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Orion had cookbooks stacked everywhere. She pored through them when she wasn’t reading, working out—borderline obsessively—or trying not to fall apart. She experimented with recipes. Made every meal an event, a treat. Which it was. Meals should be appreciated, revered.
She had gotten quite good at cooking—perfected lobster thermidor, porcini risotto, coq Au vin, bœuf bourguignon—and she’d sometimes envision a long dinner table full of guests, all of them eagerly awaiting a feast. Her feast. She knew this was a pipe dream. A life she would never know. But the thought comforted her, regardless.
She could’ve cooked something a lot more gourmet than the greasy burger and fries April brought, and she certainly had her fair share of fast food in the months since their escape. But the smell of the burger, as it always had, drove something primal in her. It was not something she could ignore.
So she took the plate April had been patiently holding out for her.
It was something pivotal, taking that plate. It sent all the wrong messages to April and the little voice inside Orion that longed for friendship, for family.
She would rectify it later, she told herself. She would ensure, once and for all, that this thorn in her side, this awful reminder of a past she no longer recognized, would find another charity case to bother. But later. For now, the burger hit just the right spot, and the company wasn’t entirely awful.
April went to the sofa, turned on the TV, and flipped through the channels until her eyes lit up. “Mean Girls, perfect. A classic.” She smiled at Orion. “You’re gonna love this.”
Orion didn’t smile back.
But she did sit at the other end of the sofa, eating her burger, and watched the movie, quietly laughing at parts throughout as to not alert April to her enjoyment.
The movie was finished.
The burgers were cleaned up, but the smell of grease lingered in the air, clung to Orion’s hair. She liked that. It reminded her of the days when they’d sit at the diner, drinking malts, and talking about teachers they hated, the boys they liked, and what they’d do if they were witches on Charmed.
Orion had always wanted to be Paige, with the ability to Orb out of her life, taking Adam with her, getting them a rambling Victorian house in San Francisco, fighting demons—the inside ones as bad as the ones from the underworld.
It might’ve been the burger smell that made her do it. Or maybe it was the ghost of Ri, the one who could talk to April about anything. It didn’t matter what made her say it. It mattered that she said it.
“How did he die, April? I mean, I know Maddox said it was an overdose, but was it . . . was it on purpose?” Orion took a sharp breath, hated the words that came out of her mouth, hated the way the thoughts made her lose control. “Did he kill himself?”
She didn’t say his name. Couldn’t. Merely thinking it was like claws tearing at the flesh of her brain, her heart, her soul.
But Orion didn’t need to say his name. April knew exactly who she was talking about. Her small flinch told her that, the way her brows drew together, her forehead wrinkling.
Guilt painted her face, but she didn’t look away from Orion in shame like Maddox had. She met her stare evenly.
“At the beginning, we were all so frantic to find you, to figure out what happened,” April began. Her eyes stayed on Orion, though they were filled with tears and shame, her bottom lip quivering. “It was the first time I’d had something like that happen to me, like, my best friend in the world just . . . gone,” she continued. “We weren’t equipped to deal with the fact that we were never gonna find you. We were kids. And your brother, you know, he was always so quiet, so reserved. We tried to look out for him, invite him over, watch out for him at school. But then . . .” She trailed off. “I don’t have a good enough excuse for you, honestly. We never forgot about him, but we also didn’t know how bad it was, how bad it had gotten with him. I seriously didn’t know he was using like that. Not until it was too late. I felt like I blinked and he was gone.” She paused, eyes far away, maybe remembering him. “He didn’t kill himself, though, Ri. He was as obsessed with finding you as we were. He never gave up hope. It’s just—” Her voice cut out. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She took a deep breath and bowed her head.
Orion watched her, didn’t say a word, left a hollow silence between them.
“I don’t think he could take the pain anymore. He was trying to numb it,” April said finally, voice low, her eyes back on Orion. “Maddox tried to help after he got back from the academy. Tried to get him involved with the force. He tried everything he could, I promise you that. We both did. But it just . . . didn’t work. Your dad was gone by then. Your mom was on her way. He was looking straight down the barrel of a life without a family, without a chance.”
