Under the Orange Moon Read online

  Dylan felt helpless as she watched Ben’s usual walls shoot up around him. She wondered if she should reach out, comfort him. Would he even allow that?

  “Ben, come home with us,” Linda pleaded in her subtle, but demanding way. “The officer said he was done with you for now.”

  Ben shook his head. “I need to make calls, tell everyone.”

  “C’mon, man. You can do all that at our house,” Hugh said. “You don’t need to be here.”

  “I don’t want to be with anyone,” Ben snapped. He took in a deep breath. “I just need a minute.”

  Brandon grabbed Hugh’s shoulder and eased him away. “Let’s give him some breathing room, guys.”

  Linda wrapped her arms around Ben’s tense body. “We’re here when you need us.”

  One by one, the Mathews family departed, unknowingly leaving Dylan behind as they went. She watched for them to disappear before turning to him and searching for something to say.

  “Will you be all right?” she asked quietly. The stupidity of that question only hit her after it came out of her mouth. She wanted to slap her own face for even allowing it to escape.

  Ben hissed a sarcastic sound. Disgusted, he shook his head and turned his back on Dylan.

  “Stupid question.” She placed her arms around his waist and rested her face against his back. “What can I do?”

  “You can leave me alone.”

  “Please don’t shut me out, Ben.”

  Ben sighed deeply. “Then don’t force me to, Dylan.”

  “Let me be here for you.”

  He turned to face her with his cold glare, the same callous expression that she knew all too well. As his eyes narrowed on her, Dylan felt his need to be alone. He truly didn’t want her there.

  “Mr. McKenna?” a police officer said as he approached. “I think we’re about finished here. The coroner took your mother’s body to the morgue. Do you have any questions?”

  Ben stared at the officer with a blank look. “Can you tell when she—when she did it?” It was almost unbearable for Dylan to hear the struggle in his voice.

  “We can’t be too sure, but the coroner said so far it looks as if it was only a few hours ago.”

  Ben looked down. “Right,” he said quietly.

  The officer left, leaving the two of them standing on his porch alone.

  “Please go, Dylan,” Ben demanded. “I don’t want you here.”

  Dylan almost took a step back from his blatant disregard for her. He had just lost his mother in the worst of ways and now she would be his escape. She would take his anger and verbal abuse if it made him feel better. She was willing to be there in any way he wanted, no matter the pain it caused her.

  When Dylan didn’t respond or move, Ben growled with anger. “Dylan, go!” he snapped loudly. “I don’t want to do this to you, but I need you to leave. Please.”

  Dylan’s chin quivered. “Okay,” she obliged through a painful lump in her throat. “When you’re ready, I’m here.”

  Ben turned his back on her once more and walked into his mother’s house, slamming the door angrily as soon as he was inside.

  Dylan walked slowly, arms folded against her chest, at a loss for words, and wanting more than anything for Ben to need her. She felt selfish and heartbroken. Her emotions raged around, touching all feelings except happiness.

  She stepped in through the back door of her home and found her family gathered around the kitchen table. Linda spoke on the phone as the Mathews boys sat in silence.

  “Who’s she talking to?” Dylan asked Hugh.

  “She’s setting up an appointment at the funeral home that we—” he stammered. “You know. The one we took Dad to.”

  Dylan nodded, understanding his struggle to get his sentence out.

  Linda hung up the phone and buried her face into her hands. “Oh boy,” she said in a sigh. “This is going to be difficult.”

  Charlie took in a deep breath. He looked down at his folded hands and pounded them down against the table. “How could she do this to him? How could she push for him to come home after five years and then kill herself, knowing he would find her?”

  “He seemed like he was changing. He seemed…I don’t know…happy,” Brandon said.

  Dylan closed her eyes, forcing a single tear to escape and roll down her cheek. Her family didn’t know that they had fallen in love. They didn’t know they planned to discuss their future that evening.

