingers on, Like a fresh wound With no one to love.

The paper stared at her, refusing to blink. Lena knit her fingers together and rested her cheek on them as she lingered over the words that sat there. She blew air threw her lips and prepared herself to finally read her father's words.

Behind her, the city was covered in rain, the window covered in splotches so that it became nothing more than a blurry puddle. A record played from the unit across the room, blaring a grungy kind of punk she found for a dollar in the bottom bin of a place in Berlin. Loud kind of noise gave her calm. She needed it, to imagine her father’s first attempt at possible amends. Chaos of noise was oddly calming. Took her back to when things were simple.

The best case scenario, he was raving mad, and she could dismiss it. Worst case, he was still her father, and she would have to figure out how to have a father who murdered people and wasn’t remorseful or deserved her love, though she had little choice in the matter. She had to forget him. But it was impossible. He haunted her, following behind her name, tacked on the end with that Luthor.

She was supposed to be about twenty floors below, working in some lab. That was always her plan. Her parents knew it. Her mother used to take pride in the fact that Lena was a hands-dirty kind of girl, except when it came to her taking apart and modifying household appliances. But still, even through the anger, there was pride.

Lena wasn’t supposed to be upstairs. She was supposed to have a sector just for her where she could build things and she would leave by five every day, and she would have told Kara the truth one day, and she’d go home to her and pick up dinner on the way. She’d have friends. She’d have pride. She was supposed to have a different life.

For someone who came from absolutely nowhere, Lena sure did end up in one hell of a predicament.

She should have stayed gone. Should have changed her name.

But her mother’s name was Lillian Luthor, and she deserved better.

Instead, she looked up from the envelope that only held her first name, and she stared at the few pictures on her desk. A class ring sat there. The same one she lost at the beach on the day of her mother’s funeral. It was sitting in a box on the water tower when she returned and snuck away after buying the house for herself in Midvale. It had a note attached that was simple and sweet and broke her heart. It reminded her to be good, to be kind to the world, to accept a little sunlight on her cheek from time to time.

“Ms. Luthor, your eleven fifteen is here, the representative from CatCo,” Jess buzzed, interrupting the tiny part of the day that Lena squirreled away for herself.

She had to open the letter. She had to know. And yet, not one part of her wanted to actually do it.

With a small sigh, she turned and flicked the remote and turned down the noise coming from the speakers. The envelope got folded once more and shoved in a drawer, and Lena did not miss the sense of relief that came with avoiding it yet again, for just a moment.

“Still listening to that noise?”

She didn’t have to look up and greet the guest. Her heart skipped.

“Kara,” Lena breathed the name, the smile coming automatically, a knee-jerk response that she could never control.

Lena did research, kept tabs. Nothing compared to the girl before her though, who suddenly was very far from the gawky, lanky teenager she first met nearly a lifetime ago. Her hair was almost tamed, her eyes, this warmth. She was still the sun.

A full minute existed between them, and she took the first few steps, arms held wide as she moved to hug her friend, another reaction that was completely automatic, completely innate and purely muscle memory, that even it surprised her. The execution was different than she remembered, the body didn’t meld to her own, but instead remained rigid. Even as she pulled away and held Kara’s arms, still grinning despite the welcome, she saw a tenseness to her friend that was completely alien to her.

“Oh,” she swallowed and took a step back. “I’m sorry. I just--”

“It’s been a while,” Kara managed through a tight smile. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“Of course. You know you don’t need an appointment, Kara. I meant to call, I’ve tried--”

“I didn’t know, actually,” she let slip before righting herself. “And I did need one. I’m here with CatCo at the request of Ms. Grant to see if you’d agree to an interview. She found out we were friends once. Thought you'd hear me out, but I understand if you don’t--.”

Her words were rehearsed and said firmly. She worked hard not to look at Lena, though it was proving more difficult than she’d anticipated.

“I knew you’d be mad,” Lena sighed and leaned against her desk, crossing her arms and looking away from the glare that her friend could muster. “I thought maybe you’d understand. I thought you’d have moved on from National City, to be honest.”

