© Copyright 2011 

 All work is property of Leah Crichton, any duplication or reproduction of all or part of the work without explicit permission by the author is illegal.

Revelation: (rev-uh-ley-shun)

the act of revealing or disclosing

something disclosed that was not before realized

My eyes flew open wide, shocked at being grabbed so quickly.  I balled my hands into fists and tried to swing at him, but he gripped both my arms in his hand and pinned them hard against the wall behind me.  His other hand covered my mouth, ensuring my silence. It was futile. I didn’t stand a chance. Orion had made his brute strength very clear. If he didn’t want me to go anywhere, I wasn’t going.

Unwilling to surrender, I brought my knee up to try and get him in the stomach, but his patience was thin and he tired of my resistance. He stepped forward, pressing all of his weight against me. Any chance of movement on my part had just completely evaporated.  In mere seconds, my worthless struggle was brought to an end. “Ireland, please. I’m not going to hurt you.” His face was dark, deep circles under his eyes adding intense saturation to their color. “I’m going to let go, but you are going to behave and not make a sound. Do you understand me?” His voice was cool and collected, the opposite of everything I felt.

As I nodded my head, tears brimmed over my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I was shaken, but would have been more scared had he been angry. He wasn’t. There were no visible signs of the rage in him that terrified me. On the contrary, he was calm. He loosened his grip on my arms, but didn’t let go. His body eased off slightly and he removed his hand, freeing my mouth from its temporary prison.

I knew this would be my only chance to yell for help. In the millisecond it took to get the necessary air into my lungs to scream, his hand was over my mouth again, his body against mine. “Tiger, c’mon, be a good girl,” he pleaded. “I promise I’m not going to hurt you. You can’t possibly think I would. I only want you to hear me out and, unfortunately, because you are as stubborn as your hair is red, you didn’t leave me any other choice.”

I believed him. Even if I didn’t, I was acutely aware Orion could play this little game all night. Besides, I couldn’t think for one second that he would intentionally hurt me—not physically, at least. The fact that he had hurt me so much worse was beside the point. The kind of wounds Orion inflicted were not any that you could see.

“We’ll try this again, okay? I’m going to let go, and you aren’t going to make a sound, and you’re going to stop fighting me. Do we understand each other?”

I nodded. I would listen since I didn't have a choice. He removed his hand from my face and tensed, waiting to see if I would follow his orders. I didn’t even exhale. Finally confident that I would obey his rules, he slowly removed his hold on my wrists. I pulled my arms down and started rubbing at them.

“Jesus, Ireland, you’re so stubborn.” He looked down at my wrists and turned his back to me, sitting on the edge of my bed with his head in his hands. “I didn’t want to do that, I’m sorry.”

I stood frozen in place, too scared to move, but my eyes were frantic, searching for the quickest, fastest way out. “S’okay,” I mumbled. Not knowing what he wanted me to do, I remained where I was and allowed my arms to hang loosely at my sides.

He stood. “No, no it’s not okay. I never wanted to hurt you. You’re everything to me and, because I was selfish, everything is a mess.” He began an uneasy pacing across my bedroom.

“Selfish is only one word that comes to mind, Orion. You are more than selfish.” My eyes followed him; as long as he was standing, my escape plan would have to wait, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with anything less than a full confession. Not after what he’d done, what he just did. “You wanted to talk to me so badly; here’s your chance, talk.”

“You’re right, I am selfish, but not the way you think I am. I can explain.”

“You can explain? Explain what? That you are a cheater? That you said all those things to me and didn’t mean them?” I wasn’t scared of him anymore. If he was going to hurt me, he would have done it already.

“I meant every word I’ve ever said to you,” he fired back. He spun on his heel and walked toward me. “Every word. You weren’t meant to see any of what you saw. Now you've left me no choice but to show you.”

I slid away from the wall and backed away from him.  It didn’t even give him pause. He continued to head straight for me as I tried to avoid having him anywhere near me: an elusive game of cat and mouse. “Show me what?”

“Stand still.” I didn’t think so. I would listen, more due to lack of options than anything else, but I didn’t want him close to me. “Stand still,” he repeated. My steps away from him were much quicker now, and I increased the space between us significantly.

In a second—less than a second, maybe—he cleared the room and stood directly in front of me. How did he move so fast? “How did you do that?” I demanded.

“I’m going to explain everything, okay? All of it. But you’re going to have to let me touch you.” He held out his arms like he was waiting for me to embrace him. “Please, Ireland. If you never want to see me again after this, you have my word that I will leave you alone. You won’t even have to hear my voice again. It’ll be like I never met you, just like you said.”

