Precious and Fragile Things (15 page)

S
he was down to the last few pills and probably didn't need them, but took them anyway. Medicine that was supposed to make other people wakeful always knocked her out, so she stayed in bed. Besides, beneath the blankets she was warm, and under their protection she didn't have to face Todd.

The more she slept, the easier sleep seemed to find her. Gilly, who hadn't gone one night through without interruption in more than five years, now spent more than half the day in bed, creeping downstairs only to use the toilet and sneak a few slices of stale bread while Todd was outside smoking or chopping wood for the stove. She was back upstairs before he came in, and when he came into the attic to stand over her, staring, Gilly closed her eyes and pretended to be dreaming. She'd always been a vivid dreamer, but now her dreams became more real to her than her life.

Sometimes she dreamed of things that had already happened. Her wedding to Seth, dancing in a high school musical,
falling off her bike and cutting her leg badly enough to need stitches. Other things she dreamed of had never happened and likely never would—appearing on Broadway in the role of Annie Oakley, flying, attending Harvard.

She dreamed of her children, the sweet scent of their skin and the softness of their cheeks as she cuddled them. The days of nursing them as infants, when their tiny mouths puckered so sweetly against her breast and their fingers curled around hers. Those dreams left her aching and desperate to sleep again, both to escape and embrace the dreams.

And she dreamed of roses. Always roses, never tulips or daffodils or lilies, all flowers she actually had in her yard. Giant fields of roses and herself in the middle of them, watching them bloom and die over and over while she tried to grab them up and never succeeded. She didn't know what a dream dictionary would say about the symbolism of roses. She knew what they meant to her.

When night fell and Todd again climbed the stairs, this time to go into his own bed, Gilly waited until she heard the soft rumble of his snores before she went down again to use the toilet. She was back under the blankets in less than ten minutes.

As a child it had never made sense to her, why her mother complained of being so tired all the time when she barely got out of bed. How her mother could be still for so long without moving. Gilly understood her mother much better now.

Gilly drifted that way, until morning when a glance from her pillow showed nothing but white outside the window. Nothing had changed. Maybe nothing ever would. Her lethargy grew deeper every day. She woke to eat and
use the bathroom, but spent as little time as possible at either of those activities before returning to the sanctity of her bed. Beneath the covers, she was protected from the world.

“Y
ou gonna sleep your whole life away?”

Gilly cracked open one bleary eye and peeled her face from the pillow. Apparently, at some point during the night, she'd drooled. She swiped her gummy tongue across equally sticky lips and teeth.

“…time…?” She mumbled.

“Time for you to get your lazy ass out of bed.” Todd leaned against the dresser and sniffed loudly, then recoiled. “Clean yourself up. You reek.”

Gilly shook her head and rolled over. “Go away.”

“Get out of bed, Gilly.”

“No!”

Gilly pulled the covers over her head, ignoring him. Todd muttered a string of curses under his breath and clomped away. Then he came back.

“I ain't going to ask you again,” he told her. “Get out of bed.”

Gilly untangled her hand from its citadel of blankets and waved her middle finger at him. “No, and fuck off.”

“Goddamn it, Gilly,” Todd said. “You are one impossible bitch! The fuck is wrong with you?”

“I want you to leave me alone,” Gilly told him, and wriggled farther down beneath the blankets. “Just go away and leave me alone.”

“So you can rot up here? No fucking way.”

She pulled the pillow over her head, knowing it was immature and doing it anyway. “I'm tired. Let me sleep.”

“You been sleeping for three days!”

“Leave me alone!” Shouting hurt her throat and made her cough, though even she couldn't pretend to still be sick.

“No way.”

Todd grabbed the covers and tore them away from her, ripped the pillow from her hands and threw it on the floor. Gilly flailed at him, grabbing without effect at the sheets as he tugged them away, too. Red-hot rage filled her, and she screamed, a wordless roar of anger like shards of glass in her already wounded throat.

