"And sometimes you didn't want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass."

Orihime doesn't like it when her mother leaves her with the slumbering lump of her father's body while she prays in the bedroom with her friends. She doesn't understand why they pray in the bedroom either, or why it happens so frequently, because they don't attend any religious institution regularly; and even if they did, the noises that come through the thin walls of their apartment sound far from holy.

She asked her father about god once. She was sitting on his lap and breathing in his excess tobacco. Orihime watched the blue smoke swirl and rise out of the window. In the air she imagined it morphing into the soft face of a woman. It reminded her of the stone figures outside of the colorful shrines downtown.

"God is a man in the sky, babe." Her father said with a sloppy smile across his face. His eyes were wide and light, she liked how they looked when he smiled.

"What he do there?" People told her she has her daddy's eyes, and she liked that. She liked to think she was made up from pieces of him.

"He probably watches us, ya know, the hustle and bustle of everyday life." She nodded her head as he tapped his cigarette against the windowsill. Last week was her third birthday and for a present he got her a necklace with a tiny silver pendent shaped like a star. The metal felt cold against her skin, and the chill creeping in from outside made Orihime nestle closer to her father's warmth.

"Like TV?" She asked.

"Yeah, just like that."

"Mama says that too much TV makes brains mushy." Orihime commented seriously to him and he laughs. She smiled reluctantly back at him, she took what her mama told her very solemnly.

"Yeah, well, his brain probably is rotten from watching us all the time."

"Why rotten?" She asked as her fingers found his. She held her palm flat against his to measure. Orihime thought that maybe if she ate vegetables and worked on growing hard enough, her hands would be as big as his. Then she could be as brave and strong as he is.

"Because he watches rotten things happen, and doesn't do a dam—darn thing about it." His voice was still light and happy, but when she looked up at him his eyes were sad. She considered what he said as much as she could.

"He's just scared. He needs his dad too help him. Then he can be brave, just like super heroes." She liked to watch the cartoon heroes on TV, her brother Sora liked them too. They shared a bed and the sheets had super heroes on them. The heroes protected them while they slept, so no one could hurt them.

But, they're busy a lot and sometimes they don't come to the rescue. Orihime is glad because sometimes it's her daddy that hits Orihime or Sora. She doesn't know what she would do if a super hero saved her from her dad and put him in prison. Just thinking about it makes her nervous, because it's not daddy's fault he hits, and he always says sorry. Sometimes he gets confused from too much medicine and he hurts Orihime or her brother, sometimes he even hurts her mama.

Still, her daddy is very smart, and he is really good at answering questions because he seems to know everything. He leaves a lot, but he is never gone for too long. Orihime gets worried though, because with her daddy gone, who will answer her questions? Her brother is always at school, and her mama is usually sleeping during the day, so she can't ask them.

Tonight her daddy comes home very late, and her brother isn't home either. She is alone when her parents wake her up with their screaming. Orihime pulls the blankets close to her face and grips them until her chubby knuckles turn white.

"Where the hell have you been, Haru?" Her mama doesn't always talk nice to her dad, and her dad doesn't always talk nice to her mama.

"Get off my back, bitch." Most of the words they say are muffled considerably by the walls, but she hears their insults daily. She winces as glass shatters against the floor.

"No, I won't get off your back. I need to work because you're a dead beat, and I can't work if there is no one to watch, Orihime! What if one of those perverts knocks me out and snatches her, huh?"

"Well if you got a normal job—"

"You bastard!" Ito interrupts him. "You think I want to do this, huh? You can't hold down any job at all and you wanna criticize me? I pay for everything!" Orihime knows they spend a lot of money on medicine. They burn a lot of spoons to make the medicine work, and they prick themselves with needles.

Orihime isn't allowed to watch them take the medicine, but she sees it anyways. Her mama and dad have dots and bruises from the medicine that turn from purple and blue to gold and green. Most of the time she is sent into her dusty room to play with her fairy dolls while her mama and dad stay in the living room.

Orihime likes dancing in the living room with her mom. She thinks it's when she loves her mother the most. When she isn't scowling or weeping or making her eat watery vegetables or syrupy fruit from cans. Their apartment is mostly bare and worn down and sometimes it feels painfully empty, but it leaves a lot of room for dancing.

When Ito turns on the old transistor radio and the static music fills the air, the old apartment turns into a ballroom. Orihime thinks that when her mother daces she looks young and beautiful like a queen. Golden sunlight streams onto her hair, and her cheeks become full and rosy. She lifts Orihime in her arms and sways her around.

"You're mama's little star princess." She coos and cuddles her with dark splotchy arms and yellowy eyes. If Orihime looks at her too closely the spell breaks. Her mama stumbles and drops her hard on the floor, and Orihime gets bruises on her body, purple and then gold—just like her parents. She remembers she is in her dirty room alone in the dark, and her parents are breaking the only cups they own.

In the end her daddy slumps on the floor of her room, and he doesn't even say hello to her. A little while later as Orihime is falling back to sleep she hears her mother's phone ring, then the front door opens, and a pair of footsteps walks into her mother's bedroom.

She supposes they are here, once again, to pray because she hears her mother crying out to god over and over again.