“I thought I'd have something so say, you know, about how much it sucked, that you left me. But you're here and I just…” Kara furrowed and shook her head, hugging her notes before she let her hands drop in front of her hips. “Just because I understand doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

It was a stalemate that Lena never saw coming. She had an eleven fifteen and now she had Kara Danvers standing in front of her like a ghost, complete with a back catalog of memories attached maliciously.

“I didn’t know how to call you,” Lena finally confessed. “I couldn’t.”

“You were my best friend.” Her voice had that sad kind of anger in it, the tired kind of sad that felt so different coming from her. Lena could have gone her whole life without hearing her sound like that.

“You were too much good, Kara. I didn’t deserve it. After my father... what my family did. How could I even look at you?”

“But it wasn’t you, and I lost the one person who was always there. I only wanted to be there for you.”

“Can you understand the weight I was under? The press around me was terrible, the threats I got, the names people around me were called. Kara, the names of the people, I still see them--”

Kara swallowed and flexed her jaw, looking at Lena once before deciding the storm outside was a safer bet. She clenched her jaw and inhaled deeply. It was already going worse and better than she imagined. Seeing Lena was torture, and she was seventeen again, fawning. Seeing Lena renewed that pit in her stomach, the deep, dark hole of a pit that lived within her where people who left her dwelled.

The worst of it was, she understood. She let Lena off the hook long ago, for all of it. But the dark part of her, the deepest, most hidden, most frequently ignored and terrifying part of her, the part of her that missed the way Lena smiled and when she would walk by and Kara would smell her, or when she would go back to school and find a lingering hint of Lena Luthor on her shirt collar. That part of her, the part that was so wounded because hearts are the hardest things to heal, the most finicky, the most stubborn, the most prone to reinjury over nothing more than a whiff of a memory, that part of Kara held a grudge. A wounded, scornful, terrified kind of grudge that begged to just go away or fixed, but nothing in between.

“Ms. Grant would like to do an in depth interview with you about your life. Really describe you, give you a voice, let you distance yourself from your family. You won’t have to answer anything that would make you uncomfortable,” Kara tried, sticking to the basics, sticking to her job.

That was what she had originally planned. If she stayed quiet and she kept to the job, she could seem aloof, seem as if she’d forgotten entirely, and maybe that would help. Because she knew that hearing Lena’s reasons, seeing her eyes so close, it would be too much, even after so much distance.

“So this meeting is strictly work then,” Lena asked, smiling unhappily to herself, retreating to the defensive parts, tucking away this Lena she thought was long gone, but fought for air and sunlight when the Sun appeared.

“Please.”

“I think I’d be uncomfortable the entire time. I like sticking to work as a topic--”

“Which people find boring, keeps them talking. I think if you just get it over with, and Ms. Grant is amazing, she’s fair,” Kara listed, her hands moving quickly.

“You, better than anyone, knows my family, knows me, knows how we feel--”

“I haven’t seen you in almost three years. I don’t know you. I thought I knew...”

It had an uncharacteristic bite to it, and Lena oddly liked it, enjoyed the way Kara had outgrown some of her timidity, only to see it still lingering as she fidgeted with her glasses and second-guessed her words.

“I don’t think it ever goes away, the way we knew each other,” Lena promised, uncrossing her arms and making her way around her desk so that she could take a seat. “You’re mad at me, and you’re hurt, and I did that. But I did what I thought was right, and I’d do it again. That’s not what you’d want to hear, and I know it.”

“And we’re just supposed to go back to how things were? If I hadn’t been forced to come here, you would have never contacted me. And I know that. You know that. Don’t patronize me, Lena. You at least owe me that.”

“I’ve tried texting you every day. For three years. I get close. I type something, I delete it. I would have reached out to you. I can’t seem to help it. You know me. I take… time.”

“The interview can be--” Kara shook her head and blurted, falling back on her reason.

“So we can’t talk about things other than work?”

“Yes,” she blurted. “I mean. No. This was for work. I mean. No. We can’t. I came here for work, and only that. I came for work,” Kara repeated for herself.

“Alright,” the CEO sighed. “I guess we can’t go back to how things were. If there isn’t anything else, I’ll consider Ms. Grant’s proposal and be in touch within the week. Thank you for stopping by Ms. Danvers.”

