A Short Walk to the Bookshop

by Aleksandra Drake

  "Why are you crying, Sparrow?" he asked. "That phone's old anyway. It's not worth anything."

  His voice was eerily calm. Although his appearance had changed since we met all those years ago, his voice was exactly the same. Hearing it was like being yanked into the past.

  "You're scaring me," I whispered.

  "I could have killed you a hundred times. If I wanted you to die you'd be dead already. You'd have been dead a long time ago. I didn't even want to scare you but you wouldn't listen to me." He tapped the gun on the counter, staring at it in his hand almost as if he was surprised to see it.

  "I'm sorry," I choked "I'm sorry I wouldn't listen. I'm listening now, so please, will you put it away? You're scaring me."

  "I don't want you to be afraid of me," he said.

  "So put it away. Please?"

  He hesitated, looking at me, then at his hand. Finally, he reached back and slid it into his jeans. He had no holster. Something about that struck me as odd, like he was playing a role. The whole handgun-shoved-into-the-waistband thing seemed so hollywood. It was idiotic. I was going to be killed by a wannabe gangster idiot with bad hair.

  “You've gotten so thin,” he said. “Was that old man not feeding you or something?”

  “Oh, I've been dieting,” I lied, shifting my weight. Adrien was like a dog who'd finally caught a squirrel he'd been chasing for years and now didn't know what to do with it. He was a moron, but he wasn't so stupid as to really believe that I was sorry and that I'd be his girlfriend and do whatever he asked now. But if I played along, it would buy me time, at least. Time to figure out what I was going to do next.

  “You think you're fat?” he asked as Athena howled in the background.

  “Every girl thinks she's fat” I said. “Can we sit down? I feel a little woozy.”

  Adrien stepped forward suddenly and wrapped a thin arm around my back as if to support me. He was thin, too, like me. His hip bones jutted against the waistband of his jeans. His hand was freezing on my shoulder as he led me to the couch with what could pass as a believable display of concern to a casual observer.

  “You made me scare you,” he was mumbling as he sat down next to me. “I never really wanted to, you know. I'm a good person. You don't look well, you should have come to me and I would have taken care of you. That's all I ever wanted to do you know? The police and everyone misunderstood me. I never wanted to hurt you, I never thought of it.”

  “I know. I'm sorry.” I said, wondering how he could claim such a stupid thing when he, at that very moment, had a gun shoved in his pants. A gun probably bought illegally for the express purpose of scaring me, at least, and killing me at worst.

  “You were really a bitch to me, you know,” he said with an odd little laugh and he reached up to scratch the back of his neck. His fingernails were dirty and he smelled like he'd been sleeping in the woods.

  “I know,” I repeated. Athena was still scratching at the door and I wondered how long it would take her to break through it. She'd never broken through a door before so I had no frame of reference, but there was no way it would hold indefinitely.

  Indefinitely. A memory flashed through my mind, Diedrich in the car, the way he gripped the steering wheel and looked right ahead when he told me I could stay with him as long as I wanted.

  Would he come to the house to check on me? Eventually he would talk to Paula and realize that I’d gone home. What was he doing right then? Eating dinner maybe. There were chinese leftovers in his fridge. In my mind I conjured the image of him, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, dumping out one of those white paper boxes onto a plate and tossing it in the microwave.

  “Sparrow?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You're not listening to me. You said you'd listen to me.” I looked back at Adrien. His eyes were dark brown and rimmed with red and they were angry now. His lips were pressed together as he waited for me to give an excuse.

  “I don't feel well. You said you would take care of me, remember?”

  Adrien dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbed them before bolting upright. The sudden movement made me jump, which seemed to make him angrier.

  “Just go, go take a shower. You look like hell. You're not supposed to look like this. Fuck. Go. Go do your hair or whatever. Put on a dress. You don't look right. Put on a nightgown.” He demanded, looking at me but not quite looking at me. I obeyed, the hairs on the back of my neck rising as I turned my back to him.

