Precious And Fragile Things. Megan Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ steadied herself with one hand on the back of a chair. “I won’t be here for months.”

      Todd flipped the lid of his lighter open and shut a couple of times before sliding it back into his pocket. Without answering her, he stalked to the woodstove and piled a few logs on the fire it didn’t need. His faded flannel shirt rode up as he knelt, exposing a line of flesh above the waist of his battered jeans.

      If she could stab him there, he’d bleed like any other man. The thought swelled, unbidden, in her mind. She could run at him. Grab his knife. She could sink it deep into his back. For one frightening moment the urge to do it was so strong that Gilly saw Todd’s blood on her hands. She blinked, and the crimson vanished.

      Gilly sifted through the contents of the bags. He’d bought soap and shampoo, toothpaste. Shirts, sweatpants, socks, a few six-packs of plain cotton underpants in a style she hadn’t worn in years. No shoes, no gloves or scarf, no hat.

      She rubbed her middle finger between her eyes, where a pain was brewing. It seemed he’d thought of just about everything. Nothing fancy, all practical, and probably all of it would fit her. She thought she should be grateful he hadn’t bought her something creepy like a kinky maid’s outfit. She thought she should be happy he’d bought her clothes and wasn’t going to skin her to make a dress for himself, that’s what she should be grateful for.

      Gilly gathered as many of the bags as she could. “Is there a shower?”

      “Outside. There’s a tub in the bathroom.”

      The plastic shifted and slipped in her fingers as she took the bags and went into the bathroom. She shut the door behind her. There was no lock. The room’s one small window slid up easily halfway, but then stuck. She would never fit through it. And if she did, where would she go? How far would she get with no coat or gloves and nothing but socks on her feet, with no idea where she was or how to get anywhere else? Todd was right, people died all the time in the woods.

      “You didn’t bring any water?” This comes from Seth, looking surprised. “But you always bring everything.”

      Not this time, apparently. Gilly shifts baby Gandy on one hip and watches Arwen toddle along the boardwalk through the trees. There are miles of boardwalk and lots of stairs at Bushkill Falls, and who knew it would take so long to walk them, or that there’d be no convenient snack stands along the way? Gilly’s thirsty too, her back aches from carrying Gandy in the sling, her heart races as Arwen gets too close to the railing.

      Gilly is the planner. The packer. The prepared one. Seth is accustomed to walking out the door with nothing but his wallet and keys, and if he slings the diaper bag over his shoulder it’s without bothering to look inside. He trusts her to be prepared. To have everything they could possibly need and a lot of stuff they won’t.

      “I can’t believe you didn’t pack water,” Seth says, and Gilly fumes, silent and stung, her own throat dry with thirst.

      That had been an awful trip. Walking for miles to see the beauty of the waterfalls that she’d have enjoyed more without the rumble of hunger and a parched mouth distracting her. And that had been along set paths, no place to get lost, in temperate autumn. What would happen to her if she set out without shoes into the frigid mid-January air and tried to make her way down a mountain, through the forest, without having a clue about where she was going?

      No. She had to plan better than that. Be prepared. Because once she started, there’d be no going back.

      First, she’d get cleaned up. The tub, a deep claw-foot, was filthy with a layer of dust and some dead bugs. The toilet was the old-fashioned kind with a tank above and a pull chain. It would’ve been quaint and charming in a bed-and-breakfast.

      Gilly set the bags on the chipped porcelain countertop and pulled out a package of flowery soap. Her skin itched just looking at it. Further exploration brought out a long, slim package. A purple, sparkly toothbrush. The breath whooshed from her lungs as if she’d been punched in the stomach. Gilly let out a low cry, holding on to the sink top to keep her buckling knees from dropping her to the ground. Shudders racked her body, so fierce her teeth clattered sharply.

      He’d bought her a toothbrush.

      The simple consideration, not the first from him, undid her. Gilly pressed her forehead to the wall, her palms flat on the rough paneling. Sobs surged up her throat and she bit down hard, jailing them behind her teeth. She cursed into her fists, silent, strangled cries she didn’t want him to overhear. She didn’t want to give him that.

      Count to ten, Gilly. Count to twenty if you have to. Keep it in, don’t let it out. You’ll lose it if you let it out.

      You’ll lose you.

      Gilly clutched at her cheeks and bit the inside of her wrist until the pain there numbed the agony in her heart. He’d given her opportunity to escape, and she hadn’t taken it. Had been unable to take it.

      She was crazy, not him. She was the psycho. It was her.

      Quickly, she ran water from the faucet. It was frigid and tinged with orange, barely warming even after a minute, though it did turn clear. She splashed her face to wash away tears that hadn’t fallen. When she could breathe again she forced herself to look in the mirror. Her eyes narrowed as she assessed herself.

      She’d dreamed of her mother speaking words she’d never said. Never would’ve said. Gilly didn’t need a dream dictionary to parse out what the dream meant, her mother with the flowers that had sometimes seemed to mean more to her than her family. Blood. The responsibility of roses.

      Looking at her face now she saw her mother’s eyes, the shape of her mother’s mouth. She’d heard her mother’s voice, too.

      “I am not my mother.” She muttered this, each word tasting sour. She didn’t believe herself.

      Her ablutions were brief but effective. Staring at the clothes in the bags, Gilly felt herself wanting to slip into disconnectedness again. It was tempting to let the blankness take over. She forced it away.

      She changed her panties but kept her bra on. Apparently he hadn’t thought to buy her one. She put her own jeans back on, her own shirt. She didn’t want to wear the clothes he’d bought her. She wanted her own things, even if the hems of her jeans were stiff with dirt and her shirt smelled faintly of the juice she hadn’t realized was spilled on it. She folded the rest of the clothes and shoved them back in the bags.

      Gilly combed her hair and tied it back with the ponytail holder from her jeans pocket. It was Arwen’s. Her fingers trembled as she twisted the elastic into her hair. They’d stopped by the time she finished using the sparkly toothbrush.

      Todd had put more wood in the stove, and now the room was almost stifling. He sat on the couch, staring at nothing. Smoking, tapping the ashes into an old coffee can set on the table in front of him.

      “Feel better?” he asked without looking at her.

      “No.”

      Todd sighed. “I’m not an asshole, Gilly. Or a psycho. Really.”

      She didn’t say anything.

      He looked at her, anger smoldering in his dark eyes. The sight made her step back toward the insignificant safety of the bathroom. Todd got up from the couch and made as though to step toward her.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