Hush - Anne Malcom Page 0,48

she wasn’t quite sure who she was.

She knew she didn’t want pink dresses or anything resembling girly. Heels didn’t make sense, but she liked the ability to make herself taller, more imposing. Makeup . . . she liked the idea of that. Covering her face up. Turning herself into a stranger. She’d watched many videos on it. She’d perfected all kinds of looks thanks to online shopping and a place called Sephora.

She most liked dark around her eyes, a sharp wing, creating shadows. No flaws on her face. Red on her lips, like blood.

Her hair was still long and wild because she didn’t like the idea of a stranger’s hands on her scalp. She had tried it, but lasted mere minutes in the chair, the hairdresser touching her from behind. After some more videos, she might be able to do it herself. But she wasn’t about to rush it. She was already mangled and ugly on the inside, she had no desire to be so on the outside too. Orion had read about many survivors of abuse who cut their hair off. Changed themselves completely so they were no longer desirable to men.

Orion understood that, the need to shrink away into the background in any way possible. But she also knew better. It wasn’t appearance, hair, or makeup that made monsters desire women. It was vulnerability. Opportunity. It was other things Orion couldn’t even describe. If they decided they deserved you, owned you, it didn’t matter how long your hair was.

So, she kept it, the hair. Because it was hers, not theirs.

Clothing, though. That was tricky.

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