Orion Cross My Sky (13 page)

T
he first thought
in her mind when Tammy awoke was that it was Saturday. But when she opened her eyes, it took her a moment to realize she was in bed at the little apartment she shared with her cousin.

Then the nightmares flashed back to her.

Tugging the covers over her head, she pulled
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
out from under her pillow and held it against her chest. She clutched it as if it were a shield—impenetrable armor protecting her heart.

Maybe it was the exhaustion, but it suddenly felt as if everything were crumbling around her.

It was so
quiet.

How could chaos and ruin be so silent? It crept upon her like a shadow, lurking in her peripheral vision. Beneath the blankets, she began to sweat and the heat overcame her. She tossed the covers aside and sat up. The room was bright, and the clock near her bedside read nine a.m. Clara was still home. She could hear her in the kitchen. Dishes were clanking together. For a moment, she listened closely to each footstep, picturing her cousin crossing the kitchen, collecting glassware, filling the dishwasher.

The sounds melted together.

They almost sounded like voices. If she listened hard, she heard words coming out of every sound—words that whispered horrible things.

She imagined Clara’s smile, her independence, the power she exuded. And she was suddenly angry. Why was
she
so content?
And what is wrong with me? Why am I
not
okay?

Her heart rate sped up and, all of a sudden, it seemed as if the room were growing smaller. She felt as if she were being swallowed whole by darkness.

The voice emerging from every sound grew stronger, louder, and it spoke in a tone edged with harsh disgust, telling her she was no good.

The voice sounded like her father’s and it repeated over and over, each syllable scratchier, more vehement than the last.

“No, no, no, no!” She clapped her hands over her ears.

The voice wouldn’t go away.

The window. The window.

What if he were there, watching? What if he could see her through
the window?

She bolted across the room, desperate to hide. This building didn’t have an attic, not like the one back home.
Dark place, dark place, I need a dark place.

Every breath came out labored. Thoughts were like tiny buzzing insects swarming in her head.

And in a split second, she did the only thing she could think to do. She dove into the closet and slammed the door.

T
he closet felt like a womb
.

Oh, dear, you weren’t ready.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind.
You didn’t want to come out. I was in labor for a long time, Tammy,
Nan had told her.
It was like you didn’t want to be born. Like you were afraid.

Those words were carved into her mind.
Afraid
.

Tammy wondered if she’d known when she was in the womb—if she’d known what would happen to her. She thought back over all the books she’d read. None of them had shed light on her life. None of them had really explained why these things occurred.

Her father had called her a special little girl. What did that mean?

I want to know! I want to know!

The closet was dark and warm and tiny, not like the closet she’d had in her old room. She liked this one better. She fit snugly against the back corner, tucked behind clothes that smelled like the dryer sheets Clara had started using in the laundry.

Once she’d barricaded herself in here, the voices went away. The noises ceased. Her head stopped reeling.

She clutched the battered paperback against her chest.

Safety.

She let her mind drift. Soon, she found herself on the
Nautilus
. She was so busy in her mind that she paid no attention to the passage of time.

She heard voices again, and it took her a panicked moment before she realized it was Clara’s voice. She ignored it.

Drifting out of her body, she entered her own world. A place where she was secure.

And it wasn’t until the pounding on the door became so insistent that she jolted from her reverie, plunged back into her body.

Light blinded her, clothes were torn aside, and all of a sudden, a face looked down at her. Two faces.

Clara. And Alex.

T
ammy wasn’t
certain what had happened, but when Alex pulled her out of the closet and shook her, she remembered they’d made plans. Hadn’t they?
Yes—I invited Alex over to the house today to look at the rare history books Mom got me for Christmas last year.

She remembered the conversation now, but everything else was fuzzy.

How’d I get into the closet?

Alex coaxed her to the bed and sat her down, kneeling before her. Tammy looked up and noticed Clara standing there, wringing her hands.

“What…what’s going on with you two?” Tammy asked.

Looking down, she saw she was wearing her pajamas. She wondered why she hadn’t been in bed. Had she gone into the closet looking for something to wear?

“What were you doing in there, Tammy?” Clara’s eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying.