  “Leave the door open,” he called as I turned the corner to the bathroom. I didn't look at myself in the mirror as I pulled my shirt over my head, the door open, Athena's nails scratching against the wood across the hall. Adrien stood in the hallway and leaned against the wall, watching as I undressed. It crossed my mind that there was no reason to be embarrassed. It probably wasn't the first time he'd watched me take my clothes off.

  I ran the water hot. Diedrich had always jokingly complained about the amount of steam left in the bathroom after my showers.

  When I got out, Adrien had my backpack and he tossed it at my feet.

  “Nightgown.”

  I dug through the clothes I'd shoved in there from Diedrich's house, retrieving the pale yellow cotton nightgown and throwing it on quickly.

  “Did he buy you this shit?” Adrien stepped forward, sliding his index and middle finger underneath the strap of the nightgown, his knuckles dragging along my skin.

  “No. This one is old. I've had it forever.”

  “What about the ones I sent you?”

  I swallowed. The “nightgowns” he'd sent me weren't the kinds of things you slept in.

  “They didn't fit.”

  “We need to have a chat about your nasty little lying habit.” He said, touching my nose. “You're sleeping on the couch tonight. Tomorrow we will figure out what to do about the dog. Go lay down.”

  I suppressed a sob and walked into the living room with him at my back. So far he had been restrained, sometimes visibly so, and quiet. He hadn't screamed or hit me or done anything, but I knew it wouldn't last. There was an erratic, chaotic energy behind his eyes and the way his hands twitched that threatened as surely as the gun had. I believed him when he said he didn't want to hurt me, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't do it anyway.

  “I love you, Sparrow.” He said when I had laid down on the couch like he told me to. He crouched down next to my head and ran his fingers through my wet hair. “I loved you right away, you know. When you started working at the gym, you were so cute. You didn't know how cute you were then, you had no idea the kind of hold you had on guys. You didn't see how they looked at you, but I did. I protected you. Did you know that?”

  I shook my head, my skin recoiling as his fingers ran down the side of my throat.

  “Those kinds of guys only want one thing. They didn't love you like I did. I still do, too, even after all the shit you've put me through. See, I forgive you.” The weight of his hand rested on my neck, not squeezing, just resting there, as he leaned over and kissed me. My chest constricted and I started crying again. I tried not to, but I couldn't help it, even my fear and my need to keep him calm for my own sake couldn't prevent it. He grunted and his hand slipped down to fondle my breast. It was too much. I couldn't go along with this. Adrien hesitated when he must have felt my tears on his nose as he pressed his face against mine. He leaned up, looking down at me as if seeing me for the first time. His eyes darkened and his lips twisted into a hard line again. The anger was back. He seemed to swing dramatically from one emotion to its opposite. One moment he was all tenderness and insecurity and the next there was a white hot rage behind his brown eyes.

  “Why the fuck are you crying again?” He spat.

  I tried to find words but none came, I just squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head, covering my face with my hands. He was deathly silent for a few moments, and I could sense him weighing his options. He still had that gun in his waistband, and he was bigger than me. In the end, when it cam
e right down to it, he could do what he wanted to me. We both were acutely aware of that fact in that silent moment.

  He stood up suddenly, laughing quietly to himself.

  “You girls are all the same, you know. Teases. You act all sweet and sexy but when the time comes suddenly you aren't sure and maybe it's better to wait. You really shouldn't do that, you know. A guy can only take so much.”

  I didn't answer. I was frozen to the couch, my muscles refused to move despite every instinct in my brain screaming at me to bolt for the door while his back was turned.

  “It's okay if you're nervous though. I'm nervous too. It's been a long time, huh? Just go to sleep now, baby. I don't want to scare you anymore. Just go to sleep.”

  I didn't feel at all like I was in the clear, though that seemed to be his intention. I didn't close my eyes right away, I watched his back as he moved around my living room, looking at my bookshelves and peeking through the curtains. His t-shirt was worn thin and I could see the lean muscles of his shoulders move underneath it as he stretched his arms over his head and behind him in agitation.