Without hesitation, Todd reached down and grabbed the front of her nightgown. The cloth tore as he pulled her from the bed. Gilly fought him, twisting in his grip. Her feet hit the floor and her ankle turned, sending tingling sparks of pain flaring up her leg. She bit out a curse, her words as harsh as his, and punched him in the stomach.

Todd barely flinched as he backhanded her across the cheek without letting go of the front of her gown. Gilly reeled, hand to her face. Bright blood dripped from the corner of her mouth and stained her fingers. The gown ripped completely from her neck to her waist, exposing the shirt and sweatpants she wore beneath, and she fell back onto the bed.

“You son of a bitch,” she said, incredulous, showing him the crimson stain. “You hit me! Damn you, you hit me!”

“Get up.”

He had struck her before and there'd been a time she'd actually wished for him to hit her, but that felt surreal compared to this. She rubbed the blood on her fingertips. “You're an asshole.”

His eyes narrowed. “Get up or I'll crack you again.”

Apparently, she didn't move fast enough for him. He reached down and grabbed her by the front of her shirt with both hands and hauled her upright. Gilly managed to smack him in the face.

Todd grunted, face turning from the force of her blow. When he looked back at her with glistening eyes, his mouth had gone pinched and thin. His nostrils flared.

“I told you not to do that.”

“You hit me!” she cried, dangling in his grip, noticing even in her distraught state at how his nose wrinkled and he turned his face from the gust of her sour breath. “You! Hit me!”

Todd's eyes didn't widen. “And I'll fucking do it again if you don't get your shit together.”

Gilly blinked, swallowing a retort. He was so much bigger he'd lifted her onto her tiptoes, and in socks she couldn't do any damage by stepping on his toes or kicking his shins, either. She couldn't even get another good strike at his face, if she was going to be so stupid.

“You going to be sensible?” he asked.

She didn't nod or shake her head, but Todd must've seen something in her face because he let go of the front of her shirt. Gilly kept her feet, mostly because he took hold of her upper arm. His fingers could almost encircle her bicep, bunching her sleeve.

“C'mon,” Todd said. “Downstairs.”

She dug in her feet and tried to turn back toward the bed. “I'm tired. I want to stay in bed.”

“No.” He pulled her harder. “You can't stay up here all the time. You got to take care of yourself.”

“You said you wouldn't,” Gilly muttered.

Todd didn't let go of her arm. “Wouldn't what?”

“Make me do anything I didn't want to do.”

He grunted. “For chrissake, Gilly, you stink. You haven't changed your clothes in a week. When's the last time you brushed your teeth? How can you stand it?”

She couldn't, actually, now that she was fully awake and aware of it. But she wouldn't let him know that. She tried to pull her arm away, but his grip was too tight.

“You're hurting my arm.”

“I know.”

“Just leave me alone,” Gilly begged with a glance at the bed. “Why do you care?”

“You can't sleep all the time,” Todd told her, punctuating his words with a shake. “If you're not sick, you can't stay in bed all day. You can't just fucking…fade away.”

“I'm not fading away, I'm waiting!” Gilly shouted.

Todd dropped her arm and stepped away from her. He didn't need to ask her what she was waiting for. “You said you didn't need me to take care of you anymore. Then you got to take care of yourself.”

“Why do you care?” Gilly repeated.

“You ain't no good to anybody up here,” Todd said. “Not me, not yourself…not them, either.”

“Don't. Don't you talk about them.”

He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “I'll make you a deal. You promise to come downstairs and act like a human being…”

“And what? You'll let me go?” Gilly sniffed, rubbing the spot on her arm where the bruise would appear.

He shook his head. “No, I'm not going to let you go, for fuck's sake, Gilly, that's getting pretty old. But you want to run out in the snow again? Be a dumbass? Be my guest. See what happens this time, see if I save your sorry ass one more time.”

“What about when the snow melts, Todd? What then?”

His gaze wavered for a second before he shoved her away from him and stalked to the center of the room, head hung low. When he swung around to look at her, his dark eyes were large in his face, his mouth a pensive frown.