“Are you okay?” She rested her hands on the legs of her pink pajama pants and looked at Alex. “What are you doing here so early? You said you couldn’t come over until three. It’s only nine.” She glanced back at Clara, who had one hand placed over her mouth, as though she were shocked. Shocked by what?

“Tammy.” Alex squeezed her hand gently. The daylight streaming in through the window glimmered off the buckles on her boots. She wondered if Alex owned any footwear other than those boots.

“What?”

“It’s five o’clock,” Clara finished, lowering her hand.

Tammy almost laughed, but she didn’t have it in her. She was very tired for some reason, even though she was sure she’d only just woken up. “That’s impossible.”

Clara sank onto the bed beside her, appearing defeated. “Oh my God.”

“Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Her bemusement was making her mad, but she didn’t want to blow up at her cousin—especially not in front of Alex.

“I’ve been banging on that door since Alex got here,” Clara began. “I left the house for a while to go food shopping, and when I came back, I figured you were still in bed. So, I knocked on your bedroom door but you didn’t answer.”

Tammy said nothing, waiting for Clara to continue.

“I left you alone until Alex showed up. Then I finally came in here, and you weren’t in bed. I heard whimpering coming from the closet.”

“Whimpering?” She turned her head and looked toward the closet as if there were someone else in there. But she knew there wasn’t. The door was broken, the wood cracked. A pry bar lay on the carpet.

“Who the fuck builds a house with closet doors that lock
from the inside?
” Clara threw her hands up in the air, then buried her face in her palms.

“Hey.” Alex squeezed her knee, seeming the mediator in this situation—whatever
this
was. “It’s going to be okay, she’s fine.”

“She’s not fine.” Clara shot a glare at Alex. “She’s clearly not fine. She’s been locked in the goddamn closet.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t remember being…” A feeling of recognition came over her. She couldn’t remember being in the closet for all that time, but she suddenly knew they were right. She thought of this morning when she’d woken up. “Oh.”

“Do you remember?” Clara asked, desperate. “Do you, do you?”

“Okay, okay, hang on,” Alex interrupted. “Let her be. Tam, what do you say to a bike ride? Go out on the Harley, then?”

Not knowing what else to say, she mumbled, “Sure.”

“Right. Get dressed.” Alex rose to her full height, nodding to Clara. “I’ll be waiting.”

Clara didn’t leave the room without some insistence from Alex, who tugged the door shut behind her.

When Tammy was alone, she approached the closet with care, as if afraid she’d find someone inside. Broken shards of wood cracked beneath her slippers. There was no one in there. Nothing but a memory, and the realization that the numbness inside her had finally taken over.

She’d lost what was left of her sanity. Terror overtook her as she wondered if she’d ever get it back.

T
he sharp shocks
in Orion’s face had dissipated, to be replaced by a constant dull ache that made him weary. He’d spent last night at Sheriff Ryder’s apartment, sleeping fitfully on his lumpy couch, and tonight, he would return home.

Putting off the inevitable, he spent much of the day working on the Trans Am with Zane. They bullshitted about the usual—Zane’s girlfriends, his desire to eventually leave the state, and Orion’s upcoming appointment with the pain management specialist handling his injections.

When his cell phone vibrated loudly on the roof of the car, it nearly slipped off to the concrete below. He dove forward and grabbed it just in time while Zane closed the hood of the car and leaned against it.

“Hey, who’s this?” He was ready to hang up, thinking it might be a telemarketer. But the voice sounded familiar.

“It’s Clara. Listen, I—”

“What’s up? Everything okay?”

“Well, no. I need your help. It’s Tammy. She’s not doing so well.”

His entire body tensed as he focused on the fading blue paintjob of the car in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zane turn his head and look at him in question. “What…what’s wrong?”

“She’s okay right now. She went out with Alex for a bit. She gave me your number a while ago, just in case. Can you come over? I’d rather talk about this in person.”

“Sure. Now?”

“Yeah.” Clara heaved a troubled sigh into the phone. “Now.”

After he hung up, Zane shuffled over, his hands in his pockets. “Everything okay, man?”

Orion shook his head. “Something’s up with my girl. I gotta go talk to her cousin. Can you put the tools away?”

