Page 12 of Miserable Marionette

“No! I already said that!” I glare up at him.

“Your eyes look pretty when you cry.”

I go still, all the anger and well… pretty much anything else blipping out of my mind like it was never there. I’m still gawking, cheeks flushed, heart racing when he continues. “I’m sorry for knocking you down in the woods, for grabbing you like that. I was worried when you started running.”

“Why?” I whisper. Fully expecting him to stop elaborating.

He doesn’t.

“You’re mine, Audrey. You shouldn’t run from me, or make me doubt that you’re not scared. If you’re mine, you’ll never run from me. Never be scared.”

This time when I try to sit up, he lets me, watching silently as I wipe my puffy eyes. Keeping my legs squeezed together tightly. “I…” I sigh. “I wasn’t scared. I got my period. I didn’t want you to see.”

He doesn’t say anything and my mind is swirling too much for me to look at him for a response.

Gideon thinks my eyes are pretty.

I’m his.

My stomach blares to life with something lighter and more ticklish than cramps. Flutterflies.

I don’t move a muscle when he stands, picking up the blanket that fell on the floor, settling it over my lap before giving me a quick kiss on the top of my head. His fingers finding a strand of my hair to play with. “I made Krissy another dress. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.”

I sniffle, my cheeks burning red. Trying and failing to avoid his eyes. “Okay.”

6

Drowning Hornets

Gideon, Fifteen Years Old, 1981

Audrey’s sunshine hair is braided today, trapped between her purple backpack and her back as we walk down the sidewalk that will soon turn to a narrow, unkept road. It’s not too far removed from the rest of the small town, but far enough to be an annoyingly long walk from town.

Her wide hazel eyes meet mine before her head hangs again. “We’ll be late.”

“And?” She breathes deeply, clenching the straps of her backpack tightly as I quicken my stride until I’m beside her. “Only by a few minutes.”

Her fists tighten. The muscles in her jaw clenching. Audrey is particular about most everything, especially being late. Like the cute way she knocks three times on the front door of my house, even if nobody hears her, she won’t knock again.

Not once or twice but three times. Every single time.

Or how she wears her hair in a braid every Friday, her bangs poofed up bigger than seems reasonable. Nearly every week showing me what she dubbed her battle scars, where she touched the hot iron to her forehead. She uses her mom’s curler even though she hates the smell of the tacky, burned hairspray coating it.

“Hang out at my house tonight. We’ll go straight downstairs.” Can’t be upset about the time if you never see the clock.

She peeks up at me again, and her irises swallow me whole. My brain fuzzes as I fixate on the lines of golden brown, green, and blue. If she never had to blink, I’d count them. I know everything about Audrey Emma Fisher; the lines in her eyes should be no different.

I almost miss the bike tires barreling toward us until they skid to a stop. “Audrey! Wanna hang out at the park?”

I take a deep breath, like Dad taught me, hoping it’ll lessen the burning feeling in my chest; it sometimes does.

Not this time.

Harry Tamerlane hops off his bike, his bomber jacket making a scratchy sound as he moves. “You can ride. I’ll walk.” He gestures to his bike, urging her to climb on.

For a second, I think she’ll say yes. For a second, I can tell she wants to. I don’t have the right words for how that makes me feel, only that I don’t like it, and my vision is tunneling again. That same swathing, consuming itch that only two things seem to scratch. Dad is out of town on business, so Audrey it is. My hand grips her wrist, pulling her down the road away from Harry before she can say anything that will make me lose my cool.

“Gideon!” she chastises, but I don’t care. She’s tiny; we both know she couldn’t wiggle free, not even if she wanted to. I take comfort in that, knowing if push came to shove, she simply couldn’t. “We can hang out tomorrow, Harry!” she calls back, and the itch sinks past my skin, into the bone. I can feel sweat beading at my hairline despite the cool air.