  Jonah stared at Dylan with concern, curiosity and possibly even pity. He didn’t take his eyes off of her, saying, “We’ll take care of the stress for him. We’ll make sure all the planning is handled while he gets his head straight.”

  “It’s no use, Jonah. He’s already doing it,” Hugh said. “He’s already pushing everyone out.”

  “Just let him be!” Jonah snapped. “Not everyone needs a fucking hug.”

  “Well I know one thing,” Linda began pointedly, “we’ll deal with it like a family, damn it. You boys are not going to let this be a means for you to fight, so you can knock that off right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jonah said quietly. “I just know how he works, and he needs space.”

  “Ben is a part of us and we’ll give him whatever he needs,” Linda announced. Her eyes welled with tears. She shook her head angrily and smacked her hands to the table. “Damn that woman! Even in her death she manages to be a shitty mother!”

  In unison, the Mathews children gasped for air and snapped their heads back in shock. It was very rare that their mother, the matriarch of their family, lost her temper like that. Her protective feelings over Ben, her son by nurture and not nature, took over in that instant and she cried, something she vowed never to do in front of her children.

  Brandon held his mother’s hand. “Mom, he’ll be okay.”

  Linda sank deeper into her hands. “No, he won’t. This is going to be what sends him straight over the edge.”

  Dylan couldn’t hear another word. She nearly flipped her chair as she stood up and ran for her room, sobbing harder with each step she took. It was unbearable to hear Linda’s prediction for Ben’s grim future, only because she knew that version didn’t involve her.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, son,” Warren McKenna said, over the phone. “I will pay for the funeral. Put all the expenses on my card.”

  Ben could hear his father’s new family in the background. He could hear laughter and dishes clinging together. Was he actually doing dishes with them?

  “Don’t worry about the cost of anything,” Warren said, as if Ben ever had before. Money was never a worry for Ben. He couldn’t even recall looking at a price tag in his lifetime. Why would he worry about it now, for his mother’s funeral?

  “Make sure she gets the best, son.”

  “You’re not coming then?” Ben asked, knowing the answer.

  “I just think it’s best that I stay away.”

  Ben cleared his throat, concealing his pain. He swallowed hard and shoved it all back down to his gut, where it would burn and manifest into anger. He bit his lip and held his teeth there on his skin. The physical pain took away the agony. He’d rather bleed then feel emotion, he thought.

  “You understand,” Warren said.

  “Yes,” Ben said, and hung up.

  Ben looked around Ruth’s kitchen. It was plain and white. It was clean and always unused. It was cold. It might as well have been a tin can. He gritted his teeth and stared at the empty house he was supposed to call home.

  He picked up the metal stool that sat in front of the black, granite counter. He lifted it up by the seat and, in one large, powerful motion, smashed it into the sliding door in front of him, shattering the glass to thousands of pieces that crashed to the floor. He lifted the stool into the air above him and rammed it into the white tile beneath him, again and again, until he was done, until the metal stool was twisted and broken, until the air in his chest was gone, until he could no longer scream.

  The room was practically emp
ty. The director pointed to two suit-clad men and motioned for them to remove any vacant seats, an obvious way to make it look less bare, of course.

  Ben sat in the front row beside his aunt, Ruth’s older and very absent sister. He sat still. He could have almost been stone if it weren’t for his color, Dylan thought.

  The Mathews family sat in the row behind him, supporting him from afar. Linda had planned most of the funeral herself, selecting the flowers and music, as well. She let Ben make the calls with numbers he found in his mother’s address book. Only half the people he contacted showed up, another indication of Ruth’s nonexistent life.

  The minister spoke quietly. Dylan wondered what he could really say to make sense of it all. A sad, lonely woman took her life in such a way that she managed to give her only child one last smack in the face. She blamed him for being his father’s son and, eventually, she found a way to make him pay.

  Ben stared forward at his mother’s closed casket. He asked for it to be shut and never felt the need to explain why. Dylan thought of it as another thing in his life he would bottle up or shut down.

