Nick
"Nick, I--"
"Shh," I pressed my finger against Heather's lips. "Let me talk first."
Heather shook her head, obviously ready to argue with me. I wasn't gonna give her the chance. I whisked out my keychain. Howie had put a little bottle of breath freshner on it the night before.
FYI: Howie does weird things when he's drunk.
My keychain scares people. It has a million little gadgets and doo-dads. I've actually fucked up my car ignition before just by the sheer weight. My fingers found a metal cylinder and I lifted it to my mouth.
"Ni--"
The moment I shot the thing, I realized it was pointed the wrong way. Then, as the burning began in my eyes, I also realized it wasn't my breath freshner.
It was my pepper spray. And it had pretty much all gone down Heather's throat.
"Heath!"
It was like something straight out of The Three Stooges. Heath bent over at the waist, her hands grabbing at her throat. Long strings of spit flew from her mouth as she gagged.
Her mom chose that moment to come across us.
"Good Lord in Heaven, what's wrong?" she cried.
I reached out, placing my hand on the small of Heath's back. I was already mentally subtracting a million more family points from my bank. I was so in the red by now.
"She accidentally got a mouthful of pepper spray," I said sheepishly. "I was trying to practice good dental hygiene."
"Pepper--I'll go get some water."
Marietta ran off. Heath sank down to her knees, still gagging. Her eyes were as red as lobsters, the tears pouring down her splotchy skin.
"I'm so sorry," I said. "I just didn't want you to have to deal with the garlic on my breath. Your mom's going to get you some water and then I'm gonna take you home."
She began to shake her head furiously. A loud squeak escaped from her mouth, but nothing more. She tried again with similar results.
"Here honey."
Marietta whirled back into the room, thrusting on the glass of water. Heather took it, downing the thing in one gulp. She silently gagged a few more times. She grabbed onto my forearm and shook her head again. Her mouth opened--
But nothing came out.
That's when I realized that maybe scorching her throat had been a good thing. She had just been locked in a wine cellar. With Brian. Her hair was down. Her clothes were rumpled.
Shit.
"Let's go back to your mom and dad's," I said quickly. "You need to rest. I can't have a mute bride tomorrow, can I?" I smiled charmingly. Marietta touched Heather's mussed up hair.
"Where was she?"
Heather began to make frantic motions. She met my gaze and I just knew what she had been about to tell me. I lifted her to her feet.
"Locked in the wine cellar. She's had a rough night. My bride needs her beauty rest, right?"
Even as I started leading Heather towards the door, her feet were trying to move her in the opposite direction. Her arm waved towards the entrance to the gazebo.
It was Heather's grandma that finally got her to stop squirming. The lady must have been about a hundred and twenty years old. She came up, stooped over and grasping her cane so hard her gnarled hands were pure white. She patted Heather's cheek.
"I'm so glad I lived to see this day," she croaked. "Beautiful girl." I was pretty sure the old bat was blind. Heather didn't look good at all; she held an eerie resemblance to the well girl from The Ring. But Grandma just smiled.
"That man of yours is a hum-dinger," she declared, cackling. "What a dinner." Heather froze. Marietta jumped into action, helping the elder maneuver outside before she could say anything else. I cleared my throat.
"Isn't that nice?" I asked, my voice tense. "She looks like she's on her last leg so it's a really good thing the wedding's tomorrow."
Fresh tears welled up in Heather's eyes. I didn't think it was the pepper spray this time. I pulled her towards the door.
"We wouldn't want to disappoint grandma."
Heather
I seriously thought about running away that night. Of crawling out my old bedroom window, down the tree, and running across town to the gazebo. My throat still ached. If it weren't for the unbareable pain that I had been in, I would have kicked Nick down to the ground before he had pulled me away. But I didn't. And even though I knew I was wrong (very wrong), I imagined Brian still there, still waiting...
The last time I wanted to run away from something I was ten, and I’d left my roller skates outside and it had rained and ruined them and my mom, fresh off a fight with my dad, was pissed. She yelled at me and I yelled back and she eventually grounded me. So, typical to a child throwing a fit, I shoved a bunch of stuff into my backpack and grabbed my doll, Heather, and stormed down the stairs, planning to sneak out of the house and disappear. I’d move to New York University and become the first ten year old ever to take an MFA in Creative Writing.
