Chapter 19 Harper
Harper
“You’re shivering,” Orion said, his head bent to my ear. He pulled away a little and turned to Dash. “Hey, little man. Would you—”
He stopped, and even through my utter, wasted shock and despair, I felt Orion vibrate with fury. I opened my eyes to see him staring at my dress: sodden, dirty, bloody…
“Harper,” he said through clenched teeth. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
I shook my head, tried to speak, but Dash piped up.
“She fell down in the rain after Mama left,” he said in a small voice.
“That’s all? No one was here?”
“N-no.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Orion eased out a breath. “Okay, then,” he said tightly. “No need to fly back into the storm in a murderous rampage, eh?”
“What?” Dash was standing next to the couch, looking lost and so, so small, and hatred for our mother infused me all over again.
“Nothing,” Orion said. “Hey, little man. I need your help. I’ve never been to your house before. Can you bring me a towel?”
Dash nodded, better for having something to do.
“Orion,” I said, my voice a croak from screaming. “Please, go. I don’t want you to see…”
“No, no. It’s all right.”
Dash dashed back with a towel. “Is she okay?”
“She’s going to be just fine.” Gently, Orion wrapped the towel snuggly around my shoulders. “Just sit here for a minute, love.” He turned to Dash. “Have you had dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Brilliant. More important question: Have you had dessert?”
The barest light flickered in Dash’s eyes. “No.”
“Well, we’ll have to fix that, won’t we?”
I hugged the towel around me, still shivering, wanting to shut my eyes and block the world out. But I watched with a detached fascination as Orion moved around my house, sidestepping leaks to take care of Dash. Humiliation churned in me somewhere, but I was too numb to feel it.
In the kitchen, Orion opened the freezer. “Ice cream?”
“Too cold,” Dash said. “My Halloween candy is in the top cabinet. I’m not supposed to know, but I do.”
“Clever man.” Orion opened the cabinet and found a plastic pumpkin. He handed it to Dash and brought him back to the couch. “Honor system. Pick out three pieces and no more. Can you do that?”
Dash nodded, plopping himself down in front of the TV where The Princess Bride was on pause.
He squinted at Orion. “Why are you dressed so fancy?”
“I was at a party. Your sister was supposed to come too. But then your mom left?”
Dash nodded, his lower lip quivering. “For five days with her boss. Harper was really mad. Really mad.”
“Got it.” Orion found the remote and hit play. “I’m going to help your sister get some rest, and then you and I are going to hang out for a bit. Would you like that?”
His eyes lit up again, and he nodded vigorously. “Hurry up and you can watch them in the fire swamp!”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Orion rushed back to me. I shook my head, jostling more tears loose. They spilled hotly down my cheeks. “You’re so good with him,” I whispered. “But I hate that you’re here. Seeing this. You should go. Please…”
“Not on your life, Bennett,” he said gently. “Come on.”
Orion slipped his arms around my back and under my knees and carried me upstairs. The house was small enough that he found my room easily and set me on the edge of my bed.
“This room is very you,” he said, glancing around. “Eclectic and scholastic.”
A bookshelf lined one wall. My desk under the window was a mess of papers, charts, and graphs—the makings of my NoSci entry. Posters for Florence + the Machine and St. Vincent papered the walls…
“And a periodic table.” Orion grinned. “Because of course.”
I didn’t smile. “This is not how I imagined your first visit to my room.”
“Don’t start with me, Bennett,” he said. “Now is not the time for seduction. You need to get warmed up. Are you okay to take a shower? I’ll make some tea. Your voice sounds… a bit rough.”
Rough from screaming how I hate my mother. Because I do. I hate her.
Orion saw the defeated pall hanging over me. He knelt in front of me and took both of my cold, trembling hands in his large warm ones.
“Hey. I’m here.”
I raised my aching eyes to his. “I ruined your tux. I ruined your night.”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” he said. “The party was so boring. I was standing around with a bunch of regatta fat cats, being congratulated endlessly, and thinking to myself, I wish Harper would send me an ominous text that sends me out into a typhoon. That’s how boring it was.”
I started to laugh, which turned into more crying. He wrapped me in his arms again.
“Take a long hot shower, I’ll bring you some tea, and you can tell me everything.”
He left, and I moved like a zombie to the bathroom. I took the hottest shower I could stand, trying to drive the cold numbness away. It worked, but exhaustion seeped in to replace it.
I bandaged my scraped knees, dressed in flannel sleep pants and an NYU sweatshirt, and climbed into bed.
No sooner did my head hit the pillow than my eyes wanted to close.