It was dismissive as she could be, as much as it suddenly hurt. She picked up her pen and began to open up a stack of files. The thunder rolled through against the city, the windows leaked and dripped onto the streets below. Kara stared at the woman there behind the desk, and she felt this weight settle on her shoulders.

Kara didn’t think of how it was going to end. She spent the past week rehearsing this, not acknowledging that they had been friends, asking for Ms. Grant, and then leaving, but now, here she was, and there sat her friend, her missing piece, and she wanted to be fought for, for once, she couldn’t stand to watch Lena leave again. She didn’t mean to feel it all, but there it was.

“You didn’t return my calls, not even a word to let me know what was going on with you,” Kara interrupted Lena’s carefully crafted attempt at disinterest. “You were so important to me… I… I… I was in lov--”

“Dammit, Kara! I had to stay away from you!” Lena barked. “And it killed me! If you think it hurt you alone, then maybe you don’t know me.”

“What? You had to? I know that it wasn’t you. I know that you had nothing to do with that. I tried, and I do understand parts. I just can’t wrap my head arou--”

Lena balled her fists and shook her head as she closed her eyes. Seeing her upset, Kara reverted, automatically taking a step forward, drawn to her, before she retracted as the youngest Luthor stood in all of her glory.

“Because of your powers, because you became Supergirl, because Clark Kent is your cousin and Superman, and my brother was set on murdering him and any alien he could find,” Lena yelled. “I did what I thought was right, and I ran, and I hated every day of it, but I did it for you, because from the moment I met you, you’ve been the sun to me. And I’d take a not perfect life where you at least existed and were safe, to a few more perfect moments just to lose you.”

Shoulders tight, hands gripped tighter at the papers on her desk. She stood taller, her outburst under control a second later. Her chest heaved as she stifled what she could. Kara looked at her as if she’d been slapped, as if she’d been kicked or watched someone kick a puppy.

The entire range of human emotion crossed Kara’s face. Confusion and fear, to anger and doubt and guilt. She slumped on the chair, her eyes darting back and forth as she tried to fathom what it all meant. She didn’t even begin to deny it, she wouldn’t insult Lena that way, but it was all news to her, and it changed absolutely everything.

“You… you knew?” she whispered, her fingers becoming a steeple in front of her face, holding her chin up as she tried to catch her breath. Her brow was a total furrow, a complete mountain in her shock.

“Of course I knew, Kara,” Lena scoffed as she sat back down, oddly more tired from this meeting than any other she could remember. “I told you, we knew each other. We know each other. I asked you to leave with me. I meant it. I wasn’t going to let him hurt you.”

“But… but you never… You didn’t say anything? How?”

“You were wearing a sweatshirt with your last name on it when you saved me the first time,” she shook her head and laughed. “And those eyes. I barely knew you, but I knew your eyes. You punched a hole in an engine, and you thought I’d just ignore it? That Lex would ignore it? You were his first hunt.”

“I-I--I didn’t…”

“I watched you land on my security camera. When you snuck onto my balcony. I read the articles, the accounts of someone helping. A semi that stopped, a girl plucked out of the ocean. You kept calling it ‘Earth Physics’. You snapped your phone in half and claimed it was asthma at the river that summer. You practically ripped up the water tower the night I kissed you.”

Lena almost enjoyed the way Kara’s face went pale and the realization and then blushed with the memory. It was so very her, and so very alive. It was like the sun.

“If Lex found you, if he knew, or if he figured out about your cousin, I just…” Lena confessed. “I knew he was up to something, I thought if I was out of the equation, it would help, make you less tempted to help. You stopped a speeding car, I had no doubt you’d try to stop him. So I told him it was a man that matched Superman’s description that kept saving me, and I pretended you didn’t exist. You were just a stranger, I told him. You couldn’t be the sun to me.”

Three years worth of bitter hurt and angry bubbled between them, and Kara knew all of the answers before she even heard them or asked. It all fit together too neatly, it all made sense, it all felt as if she shouldn’t be mad, and yet she was .

“You’re right.”

“How?”

“I would have gotten involved a lot sooner.”

“See?” she quirked an eyebrow, challenging with that know-it-all smile. “And then Lex got captured, and you became Supergirl. I owe the world a debt as a Luthor, so here I am. We all have our roles to play.”

