"I'm sorry for—"

"I don't want to hear it." Orion's father shoved the key into the ignition. A light rain pitter-pattered against the windows, dotting the glass with tiny water droplets which obfuscated everyone's view of the outside; the trio had managed to slip into the Ford Focus just as thunder clapped in the distance. The grey skies and promises of an incoming storm reflected the mood inside the vehicle.

Orion pursed his lips together as he buckled his seatbelt. You only listen to what you want to hear.

"Do you know what your principal said to us?" Jian continued. He pulled out of the parking spot and adjusted the rear-view mirror so he could drill his dark eyes into his son's. Orion immediately looked away and instead focused his attention on the growing bald spot on the back of the man's head—principal Castellanos could've talked about anything, but most likely just reiterated on the punishment and got them to sign some papers or something.

Orion wasn't going to do his head in about it; all that matter was that he hadn't gotten expelled. The suspension served as a sort of wake-up call, and he now wondered what impact it would have on his friendship with Barbara.

"He told us the exact same thing we always tell you—not to get involved in situations that have nothing to do with you."

"But it did involve me... the reason why Barbara got into a fight with—"

"I don't want to hear that name in my car!"—Jian slammed the palm of his hand against the steering-wheel, causing his wife to jolt in her seat—"Do you see what happens when you get involved with scum like that? You get suspended! You get a track record! Now you'll never get into an Ivy league university!"

Orion zipped and unzipped his jacket, his anger mounting like the volume of his father's voice. It was harder to keep his temper on check when only two days ago he had released it so violently, even more so because of his bigoted father. Orion obviously didn't condone Barbara's choice to physically confront Brandon, but it was much more than anyone else had ever done for him. He could've bet his right arm that if he had informed his parents of the bullying problem, they wouldn't have believed him. 

They probably would've thought that it was some weird, twisted way of getting out of school, and because dialoguing with them was never an option, the entire matter would've been blown out of proportion, with Orion taking the blame for what happened to him. His parents always seemed to blame him for everything, especially his father. Sometimes, Orion wished he was never born.

"Barbara got in a fight over me!"—Orion jabbed his own chest with a finger—"She was the only one that did anything, and I couldn't just let her get beaten to death! She's my friend!"

"That girl is not your friend, you hear me, stupid boy? We've taught you better than to socialise with lowlives, because we know that nothing good ever comes out of it! Now look where we are. " His father's eyes threw daggers at him through the rearview mirror, his voice so loud it could shatter the windows. The man had selective hearing—out of all the things Orion had said, the only thing that had hit home was the last phrase. There was no reasoning with him, and even though Orion knew that, he was too stubborn to just give up.

"She is not a lowlife! She's one of the smartest people in our class, even smarter than me!"

His father scoffed and glanced over at his wife.

"Are you listening to this? Why don't you say something? Our son is associating with gypsies and all you're doing is sitting there like a mute!"

"I think that's enough," Li Juan said. Even though Orion was seated right behind her, he could tell that she hadn't shifted so much as a muscle.

"I can't believe—"

"We also taught our son not to judge a horse by its saddle, yet, you constantly go against our teaching with your judgemental words and thoughtless actions."

Orion's mouth fell open. Mom. She didn't speak much, but when she did, her breath wasn't wasted on trivialities. It shocked Orion to no end to hear his mother's retorts against her husband, he only wished that her actions were as strong as her words.

Jian braked a couple of inched away from the car in front of him—even he was incredulous. His jaw clenched and unclenched as he thought about something to say, but it took him some time to formulate something.

"My actions are in no way thoughtless," he muttered, starting the car back up after five minutes of waiting at a red light in silence, "I've only acted with accordance to the situation presented—I disciplined my miscreant son as any father would, as my father did to me and your father did to you. Never have I raised my hand without reason; Shen has never once given me a reason to do so."

Shen. Shen. Shen. Shen. Shen.

The perfect son. The perfect man. The perfect human being.

"Why do you always have to..." Halfway through the statement, Orion bit his tongue. He desperately wanted to speak his mind, but he had already done enough damage.

"Why do I always what? Say it!" That thundering voice again.

No, I can't say anything. Control yourself, just—

"Why do you always have to compare me to him?" That last word was filled with venom. It was all Shen's fault that Orion was in this situation, if he wouldn't have abandoned him to move to a different state, then things would be okay. Everything would be normal. Orion would be happy.

"What are you blathering about?"

He didn't hear me. Maybe I should just back down, maybe—

"Stop fucking comparing me to my brother!" Orion practically shouted, disregarding the swear word and pulling the seatbelt away from his chest, "You don't understand how hard it is for me! No matter how hard I study, no matter how much effort I put into what I do, you still don't see it! Get your head of your ass and leave me alone!"

Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, what I have done, what have I done, he's going to kill me, he is, I know he will...

Orion clamped down on his lower lip until he drew blood, but the self-inflicted pain wasn't enough to undo what he had just said. All of a sudden, his father spun the steering wheel to the right and veered towards the side of the road; everything broke out into chaos. The surrounding drivers punched holes through the klaxons, the window-wipers moved back and forth frenetically, and the rain came down in sharp, watery blades, shattering against the car in hundreds. Orion's heart jumped in his throat when mother screeched and his father drove onto the sidewalk; they collided with a row of trashcans, releasing a rumble that rivalled the one now occurring in the sky.

He didn't realise his eyes were squeezed shut until the car got switched off and the only sounds he could hear was his fervent pulse and the rain. We could've died, he thought between laboured breaths, we could've died.

"Get out." Another crack of thunder.

Orion was still in a daze and hadn't registered his father's words.

"Get out!"

This time, he heard the order loud and clear. "I-I'm sorry I—"

His father began fumbling with his seatbelt and Orion took that as his cue to get the hell out as quickly as possible. With his head bowed in shame, he pulled his hood over his head and grabbed his backpack; he was on the sidewalk in the blink of an eye.

"If you know what's good for you, don't come home."

The threat lingered in the air as the family car reversed and took it's place on the road, the action so effortlessly smooth, it was as if nothing went wrong in the first place.

-:-

Orion quietly removed the key and placed a hand on the door handle. Inside, his father was most certainly waiting for him, belt in hand. As Orion stood outside, the rain beating down against him, he considered taking a step back and running away to Barbara's house. After all, she didn't live too far off, and her mother would most certainly take him in—then again, he couldn't just disappear like that. If he called his parents and let them know where he was, they wouldn't hesitate to take the car and bring him back home.

I need to be strong about this.

With a sigh—he was doomed from the moment he talked back to his father—he pushed the handle down and pushed the door open. When darkness greeted him, his brow furrowed. He stepped into the foyer and slowly closed the front door behind him, his thoughts as muddy as his sneakers.

His father was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't give Orion any comfort; he could be waiting upstairs, in his bedroom, or even in the living-room.

Orion stood motionlessly on the rubber mat, trembling like a leaf. There wasn't an inch of his body that wasn't soaked, and in the few moments of standing in one place, his clothes had managed to drip enough rainwater to create a puddle underneath him. Orion didn't care about that. The more time it took for the beating to come, the more Orion realised that he didn't care about that either. He survived it once, he could do it again.

He kicked his shoes off—the house was unexpectedly silent. Orion didn't know the time with certainty, but it couldn't possibly be any later than six o'clock in the evening.

Did something happen?

Orion coughed into his hand, interrupting his nerves for a few seconds.

Nah.

He slipped off his hoodie, debating whether it would be a good idea to toss it in the hamper with the dry clothes or hang it up in one of the bathrooms. He decided that he'd had enough of being berated for one day, so, after removing his socks, he slipped his feet into a pair of slippers and began making his way towards the bathroom. Darkness was once again his companion as he made his way down one of the short corridors—he didn't want to stub his toe against anything, so he back-tracked and flicked a light on.

Destruction, that's what he saw. The corridor side table lay flipped over on the floor with all its glass trinkets shattered around it. One of the pictures hanging on the wall was crooked—the others looked afraid of meeting the same fate as the objects on the floor. Orion couldn't move, couldn't speak, the sight was too unnerving—who could've done this? Someone must've broken in when they were out.

He stumbled back and rushed to turn on the lights in the living room.

More devastation; one of the couches was overturned, the coffee table was sat on the other side of the room with one of its legs broken, books and DVDs were strewn all over the place, and a black mark ran down the side of a wall. Orion's hand shook so much that he dropped his hoodie onto the floor.

"Ah Ma! Ah Pa!" he yelled, his legs bringing him around the house, "Where are you?"

What if his parents had been home when the robbers came in?

They're dead, they killed them, they're gone, they're dead, they're—

He caught a glimpse of something in the kitchen and stopped in his tracks.

"Ah Ma."

She sat at the table with her shoulders slumped,her hands wrapped around a mug, and her dishevelled hair curtaining her face, but when Orion called her name, her head snapped towards him.

"Keung," she whispered. His Chinese name. Nobody ever called Orion by his Chinese name.

"I thought someone had broken in," he cried, jogging over to her, "What happened?"

As he neared the woman, he noticed the tear in the collar of her t-shirt and the red marks on her arms.

"What happened," Orion said again, choking on air. Dizziness overcame him and his legs suddenly couldn't hold him up anymore—he stumbled towards the table and collapsed onto it.

"Orion!" Arms wrapped themselves around his waist and attempted to hoist him back up, but his body was too heavy for the voice that accompanied them.

