Page 4 of The Order of Disorder
CHAPTER TWO
I WAKE UP to the sound of a spoon clinking against a bowl.
At first, I just keep my eyes closed and breathe through the sour smell of the blanket pulled up to my chin. My body aches—the constant pain I always seem to be in. My jaw is tight. My neck is sore from the angle I slept at.
“Hey,” says Billy. “You hungry?”
I blink at the wall, and then turn over and face him.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, shirtless, holding a bowl of cereal floating in pink milk that smells like melted candy.
I don’t answer, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He takes a spoonful, staring at me thoughtfully while he chews, and then says, “I got you a bowl.”
I follow his eyes to the nightstand, where a second bowl sits, spoon sticking out.
“You always liked this cereal,” he says fondly. “You used to pick out the marshmallows and leave the rest.”
I blink at him, and he smiles, pale grey eyes soft with warmth.
“Go on,” he says. “Eat.”
I sit up slowly, dragging the blanket with me. My limbs feel heavy and foreign, like doll parts that have been screwed on wrong.
Billy stands and picks up the bowl, crouching in front of me and holding it out.
“There you go, sweetheart,” he says, handing me the spoon.
His kindness is worse than his cruelty. It cycles around now and again, some sentimentality for our shared history. Some crooked echo of who he used to be—who he still thinks he is. As if he can undo any of this. As if he can undo Ryder.
He watches me, waiting for my reaction. A thank you. A smile. A hint of the girl I used to be.
But she’s not here. She doesn’t live in this body anymore.
Still, I take the spoon.
The cereal tastes like dye and powdered milk, like the foster home we used to eat it in. I swallow it down numbly, because it’s easier than resisting.
When I finish, he takes the bowl and brushes my hair back from my face, his fingers lingering at my temple.
“You’re home now,” he murmurs.
The worst part is that he sounds like he believes it.
He stands and moves behind me, grabbing my old hairbrush off the dresser, and starts brushing my hair with gentle strokes, careful not to pull on the tangles at the ends.
By the time night falls, I’m someone else.
At least, I look like someone else, dressed in the clothes Billy chose for me.
Black mesh crop top, no bra. Leather shorts. Heeled boots that dig into my ankles when I walk. And around my neck, the collar he never lets me take off.
I said nothing when he laid out the clothes. I stopped trying to cover up weeks ago. It doesn’t matter anymore. There’s no point in trying to hide.
“Fucking sexy,” he had said, leaning back and admiring his choices with satisfaction.
The clubhouse is always busy, but it’s packed tonight, and thrumming with the sounds of loud music and voices. It’s familiar, although not comforting. But it’s the sound of home, I guess. For six years, after all, this was my life.
The hangar is a space so big it feels like its own ecosystem. A whole world under a single roof. The ceiling vanishes into shadow, the walls feel too far away to ever reach. Two levels of rough-built bedrooms run along one wall, the upper floor connected by a wooden staircase and a gangway that overlooks the main open space. A bar stretches across the opposite wall, made out of scarred wood and steel reinforcements, always sticky. There are bikes lined up near the entrance, packed tight and shining, like animals waiting to be unleashed. A few pool tables, a stripper pole, couches everywhere—some upright, some half-collapsed under the weight of years.