“Why can't you just like me?” he asked her. “I ain't done anything real bad to you, Gilly. Not real bad.”

“I won't ever like you. Don't you see I can't?”

“Why not?” Todd held out his hands, giving her that kicked-dog look. “Why?”

“Because you're my enemy.” Gilly pulled the torn pieces of her gown back together with one hand, the fabric a useless shield but one she couldn't put down. Her mouth stung when she spoke, but the blood had ceased dripping. “Because you are keeping me from the things I love.”

He sighed as if the weight of the world had come to rest on his broad shoulders. “We could get along better than we do.”

“No!” She recoiled, grimacing.

“I didn't mean like that,” he said quietly.

“I know you didn't. The answer's still no.”

He looked angry again. “We're stuck here, Gilly. Ain't no way around it. We're fucking stuck out here in the middle of no place up to our assholes in snow. That's the way it is. Don't
keep pushing me into being something you wish I was just so you can feel better about what
you
did.”

It wasn't the statement of a stupid man but of an insightful one, and Gilly wondered at what the people in his life had done to him, and for how long, to convince him he was so dumb.

“I don't
want
to hurt you,” Todd said. “I don't
want
to.”

But he would. The words unsaid nevertheless hung between them, loud and clear.

She turned her face away. “When the snow melts, I'm going to try to get away. Are you going to tie me up?”

“I'm not that kinky,” Todd said, “though a girl did ask me once to put on her panties.”

This was serious and she hated he was making a joke of it. “The only thing keeping me here is the snow. You know that.”

“Ah, fuck me. Yes. I know it.” Todd scowled.

“So, what happens when the snow melts?” She asked the question more quietly this time, not pushing so hard. Truly curious. She wanted to know the answer.

“I knew an old hound dog once,” Todd said after a pause. “He wasn't mine—I never had a dog. He belonged to this guy who lived down the street from one of the places they put me after…one of the places I lived as a kid.”

Despite herself, Gilly lifted her face to meet his unwavering gaze. Todd's voice was solid, deep, precise even in its uneducated manner. He stood with his feet planted slightly apart, hands at his sides. Telling her.

“This dog was one mean son of a bitch. The guy kept him outside on a chain, and that dog would run so fast to bite your ass he'd choke himself right off his own feet. Every day, I'd
walk by that dog on my way to school, every fucking day he'd try to get me. But he never did.”

Todd laughed, low. “The guy that owned him could've just kicked that dog when he saw him, but he never did. That guy always made sure that dog had plenty of food and water, and he gave him chew toys and rawhide bones. And every night, when that guy came out to feed the dog, he'd pat him on the head and scratch him behind the ears. And the dog, that ass-biting dog, always growled.

“The guy loved that dog, even though the dog never loved him back, and never thanked him for all the nice things he did for it. Then one night, when the guy went out to feed the dog and pat him on the head, the little fucker didn't bother growling. This time, he took a big chunk right out of the guy's hand.”

Her throat had gone dry during the telling of his tale. “What happened then?”

Todd smiled, an empty expression that bared his teeth and did not reach his eyes. “The guy went inside his house and got his shotgun, and he blew that little fucker's head right off.”

There was no mistaking the meaning of his story, but Gilly wasn't afraid of it. “Which one of us is the dog?”

“I don't know, Gilly,” Todd said. “I guess we'll just have to wait and see.”

S
he got out of bed on her own the next morning. Washed and dressed. Sat across the table from him and ate her breakfast. She did not speak.

Todd didn't seem to mind. He ate as heartily as he ever did, and after breakfast lit up a cigarette as if it was dessert. Gilly waved away the smoke hanging in front of her face and coughed deliberately, but Todd either didn't notice or did not care.

“You giving me the silent treatment?” he asked her finally, when she got up to put her dishes away.

Gilly paused before answering. “I don't have anything to say to you.”

“How about good morning?”

She repeated the words without enthusiasm. Todd got up from the table and touched her shoulder to turn her to face him. Gilly moved without resistance, her gaze on the ground.

