Taoree: Taoree Trilogy #1

by Michele Notaro

  I walked onto the porch and pushed him. “You killed him, didn’t you? You fucking killed my boyfriend.” I pushed him again.

  He stepped off the porch and away from me. “He didn’t want to live like that.”

  “I’m going to fucking kill you. How could you?” I was screaming.

  “He made me promise,” Orrean said. When he turned his head a little, I saw tear tracks on his cheeks.

  “I don’t care. You killed him… you killed my… Colt,” I sobbed out.

  Another pair of arms wrapped me in a hug and I easily turned into Cal. I could tell he was crying, too, when he told me, “He didn’t want to hurt anyone, kill anyone. He didn’t want to hurt one of us.”

  “Orrean killed your brother. He killed my boyfriend,” I gasped out.

  “It’s not his fault,” Cal said through his tears.

  I knew he was right, but I couldn’t—wouldn’t accept it, so I buried my face in his shoulder and we cried together. When Cal walked me back inside, I didn’t look back at Orrean. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to look at him again.

  Cal lay down in his sleeping bag next to me, but I rolled away from him, curling in on myself and trying to keep more tears from falling. I could hear Cal rustling around behind me, but I didn’t bother looking back to see what he was doing. A few seconds later, I felt his hand patting my shoulder. I had to squeeze my eyes shut even harder. Cal rubbed my shoulder, then stilled his hand, leaving it resting there, offering comfort. It helped keep me from feeling like I was floating away and I appreciated the gesture, but I couldn’t do more than simply allow it. I didn’t even have the energy to try to offer comfort in return. The thought that I was an asshole flitted through my head, but I didn’t care enough to grab onto it. Instead, I simply lay there, numb to everything and everyone.

  ***

  I was sitting against a tree with my knees up to my chest, my arms resting on my legs and my chin resting on my arms. I was outside the Taoree fence near my house again. I had tears in my eyes and absolutely no reason to get up. I looked away from the fence, not even wanting to see it.

  “Jeremy.”

  I closed my eyes, pissed at myself for hearing his voice.

  “Jeremy,” he said again. I could tell that he was only a few feet from me. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  That made me finally turn around to look at him. “Sorry? You’re sorry? For what? For murdering my boyfriend?”

  Orrean knelt down in front of me and tentatively put his hands on my elbows. “I’m sorry for everything.”

  I thought about pulling away, but I didn’t. Instead, I said, “That isn’t enough.”

  “I know,” he whispered.

  “Why is it you? Why is it always you here? Why didn’t he come this time?” I asked him as a few more tears fell from my eyes.

  He started crying. Clear tears falling out of his dark-purple eyes.

  “He’s the one I need,” I whispered.

  “I know,” he whispered back, even more tears streaming down his face.

  I felt a sob building in my chest, so I looked away from him and let my grief overtake me. I tried to stay quiet, but my cries became loud and painful.

  Orrean wrapped me in his arms. I thought about fighting it, but I let him pull me closer anyway. Somehow, he ended up holding me, cradling me in his lap as I cried. I rested my head on his shoulder as I felt my heart break into a million pieces all over again.

  We cried together all night long.

  I startled awake and for a few seconds, I expected Colt to hug me and tell me it was just a bad dream, but then I was hit with my ugly reality, so I pulled my blanket farther over my head and inhaled his scent. Then I jumped up, freaking out.

  Colt had placed his hat on my head, but I knew it wasn’t there when I laid down last night. It must’ve fallen off somewhere. I had to find it. I stood up and started searching everywhere, noticing that everyone but Nolan was already out of the house.

  “What are you looking for?” Nolan asked me, his voice sounding gravelly.

  “Colt’s hat. He gave it to me last night, but I don’t know… I need to find it,” I mumbled as I lifted my sleeping bag up in frustration.

  “Orrean put it on the table,” Nolan said.

  I froze and turned slowly toward my friend. He was pointing to the table where, lo and behold, the infamous blue hat sat. I walked over, plucked it up and pulled it on, immediately feeling better having it with me. Then I packed up my sleeping bag.

  “Everyone is out back,” Nolan said quietly. “Do you want to eat before we go out?”

  “No,” I said, already heading for the back door. I wasn’t hungry and there was no way I could keep anything down, anyway.

  I opened the door and stopped in my tracks. There was a huge rectangular hole in the middle of the yard and everyone was sitting around on lawn chairs or in the grass. They all turned at once and looked at me, and I just froze. Orrean stood up and walked out the side gate. I tracked his movements with my eyes. A moment later, Orrean came back, carrying what could only be…

  I swallowed hard and walked down the deck steps toward him and cut off his progress, asking, “Can I see him before…?”

  “Of course,” Orrean said softly, laying Colt’s body down on the ground. Someone had wrapped him in a sheet.

  I pulled the sheet off Colt’s face, seeing my handsome boyfriend covered in dried blood and tears. I brushed his curly blond hair off his forehead, trying to memorize how his hair felt between my fingers. Then I bent forward and kissed his forehead, then his lips. I could taste the salt from my own tears.

