Hush

April, for example, had a style. She showed a lot of leg, a lot of cleavage, a lot of skin. She liked tight. Leather. Leopard print. Lace. A lot of jewelry. Trashy, but with money. She could see the money on it, because she remembered, faintly, her mother’s cheap version of trashy. It was not the same.

April made it work somehow, not looking tacky but beautiful, a little dangerous.

At least, Orion thought she was beautiful. She couldn’t really trust her own judgment yet. The entire world was ugly, repulsive to her still. Beauty was a foreign concept.

“No,” she said in response to April’s offer of a movie.

She almost regretted how violent the single word was. How it made April flinch and pain flicker through her expertly made-up face.

But Orion didn’t apologize. She held tight.

“We could go out?” April’s hurt did not linger. She was determined, that was sure.

Orion’s stomach roiled.

Out.

She had not gone out, unless it was to her lawyer’s office or the police station. She had not been alone. Her lawyer had employed security for those trips, since the media was still transfixed by the women. Interview requests, book deals, all sorts of things were brought to each of them, and without speaking, each of the women had refused. They didn’t need the money and they certainly didn’t want the attention.

The gaze of one single stranger was enough to send Orion’s heart into her throat and blow a hole in her stomach lining. She did not tell this to anyone, of course. She was not ready to go out yet.

“No,” she repeated the word. “I want to be alone.”

Wrong. She did not want to be alone. She hated her own company. She hated the rooms in this apartment. She hated her reflection the most. She ached to have a distraction, to have someone here with her.

April sighed. For a second, she looked like she was going to find some of the anger that Orion knew was simmering under the surface, the annoyance at being turned away, denied, again and again. Orion had treated her poorly, so she was surely angry about that. April was charismatic, warm, and promised fun. And she was goddamn resilient.

“Okay,” she said, voice hesitant, small. Her eyes were hard, though. They told Orion she wasn’t going to give up. “I’ll come visit tomorrow then.”

“You really shouldn’t,” Orion muttered.

April didn’t answer, just placed the bottle of wine on the kitchen countertop. Orion realized she didn’t have wine glasses. Not that it mattered, but in a different life, a different version of herself would have had wine glasses at twenty-three years old. Maybe they wouldn’t be fancy. They probably wouldn’t match, because she would’ve no doubt dropped many of them, broken them, maybe even bought them from secondhand stores.

As it was, she had exactly four plates, four water glasses, two mugs, two bowls, and a cheap set of silverware. The rest of her apartment was much the same. Cheap objects, bare minimum. Bookshelves, already bulging, but not much else.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” April repeated, looking solemnly at her old friend, but not with pity, no look of regret or remorse. She looked pained, in mourning, lost. And then, she left.

Orion locked all the doors behind her.

And then she downloaded books to her kindle. And she read those books.

And then she planned.

Eventually, she’d get up the courage to live out those plans, to feel that energetic, warm rush of satisfaction.

First, she had to figure out how she was going to walk into a fucking supermarket without wanting to claw her own face off. Then she’d figure out that whole vengeance thing.

Nine

April was back. As promised.

This time she bought a bag with grease stains collecting on the bottom. She didn’t listen to Orion’s weak excuses or her stronger ones. She put the bag on the counter and began opening cabinets and drawers as if she owned the place.

Orion leaned on the breakfast bar, watching. She didn’t offer to help. You didn’t help a trespasser, which April was, being uninvited and unwanted.

April didn’t seem to mind Orion’s scowl, making herself at home, humming an unrecognizable tune as she dumped the contents of the bags onto two plates.

Burgers. The smell was inviting, and Orion’s stomach betrayed her with a heavy growl. She’d been working out hard today—YouTube was great for that too—and hadn’t had anything really substantial since her smoked salmon omelet breakfast.

Another plus to having an internet connection and a bank account with more money than she could comprehend—she could order anything she needed and cook anything she wanted. She could order groceries online, wine, treats. No limits. No rations. No off-brand dented cans.

Although the rest of her small apartment was sparse, her pantry was not. She spent hundreds of dollars on food, weekly. Even more on organizational products so she could create a very specific system. Every time she opened it up, a part of her, somewhere, exhaled, knowing she would never know true hunger again. She opened it up often, in the middle of the night, when nightmares forced her awake, taunted her into thinking this whole escape was just a dream and she was still in The Cell with an empty stomach and blood trickling down her thighs.