When I wrenched open the door, I found Brian on the front steps. “Whoa, what’cha doin there, kiddo?” he asked, surveying my stuffed backpack and my doll, clutched tightly under my arm.
“I’m … going outside. To play.” I said.
Brian let me take two steps past him, holding the door open for me, then he let the door shut and followed me. He came up behind me, hoisted my backpack on to his shoulder and held out his hand for mine. I stared at it for a long time. “What?” I asked.
“You’re not playing,” he said knowingly, “You’re running away.”
I shrugged, “So what if I am? You wouldn’t care.”
“I do so care,” he argued.
I stared up at his fifteen year old face. “You do not.”
“I do too.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d miss you if you went away.”
And a thought occurred to me. I grabbed his hand, reached for his other hand, and held them close to me. I stared up at his blue eyes. “Run away with me, Brian,” I begged.
He’d blinked in surprise. “What? Kiddo –“ he paused. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the house for a moment before turning back to me. “Let me at least walk you to the bus station,” he suggested, “It’s a long way to go without anyone to talk to.”
That seemed fair, so I let him come along.
We’d walked maybe a half a mile down the road from the house in silence before he suggested we sit down and rest at the school playground. We sat on the swings and Brian rocked his gently while I pumped my legs to touch the sky. He watched me go back and forth beside him. “Why are you running away, kiddo?” he asked.
I told him about my roller skates and being grounded. “It’s not like I wanted to ruin them,” I said.
Brian nodded.
“How come you agreed to walk me to the bus?” I asked.
Brian stared at me. “Because I’m gonna miss you.”
I slowed down pumping. My crush on Brian had, at that point, been in full swing. I was desperately waiting the moment when he’d realize I was the one for him and fall for me. I let my swing glide to a stop. “You came because you wanted to be with me?” I asked.
Brian nodded.
And somehow I’d known right then that everything was going to be okay.
I just needed Brian.
Brian
I waited in the dark by the gazebo, staring down at my hands as I worked at shredding a cocktail napkin. I glanced at my watch. It had been three hours. I stood up and walked around the side of the chateau, and surveyed the driveway. All the cars, except for mine and Chris’ (and I assume he’d been driven home by his mom after the drunken speech) were gone. I wandered slowly to my vehicle and pulled the door open and crawled inside. It was almost two o’clock at night.
A strange tingling feeling crept over me as I sat there in the dark. I wished that I’d gone for it in the cellar. I wished I’d pulled her dress off and ravished her right there with the wine crates surrounding us because – as much as Nick would love to brag otherwise – I know I could make Heather scream harder than Nick could ever dream of doing.
She would’ve picked me for the sex alone.
Maybe, I thought, if we’d had sex in the cellar she wouldn’t have even bothered going with Nick to tell him. Maybe he’d have walked in on us, maybe he would’ve seen she picked me all by himself – seen it in his own stupid shocked face in the reflection of the sweat that working me would produce on Heather’s skin. Maybe he’d hear it in her moans and noises when she was screaming my name with more passion than she’d ever screamed his.
I set my jaw and shoved my key into the ignition and started driving home, my fingers tight around the steering wheel, my heart slamming in my chest. I had all I could do not to drive to the Johnsons’, grab Heather, and make love to her with every last fiber of my being. I didn’t care if Nick was laying in bed right beside her. Let him watch.
I was trembling with fury by the time I got home.
I was better for Heather. Didn’t she see that? Didn’t she understand that Nick was no good for her, that all he wanted was a security deposit on life? He wanted to know that in the end, no matter how much he fucked up over the next few years, he’d have a pretty little thing waiting for him. And Heather was a sucker, she was letting him use her.
Then again, I’d let Heather use me hadn’t I?
Show me, indeed.
She’d wanted a character, not a relationship. She’d shred my heart into a hundred tiny little pieces and left me – literally – standing in the dark at the gazebo.
How long, I wondered, would it be before Eric was standing at the gazebo waiting for Holly?
