Precious and Fragile Things (12 page)

She'd meant that to hurt him, but it seemed to miss the mark, because Todd didn't even flinch. He leaned toward her much as she had done to him earlier. Smoke laced the hot breath caressing her cheek. Gilly forced herself to stand still, to meet his eyes. To not turn away. She'd put herself in this place. She had to face it.

“
Your
life didn't seem too hard. Nice car. Wallet full of money.” He reached out and flicked the pendant dangling from her neck. “Nice husband to buy you pretty jewelry. Nice kids. You had it
real
hard, Gilly. Poor fucking you. Poor little rich girl.”

Guilt raged through her, because what he said was true. She couldn't deny it. She'd let him steal her from that good life, the good man and the children who were her reason for everything. Gilly slapped his hand away.

“Don't touch me.”

Todd drew back. He threw the remains of the cigarette on the floor and ground it out with the toe of his boot. He rested for a minute, sagging against the counter, and slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “It was the first time I'd ever robbed a place. But I got into a lot of trouble as a kid. He…the judge said…maybe some time behind bars would change my attitude.”

“Did it?” The question was rude, but Gilly couldn't take it back.

“Hell if I know.” Todd shot her a grin then, shocking in its unpredictability. “Guess not.”

Gilly shook her head, unbalanced by his shift in attitude. “Stealing my truck wasn't too smart.”

“You got stupid people and smart people,” Todd said with another of his dangerously charming and artless shrugs. “I'm just not smart.”

He was no genius, she knew that. Yet something about his reply told her that he'd been told he was stupid so many times that it had become the truth, rather than the other way around. He'd been told it, and he believed it. He had become it.

“Didn't you think they'd trace the truck?”

He snorted. “Trucks get stolen all the time. I had a buddy who was going to take care of it for me. Not DiSalvo, that piece of shit. Some other dude. Said he'd give me a good deal on a trade-in. I'd have been out of it and into something else
before anyone even knew where to start looking for it. It would've been in a hundred pieces, sold for parts.”

He sounded so confident and made it sound so plausible, she thought he might be right. Not that it mattered, now, with her Suburban probably in a hundred pieces at the bottom of a mountain ravine instead of a junkyard. “Forgive me if I don't feel bad for you.”

Todd lit another cigarette and puffed the smoke at her. He cocked his head again, the puppyish tilt of it at odds with the harshness of the smoke curling from his nostrils. “C'mon, Gilly. I haven't been such a prick to you, have I?”

“You've been a real Prince Charming,” Gilly muttered. She had a headache, and her stomach had begun its incessant churning again. She was frustrated and annoyed, but no longer in a raging fury. She only wanted to lie down and go back to sleep.

Todd reached out as casually as if he were plucking a flower and grabbed a handful of hair at the back of her head. Faster than a moment, he'd pressed her against him. Todd's fingers twisted in her hair, the pressure just on the edge of becoming pain.

“I could have hurt you. Could've pulled over the side of the road and gutted you like a deer.” Todd nuzzled his cheek against her neck in the sensitive part just below her ear, though there was nothing sensual about the caress. Nothing sexy. Beneath the harsh smell of tobacco smoke, she caught the scent of soap and flannel. His lips brushed her ear when he whispered, “But I didn't, did I?”

“Don't.” Unable to move away from him with his hand fixed in her hair, Gilly stiffened her spine against a shiver.

“Even though you act like that's what you want me to do.” His fingers curled tighter, knuckles pressed to the back of her
skull. Her scalp protested, skin smarting. “Is that really what you want?”

Gilly closed her eyes.

“Answer my question,” he said without letting go. When she didn't answer, he tugged sharply until she looked at him. “Haven't I been good to you, Gilly?”

“No, you haven't,” Gilly muttered, bracing herself for more pain that didn't come.

“I didn't want you here.” He put his forehead on hers. His deep brown eyes bored into hers, hardly even blinking. “I even tried to let you escape. But you didn't go.”

She twisted her head, fighting him. He was too big, too strong. She felt the strength of him in every movement. She could not wriggle free. He was violating her more surely than if he'd forced his tongue into her mouth or his hand between her legs.

“Why didn't you go when you had the chance, huh? Why not just run away to the hubby and the kiddies and the nice, white house with the yard and the dog—”

“Fuck you!” The words tore out of her.

“Don't feel good, does it? Being judged? Seems to me like you should be thanking me, not treating me like I'm something gross you stepped in.”

“You don't know me.” Gilly ground the words from between clenched jaws.

“You know what I think? I think,” Todd said slowly, deliberately, his gaze pinning her like a beetle to a board, “I'm the best thing that ever happened to you.”

Gilly stopped struggling.

He let her go. Gilly stumbled back, whacking her elbow on the counter again. More pain. She forced back a gag.

“I want to be nice to you,” Todd told her. He sat at the table
with his back to her. He stubbed out his smoke, then began to eat his eggs. “But you make it really fucking hard.”