I wanted to be enraged, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t be, not while looking at this boy, this man that I had loved. That I still loved.  “I’m only asking that you give me a chance to make you understand, please.”

Going against everything that screamed inside my head, I pushed my instincts aside and stepped forward anyway.  

He pulled me closer, and the familiar feeling of his arms around me almost caused me to break down. I should have hated him at that moment, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Orion put my face to his chest so I couldn’t see anything and squeezed his arms tight around my body. “Close your eyes,” he directed. I did, trying to freeze the moment, the feeling of his body against mine, even if it would only be a memory to keep for later.

Through my eyelids, I could tell the light in the room had shifted as if we were suddenly enveloped in a dark blanket. His embrace became even more constricting, and I became even more helpless to the familiar feeling of his arms. I squeezed my eyes tighter, afraid of what was happening.

Pinpricks hit every nerve on my body; my skin felt hot, like the temperature had increased by ten degrees, and so did Orion’s. I was lightheaded. I felt like I might faint, but Orion’s body was in front of mine and his arms around me were rock solid. His voice was soft. “You can look now. Just stay close to me.”

I turned. We weren’t in my room anymore. After my eyes adjusted to the light, it was easy to recognize we were in a hospital. Machines hummed and beeped around us. A ventilator worked, pumping air and producing a chilling rhythm.

Two people lay in the beds in front of us.  I stepped closer to get a better look. Orion stepped forward too, unwilling to allow even a slight gap of space between my body and his. It was hard to make out any features, but judging by their silhouettes, they appeared to be female.  Both of them were tiny, almost like children.

I looked at the girl to the left; she had blonde hair, which was matted. Tubes came out of her arm and traveled up to one of the machines. The arm was bruised in the shades of blue, black and purple that skin is never supposed to be. Her other arm was in a cast.

I couldn’t see her facial features because there was a large bandage covering the bridge of her nose, and the rest of her face matched her arm: grotesquely swollen, shaded in the same unnatural colors. Both of her eyes were black and her breathing was uneven and erratic.

The girl on the right looked to be even worse than the first one. Black toenails sat on top of each toe. Her leg was held up in a sling-like metal contraption, encased in a huge heavy cast. Her arms were covered in gauze so I couldn’t tell if they were as bruised.

Her face was almost unrecognizable. One whole side of it was a gruesome purple color, and her eyes, like her roommate’s, were swollen shut. A massive tube was taped to her mouth; a blue accordion hose was connected to the ventilator. Her chest was being pulled up like it was attached to an invisible string, a marionette controlled by a robot.

She had a massive bandage wrapped completely around her head. Her hair pointed out of the top of the gauze.

My heart sank. Whatever had happened to them was awful.

My eyes darted across the room to an old man sat in a chair in the far corner. He looked haggard, a mass of disheveled hair linked through his hands. His eyes were bloodshot, like he’d cried an infinite number of tears. I whispered, sure to keep my voice down: “Orion, can he see us?”

“No, he can’t see us.”

“What happened to them?”

Orion’s voice was nothing more than a murmur. “Well, they were both in a terrible car accident. That girl,” he pointed to the blonde one, “was in a truck. The truck hit that girl,” he pointed to other one, “in her car. She was with her family. Her dad was driving, but the weather was terrible. He lost control of the car, and the truck was coming the opposite way. The driver tried to swerve to avoid it, but it was too late. It was very, very  bad.”

“Like mine.”

“Yeah Tiger, just like yours. Look at her closer. Look at her hair.” 

I squinted, trying to get a better look. I eyed the gauze wrapped around the top of her head a second time. The hair that came out the top was wild, red, and curly.

Just like mine.

“Is that? Who is that? She looks like...” I faltered, my eyes shooting over and resting on the man in the chair. He was familiar too.

Orion's hands slipped around my waist and he whispered, “It's you, Ireland. I'm so sorry.”

I gasped. Air left my lungs faster than I was able to take it in. Stunned, I staggered backwards, his body behind mine, keeping me steady. I turned back around to face him but before I could let out the scream, he buried my face in his chest and everything went dark.

When I woke up I could feel something soft underneath me, downy feathers—my bed, maybe. I wiggled my fingers and my eyelids fluttered open. Orion sat next to me cross-legged, watching my face intently. When my vision focused on him, I remembered. I remembered what I had seen. My heart started racing and adrenaline rushed through my veins. I jumped to my feet, terrified. Orion was on his feet in seconds. “Tiger, wait. Listen. Please, you have to trust me.”

“Trust you?” My voice was near hysterical. I was shaking, sobbing uncontrollably. “Trust you? I-I-I don’t even know you. How did you do that? What are you?” I screamed.

Orion stepped forward, speaking softly. “Shh. You must have a lot of questions, huh?”