“How long did you know?”

“It took me a bit to piece it together,” Lena confessed. “Maybe your sophomore year of college to be certain.”

“You left to keep me safe?” Kara realized, catching up with all of the data being input into her brain at once.

“I tried. The night you came over, I tried to push you away, and two minutes into it, I was putty in your hand. I had to make a clean getaway, because I couldn’t tell you to go. I couldn’t leave. I was in love with you.”

“I can’t… I don’t… What happened…” Kara stood and paced, her body needing some kind of activity to make it not explode. Her lungs swelled and stuttered and her eyes felt like they were full. “I wasn’t… does anyone… my sister… Lex Luthor.”

Lena watched her push her hand into her chest, to try to control her heartbeat, though she failed miserably and kept pacing through the office. Half bent over, she placed her hand on her knee and stared at the floor.

“You. I lost… you. Clark said… I could have had you… I was… This…is... my fault.”

“Kara,” Lena whispered, carefully approaching the glitching girl.

“No! Don’t!” she yelled, her arms out as a warning as she righted herself. “Just… Let me think. I just need a minute… to process, all of this.”

An entire life of possibilities was right there, and Kara didn’t know what to do with all of the information. It overwhelmed her.

“I’m sorry. I mean that. You have to know how much I--”

“I have to go.”

“Wait, Kara,” Lena took another step. “Don’t go. Just… wait. Let me explain more, apologize more. Once Lex got put away, I just didn’t know how to call you, how to tell you. I was going to be the villain to you to keep you safe. I was going to take this to my grave, you have--”

“I have to go,” she repeated, grabbing her bag and shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I… can’t… be here. Near you. Right now. Thank you. For telling me”

As much as she protested, Lena watched Kara smile quickly and nod and adjust her glasses before quickly leaving the office. She thought reading her father’s letter was going to be the most draining part of her day. Now Lena felt like the girl about to go away to college who kissed her best friend and thought she’d lost her forever.

For three hours, Kara paced. She was ready to start wearing a hole into the ground of the DEO training room. If it weren’t for her tiny breaks spent punching concrete, she might have thought herself straight into a rut so deep she’d never be able to get out.

From the window upstairs, she looked like a tiger at the zoo, all muscle and lankiness and savage fangs. J’onn watched from time to time, hoping to see his employee work off the steam of whatever was happening. But it never came. All that happened was the ornery tiger refusing to be tired out by her own antics.

By the third straight night of “training,” J’onn was convinced the hero had never been serious about something for so long, or held onto something so tightly as whatever made her go crazy and through more concrete than they allotted budget for in a month. It was a worrisome sight.

“I’m busy,” Kara grunted, jabbing slightly, breathing carefully. She didn’t look up as her boss glided into the room, though she sensed him soon enough.

“I can see that. Whatever all this concrete did to you, I’m sure it had it coming,” he nodded, nudging a block with the toe of his boot disinterestedly as he crossed his arms. “What’s going on, kid?”

“Nothing,” she shrugged, punching again.

“Really? Because last week, work was going well, crime was down, and then Lena Luthor held a-” The punches and grunts grew harder and J’onn verified his suspicions easily. “Press conference, and now you’ve been training so much, I haven’t seen you sleep. You’re on longer patrols. You’re doing research for Snapper at all hours...”

He felt the way Kara felt about Lena, even without being able to read her mind. He certainly caught a glimpse of Lena’s feelings in this jumbled mess that reminded him of a tangled piece of yarn, folded over and knotted within itself over so much self-doubt and self-preservation and fear, sat this feeling of nothing but adoration for the Kryptonian. Pure, unadulterated awe and this almost peace that wavered beneath the panic of seeing her. J’onn felt it all, knew that Ms. Luthor was harmless, not like her family, knew that she had a complicated relationship with herself, knew that she left to protect Kara. He was almost in awe of her.

“I sleep.”

“Sure.”

A few more punches, and Kara debated with herself, slowing down before giving an almighty punch and rolling her shoulder blades as she turned away and put her hands over her head as she tried to catch her breath. It was exhausting, to hold so much, to think so much, exhausting and entirely impossible to sleep.

