Precious and Fragile Things (23 page)

She looked back. “Todd, don't.”

He put the flat of the blade to his throat, then turned it so the edge pressed lightly. His skin dented. “Cutting the carotid artery would fuck you up pretty good. It's how I'd do it. I thought it all out. One quick slice, and it would be all over. No coming back from that, really. You'd have to be one lucky prick to get through that.”

He looked at the knife. “I've never been lucky.”

Gilly had nothing more to say than that. Any words she'd find would be empty. Useless.

Todd put the knife back in its sheath on his belt and pulled his shirt down over it. He put his head in his hands for a moment. When he looked back at her, his face was bleak. “I figured I deserved it, you know? Just once. To decide what happened to me.”

She couldn't disagree with that, but she tried. “It doesn't have to be…”

“No. Look at you, sitting there. Tell me I'll get out of this, Gilly. Tell me you'd be able to convince anyone I didn't take you on purpose. Hell, see if that even matters if it was by accident. I still did it. I still took the truck, I still took you. Tell me anything you could say would make a difference.” He tilted his head, studying her. “Tell me you'd say anything, anyway. Tell the police you ran away with me, right? You'd never.”

“I have no idea what I'll say,” she told him honestly. “But I could tell them it was a mistake. It
was
a mistake, Todd.”

“There isn't any room in my life for more mistakes.”

She believed him when he said he couldn't survive another stay in jail. “Why didn't you do it?”

“You,” Todd said simply. “I didn't do it because of you.”

“I couldn't have stopped you.” And wouldn't have, not when he'd first taken her. Now? Now Gilly wasn't sure what she would do should he take the knife from the table and slash at himself with it.

She'd bind his wounds, she thought suddenly. She would do what she could to save him, if she could. She wouldn't let him die in front of her any more than he'd allowed
her
to perish in what had been as much a suicide attempt as he'd planned.

Todd shook his head. “At first, you had me so rattled I didn't know what to do. Then, you were so sick…I couldn't just let you die up here. Couldn't have that one more mess on my head, you know?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

Todd tugged on his shirt hem, covering up the scars no mother's love had ever soothed. He went to the window and looked out at the blinding whiteness of the snow. “I'm not so sure I want to die anymore, Gilly.”

Gilly didn't ask him what had changed his mind. She didn't want to hear his answer, didn't want to accept responsibility for his decision not to take his life. But she thought maybe she already had.

“Tea?” she asked instead, because that was safe.

Todd didn't turn from the window. “Yeah. Sure.”

Gilly boiled the water, and they sat at the table and drank cup after cup until it was gone. Their silence was not hostile. It was the quiet of two people who didn't need to speak to know what the other was thinking.

T
odd refused to listen to any more of what he termed “that freaky music.” So they stuck to The Doors, some Simon and Garfunkel, and an old Guns N' Roses CD Gilly'd forgotten she had.

Gilly found a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle in one of the armoire drawers, and she set it up on the dining room table. She didn't like jigsaw puzzles any better than crosswords, as a rule, having neither the patience nor the time to devote to their creation. But here she had nothing but time, even if her patience hadn't grown. The puzzle was a hard one, an intricate mess of swirling colors without rhyme or reason. Gilly hated it, loathed it, despised, abominated and abhorred it…but every piece set into its proper place gave her an immense satisfaction that had quickly become addictive.

She glanced up from the puzzle to see Todd in a corner of the room, whaling away on an air guitar to “Welcome to the
Jungle.” His dark hair fell across his face as he strummed the imaginary instrument.

“Wyld Stallynz,” she murmured to herself, but he heard her.

With no embarrassment, he turned to her. “What?”

“You remind me of that movie with Bill and Ted,” Gilly said.

He could always surprise her. With a cock of his head and a smile, a mere hand gesture, Todd transformed himself into the character from the movie.

“Bogus! Party on, dude!”

“You've seen the movie, I take it,” Gilly said dryly.

Todd struck a pose with his invisible guitar. “Yeah. Never thought I looked like Ted, though. That dude is good-looking.”

“You're—” Gilly clipped the words and looked down to her puzzle, her cheeks heating.

She didn't want him to get the wrong idea, not when their co-existence was so precarious. She picked up a piece, set it against one, fitted it beside another. When she finally looked at him, his face was stormy.

“Don't make fun of me,” he said. “I know I'm an ugly cuss.”

With another man she might've thought he was fishing for a compliment or trying to make her uncomfortable. Gilly bit her lip and sighed, cursing her own inconstant tongue. She set the puzzle pieces down.