  “Close your eyes and go to sleep,” he demanded.

  Like a child, I obeyed. My brain ached for sleep, after staying up all night the previous night. My shoulders were sore, my back hurt, but my heart would not stop racing as if I were running. I couldn't stop my ears from following Adrien's progress around the room, back and forth, pacing like an animal in a cage.

  I don't know if I slept that night. It's possible that I did, after being awake a full twenty four hours it might have been impossible not to, though looking back I can't remember ever waking up. I know that I peeked out from under my eyelashes as often as I dared. For some time he sat, cross legged, on the coffee table and stared at me, his gun in his lap. Just staring. Wondering what his next move would be, I imagined. It was unbelievable to me that he didn't have a plan, that he hadn't thought through every moment of what he wanted to do to me when he caught me at last. But as I surreptitiously watched him through that timeless night, he looked more and more like a child who'd been given the keys to a candy shop but, once inside, stood motionless like he didn't know where to begin.

  It was a strange feeling, to be so afraid of someone who looked so pitiful. I was completely at his mercy, and yet he looked so thin and ill that anyone could push him over with a finger. As I laid there pretending to be asleep, sleeping perhaps, I grew less resigned to death. When I'd seen him through the door, his gun pointed at my face, I'd given up. It was almost a relief, in a way, to just be done with it all. But the human body and mind is not so quick to give up and as the hours stretched on I imagined all the ways I could break free from him. All the ways I could break him. He really was much thinner and weaker than I had made him out to be in my mind.

  Sometime around dawn, just as the inky darkness of the living room was lightening to a dull gray, Adrien kneeled next to me and, slowly, silently, he raised the gun and pressed it softly against my temple. I held my breath. After all this time, would he really just put a bullet in my brain while I slept? After all the haunting and the mind games and psychological torture would he really end it so anti-climatically?

  I waited, more bitter than afraid. In my mind I dared him to do it. I didn’t think he would. He didn't. After a minute or two he stood up again and walked into the kitchen.

  When I felt the warmth of a ray of sun on my feet I decided it was safe to pretend to be waking up. I stirred gently, feeling his eyes cross to me from where he stood in the kitchen. Slowly I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

  “How did you sleep?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  “I'm hungry.”

  “I'll cook you breakfast.” I stood up and padded across to him. He looked even worse in the morning light after being up all night watching me. I didn't know if that meant he would be more volatile or less. If he stayed awake for long enough, maybe he would fall asleep from sheer exhaustion and I would be able to simply walk out of the house. He had to sleep some time.

  I reached out and touched his hand. Eagerly, he took mine in his and squeezed it, looking at me with such an intense expression of longing that I almost laughed. I felt insane.

  “Go sit down,” I said gently. “Let me feed you, you've gotten so thin.”

  Deceptively docile, he did as I said and sat where I had lain all night. To sit down he pulled the gun from his waistband and balanced it on his knee instead. The gun was a heavy weight in the house, tipping everything towards it with a queasy gravity.

  I made breakfast. Pancake mix was taken from the pantry and poured in little circles onto a hot griddle. The smell of ham and cheese omelet filled the little house. The sun streamed in through the backdoor just like it did every morning. Athena was quiet. I hoped she was asleep. She had to be hungry and she surely needed to be let outside. Again, I wondered what Adrien's plan for her was, or if he had forgotten all about her and would let her stay locked in the bedroom to starve.

  The doorbell rang and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It had the same effect on Adrien, who scrambled to his feet, sending the gun spinning across the floor. I watched it in slow motion, my mind scrambling, knowing I should take advantage of this somehow, spring into action like a movie star. But it all happened too fast. In an instant the gun was back in his hand and he was pointing it at my face again as he hurried to me.

  “You will answer the door,” he hissed “and smile and say everything's fine. The police called, I've been arrested, everything is fine and you want to be left alone. If you say anything else, or give any clue that I'm here. I will kill you. Do you hear me, Sparrow? I will kill you where you stand.”

