Trapped in Forever

10 ~ Orion's Belt

A/N: We made it. After a month of updates, fillers, and little to no Orion, we're finally at the LAST pre-posted chapter. From here on, it's going to be as fresh as strawberries at an outdoor concession stand in the summer. Or wherever you find fresh strawberries in the summer, but whatever. The point is that if you're a repeat offender when it comes to TIF, it's no more reruns. It's anyone's game now ;) But . . . thank you so much for sticking with me this far, almost a year after I started this novel, and dying for more Orion (yes, Noelle, I'm looking at your profile pic - metaphorically.) I LOVEYOU! And to prove this, I've finally taken the time to try and find a picture of Orion and you'll find it to your right. The guy is five years older than Orion but he's the closest to my mental image of him. :)

Dear Amanda K. Rose,

We have looked over your comp cards and found them to be quite engaging. However, our firm isn’t in the position at the moment to be hiring inexperienced models. We are very sorry for the inconvenience and wish you well.

Sincerely, Brooklyn and Land Modeling Agency.

 A chorus of birds chirped outside my cracked bedroom window, the window glass raised an inch or two above the sill, shaking the birdbath water off their feathers and twisting their heads while the sun casted sunshine onto my carpet in a crossed rectangle shape as I sat, crossed legged, on my comforter, reading over the letter I found under a couple of bills that made my mother mutter and then ignore them as she chewed her strawberries. I stuck it upstairs to my room and then locked my door before she saw it, figuring that if it was good, I could always tell her later, after the wrath of bills wore off while she did yoga in the basement.

Then, after reading it one more time, concentrating most on the words “Brooklyn and Land Modeling Agency” I crumpled it into a ball around the size of a baseball, little corners and edges of the paper ripped or poking the flesh of my hands before I tossed it into my pink mesh garbage can across the room, filled with the other rejections from the firms and agencies, who all basically said the same. Inexperienced, a risk, and all left out the biggest reason of all. Not good enough to chance.

Maybe if I were tall, and blond, with big, baby blue eyes, legs long, tan, and lean and a thin waist so tiny you could wrap both hands around it, they would be willing to risk it. But I was average and unremarkable.

I flopped back onto my bed, my hair spreading out over the sheets and my shoulders, wisps of average grazing my skin as I breathed and average eyes staring up at the ceiling, decorated with stars. I tried to copy constellations of the actual stars with them, but after two hours and only coming up with the Big Dipper and Onion’s Belt (Roxanne insisted I did that one first) I gave up. When summer ended, and the breeze turned chill and school started again, and they broke up, I kept reminding myself to take it down but I never got around to it. One night, in December, I caught her staring up at it, almost wistfully. I thought about asking her, breaching the subject we never did, if she missed him but before I could even figure out the words, she started talking about some girls in slutty elves costumes she saw at the mall the day before.

And then, staring up at Onion’s belt, wondering if it was perverted to have Onion’s belt stuck to your ceiling in illuminated stars if that was your friend’s ex-boyfriend’s name, I let out a sigh, not realizing until that moment as the air left my lips how tight my lungs had gotten with oxygen. Car tires were crunching gravel down below, and I turned to glance out the window only to see tress with green buds at the tips. A bright blue bird, perched at the end of one of the branches, beside a bud, turned its head and then, I swore, it looked at me.

It fluttered its wings again, droplets flying through the air before falling below view before twisting its head again, his beak twitching, and then flew away.