“Did someone tell you that?”

He shrugged in a way that showed her the answer was yes. Gilly tapped her fingers on the table. The people in Todd's life hadn't been very kind.

“You're not ugly.” Gilly touched the puzzle lightly. “I don't know who told you that, but they were wrong.”

“Monkey boy,” he muttered, and the way he said it showed it had not been a term of endearment. “Big hands, big feet. Always tripping over myself. Always making a mess of things. I wasn't little and blond and cute like Ricky Buckwalter, who stole money from the housemother's purse and bought weed.”

“Todd, you aren't ugly.” Gilly put firmness into her voice, the voice of authority.

He gave her his sideways glance and the ghost of a smirk. “Right, I'm a regular fucking Keanu Reeves.”

Todd didn't have that actor's smoothness, his ethereal beauty. The resemblance was slight, a similarity in the eyes and the hair, in the curve of his jaw. His grin had the same goofy light as Ted Logan in
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure,
but Todd was not that man. He was Todd himself. Unique.

Gilly shook her head. “Bogus.”

“Shit.” Todd frowned. “If I looked that good I'd have been swimming in pu—girls. Ah, well. Girls…shit. All's they want is to get married, have babies…and I know I won't ever do that.”

“Why not?” Gilly ran her fingers over the puzzle pieces, hoping for some intuition that would lead her to the one that would fit next. It was hard work, this puzzle. Took a lot of thought. It was why she liked it even though she hated it at the same time.

“Like I'd make somebody a good father,” Todd said scornfully. “Right.”

Gilly, puzzle piece in hand, looked at him thoughtfully. “Maybe you would be a good father, because you would have learned all the things not to do. You'd do the opposite.”

“Bad seed.”

“What?”

Todd pointed at himself. “I got bad seed. You think I ought to go out and spread that around? Think of what I come from, Gilly. You think any kid deserves a dad like me?”

“There are plenty of people who come from worse who don't give a damn how many kids they spawn. Lots of people don't deserve to be parents, but they go ahead and have kids anyway.”

“I guess I did at least one good thing with my life, then,” Todd said with a grin. “I always used a rubber and I never knocked anybody up.”

“Well, amen to that,” Gilly said, and fit another piece into the puzzle. She let out a hoot of pleasure. “Yeah!”

“You've got a pretty smile,” Todd told her in a wistful tone that froze Gilly's hand over the scattered pieces on the table.

“Go put in another CD,” she told him without looking up. “I'm tired of Guns N' Roses.”

He did as she asked, and didn't mention her smile again.

“I
'm bored!” Todd groaned and flopped onto the couch. He flung his arm over his head. “Damn, Gilly! I'm so fucking bored I could get a hard-on watching paint dry.”

She grimaced. “Ew.”

Todd sighed and squirmed to look at her. “Why do you always say ‘ew' like that?”

“Because you're crude when you talk about sex.”

He gave a snort of laughter. “Sorry. You want me to talk about surveys?”

She ignored his wiggling eyebrows, though the thought of surveys being her porn seemed funnier now, in retrospect. “Find something to do.”

“Like what?”

“It's not my job to entertain you,” Gilly said calmly.

She'd said that often, at home, up to her ears in laundry and dinner and the scrubbing of toilets. What excuse did she
have here? She left the horrendous puzzle and peered out the front window.

The sun was bright. It looked warm, though she knew the temperature outside remained bitter. Still, with layers of clothes…

“Can't we go outside?” she said.

Todd sat up. “It's colder than a vanilla ice cream cone up a polar bear's ass out there!”

Gilly rolled her eyes. “So? We've been cooped up in here for too long.” She wrinkled her nose. “It stinks in here. We should go outside, get some fresh air.”

“Are you nuts?” He got up from the couch and crossed to the window. “What do you want to do out there?”

“I don't know,” Gilly said. “We could build a snow man.”

Todd barked out a laugh. “Yeah, right.”

“Okay, a snow woman,” Gilly said. “We can give her great big boobs if you want. Like Pam Anderson.”

Todd's laugh was more genuine this time. “I never built a snow woman. Or a snowman.”

“What?” Gilly looked at him in surprise. “Never?”

Todd shifted uncomfortably. “There was never anyone… I never…”

She put her hand on his arm. “It's okay. I get it.”

She suddenly felt very bad for him. Worse even than before. As if sensing her pity, Todd scowled.

Suddenly desperate to go outside, Gilly quickly changed the subject. “I guess it's about time, right? C'mon. Let's do it.”

