Never Let You Go (a modern fairytale) (23 page)

Holden turned over the ignition.

Fuck her.

And fuck Caleb.

“You don’t say much,” she sighed as they pulled out of the lot behind the Super-7. “Go left up here. But you fuck real nice.”

Seth drove in silence for several minutes, hoping she’d shut up for the rest of the ride. He felt dirty and disgusted, and the hole inside of him was bigger than ever.

“’N-n-nother l-left?” he asked, stopping at a stop sign and waiting for her to tell him how to get to her house.

“You wanna fuck me again sometime?” she asked, running a finger down his arm.

Honestly? He couldn’t care less. It would be her or someone else, and whoever it was, she wouldn’t matter.

He shrugged.

“Left,” she said, a pissed-off tone creeping into her voice. “You know, I’m just trying to be friendly. You show up here outta nowhere in the middle of junior year acting real quiet and a little retarded, and living with a brother who looks like your grandpa. You might try being a little nicer. Just sayin’.” She huffed softly when he didn’t reply, crossing her arms over her chest. “Up there. Second house on the right.”

Seth pulled up in front of a crappy little house, with three cars out front and a Christmas reindeer on the scrubby front lawn, even though it was May. His mother had always taken their decorations down by New Year’s, he recalled, clenching his jaw, and pushing the image of her pretty freckled face from his mind.

The girl turned to him, her eyes narrow. “You know what? I take it back. You don’t fuck nice. You fuck too hard, and your dick’s too big. Freak.”

Then she flounced out of the truck and slammed the door.

And Seth, who didn’t have much more than a big dick going for him, peeled out of her driveway, hating her, hating Caleb, hating himself, hating this disgusting fucking joke of a life.

He laid on the gas, going faster, though the little roads were small and curvy in this neighborhood. He blew past a stop sign and onto a main road, pressing harder on the gas and watching the speedometer move to 75 . . . 80 . . . 85 . . . He’d never driven so fast in his life, and a smile curved the edges of his mouth. Woods whooshed past him on both sides, and he rolled down the window to let the wet, cold Oregon air into the cab, taking a drag of his cigarette before tossing it out the window.

The speedometer needle kept moving . . . 90 . . . 95 . . . 100 . . . Out of the corner of his eye, he saw massive trees. Trees that had been there for a thousand years. Trees that would wreck a truck on impact if it was going a hundred miles an hour, and kill whatever sorry thing was breathing inside it.

He channeled every bit of strength in his sixteen-year-old body and pushed so hard on the gas pedal that his foot ached. The needle rose to 110. He took his hands off the wheel and closed his eyes, a dreamy, ethereal feeling coming over him. He was going to go home. In a minute, he’d be with her again. With her, and his mother, and his father, and his grandmother. He’d be with all of them again. He could see her face as clear as day, feel her fingers woven through his, hear her voice in his ears . . .

Holden, are you whole or broken?

Stone to stone. I jump, you jump.

Keep your fingers over the letters.

The loud blare of a semi horn roused him from his daze. His eyes shot open, and he blinked at the oncoming headlights, slamming on the brake. The truck bucked and shuddered as it slowed down, skidding on the damp road, out of control until the last second, when Holden jerked the wheel and managed to get out of the way of the oncoming sixteen-wheeler. He was drenched with sweat and crying like a baby as he pulled over on the side of the road.

After an hour of useless sobbing, he returned the truck to Grady’s and stepped into the tattoo parlor next door.

And that night, for the first time in years, he fell asleep with his fingers over the letters once again.

***

His eyes opened slowly, and then he gasped, because,
oh my God
, his dick was surrounded by heat and wet, and, holy shit, nothing had ever felt so good.

Looking down, he saw Griselda’s hair spread over his abdomen, golden and gleaming in the afternoon sun streaming through the window. Her lips held him tightly as her tongue worked his tip, and he clenched his eyes shut, thrusting his head back on the pillow.

“Gris,” he groaned.

Her mouth stilled, and when he looked down, she’d moved her hair to the side and was grinning up at him, his fat dick still in her mouth.

“Relax,” she said, before sucking purposefully as her hand held his shaft in place.

He tried to. He truly did. Because normally a blow job from a beautiful woman was something he’d just lie back and enjoy, but as good as it felt, what he really wanted was to be inside her again.

“Wait,” he panted. “Wait . . . can we . . .?”

She slid her mouth off of him, her face a little confused as she caught his eyes. She ran the back of her hand over her glistening lips. “You don’t want me to?”

“I do,” he said quickly. “Definitely. But I miss you. I want to feel you. I want to hold you.”

She’d been kneeling between his legs, but now she scooted up, straddling him with her knees on either side of his hips. Her full breasts swung lightly with the movement, and he stared at them, his mouth watering to taste them again.