“She knows, okay?” Kara finally confessed, too guilty to look at the fatherly figure of her life. “She’s known since before I did... this... She’s known since I was in high school.”

“Knows what? That you’re an alien?”

“Yes. Kind of. I think. She knows I’m Supergirl. I didn’t get into the details with her I had a lot,” she gestures her hands in front of her face wildly. “A lot happening in my brain, with her being back and then... that.”

J’onn smiled a bit while Kara continued to pace and unwrapped her hands, tossing the binding on the ground in her annoyance. Her skin shone with sweat and her muscles were tense and angry. There were many times in which he bore the duty of his life quite quietly. There were many times J’onn did not know what to say to someone else who lost their entire world, because when he thought about it, there was nothing anyone could tell him to make it alright.

Suddenly, he was very much out of his depth with these feelings Kara seemed to struggle with and about.

“You must feel strongly for her, for Lena,” he reasoned. “Very strongly.”

“I don’t...” Kara scoffed and shrugged and balked and shook her head. “No. I don’t. That’s not. No. We were friends. Good friends. She was my best friend, and then she just. No. She left. I was. No.”

“Right.”

“What do you mean, anyway?” she cocked her head slightly, itching her eyebrow and furrowing her entire being. “I mean. Why would you say that? That. No.”

“I just mean… Someone who does all of this to you, they must be important.”

“You barely know her. Unless you-- J’onn, did you?”

“Just to see if she was a threat, like her family.”

“And?” Kara held her breath.

“What do you honestly think?”

“The girl I knew would never,” she shook her head quickly. “Never ever would Lena hurt anyone. She talked about building prosthetics. That was her senior science fair entry and Masters’ Thesis. But now… I didn’t think she’d leave either, so who knows.”

“Kara.”

“No. She couldn’t, and I don’t need you to confirm it. I know,” she sighed and pushed her hands into her damp hair.

“What’s bothering you, Kara? If you know she’s good, then--” he shook his head and crossed his arms, held his signature pose with added confusion on his face. “If you still know deep down, in your heart, then what’s the trouble? Her name doesn’t--”

“It’s not… No,” she swallowed and clenched her jaw.

Kara put her hands on her hips, her shoulders drooping slightly, her head shaking, her stomach churning, a mix of hunger and regret that bothered her immensely. When she got locked up, her boss would calmly wait for her to find words. A few different languages sometimes popped up, weird sounds that meant nothing to anyone but her. Kara was certain that there weren’t enough languages to describe what Lena had done to her head in just a short meeting after years apart. Years that didn’t feel like years at all.

Patiently, J’onn just watched, waited. Kara ran her forearm across her forehead and sighed after giving up with the attempts at verbalizing. If she said it outloud, then it would be true. But she had to say the words aloud, or else she’d demolish everything in the city.

“I was afraid to be in love with her. She was... I couldn’t lose my best friend. We made plans, we always felt... safe together,” she explained, knitting together her fingers before looking at J’onn finally. “She liked me, for me. She liked who I was, and I felt so almost normal. I felt… I forgot who I wasn’t and I got to just exist. I was willing to swallow it for her. To keep her. And then she left, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. For months. For years. I just… She appeared one day and everything was different.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah,” she blushed a bit and shook her head. “I wanted to be her friend. I just wanted a little feeling in my life of what she brings. This peace. And then I saw her at the trial, before she disappeared again. I just wanted to... do something. I was going to tell her what she meant. To me. But she left.”

“And now she’s here.”

“Yeah,” Kara swallowed and ran her hands over her face before spinning and pacing again.

“How did the meeting go?”

“I haven’t left the DEO in a week, if that tells you anything.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know.”

“She seems just as confused as you, if that helps.”

“She left to keep me safe,” Kara admonished, frowning at the implication of the words. “She left because she was afraid I’d end up hurt by her brother. She left me, when I was all she had, and it couldn’t have been easy.”

“I can’t stand to see you like this,” he continued, recognizing the ire present with the warning. “Take it from someone who has lost… someone who has lost the thing that made their heart beat,” Kara frowned at the description, meeting his eyes with a softness that hurt. “There is a time limit to happiness. You don’t get to control it, but you can fight like hell to have it as long as possible. You get to decide what you want, but you just have to decide. After that, it’s simple.”