  I kissed his forehead one more time and whispered against his skin, “I love you. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I will always love you, Colton Lyons. Always.”

  Then I covered him back up and stood, nodding at Orrean. Orrean lifted Colt back up and carefully placed him in the hole.

  Wesley held me in his arms as Cal spoke, but I didn’t hear a word he said. I heard Orrean’s voice, too, but it didn’t register. Way too soon it was time to fill the grave. I didn’t help. I couldn’t bear the thought, so I just stood there and let my brother hold on to me as we watched. Cal put a cross he must have made from some spare wood at the top of the grave, and Mandy put some flowers she had picked on top of it.

  As we walked by, I kissed my hand and touched the grave marker, then followed everyone else out of the yard. Nolan squeezed my neck when he passed me with the map in his other hand. I just followed along, not caring where the fuck we went.

  When we were attacked by Ferals, I was happy for the distraction. I put everything I had—which wasn’t much—into killing as many Ferals as possible.

  When people spoke to me, I only answered in nods or head shakes. I had no reason to talk to anyone, and I didn’t even have the energy to pay attention to what they were saying.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’m worried about him,” I heard Wesley saying to someone one night as we lay in the dark. He probably thought I was asleep. He told whoever, “He hasn’t said a word to anyone in a week. Seven fucking days.”

  “He’s grieving.” That was Nolan.

  “I know that, but that’s not normal,” Wes argued.

  “He lost a lot of people within a few days, of course he’s not acting normal,” Nolan said.

  “We all lost people, and we’re at least talking and eating. He’s hardly eaten anything. Have you seen how much weight he’s lost?” Wes’s concerned voice pulled at something in my chest. It was the first time I had felt anything in days… a week, apparently.

  “It’s different for him. He was in love with Colt,” Cal surprised me by joining in.

  “We need to do something,” Wes insisted.

  I started to drift off as they continued talking about me. I just didn’t really care enough to speak up or to even bother to listen anymore. My entire being was exhausted.

  “They’re right, you know,” Orrean said almost as soon as I fell as
leep.

  “I know,” I admitted as I pulled the rim of my hat down a little and leaned against the tree, shoulder to shoulder with him. Every night I had these dreams, and every night Orrean tried to comfort me as I dealt with my loss.

  “Can you at least try tomorrow, emm Balu?” he asked.

  I actually smiled at that. “Why won’t you tell me what that means?” He started calling me that a few nights ago.

  “You’re not ready,” he said.

  “God, these dreams are really weird,” I replied. They were weird, but they were also the only time I felt any kind of comfort… probably because I was actually sleeping.

  “I like them,” he said, but then amended, “Well, I don’t like that you’re sad, but I like spending time with you.”

  I snorted. “I think my brain is super conceited or something. I totally just made you say that, which means that I pretty much just told myself that I like spending time with me.”

  He just reached over and took my hand in his.

  “You know, if you were the real you, you would never be this close to me,” I said after a while.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You… or the real Orrean, anyway, can’t stand me,” I told him.

  “Why in the world would you think that, emm Balu?”

  “You, er, Orrean won’t even talk to me, and he always walks as far away from me as possible. Sometimes it kinda gets on my nerves,” I admitted. “I don’t know why you avoid me, because you talk to everyone else all day long.” Just another weird thing about the alien.

  He made a noise in the back of his throat that made me look at him. He was making a face like he was in pain.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  He swallowed loudly. “Making you feel that way.”

  I barked out a laugh. “It’s not you… it’s the real Orrean. You are my friend.”

  “You consider me a friend?”

  “Of course,” I responded, then thought about it. “Well, you only exist in my imagination, so I guess that’s really fucking crazy, but I do think of you as a friend.” God, I am so fucked-up.

  “You’re not fucked-up,” he said, reading my mind.

  “You just proved how unreal you are. You read my mind, and that’s just not possible,” I sighed.

  “Nothing’s impossible,” he responded.

  I snorted again. “Well, the real you already told me that he couldn’t read my mind, so I think I got you there.”

  Now he sighed and ran his hand across his forehead—his nervous tick that he sometimes did.

  “I’m really tired,” I admitted.

  “I know.” He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side.

  I allowed it because I missed having my Colt wrap me in his arms, and this was the only time I could get even a hint of that feeling.

  “Go to sleep,” he whispered against the hat I was wearing.

  “I am asleep,” I reminded him.

  He sighed, “Then just rest here… with me, emm Balu.”

  So I did.

  ***

  The next day went much like usual. Everyone went about their business around me and tried to involve me in conversation, but I couldn’t do more than nod or grunt at them. I knew I wasn’t being fair. I knew that they were grieving too; we had all lost someone—more than one person—important to us, but I couldn’t seem to bring myself to do anything about it.

  Orrean ended up walking next to me after I refused to talk to anyone and everyone else got too frustrated to deal with me. I really couldn’t blame them—and I didn’t—I couldn’t imagine dealing with me, either. But Orrean always seemed so calm and collected that I welcomed his presence, even if I secretly thought he didn’t like me.