“Yeah, man.” Zane’s brow crinkled. “Keep me posted, okay?”

He nodded, at a loss for words, and left the garage.

H
e’d never been
to Tammy’s place, but Clara had given him directions over the phone. It was only a block down from his house. The Grange home was a squat, orange building with a perfectly manicured lawn and shrubs along the walls. Orion went around to the side of the house, where he knew he’d find the entrance to the apartment, and knocked twice.

When Clara answered, he noticed her cheeks were puffy and her eyes red from crying. She brushed moist hairs away from her face and shrugged as if to invite him in. Stepping inside, he stood by a shabby brown ottoman and an armchair covered by a worn green blanket.

“Before you start to freak out, she’s okay,” Clara said, shutting the door. “I think.”

“I don’t understand.” He kept his coat on, burying his hands into the pockets, before he followed her into the kitchen.

Leaning against the counter was Gaven, Clara’s boyfriend. Orion didn’t know him very well, but the kid made him a little uncomfortable and always had. He wasn’t very sociable, didn’t talk much, and moved awkwardly, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to be human.

Orion gave him a small nod and Gaven cocked his head as if assessing him. It unnerved him. He sat at the kitchen table and Clara pulled out a chair for herself.

“Look, just tell me what’s goin’ on,” he said, agitated.

“She had a breakdown. Do you know anything about Tammy’s past? I mean, we haven’t been living in this place very long, and before that…”

“She hasn’t told me much. I know somethin’ bad happened, but she won’t open up. We haven’t been dating that long, ya know, so I kinda figure maybe along the way, she’ll be able to talk about it. Why?”

That moment would forever mark him like a scar. It dug into his nerves, and even though his life was marred by pain both physical and emotional, he couldn’t imagine the horror Tammy had experienced.

His gut knotted when Clara spoke those words.

Sexually molested by her father.

“She needs help,” Clara was saying.

He lurched from his seat and ran to the bathroom, vomiting and dry heaving for a long time until he felt Clara’s hand on his back, rubbing gentle circles between his shoulder blades.

All he could think was,
why?

There was no logical reason, and there never would be.

S
omething about going fast
—zooming out of Clearwater with her arms tucked around Alex’s slender frame—made her feel liberated. The horrors hadn’t left her, but the wind whipped the darkness from her mind, cleansing her.

When she arrived home and climbed off the bike, she realized she was trembling. She’d been holding on so tight, leaning into those turns.

I wanted to let go
. To fall away.

Alex said nothing as she accepted the extra helmet and tucked it away before holding her own beneath her arm and walking with Tammy along the narrow sidewalk.

A sense of humiliation sank over her as she opened the door and saw Orion. What would he think of her?

She half expected him to turn away, but instead, he embraced her tightly.

“I’m not gonna ask why you didn’t tell me,” he said into her hair. Then he moved his head so he could look her right in the eye. “I already have a pretty good idea why you kept it to yourself.”

Tammy snapped her head to the side, catching Clara’s gaze from across the room. She stood beside Gaven, who remained motionless, his expression intense as he acted like something of a sentinel beside her.

Clara grimaced before she said, “I had to tell him.”

A heavy silence fell between them.

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember. I really don’t remember.”

Alex placed a firm hand on her shoulder, comforting her, but said nothing. Friendship was new to Tammy, but she welcomed the companionship.

She sank into the cushion of the old armchair and stared at the threads in the carpet, trying to remember why she’d been curled up in the closet.

She couldn’t.

Not a single shred of memory returned to her. It had been a comfortable place, a dark place, a small hideaway she could tuck herself into as she’d done in the attic at her parents’ house.

She was distinctly aware of Orion beside her, and Clara’s voice. But she didn’t listen. She just sat there, and eventually, realized her cousin had ordered pizza, and Gaven was staying over. Clara kept going to him, leaning against him as if for support.

Did I do this? Did I ruin her day, make her uncomfortable?

Guilt swam through her with every painful thought, as if she’d caused it.

That night, Orion stayed with her, but she wasn’t completely aware of his presence. It was as if she were fractured, hovering slightly out of her body, like a dinghy floating farther and farther from the boat it had once been anchored to, drifting away into a dark cold night.