“I don’t know.”

“I would hate for you to miss out on one second of the possibility of love like I have experienced, Kara.”

“Can you turn back time three years and give me it all over again?”

“Yes. It’s a power I just developed,” J’onn rolled his eyes. “You don’t get to change her mind. She did what she did. Now she’s back, and you have to choose. You either care for her still, or you don’t.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is, actually,” he argued, pushing himself up and dusting off his knee disinterestedly.

“She left me.”

“You’re an adult now, Kara. You know things are always more complicated than they look.”

“I hate it.”

She didn’t want to hear it, and stalked across the room, her shoulders growing tense once more as the weight settled atop them. It was exhausting, hating Lena. It took all of her energy just to attempt it.

“Please take it easy.”

“I’m fine,” she grunted, pushing aside more gravel.

“I meant on her.”

“Yeah,” Kara nodded and looked away once more, inhaling and filling her lungs as she closed her eyes.

As much as she didn’t want to, Lena did the interview. It was difficult and invasive, but she did it because Kara asked, and still, after years and miles and a multi-million dollar company under her belt, she was a sucker for those eyes and that face. It took an entire bottle of expensive wine to wash away some of the things that came up, but Lena muscled through in hopes that it might help. Her expensive therapist said it was a good idea, and that was something.

The flowers didn’t do anything though. The vases of every type imaginable and the boxes of chocolates and muffin baskets, stacks of take out and mountains of pizza. Kara was radio silent, and Lena deserved it. She knew it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, she never even thought seeing Kara again was an option. Now that it was, Lena would do what she could. With her brother gone, with her attempt to save the name, it was all a second chance. She could allow herself that, to be herself, at least a bit.

It was the right decision, she knew, but the right choice could still be costly.

Lena gave up debating as she finished pouring herself a glass of wine and flipped through one of the reports she would have to finish before her morning call. Leaning against the island in the kitchen, she picked at a sandwich with little interest. The news played in the living room, no one to listen to it at all, though it unobtrusively filled up the quiet.

If it weren’t winter, she would have enjoyed a boring financial statement outside. Maybe given up and picked up a better book and dozed into the early morning on the balcony that overlooked the entire city. Not another building stood taller, not another roof was near the penthouse Lena bought. Something about the view, about how it was terrifying and magnificent at the same time. It was her own little home, the first she ever bought on her own, and it was a castle.

The fire cracked in the living room. Lena shifted her bare legs, itching the back of her calf with her foot lazily. It was a familiar kind of night for her, more often than not.

“I don’t think it’s ever mattered, alien or human,” a voice read as her balcony door opened and Kara stomped in, nose in a magazine. “Why would it matter where someone is from? It’s what they do when they’re here. That’s why I fight for inclusion, and against the hate my family tried to cultivate. I never understood it. My family was made sick, picked up a weakness, and tried to exploit it. I fight against that bullying.”

“Dammit, Kara, can’t you knock? You used to at least knock, and even then that scared me half to death,” Lena scolded after she yelped. “I didn’t--”

“The night my mother died, I got so angry and I hated the world, but I had someone pull me out. I don’t think my brother and father had that, as much as I tried,” Kara continued, ignoring Lena’s objection. Her voice was irate and incredulous at the quotes pulled from the story that would hit stands in a week.

“Lena Luthor is quiet, bashful, even as she swirls the straw in her lemonade. She skirts the issue on her sudden departure, on her shunning of the family business for as long as possible. Much more introspective than one would imagine, everything seems to be internal-- I read a poem once, that said the same place from which you draw your sorrow, is where you find your joy. The deeper the sorrow, the deeper the joy, and vice versa. The greatest sorrows of my life have all stemmed from the greatest, most difficult decisions I could make to save the joy. I keep hoping that if I keep digging through the sorrow, I’ll find joy one day.”

“She wasn’t a terrible interviewer. I’d never call myself bashful though,” she shrugged, but quieted as Kara held up a finger signaling a need for another moment.

“I want to be well, I want to do good. People think there’s more to it than that. I’m imperfect, and I can’t even imagine perfection anymore, just better. I’m trying to be better, and I am not my family.”