Gilly left the kitchen and walked to the front door. The back of her head still smarted, but her cheek fairly burned from the caress he'd put on it. She scrubbed at the flesh with her hand, the long sleeve of the sweatshirt he'd bought her fleecy-soft against the skin.

She paused by the scarred wooden table, staring without really seeing the faded plastic flowers. Roses. They were roses, faded and plastic and not real. As she wished none of this was real.

Slowly, methodically, she pulled the sweatshirt over her head. She folded it carefully, one arm over the other, then into a bulky square. She set it on the table.

Her hands went to the waist of her sweatpants. She'd had to tie the string in a double tight knot to prevent the large pants from falling off her hips. From the kitchen came the clatter of dishes in the sink. Gilly didn't pause. Her fingers worked the string, and all the while she stared at the flowers.

Roses needed lots of care. A lot of responsibility. Love wasn't enough, you had to trim them, water and fertilize them. Roses were precious and fragile things that took a lot of time and effort to grow and sometimes, no matter how much time you gave them, they still failed.

Gilly wore no shoes, only a thick pair of white athletic socks. She slid her sweatpants down over her thighs, her ankles, and over the socks, which came off with a small twist of each foot. Goose bumps rose on her skin, though with the woodstove going the room was quite warm. She was left in her panties and bra, her own that she'd been wearing the day he took her, and a cotton T-shirt that had Princess on the front in tacky rhinestone letters.

She folded the sweatpants and put them with the sweatshirt, then added the socks to the pile. She slipped the T-shirt over her head and stood nearly naked. Still staring at the flowers. Thinking about roses.

She heard the back door open as Todd went out through the pantry and to the lean-to for something. Gilly touched her breasts, her belly, the triangle of pink material between her legs. This was what was hers. She'd brought these things with her, and she didn't owe him anything for them.

The frigid air outside forced a gasp when she stepped out onto the front porch. Gilly didn't bother to shut the door behind her. She went down the rickety steps into the knee-deep snow outside.

It was cold. Very cold. She shuddered and kept walking, fixing the picture of roses in her mind. Her feet went numb so fast she could easily forget she wasn't wearing boots. Her hands reached out as though she were blind, though everything in front of her was as crisp and clear as if she were viewing it all through a magnifying glass.

She didn't know what she was doing, or why, just that his touch had made her feel unclean. Fire could burn it away; ice could sear her clean. She stumbled and went to one knee. The snow, when she threw out her hands to catch her fall, covered her arms all the way to the shoulders.

Hadn't he been good to her? Hadn't he been nice? He'd bought her clothes, he hadn't hurt her. She thought of the pale worm of a scar twisting across the softness of his belly, of cigarette smoke curling dragonlike from his nostrils, of the way his eyes glowed when he grinned. Gilly's stomach rose again at the feeling of his cheek on hers. Not because it had been repulsive, but because it had not.

He's right. You were glad to let him take you away. You wanted to
be taken away, so you wouldn't have to run. Because then you could blame someone else for what you really wanted. He's right, you did this. This is all you, Gillian. All you.

She let out a small cry, unable to tell if it was of anger or despair. She forced herself to her feet. Chunks of ice littered the snow, and she'd cut her hand on one of them. A crimson rose, her blood, bloomed on the otherwise pristine surface of the drift. She swept it away with her hand, punching at it. Her fist broke through the thin crust of ice, smearing the blood into the soft snow beneath.

He'd taken her, but she'd allowed it. Nothing could ever change that. No amount of screaming, no number of accusations or lies. Todd hadn't done this to her, she'd done it to herself.

How many times did you wish for someone or something to take you away? How many times did you imagine how nice it would be to get sick, really sick, so you could be hospitalized and have someone else take care of you for a change?

The thoughts penetrated her mind over and over as she scrubbed herself with snow. Her skin turned pink, then red, and still Gilly forced her deadened hands to scoop more and rub it all over.

“The fuck are you doing?”

Todd grabbed her up out of the snow. His fingers must have dug into her skin, but she didn't feel them. He shook her so hard her teeth rattled. Gilly got to her feet and kicked out at him, feeling nothing as her bare toes crunched on his shin.

“Jesus Christ, Gilly!”

“Let me go!” The chattering of her teeth made the words a gobbledygook.

“You're out of your goddamned mind! You're crazy, you know that?”

She swung at him, but feebly, and he held her off as easily as if she hadn't even tried. “Don't touch me!”

“It's freezing out here, you dumb bitch. Get inside.” Todd yanked her arm, his fingers pinching down on numbed flesh.

Gilly resisted with a strength that surprised them both. She slipped from his grasp and went sprawling back into the snow. Todd grabbed her up again, shrugging out of his battered gray sweatshirt and wrapping it around her shoulders. Gilly had no more strength to fight.

“Let me go,” she thought she whispered, but neither one of them heard.

When he saw she couldn't walk he scooped her up. In the movies he would've strode through the snow cradling her against his chest without faltering. But this was not the movies, it was real life, and Gilly was no anorexic starlet. Todd stumbled and went onto one knee, dropping her.