"I'm okay...I'm okay." Orion pressed the heel of his hand into his temple and used an elbow to hold himself up.

The arms tore themselves away and seconds later, Orion heard a chair being dragged over.

"I brought you a chair, sit down, Ke—Orion."

Orion sagged into it, feeling all his energy seep out from the crack where his heart used to be. He heard water running and then felt a wet cloth against his forehead. "What..happened," he croaked for the third time, feeling his heart thumping in his chest.

"Your father and I had a fight." His mother lifted the rag, wiped the moisture from Orion's forehead away with a tissue, and placed it back in its place. Mental clarity was beginning to return to him, so he straightened and wrung his hands together to get rid of the pins and needles.

They must've fought over me.

"I'm alright now," he said, the gravity of the situation beginning to sink in. His father had laid his hands on his mother. Orion couldn't even look at his mother's battered form—in her eyes, he saw defeat.

Li Juan bobbed her head, removed the rag, and walked over to the kitchen sink.

"Where is he?" At the mention of his father, Li Juan's shoulders tensed up. After an imperceptible sigh, she turned and tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear.

"I...don't know," she muttered, throwing her hand in the air, "After lashing out on the furniture, he took his belongings and left."

Orion swallowed his temper and stood up. He knew he should've been scared, that his lungs should've begun constricting the way they always did when he got nervous, but this time, it wasn't the emotion that accompanied him as he watched his mother. She no longer looked like that strong, level-headed woman that ran her own business and took care of the household—she looked scared and defenceless, like a mouse cornered by a cat.

The way she leaned against the counter—hugging herself as if to contain her organs from spilling out onto the floor—brought physical pain to his chest. She had sided him on countless occasions, and only now had it caught up to her. The marks on her arms and the torn shirt was the result of it.

"I'm calling the police," Orion said as he stormed out of the room. But after hearing his mother yell out a 'no' he immediately returned to the kitchen, irritation written across his features. "Did you see what he did to you?" He shouted, as if he were pointing out the mess a naughty child caused.

"Yes, but it's not his fault, he was just angry..." the softness of his mother's voice made him slam the brakes. He tentatively walked up to her, as if any sudden movement could scare her away.

"Ah Ma, he hit you. Look at your arms, at your neck, look at yourself! He's unstable, we have to get—"

"Don't speak of your father this way! He was just angry, did you hear me? He is not a bad man!" She balled her hands into fists, stunning Orion into silence. She was never the irrational one, that was his father.

"This isn't the first time, isn't it?" he said with a stoic resignation.

His mother lowered her gaze, but kept quiet.

Shit.

"What do I do, Ah Ma, I can't just sit here and do nothing.".

"Go."

He blinked.

"Go to your friend's house. Don't stay here tonight. There's no telling what he'll do if he sees you here," she said, urgency interlaced with her words. She walked towards him and placed a hand on his arm. "Take a shower—I'll pack a bag for you."

"No way," Orion countered, shaking her hand off, "I can't leave you here alone! What if he hurts you again?" His voice cracked at the end, and he had to suck in a breath to keep the tears at bay. Why am I crying? I can't cry, I need to stop crying.

"He won't do anything to me," Li Juan said, her puffy almond eyes locked with Orion's. She may have been an inch shorter than him, but her stance was firm, as was her tone. "But to you...he will. He didn't take your words very well."

"Ah Ma..."

"Do as I say, and that's final." She crossed her arms over her chest.

Orion gulped and nodded his head, immediately leaving to do as ordered.

He returned twenty minutes later, no longer feeling like a wet sock. His clothes were clean, his shoes weren't soggy.

"It's all in here," Li Juan said, gesturing to the small black luggage on the kitchen table. Even she had changed—she wore a night gown with long sleeves, and it almost looked like she had passed a comb through her hair. If it weren't for her red eyes—along with the remains of the corridor and living-room—nobody would've thought something had happened. Not even the neighbours noticed anything as the police hadn't shown up on the Zhou's doorstep.

Orion didn't say anything to his mother's statement, he just walked up to the luggage and pulled it off the table. He had never slept away from home before, but this was definitely not how he wanted his first time to go. It wasn't like when Shen left home, at all.

"Are you sure you want me to go?" Orion asked one last time as he stood in front of the front door. The rain outside brought promises of a dark future, but his mother had already turned to pull Orion's rain-jacket from off the rack.

"Stop questioning me." His mother handed him an umbrella after he had slipped the garment on—and because Orion knew better than to contradict her again—he took it and opened the front door.

"It was very brave of you to speak your mind and stand up for yourself. Your brother would have never done that, had he been in your place," Li Juan said from behind him.

Orion turned to look at her in disbelief. Had he heard that correctly?

"Don't become like Shen." That's all she had to say on the matter before she shooed him out into the rain and shut the door.