  He said it so calmly, his voice low and even. I didn't doubt him at all. Not even for a moment.

  I nodded and he nudged me toward the door with the barrel of the gun. Barrel? I wondered if that was even what it was called on a handgun. My mind fixated on wondering what the different parts of a handgun were called as I walked to the door as the bell rang again. It was like I was watching the scene play out from above, and I was grateful for the distance. Adrien slipped behind the door as I opened it to see Diedrich standing there.

  My heart shattered and a quake went through my body with a force that shook my knees.

  I love you.

  I wanted to shout. I wanted to scream. The contours of his cheeks and the worried way his eyebrows knit together looked like home to me and I could only pray that somehow, though I kept my face as blank and calm as I could, he could hear the shrieking behind my eyes. I didn't glance at him, but in the corner of my eye I could see Adrien behind the door, the gun raised to the level of my eyebrows. Inches away. Could Diedrich sense him?

  “I called Paula,” he said.

  “I didn't know you had her number,” I responded stupidly.

  “Why didn't you go to her place? You lied to me. You've been here alone this whole time?” His voice wasn't angry, but hurt. Disappointed.

  “Adrien is gone. Officer Laura called. He's being shipped back to Texas as we speak.” I said, trying to smile. My hands trembled so I held them behind my back. Adrien's hand shifted its grip on the gun subtly, waiting for me to slip up, waiting to pull the trigger. I wondered what Diedrich would do if, out of nowhere, a shot rang out and I crumbled right in front of him. He was traumatized by seeing his wife fade away in a hospital. What would happen to him if he had to wash my blood from his coat? It was a wool peacoat. He'd have to have it dry cleaned.

  “Sparrow.” He stepped forward but I raised my chin and my eyebrows and he stopped. “I don't want to believe that you would lie to me about this. I only want you to be safe. You know that, don't you?”

  “Sure,” I spat the syllable. A tug of war was tearing at my insides between the half of me that wanted to leap into his arms. He looked like salvation, so close yet so far. And the other half of me that just wanted him to go away, to save himself, so I could close the door and have Adrien lower his weapon.

  “You-u” My
voice stammered and I saw Adrien shift his feet. I tried again. “You had your chance. You didn't want me anymore so you don't get a say in what I do now.”

  “I didn't want you anymore?” He said breathlessly, disbelieving. His eyes pleaded and he took a step forward again. I held out my hand to stop him, an inch from his chest. I could touch him, if I wanted to. I wanted to. But I didn't dare.

  “Just go. I'll see you around.”

  “I don't want to go.”

  “I hate it when men don't leave me alone when I tell them to.” I said it through my teeth, my heartbeat catching in my chest when I saw his eyes soften. He seemed to shrink a full inch and he stepped away.

  “Okay,” he said. “Alright, Sparrow. I'll leave. If that's what you want.” But still he hesitated. I just looked at him, unblinking, praying that he could sense something wrong. But after a moment, he gave me a sad smile and turned and left. He just left. I watched him go, then closed the door.

  Adrien stepped out, shoving the gun back into his waistband. Tears pricked at my eyes.

  “Don't start that crying shit again. He didn't even want you. You have to stop wasting your time and energy on guys like that. You'll be fine now.” He stepped forward and wrapped his thin arms around me in a strange, defensive hug.

  “The food. I have to--” I muttered.

  He let go and went back to his position on the couch. In the kitchen, my mind was on fire. I had to do something. Adrien was too comfortable with that gun to my head. Eventually he would realize that I was never going to be his sweet little angel. He knew his hold on me was tenuous, and I only did what I did out of fear. Otherwise he wouldn't keep that gun within arms reach. He knew I didn't love him, that I was faking.

  “I will kill you. Do you hear me, Sparrow? I will kill you where you stand.”

  His words rattled around in my otherwise shocked and empty mind.

  I had no phone. No way of reaching anyone. I'd sent away my lifeline. I had to bring him back, somehow. I had to let people outside know that I was in here.