He ground out a curse and picked her up again. He staggered up the steps and tripped through the open doorway. Gilly spilled out of his arms and onto the living room floor next to the table.

“Goddamn it.” Todd grabbed her under the arms and dragged her in front of the woodstove, her heels thumping on the floorboards as she hung limp in his grasp. He began chafing her hands. “The fuck was that all about?”

She couldn't explain, not even to herself. Sheer stupidity had made her go out there, and it made no sense. It had felt right, that was all. She yelped as the feeling began returning to her hands and feet, and swatted him away.

“Don't touch me!”

He backed off, hands in the air. He went to the table and grabbed up the pile of clothes she'd left there. He came back,
knelt beside her, tried to wrap her in the clothes. She shoved him away and struggled into them by herself.

“Don't touch me,” she repeated. “Ever again.”

He backed off again and pulled out another smoke. She felt his eyes on her as he lit up. The curl of smoke rising from the tip of the cigarette wavered in the air. His hands were shaking.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he said.

Now that she was warming up her teeth chattered incessantly. She'd been out there for perhaps only fifteen minutes, but that was long enough for the first angry red patches to appear on the backs of her hands and probably other places, too. She hitched closer to the stove. Shudders racked her body.

“I want to go home.” It wasn't what she'd thought she was going to say.

“I know you do.”

“I miss my kids,” she whispered. “And Seth.”

He sighed. “I know. But you can't.”

A sob hitched from her chest, burning her throat. “I want to go
home,
Todd. Where it's warm. With my family. I want to tell them that I'm sorry…I shouldn't have let you keep me….”

She sank to the floor, pressing her face to the faded rug. It smelled of dust and age. She closed her eyes, aware of the rug's nubbly surface making grooves in her skin but too tired to care.

From somewhere very far away she heard him say her name, but then she didn't hear anything else.

H
is hands were on her again, but Gilly couldn't fight them. He held her too tightly. A mountain of blankets covered her, suffocating. She kicked at them, writhing, and whimpered in gratitude at the blessed blast of cool air that covered her.

“Water,” she begged, and he pressed a glass to her lips.

It choked her and she gagged. Bile burned her throat and tongue. He was there with a basin, whispered soothing things to calm her as she retched. He pushed the hair back from her forehead and gave her a cool cloth for her forehead.

Gilly sank back on her pillow, exhausted. The headache that had been plaguing her for weeks had become agonizing again. Even blinking made her head throb worse than a thumb hit by a hammer.

She remembered her stupid run out into the snow, and looked at her hands. They were still red and chapped, but it didn't look like she'd lose any fingers. She wiggled her toes under the heavy weight of the blankets, relieved to feel them all.

Todd sat back, watching her, the expression in his dark eyes veiled. “You okay?”

She nodded, though fresh pain flared behind her eyes at the movement. Gilly pressed her thumbs just inside the curve of her eye socket. It didn't help.

“Advil,” she managed to say. Then as an afterthought, “Please.”

“I have aspirin.” Todd left and returned a few minutes later with a gigantic bottle in one hand. “This okay?”

Aspirin would barely touch the horrendous throbbing, but Gilly took the two white pills he shook out and offered. “Two more.”

Todd looked at the bottle and squinted. “It says…”

“I know what the dose is,” Gilly said, careful not to raise her voice and send spears of agony ripping through her head. “It's not enough. It won't help me.”

“I don't want you to OD on me,” Todd said, but he shook out two more pills into her outstretched hand.

She struggled to sit up. Todd slipped a hand behind her elbow to help her, and she stiffened. “Don't.”

He dropped her arm as though her words had burned him. “Jesus, sorry.”

Gilly shifted herself upright, which helped relieve some of the pressure. She took the cup of water he offered and swallowed the aspirin, fighting back the urge to puke it all up again.

Already she felt herself drifting again. Her eyes became heavy lidded, her limbs leaden. Gilly let herself sink back into sleep.

“You want to go up to bed?”

She did, but didn't want him to take her. Gilly opened her
eyes. The room blurred. She forced herself to sit and waited until everything around her stopped spinning.

“I can do it,” she said quietly when Todd made a move to help her.

She made it to the kitchen where she drank a full glass of cold water, then refilled it and took it with her upstairs. Her former aches and pains had intensified along with the throbbing agony in her head. She thought again of her old wish to be taken so ill she'd need nursing. She put the cup close at hand on the dresser, then slipped into bed.

Her cheeks flushed, hot with fever or, more likely, embarrassment at her run out into the snow. She'd been stupid, not even trying to get away. Not even sure what she was trying. Todd must think she was nuts, and…well, wasn't she?

Her chest felt tight, her throat ticklish. Gilly coughed experimentally and groaned at the throb in her temples. She didn't think she'd be able to sleep, but she did, and dreamed.

Not of her mother, or of Seth and the children. Not even of Todd. Gilly dreamed of fields of roses, vast acres of red blooms and green stems. Beautiful, vibrant roses protected by thorns. She grabbed and grabbed again until blood ran slick and hot from her fists, and it was the same as dreaming of all of them.