  Dylan watched the back of Ben’s head. She resisted the desire to reach out and touch the soft hairs that graced his hairline. That was her favorite spot to touch him when they kissed. She would run her fingers around to his neck, just at the nape, and hold them there, gently stroking as she pulled him closer to her.

  No one said anything of Ben’s father. Nothing was said about how Ruth had died. It was almost as if she died from a heart attack or had gotten into a terrible car crash.

  There were no recent pictures, because it was quite possible that none even existed. It was the perfect example of how Ruth lived her life, if you can even call it living.

  Ben stood when it was over. He didn’t smile as he shook hands and nodded at the mourners that felt sorry for him. He did not look sad; he did not look angry. His face was cold and unfeeling. He was simply there out of his duty as her son. It was one final way to appease her before he said goodbye and never thought of her again.

  Dylan and her family waited for everyone to leave. The Mathews boys stood all the same, blank expressions and hands stuffed into their pockets. They looked awkward, but handsome in their suits. It was a bizarre moment to think of this, but Dylan couldn’t help but to take mental notes of all their similarities. They could have been quadruplets.

  Ben approached them reluctantly, out of obligation, Dylan assumed. He watched the floor as he walked, avoiding any and all eye contact with any one of them. It was the first time that anyone had ever witnessed weakness in Ben’s demeanor. He was always so confident and sure. Now, he seemed fragile like a child beneath his hardened expression.

  “It was a nice service,” Brandon spoke first. He put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Are you coming home with us?”

  Ben shook his head.

  “We’ll leave you alone,” Jonah said, patting Ben’s arm. He turned to his family. “Let’s go.”

  The group dispersed, patting him on the back as they walked out the door. They knew he didn’t want to speak, but found other ways to tell him they were there. Linda hugged him quickly and scooted away before he could see her cry.

  Dylan stood in front of him, debating to say anything at all. She chewed on her bottom lip and felt the moist traces of nervousness in her palms as she squeezed the strap of her handbag. She felt like a stranger to him.

  Ben looked up and finally met her stare. His eyes were tired, angry, and full of hate and fear. His eyebrows fell as he narrowed in on her and grit his teeth. She knew he didn’t want to hear any words of wisdom that she had over the loss of a parent. This could hardly be the called the same, she could already imagine him saying. He looked prepared to lash out with venom if she were to even compare the two, so she didn’t. What he needed was silence, and this she knew well. She said nothing, but felt a kiss on the cheek would be okay for now. She leaned in slowly and pressed her lips to his skin, allowing her fingers to stroke the back of his neck, fulfilling her earlier longing. When she pulled away, his eyes were closed and his face was wearing a pained look.

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” she whispered, and simply walked away.

  Chapter Ten

  On Monday, Jonah stepped in through the broken door of Ben’s mother’s home. His foot crushed the shards of glass that scattered across the kitchen floor. He wasn’t surprised by all the destruction that Ben left behind, and he was positive the mess had been there for days.

  Jonah figured he had been passive about Ben’s space for long enough. It had been three days since Ruth’s funeral, giving him ample time to freak out and get his head together. It was now time to step in and take control the only way he knew how, guy talk and beer.

  The glass crunched beneath his feet and he silently thanked himself for wearing shoes. He pretended not to notice, though. He acted as if it was a completely normal thing to step on broken glass.

  Ben leaned against the counter and thumbed through the newspaper. He didn’t look up at Jonah, but he knew he was there. “Be careful,” he warned.

  “Thanks,” Jonah said with a smirk.

  Ben looked up and checked behind Jonah. “You didn’t bring the rest of them?” he asked sarcastically.

  “No, I’m alone.”

  “They finally gave up, did they? I was thinking of getting a dog to keep them from driving by every day,” he said with more than enough derision behind his voice.

  “I guess.” Jonah didn’t want to argue. He knew that if he defended his family, Ben would tell him to leave. “You feel like hanging out tonight?”

  “What’d you have in mind?” Ben asked, raising an eyebrow. “Cookie decorating with your mom?”