I felt more than saw Orion return. He set a steaming mug of something on the nightstand, and the bed dipped as he sat beside me.
“This okay?”
I shook my head, hardly able to keep my eyes open. “This is so humiliating.”
“You have to stop worrying about that.” He ran his hand along my temple. “But love, what happened? Your mother left for five days?”
I nodded. “She came home drunk, packed up a bag, and skipped town with her married dentist boss. And the roof started to leak just like I knew it would, because she didn’t bother to inspect the house when she bought it, and now we’re fucked. The end.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I knew reality was going to come with the dawn. The past becoming prologue yet again. A book I thought I’d finished, only to find it hadn’t ended at all, but kept going and going…
I can’t do this again…
Exhaustion was dragging me down into merciful oblivion.
“Dash…?” I managed.
“He’s fine. I got him.”
“I’m sorry, Orion. I really wanted tonight.”
“Me too,” he said. “But don’t be sorry. Just sleep, love.”
Gratitude filled me then, driving out some of the awfulness of the night. For this boy who was here, and so effortlessly good, and more noble than I think even he knew.
I tried to tell him, but sleep pulled me under. But it was okay because I knew I was safe.
More importantly, I knew Dash was too.
***
I woke sometime in the night, no sense of time, only conscious that the storm had slunk away like a wounded beast. The night was finally quiet outside my window. I sat up slowly, my head feeling heavy and achy.
It was a bad dream, that’s all. Just a bad dream…
“Right?”
I winced. My throat was raw, and there was a mug of tea on my nightstand that Orion had made me, because it wasn’t a dream at all but a living nightmare.
I groaned, wanting to sink back under the covers.
Humiliation infested me like a fever. God, he’d seen it all.
This shitty house, the leaky roof, me completely broken down…
More shame found me because I’d abandoned Dash to my own despair. Failed him when he needed me most. I tossed off the covers and hurried to his room and then sagged in the door. Dash was safe in his bed, fast asleep. Orion was on the floor beside him, his head pillowed on his tuxedo jacket.
He stayed.
He’d stayed with Dash. Stood guard like a knight in a fairy tale until the dragon had gone. My chest tightened with an ache so fierce and so strong, it stole my breath. And despite the outright shitty-ness of the night, my skin burned with heat, my stomach heavy with a different kind of ache.
I crept into the room and gently touched Orion on the shoulder. He stirred and woke. By the light of Dash’s Finding Nemo nightlight, I put my finger to my mouth and motioned for him to follow me out.
In the hallway, I closed Dash’s door and led Orion to my room.
“Should I go?” he whispered. “Or I can sleep on the couch…?”
“God, no,” I whispered back. The couch was my mother’s bed. “It’s two in the morning. You can sleep here. If you want. Unless…you want to go?”
Of course he does. He probably can’t wait to get out of this leaky hellhole…
“I’d rather stay,” Orion said. “If you’re okay with that.”
“Oh. Yes. I’m okay with that.”
I led him back to my room, shut the door behind us, and turned on the desk lamp.
It cast a small warm light. Orion cocked his head from side to side, stretching out a crick in his neck.
His bow tie was long gone, the top buttons of his white dress shirt undone, and the shirt itself wrinkled.
He slung his equally wrinkled jacket over his shoulder.
“So,” he said quietly. The air between us heavy and thick. “Do you mind if I get out of this suit?”
“No, of course not,” I said. “Go ahead. I’ll just…”
I climbed into bed on one far side of the full-size bed that was always plenty big enough for just me but now felt small.
Narrow. Hardly any space at all. I kept my back to him as Orion stripped out of his tux, shut off the light, and climbed in.
The bed shrunk again, his big, muscular frame swallowing up his side.
Once he was under the covers, I rolled onto my back.
He did the same, and we both stared at the ceiling in silence.
I was acutely conscious of his presence, my entire left side humming at the close proximity to his right.
A tingling at the nearness, the almost-touching.
His arm brushed mine when he shifted, sending little sparks up and down my skin.
“Sorry,” he said.
“No worries.”
A silence fell, heated and full of electricity. I thought I’d be emotionally wasted and wrung out, but my heart was pounding, and every nerve ending in my body was wide awake and clamoring to be touched.
“I can’t thank you enough for tonight,” I said, my voice still rough. “For what you did for Dash, especially. He loves you.”
“It was nothing,” Orion said. His voice also rough, though he hadn’t been screaming all night. “He’s a great kid.”
“Yeah, he is.”
Another silence. More staring at the ceiling.
He’s just being polite. Staying so I don’t feel bad. He’ll be gone in the morning, and I can’t blame him.