She could see his growing excitement with the idea. He was as transparent as Arwen and Gandy. His grin faded for a minute, as he looked down at her feet.

“You don't have boots.”

She'd forgotten. It had been weeks since she'd entertained
the idea of running away. Gilly faced him squarely. “Did you throw my boots away?”

Todd hesitated. He looked from her feet to the window, then raised his gaze to hers. “No. I just took them away so you couldn't—”

She cut him off, wanting for the moment to forget his reasons. “But you have them.”

He nodded, slowly. “But, Gilly…”

She reached out and took his hand. “Todd. I won't run away. Not now. How far would I get, even with boots? The snow is three feet deep out there, deeper in the drifts. I don't even know where I am.”

She wasn't convincing him. His warm fingers twitched against her palm. He bit at his lower lip, worrying it. When he looked her again, she could tell he was going to say no.

“I got to know…”

“What, Todd?”

He sighed. “I want to know you won't run away…”

“I won't. I told you that.”

He made a face of frustration. “No. Not because of the snow, or any of that. Just…because.”

Gilly dropped his hand and took a step back. “You want me to say I won't run away because I don't want to?”

Slinking dog faced growling dog.

“Yeah.”

“No.” Gilly's voice was ice. “I can't say that. You know I can't.”

He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. “How come?”

“I would be lying.”

His face turned hard. “Then stay inside.”

All at once the need to go outside burned inside her brighter
than any desire she'd had for months. Any desire she could ever remember, as a matter of fact. Gilly drew herself up, not nearly as tall as Todd but making herself bigger. “You'd spite yourself to hurt me?”

“If that's what you want to call it,” Todd told her.

“We're both bored,” Gilly said in a low voice. “We both want this. We both
need
this.”

“Yeah? Maybe I need a lot of things. Going outside to play in the snow ain't one of them.”

She turned from him to hide the tears of angry frustration. “Fine. Be a stupid asshole.”

“Don't call me that!” His hand gripped her shoulder, turning her.

She yanked herself from his grasp. “Don't you raise your hand to me!”

His eyes were flat, black, obsidian. The eyes of a snake. She had time to marvel again at how quickly he could change, but then he'd grabbed her. Pulled her close.

“Tell me,” he ordered.

“No!”

“Why not?”

She wasn't proud of her temper. She could blame tight quarters and circumstance for it, but in the end would know it was simple bitterness with no excuse. It was just her. The way she was built. It didn't matter what triggered it, Gilly had the choice to hold her tongue and didn't.

She sneered and dug where it would hurt the most. “You really
are
stupid if you can't even figure that out.”

“You're still thinking about it? Getting away? Fucking up my life?”

“You fucked up your life, not me!” Gilly twisted fruitlessly in his grip. “Don't you blame me! Blame yourself!”

“You'd have them send me back to jail in one second, wouldn't you?” His breath was hot on her face. “One fucking second.”

“I thought,” Gilly said harshly, “you were going to kill yourself before that could happen. And why not? Maybe that would be the best thing for you!”

He pushed her away from him so hard she stumbled backward. “The fuck are you trying to do? You want to make me so mad I—”

“Don't you threaten me!” Gilly cried. She'd twisted her ankle and it throbbed, but she refused to even wince. “Don't you dare!”

“Quit riding me! Get off my back!” Todd advanced on her.

He was like a great wolf, snarling. Gilly stood her ground. Toe to toe, he towered over her, but Gilly didn't move.

If anything, she forced herself to stand taller. Look him in the eyes. “You want me to lie to you? I give you honesty, and you want lies?”

“Why not?” Todd said. “It's all I've had my whole damn life.”

He pushed past her and disappeared into the pantry. A moment later he returned, her boots in his hand. He threw them at her feet.

“Go outside,” he said. “Make a fucking snowman.”

She did not go out into the snow, and they didn't speak to each other the rest of the day. The boots lay where Todd had thrown them on the floor. Gilly didn't touch them.

Stubborn, he'd called her. He was right. He hadn't returned her boots to her out of kindness but disdain.

Besides, even with her boots, her fashionable but useless
boots, she couldn't expect to make it out of here. Not for a while. Not if she was smart.

Oh, the thought crossed her mind. Of layering her clothes, packing food and drink. Of somehow rendering Todd incapable of stopping her and hiking out of here…

Of dying in the woods, in the snow. Of never making it home. She was stubborn, but she was also afraid. Once she started, there'd be no going back…and what if she failed?