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Orion still said nothing. Instead, she let it all wash over her. She tried to imagine what her brother would look like now if he were still alive. She felt the familiar well of tears, but she fought them back.
As if trying to fill the terrible silence, April continued, “At first, I thought he’d be okay. He looked different, harder, but I saw the sweet boy in him still, and he started working at the brewery. Seemed like he really enjoyed it. Then he got a girlfriend, the owner’s daughter. He loved her with something I knew, even then, was too strong, too powerful for a boy with a soft heart, for a teenager who had gone through what he had. And then, they got in a big fight and she broke up with him. I don’t know what happened exactly, but I know he fell off after that—” Her voice caught. A tear trailed down her cheek. “And then we got the call.”
Orion realized that April was waiting. Waiting for her to do something, say something. Hurl blame at her, scream, cry. Anything.
Sure, she felt like doing all of those things. A part of her did, at least. The other, bigger part—growing with every new blow—was numb and unwilling to accept the ugly truth. It was a dark fate. Because if her brother had been alive, she wouldn’t be able to execute her plans. She would’ve been forced to try to be human, forced to be the older sister to a brother who needed her. She would’ve done it for him. Pretended her entire life. She could’ve saved him.
As it was, this was giving her the permission to not pretend to be human, to lean into the monster the world had turned her into. To accept where the demons were taking her. He, too, was a victim she needed to fight for, to avenge, because had they not taken her that day, her brother would surely be alive.
“I appreciate you telling me, and for trying,” Orion said. She could think of nothing else to say. She didn’t have the energy to be a bitch to April, but she needed her to stop crying, to stop emoting. “But your obligation to me, to my family, has long expired, April. You don’t owe me anything anymore.”
April frowned. “I’m not here because I owe you anything. I’m here because I’m your friend, Ri. Because I missed you every fuckin’ day since you’ve been gone.”
“No.” Orion had intended the word to be devoid of emotion, but it was violent, passionate. “You were Ri’s friend. Orion doesn’t have any.”
April regarded her. “You’re not alone in this, Ri,” she said, voice soft, patient.
Orion gritted her teeth. “Yes, April, I am. My family, my entire fucking family, is dead. I don’t have any long-lost relatives crawling back into the picture, and if I did, they’d be here for the fame and a potential paycheck. I don’t have any friends, because I don’t know how to be a friend to anyone anymore. Do you understand that? I have no one. I am no one.”
“You have us,” April replied, refusing to back down, to cower at Orion’s ugly tone. “And you are Orion fucking Darby. You survived shit most horror authors couldn’t even dream up. You are the strongest bitch I know, Ri. The baddest.”
Orion laughed. She liked that the sound made April grimace. It was an ugly laugh. “April, I don’t want any friends. Don’t need any either,” she said, finally grasping that cold, emotionless tone she’d been searching for. “I’ve done this shit on my own, and that’s how I’d like to keep it. Because that girl you knew ten years ago? She’s gone, April. Dead. If I would’ve gotten home on time that night, and some other poor girl was taken instead, sure, maybe you and I would still be friends today. Or maybe, eventually, the novelty of having a trailer trash friend would wear off, you’d piss off to some private school on the East Coast, paid for with your parents’ money, and leave me at the Sunnyside Trailer Park to fucking rot. Maybe not. Only one of us here knows the truth. But I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
Orion paused, making sure her words were landing in the right place. And by the shimmering in April’s eyes, she could tell they were. She shrugged, forcing herself to be as cruel as she could. She leaned in, arched an eyebrow. “Tell me I’m lying.”
April shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Ri. You’re angry. And you have every right to be.”
Orion laughed again, still ugly and hollow. She took a breath, the air painful and thick, but she made sure to make the gesture seem easy.
“I know exactly what I’m saying!” Orion felt the words tear out of her mouth, liked the way April flinched. “I wouldn’t have been anything but a friend from high school that you forgot the name of in ten years,” she told April. “But now we don’t even have the high school history to cling to. I don’t know you. I know at thirteen you snuck beer for us from your dad’s fridge, loved Charmed, and hated algebra. That your biggest crush was Chad Michael Murray. I’m guessing all of that is moot now. You’re nothing but a stranger who knows what I used to like when I was younger. When I was someone else. Because while I can guess bits and pieces of your past ten years, I can tell for damn certain they have nothing in common with mine. I get the obligation, that you’re a good person. That maybe you feel guilty, nostalgic, whatever. But I don’t know how to lie, since life has made sure I know nothing but ugly truths.”
