Precious And Fragile Things. Megan Hart
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This made him…normal.
And if he was normal, what did that make her?
“No, I can just wash it out. That one will be fine.”
He scraped the remains of the skillet onto his plate and handed it to her. She washed it, then opened the fridge and pulled out the cardboard carton of eggs. She opened two cupboards before she found a bowl and rinsed it free of any dust that might have gathered. She cracked the first egg into it, checking automatically for blood spots that would make it inedible.
The skin on the back of her neck prickled. He was watching her, and of course. What else would he look at but this woman in his kitchen, a stranger he’d stolen? Gilly broke another egg with crushing fingers, bits of shell falling into yellow yolk.
“How long have you been Jewish?”
It wasn’t the question she’d expected. “My whole life.”
Todd laughed. “I guess that’s about how long I’ve been crazy.”
Crazy.
She’d thrown out the term offhandedly, the way most people did, not meaning it. The way Todd had, himself. His tone had told her he didn’t think he was crazy. Not really. Gilly didn’t think he was crazy, either. Gilly knew crazy.
Crazy was having a chance to escape and ignoring it, not just once, but many times. Crazy was wanting to escape in the first place.
Her stomach lurched into her throat, bile bitter on the back of her tongue. She swallowed convulsively. She wasn’t hungry anymore. She beat the eggs anyway and poured them into the skillet along with some margarine. The smooth yellow mess curdled and cooked. Gilly knew she wouldn’t be able to eat it now no matter how hollow her stomach. She removed the eggs from the stove and turned off the flame.
She sipped in a breath, forming her words with care, keeping her tone light and easy. Casual as coffee. “Where are we, by the way?”
“My uncle’s cabin. I told you last night.”
Keeping her back to him, Gilly gripped the edge of the counter. “No. I mean…where are we? We drove a long time. I fell asleep. I don’t know where we are.”
A beat of silence. Then, “I’m not telling you. Jesus, you think I’m stupid enough to do that?”
Last night he’d held a knife to her and she’d been angry; this morning, faced with the kindness of breakfast and his sullen but nonaggressive tone, Gilly had to dig deeper than her fear to find even a thread of fury. She drew in a breath and then another. She gripped the counter so hard her knuckles turned white and one nail bent and cracked.
She turned to face him. “Todd. That’s your name, right? Todd, you have to take me back. Or take me someplace. Let me go.”
He wasn’t looking at her. He shook his shaggy head and got up from the table to stalk to the living room with a handful of paper napkins he used to build up the fire in the sooty woodstove. He went to the table and picked up a bulging folder, then took it to the woodstove where he crouched in front of its warmth, sifting through the papers. Every so often he threw one of them into the blaze.
“Please,” Gilly said from the kitchen.
Todd ignored her, bent to his task with a single-minded self-absorption. He muttered as he worked, but she couldn’t make out the words. Gilly moved to the living room, wanting to draw closer to the fire’s warmth but feeling as though it was up to her to keep a proper distance between them. There had to be something for her to say or do to make him listen.
If she ran away now, would he chase her? Gilly’s head felt fuzzy, her thoughts mangled, but everything in the cabin seemed too sharp, too clear. Looking at things straight on hurt her eyes. She couldn’t blame exhaustion since she’d had the longest night’s sleep she’d had since before being pregnant with Arwen.
She’d felt this way before, when the pain of childbirth had made time stretch on into an unfathomable and interminable length. When the drugs she’d been taking for a sinus infection had made her feel as though she were constantly floating. Now it was the same, every minute lasting an hour, her head a balloon tethered to her shoulders by a gossamer thread that could snap at any minute.
You did this to yourself, Gillian. You know you did. Now you pay the price.
It was her mother’s voice again, stern and strong. Gilly thought of the dream she’d had while driving. Roses and thorns and blood and love.
The fire warmed the room and she shrugged out of her coat. She hung it on the back of a chair. “Todd.”
Todd shuffled his pile of papers together and held them out to her. “Read this.”
Her first instinct was to say no, but wouldn’t it be better to do what he wanted than to antagonize him? Gilly sat on the plaid couch and took the offered papers. The first was a bank statement. The name at the top of the account was Todd Blauch. The previous balance was for a little more than five thousand dollars. One withdrawal had been made a couple weeks ago for the entire amount. That explained the envelope at the minimart.
She explained what that meant. He gave her that look again, the one that said he knew she mocked him, he just wasn’t sure how cruelly. “I know that.”
“You told me to read them.”
“I know that one,” he said. “I need help with the ones under that one.”
She took a look. The legal-size sheets would have been incomprehensible to her even without the crumpling and staining. It was some sort of legal document. A will. All she could really make out were the names Bill Lutz and Todd Blauch. There was a bunch of mumbo jumbo about property lines and taxes. Deeds.
“Is it the will saying you’ve inherited the cabin?”
Todd sighed. “Yeah. But there’s too many words on that paper. Lots of little words always mean there’s something they can catch you on.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s all it says,” Gilly told him. “But I’m not a lawyer.”
“That would’ve been my luck,” Todd muttered. “To get stuck with a lawyer.”
“You’re not stuck with me.”
Todd stuffed the papers back in his folder. “Shit, Gilly.”
“You took my boots.” It wasn’t a question.
He stared at her sideways, head cocked and his thick dark hair hanging over one eye. “Yeah.”
“So I couldn’t run away.”
He shrugged but didn’t answer.
Gilly screwed up her courage with a deep breath. She lifted her chin, determined her voice would not tremble. “Do you want sex?”
He looked as stunned as if she’d slapped him across the face. Her words propelled him from the couch. Todd turned from her, facing the woodstove, his shoulders hunched.
“Jesus. No!”
“If that’s what you want,” she continued, her voice a calm floating cloud that did not seem to come from the rest of her, “then I will let you do whatever you want…if you let me go….”
He whirled around, and to her surprise, his tawny cheeks had bloomed the color of aged brick. “I don’t want to fuck you!”
Gilly shook her head, immensely relieved but inexplicably offended. “What do you want me for, then?”
“I didn’t want you at all, I just wanted the fucking truck. Jesus fucking Christ. Shit!” He smacked his fist into the palm of his hand with each invective. “What the hell?”
She pressed her hands tightly together to prevent them from trembling, but nothing could stop the quaver in her voice. “I just thought…”
He tossed up his hands at her, forcing her to silence. He lit