“Gilly. Look at me.”

She did so grudgingly.

“We got to go through this again?”

She shook her head and tried to turn her face away. “No.”

He lifted her chin so she had to continue looking at him and asked her the question he'd asked her once before. “You afraid of me?”

“No.”

“You're not a good liar,” Todd said, and let her go. He followed her to the living room. “Will you just stop for a minute?”

She whirled to face him. “Can't you just let it go? What do you want from me?”

“Just thought we were going to try and be friends, that's all. Seems better than not being friends.” Todd shrugged. The tip of his cigarette glowed red as he drew the smoke deep into his lungs.

“I never said I was going to be your friend.” Lip curling on the word, Gilly crossed her arms in front of her.

“You just gonna keep being that growling dog, ain't you?” Todd grinned. “Okay. I'll just keep patting you on the head….”

“And maybe one day I'll bite you,” Gilly retorted.

“Maybe one day you will,” Todd conceded. “Or maybe, one day, you'll just stop that growling.”

“I don't think so.” She went to the front window, watching the snow outside. A rabbit hopped along the white drifts, leaving behind its footprints. Then it was gone.

“Ah, Gilly, why not?” He sounded so sincerely curious, she turned to face him.

“The idea is ridiculous.”

“How come?”

He wanted to know, so she told him. “We have nothing in common. There's nothing about our lives that would ever have brought us together.”

“Not true. We did get brought together.”

“Not by my choice!”

Todd made a thoughtful face. “Not by mine, either, but it happened. What, you can only be friends with someone you met on purpose? The fuck kind of fun is that? You must not have many friends if that's how you go about it.”

“You have a lot of friends?” she asked, sounding snide, expecting the answer to be negative.

Todd shrugged. “Depends on what you consider a friend. I know a lot of people. And most of them I didn't meet on purpose. But yeah, some of them are friends. Some are douche bags who run off with my money and turn me to a life of crime.”

He was making another joke. She saw it in his eyes and the slight tilt of his lips, though his voice was dead serious. Gilly realized suddenly she envied Todd his sense of humor, even amongst all of this. His ability to somehow laugh at what was going on. She'd had a great sense of humor, once upon a time, but she hadn't been able to find the humor in lots of things for a long time. Certainly not this, now.

“We would never be friends under any circumstances, and this situation is certainly not conducive to friendship,” she said stiffly.

“Huh. You like big words just like Uncle Bill.” Todd shrugged. “This situation is all we got. How fortuitous for both of us to have made each other's acquaintance. See? I know some big words, too.”

“It doesn't matter, Todd,” Gilly said tiredly.

“Now who won't let it go?” Todd drew in another deep lungful of smoke, watching her with narrowed eyes. Thinking. “You sure are stubborn.”

Gilly lifted her chin. “I've been called worse.”

“I bet.” Todd shrugged. “Well, I guess it's up to me, then.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “What's up to you?”

“Guess I got to prove to you I really am a nice guy.” Todd smiled. “Prove we can be friends. You and me, besties. It'll be great. Maybe we can even braid each other's hair.”

His eyes glinted with humor even in the face of Gilly's answering glower. In fact, he laughed out loud, right into her face. Gilly crossed her arms.

“Keep dreaming,” she said.

“Ah, c'mon. Not even if I make you a friendship bracelet?” Todd fluttered his eyelashes at her.

He looked so utterly harmless and innocent Gilly almost laughed out loud, but she cut it off, tight. Locked it up. “No. Forget it. Not happening.”

“You could at least think about it.”

“No. I can't.” She watched the light of his humor fade. “Really, Todd. You should understand that.”

He nodded, just barely, after a long minute of looking at her. “Yeah. Sure, sure. I get it.”

Why now did she feel that she was the one in the wrong again? She held her apology, a pearl on her tongue created from the sand of their argument. “We'll never be friends, Todd.”

“We'll see,” Todd said. “Maybe we'll be something else.”