The magazine smacked against the countertop. Kara looked at her as if she was accusing her of high treason, though none of the words she read seemed especially damning. If anything, Lena had tried to be honest. She tried to be nice, like Kara always begged. She thought she’d be happy, or at least not upset. That never seemed an option, and yet, Lena was left perplexed.

“You left!” Kara yelled.

“You asked me to do that interv--”

“I’m not perfect, you know that, right?”

“I don’t know about that,” Lena smiled. “You bring perfect moments. There must be something there.”

As much as Kara watched Lena enjoying this battle, she felt nothing but exasperated anger and annoyance. And then she realized she flew to Lena’s, and she barged in, and she caught her drinking wine in nothing but an old button up pyjama top and messy bun, and she was even more angry at that realization.

Nothing about the past few weeks was going as it was supposed to go. Ever since Lena walked back into her life, she recognized that a missing piece existed. She had been able to pretend it didn’t for so long. Now it was aching and she was standing right there.

“I’m not perfect! We’re not perfect! There’s no such thing as perfect!” Kara wailed. Her shoulders moved up and down in deep, heavy waves, ebbing with a kind of anger that only could be brought about by someone she loved.

“You’re very wrong,” the CEO shook her head. “You’re perfect to me, Kar--”

Super speed. Lena never thought of it as being so literal until she found herself pushed against the cold fridge. A magnet of a Highland chief dug into her back. The chill of the front made her bare thighs shiver.

The first time she kissed Kara, it was an innocent and drunk kind of thing, the perfect mix of young and naive, tinged with absolute love. The second time Kara kissed her, it was gentle and afraid, a quiet kind of confession. As far as Lena was concerned, the third time was the charm.

Out of breath, she gasped as Kara kissed her chin, kissed the side of her mouth, rested her forehead against Lena’s because she couldn’t smother her and that was her only option. Legs wrapped around Kara’s waist, she held her there like nothing. Lena dug her fingers into the fabric of her shirt, her own half tugged and pulled in various directions in the hustle and bustle. Hearts racing, she slowed it as much as she could, kissing her again, earning a little noise as she found Lena’s mouth eager. Forever, they kissed. Kara didn’t want to stop until she couldn’t breathe.

“What’s wrong?” Lena whispered, afraid to make any noise louder than that or her heart throbbing in her chest. She ran her knuckle along Kara’s jaw and cheek, hoping it could distract her from the thoughts that were tormenting.

“I just wanted to remember this, in case things were never good again.”

“I’ve been in love with you since I was seventeen.”

It was Lena’s turn, to make the trip, to travel the distance, and so she stretched and kissed Kara, sucked on her lip, bit it, fixed it, pulled every damn second she could from it. She felt Kara push her harder, heard the crunch of metal as a hand dug into her fridge panel. It didn’t stop her one bit. If anything, it pushed her harder. To be able to do that to the reserved, gentle girl, was a sort of power that was exhilarating.

“We can’t,” Kara pulled away, dropping Lena to her feet, making her head spin wildly at the loss of contact after so much. “You’re… I kept a distance. We. We’re us. You left. I don’t even know if I like you. We were friends, never--”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you did,” she shook her head and ran her thumb across her swollen lips. “I can’t... want you, and then. It’s. You. We’re friends.”

“I’ll take whatever you would give me,” Lena confessed.

“Since you were seventeen?” Kara begged, as she held herself up on the island. Blue eyes were big and afraid of the answer. Lena just nodded while the other inhabitant of the kitchen waged such a war with herself that it looked almost painful.

“I didn’t expect any of this. I just… How was I supposed to call, Kara?”

The look Kara gave her was pained and hopeful, a dangerous combination of wanting something and having it right there.

“I broke your fridge.”

“It’s mostly for show any--”

Lena didn’t get to finish, she found herself in a newly familiar position.

“You have to stop doing that,” she gasped, wrapping her legs around her hero once again. She clutched tighter, contradicting her wish.

Kara didn’t have any words because she was overloaded and the only thing she knew was this that was what she’d wanted forever, and she’d do whatever she could to hold Lena Luthor in her hands for as long as possible. Which meant no words ever again, just kissing every bit of soft skin she’d dreamt about since she caught those eyes in the hall.

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