  He started speaking with his calm, smooth voice, “When I first came to Earth, I wanted to explore and experience new things. So once the camps were formed and we were allowed to move about some, I asked to meet with your local police chief.” I glanced at him and saw a small smile on his face.

  He continued, “When I got to the police station, I could tell that all the humans were terrified and thought I was going to hurt them, so I smiled and introduced myself to each officer there. When I sat in the chief’s office, I could see him sweating with nerves, so I held out my hand like I saw humans do on television and said, ‘Hello, my mane is Orrean. How’s to do?’ Then I watched the man fight back a smile. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Why is he afraid to smile at me?’ I thought that maybe I had misread humans from watching your programming shows or something. Then when he answered me with ‘My name is Howard. How are you?’ I understood. He was trying to be polite and not correct my English, so I started laughing and he soon joined in.” Orrean’s voice was soothing and unlike everyone else’s voices when they’d been trying to talk to me. I just couldn’t focus on everyone else, but I was actually paying attention to Orrean and his story.

  “When we calmed down, he asked me when I learned English, so I told him I had been learning it since we landed a week ago, and he seemed blown away. Howard was a good man. He took me around your town that day, showing me different places and things to do. When he showed me the local pet store, I asked him to take me inside. Taoree do not have pets, so I was very interested to see it. I was in love with that store and probably spent at least two hours in there with that human. All the different animals running, playing, eating, sleeping; it was amazing. The young girl working in the store even let me hold all the different animals. I thought it was phenomenal that humans could care so much for these little creatures that don’t even provide them with anything. They don’t supply food or clothing or any other material; they are simply there to love humans and be loved by them. I somehow ended up taking home two tiny hamsters. I truly loved those little guys.” He sighed heavily.

  “What happened to them?” I asked him when he didn’t continue his story.

  He glanced at me with a small smile on his face, but only said, “They died a few months ago. I didn’t think animals that tiny could impact me, but I was very sad when it happened. I even cried,” he admitted the last part so quietly I hardly heard him.

  “You cried over your hamsters?” I asked, surprised.

  He sighed again. “I did. I told you, it was sad. They were cute little things.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at that and ask, “What were their names?”

  He smiled widely at me. “Howard and Sarah.”

  I chuckled, “You named your hamster after the police chief?”

  He nodded. “Yes, and the pet store worker. Howard, he was the first human friend I made here and I wanted to honor him.”

  I chuckled a little harder. “You honored him by naming your hamster after him?”

  “Hey,” he elbowed me in the upper arm, “he was a cute hamster.”

  I laughed for a little while as we walked along.

  Orrean started telling me another story about Howard the human and Howard the hamster, but I stopped walking, making him stop and look at me.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “You made me talk,” I whispered.

  He cringed. “Is that a bad thing?”

  I shook my head. “No… I just…” I trailed off, not really wanting to tell him that just yesterday I hadn’t thought I would ever be capable of talking again.

  When he saw that I was uncomfortable, he suggested, “I can tell you about the first time I drove a car. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Come on,” he nodded his head forward, indicating that we should start walking.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  He smiled at me and started telling me another story. As he spoke, I kept thinking about Colt and how much I missed him, but I was also able to really hear Orrean and even participate in the conversation. I was grateful to be out of my head a little bit, even if for only a short while.

  ***

  Over the next few days
, Orrean walked with me and told me all kinds of stories about his time here on Earth and his time back on his home planet of Orlia. I started reciprocating more and more, and soon I was able to hold a conversation with any of my family. There was still a sadness about our group—one that would never fully go away, obviously—but I was slowly letting myself have other emotions, too. Not a second went by without me thinking about Colt, but I knew he wouldn’t want me to just mope around acting like an asshole to everyone, so, for him, I tried harder and soon it wasn’t so hard.

  The man I loved was gone, but there were still other people I loved and cared about that I needed to stay strong for. This is what I told myself a million times a day when the grief threatened to take over. But my friends, well, my family, helped me with that. They kept me going when all I wanted to do was curl into a ball and die.

  We were all sitting around a small fire we had made. We had found a stream and needed to boil water to make it safe to drink, so we had to risk the fire. We knew it would attract Ferals and possibly Taoree and their ships, but there was no other way. We just kept extra vigilant while it was going, and as soon as the water was done, we would put out the fire and run as far and as fast as we could. But while the fire was going, we could warm up and cook some food for ourselves.

  Orrean had somehow shot a couple of rabbits we found on the way to the stream, so we cooked them over the fire and actually had real meat for once. Mandy was really grossed out by the whole thing, but after we convinced her to try a bite, she dug in. We all needed the protein, so it was much appreciated.

  Once that was done and the fire was out, we ran like the wind, Orrean carrying Mandy on his back since he was faster than the rest of us. Even going as fast as we were, we still heard the fucking humming sound coming our way and getting closer. A Taoree ship had seen our smoke and they were coming after us. There were a few trees around, but it wasn’t a very heavily forested area, so there wasn’t a good place to hide and the spaceship’s damn humming kept getting closer.