Precious and Fragile Things Read online

  “Gilly, would you dance with me?”

  It wasn’t the question she’d expected, though not much better. Gilly turned to face him, her face a careful, neutral mask. “What?”

  He got to his feet, all arms and legs, gangly. “Dance? I’m not any good. But would you…?”

  “Dance with you?” Gilly murmured. She allowed his touch on her fingers, her thoughts elsewhere. Her breath caught in her throat before coughing out. “Oh, Todd.”

  “Please?”

  What harm could it do? She knew even as she nodded her reply that she was dooming herself. And him. No good could come from this. But…could harm? What could giving him this one thing hurt?

  “Great!”

  For once the radio didn’t let them down. Todd tuned in a station playing classic golden oldies. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes made way for Unchained Melody.

  They moved to a clear spot on the floor. He didn’t know where to put his hands, and Gilly showed him. They were large and encircled her waist in a way that made her feel he could squeeze her in half with little effort. The top of her head just barely reached his shoulder. Gilly was not a small woman, but once again he’d made her tiny.

  “I told you I’m not good,” Todd said.

  “You’re doing fine,” Gilly whispered, her throat dry.

  His innate grace took the place of his inexperience. The songs playing on the radio flowed one into the other with no more than a few seconds of break between them. Todd and Gilly danced, their movements slow but unhesitating.

  He pulled her slowly, hesitantly closer. His hands didn’t stray from her hips. The puff of his breath ruffled her hair.

  She knew this had been a mistake. This didn’t mean the same things to her as it must to him. This was Reg Gampey all over again. This was giving someone something he wanted because she felt so bad about something else she didn’t know how to say no.

  But then she’d been a kid. She was a woman now. She shouldn’t let pity move her into doing something she knew would end badly.

  The slow songs kept playing. Todd and Gilly kept dancing. She rested her hands on his shoulders and just barely kept her face from touching even the soft flannel of his shirt.

  She was reminded of middle-school dances where the girls and boys were too scared to even touch. But this wasn’t quite like that. In middle school Gilly had known the mechanics of what sex was but hadn’t had a clue about what it could be. Even later, in high school, when dancing close often led to making out in shadowy corners, there’d still been an innocence to sharing a dance that was missing here.

  At last the music stopped. An announcer spoke. The moment broke.

  Gilly tried to pull away, but Todd’s hands stayed her. Her head dropped. She saw the floor, his bare feet, the ragged hem of his jeans.

  “Gilly?”

  “No, Todd.”

  For an instant she sensed anger. His fingers clutched at her waist, then relaxed. He tried again.

  “Gilly…”

  “No.” Her voice came more firmly this time. Definite. She moved out of his embrace, clutching her elbows and turning from him.

  “Look at me?”

  Because it was a plea and not a demand, she obliged. She could hardly bear the look of longing on his face. Gilly swallowed, hard, and shook her head again.

  “Don’t ask, and I won’t have to tell you no again.”

  “Why?” The question was simple, and the answer should’ve been simpler, but was not.

  “My mother used to tell me, ‘be happy with what you have,’” Gilly said at last. “Be happy with what you have, Todd.”

  He looked around the cabin, at her, and then down at himself. “What I have? That looks like a whole lot of nothing.”

  She moved, still trembling, to the stairs before changing her mind. She didn’t want to lead him up there, where the line of beds would be all too tempting. She went instead to the dining room table and one of her puzzles but couldn’t find rest there, either. Finally, she turned and faced him squarely.

  “I can’t change things,” she told him. “And I wouldn’t if I could. I have too much to lose and nothing to gain.”

  His face broke, his head dropped. His knees buckled for an instant before he caught himself and made his way to a chair. Todd buried his face in his hands, his sigh soft but as loud and mournful as the howling of wolves. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.

  “Is it wrong to want just one thing? One good thing?” He spoke so low she could’ve pretended not to hear him.

  But she did hear him, every word.

  “No. But I’m not it.”

  “You could be. If you wanted to.”

  “But I don’t want to, Todd.” She hated the words the second they came out, even though she meant them.

  “See? I am stupid.”

  He hadn’t moved from the chair. She was still by the table. A vast distance separated them, too far for her to touch him, but she put out her hand anyway.

  “You’re not—”

  He cut her off with a low noise from deep inside him. Gilly stopped, uncertain. Todd looked up at her.

  “Go away,” he told her, and she went.

  41

  The gears had jammed, the machine ground to a halt. Todd replied when she spoke to him, but only in the gruffest, briefest words. Gilly didn’t really blame him. There wasn’t much more to say. She should’ve been grateful for it and could only be sad.

  They fixed lunch at the same time but not together, bound by mutually growling stomachs if nothing more. Long weeks of confinement meant they’d worked out a routine in the kitchen. A step here, a dodge there. Today she zigged when he zagged, and Gilly found herself with both hands pressed to his chest to keep them from colliding.

  He pushed her away, gently but firmly. “Don’t touch me.”

  Now she understood how it must’ve felt for him when she’d said those same words. “Todd.”

  “Don’t.” He jerked his hands away, lifting them out of her reach as though she’d tried to take one, then moved around her to grab his plate. He turned his back on her to take a seat at the kitchen table.

  Gilly had fixed herself the last handful of wheat crackers and some squares of defrosted lunch meat that was a little too pink to be turkey. Was it only weeks ago she’d refused a plate of eggs mixed with bacon? She’d have eaten it, now. They were far from starving but they’d had an unspoken agreement to cut back on their meals. Their stomachs, like the pantry and fridge, were emptier every day.

  At the table across from him, Gilly attempted to start a conversation that Todd shut down with one-word answers. They ate in uncompanionable silence. Her food tasted bad because of it.

  “Don’t blame me for what I can’t change,” she blurted finally, unable to help herself.

  He lifted his eyebrows at her and leaned back in the kitchen chair, tipping it. The smoke from his cigarette wreathed his features, made them softer, even as his scowl became harsher. He said nothing.

  “I can’t,” Gilly whispered, and got up from the table. She left her plate.

  Behind her she heard the thump of all four chair legs hitting the floor, but she didn’t turn. The scent of his cigarette smoke tickled her nose, but she refused to cough. She went to the bathroom and ran the cold water, splashed her face again and again until her eyes burned and her face turned red.

  When she came into the living room, he’d gone upstairs. She heard the sound of his footsteps on the creaking wooden floor. She tilted her head toward the ceiling, but he didn’t seem to be coming back down. This time, Todd was the one who’d escaped upstairs.

  “I can’t change things, damn it!” she cried to the ceiling, her fists clenched in impotent anger. Even as she said it, she could taste the lie on her tongue. Could not and would not were two separate things altogether.

  Gilly pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, willing away the urge to cry. She owed him no tears. If she wept it should be for Seth, for Arwen, for Gandy. Perhaps eve