  Jonah shrugged, still ignoring Ben’s spiteful comments. “We could grab a few beers.”

  “With everyone else?” he asked, as if it were a test.

  Jonah smiled and nodded. “If that’s what you want. Boys night out?”

  Ben sighed and crossed his arms. “I could use that.”

  Jonah thought about grabbing a broom and cleaning up the broken glass. He stopped when he remembered that Ben probably hadn’t done that on his own for some Ben-like reason that only he could justify. He was discreet in scanning the room, knowing Ben would be watching for his reaction to the disaster around them. A stool was missing, he noticed, then found it in a nearly unrecognizable fiasco of twisted metal by the battered front door. It was quite clear that his friend had had one serious meltdown and took it out on the house and all its belongings.

  He met Ben’s cautious stares, and laughed when he couldn’t think of anything else. “Well,” he said, looking around, “it looks like you had a good time.”

  For the first time in days, Ben smiled.

  Dylan’s eyes filled with tears on a regular basis. She slept alone, woke up alone, and couldn’t find it in her heart to be angry at Ben for abandoning her. She would leave the room when the painful subject was brought up, not even giving an explanation why.

  Her only solace, the only place she felt half human, was behind the bar at Oilies. She worked long hours and was on her third closing shift in a row. Dylan knew she wouldn’t sleep even if she were home, so she felt as though the money in tips she earned would at the very least make up for the bags under her eyes.

  When she got home from work this time, however, her bed was not empty as it had been the nights before. Ben sat on the edge of the mattress with his head hung low and his shirt in his hands.

  He gave her an empty stare with his bloodshot eyes. “I didn’t know you were closing tonight,” he murmured.

  Elated, Dylan floated across the room. She sat next to him and rubbed the nape of his neck with her fingers. She leaned her head to his, and whispered, “I wouldn’t have if I knew you were here.”

  Ben chuckled. “I just got here.”

  She could smell the alcohol on his breath now. “I see,” she said, sitting back. “You went out with my brothers then?”


  Ben nodded drunkenly. He leaned into her lap and nuzzled his face into her stomach. “You smell good,” he slurred, his voice muffled from her shirt.

  “I’m sure I don’t. I’ve been working all night.”

  Ben slid his hands inside her shirt and felt for her bra. He unhooked it from the back and grabbed at her breast in the front. She didn’t stop him. Part of her wanted his hands on her. Maybe it would feel the same as before and their lives could just go on as if they hadn’t skipped a beat.

  She ran her fingers through his hair as he groped her drunkenly. She knew this wasn’t an emotional display of affection by any means. She was well aware that his heart was nowhere near this but, with a pathetic desperation, she hoped he would remember a time when it was.

  Dylan leaned back and allowed him to fall on top of her. He kissed her, and it was a kiss she didn’t recognize, rough and messy. He wasn’t gentle or patient as he forced his tongue into her mouth and grinded against her. He seemed to not even be in his own head.

  “Ben,” Dylan said with her hands on his chest. She pushed his heavy body up. “Ben, stop.”

  He abruptly sat up, leaning on his hands. He seemed to snap out of it as he stared down at her. His face donned a look of surprise, like he had forgotten who he was with. Still befuddled in his drunken state, he leaned his head back down and nuzzled it up into her neck and hair. He relaxed into her arms and sighed, sending a gust of hot air against her skin.

  “Sleep,” she whispered with tears in her eyes. “Just sleep.”

  Ben seemed to pass out quickly. Naturally, his hand remained resting on her breast. His jeans and shoes were still on. He felt like dead weight on top of her, but she didn’t mind. He was there and that was all that mattered.

  Ben managed to sneak out of Dylan’s grasp quietly enough. He had been awake for some time, standing over the bed and staring down at her peaceful face. He forced himself to walk away, knowing he shouldn’t have been there to begin with.

  As he moved down the stairs, he tried to walk as quickly as possible. The chances of Jonah and his brothers being awake so early in the morning were very slim, but Linda was sure to be up and lurking throughout the house.