“You want me . . . here?” she teased, still holding his rock hard dick by the base, her hand moving ever so slightly, pumping him, driving him crazy.

“I want to be inside you,” he told her, keeping his eyes open, though they threatened to roll back in his head.

She leaned up on her haunches, positioning his erection beneath her, then sank down, impaling herself fully with a combination sigh and moan that rose from the back of her throat.

“I’ll do anything for you,” he pledged, blinking his eyes as he reached for her hips.

Griselda leaned forward and kissed him, her breasts flattening against his chest as she slipped her tongue into his mouth. He clutched her against him, lifting his hips to pump into her as their tongues tangled, tasting each other, swallowing each other’s sighs. When she leaned back, Holden reached forward to palm her breasts, watching her eyes flutter closed as he pinched her nipples, driving up into her faster and faster, loving the way her breath hitched and panted, coming out faster and more jagged.

Feeling the pressure build deep in his pelvis, he jackknifed suddenly, wrapping his arms around her as she locked her ankles around his waist. Leaning down, he took her nipple in his mouth and sucked hard enough that she screamed his name, her sex flooding and convulsing around him, pulling him higher, sucking him deeper. He bellowed her name into the sweet, damp skin of her neck, holding her tightly as he climaxed, pulsing in waves, emptying himself.

“Gris . . . Gris . . . Gris . . .,” he murmured, kissing her neck as her limp body sagged against him. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”

“I did,” she said, leaning into him, her wrists crossed at the back of his neck.

He rested his forehead against her chest, his arms like iron bands around her body. “I love you,” he said, the words passing through his lips like a blessing, like a benediction.

“I know,” she whispered in a breaking voice. “I love you too.”

He clenched his eyes shut, overwhelmed by the simple sweetness of her words, the truth in them, the comfort of them, the rightness of them in his ears, the eternal yes of them.

Shifting them carefully back down on the bed without breaking their connection, he stayed deeply embedded in her as he stroked her hair from her face.

“I’ve always loved you, Gris.”

“Me too,” she said, softly but certainly, a little smile touching her eyes. “Always.”

“You won’t leave me?” he asked.

“Never.”

“We’ll stay together,” he said.

“We will.”

“And get married.”

She nodded.

“And have babies.”

A tear snaked down her cheek as she nodded again.

“You want babies?” she asked, giggling and crying at the same time.

“I want yours. I want our kids to be safe. I don’t want anybody to ever hurt them. I’ll keep an eagle eye on them, Gris. I’ll make sure they have somewhere to go if anything ever happens to us. I’ll love them just as much as I love you. I’ll take care of them. I p-promise.”

“I believe you,” she said. “Holden?”

“Hmmm?” he asked, a contentedness and security he’d never known making him warm and drowsy.

“I’m hungry.”

“Pretty sure my woman made some fried chicken earlier,” he said, kissing her lips tenderly.

“Yes, she did.”

She pulled away from him, and he missed her warmth immediately as she rolled to the edge of the bed, sitting with her back to him.

He felt her uncertainty suddenly and wanted to reassure her. “We’ll be okay, Gris. We’re together again, like we always should have been. W-we’ll be okay now.”

Looking at him over her shoulder, she smiled sadly. “I hope so, Holden.”

Then she stood up, grabbed her jeans off the floor, and left the room.

Griselda plated the food, and they ate at the kitchen table—a feast of cold chicken and apple slices washed down with ice-cold well water—and all the while they traded shy, happy, knowing glances, staring at each other, then looking away, shaking their heads with low, bemused laughter, both quietly delighted and just a little overwhelmed by what had just happened between them, by the words they’d spoken and the promises they’d made.

Holden wore nothing but unbuttoned jeans, and she stared at his chest—his strong, beautiful, sculpted chest that memorialized her loss—as much as she liked, biting her lip when he caught her, then giggling when he threatened to take her on the kitchen floor if she didn’t stop.

His eyes were soft with love, but alive with wonder, and every moment she spent with him, he looked more and more like the boy she’d known so well and loved so much. She could have happily watched him forever. Heck, she thought as she rinsed the dishes, that was the plan, wasn’t it?

As she stood at the sink tidying up, Holden went outside to the truck. When he came back a few minutes later, Griselda placed the clean plates in the drying rack by the sink and turned to look at his sweet smile, and noticed both hands were hidden behind his back.

“What you got behind your back, Holden Croft?” she asked, her eyes teasing.

His cheeks reddened a little as he showed her a notebook and three pens, holding them out to her.

Her eyes flicked questioningly from the items in his hand back to his face.

“It’s a gift. Maybe a d-dumb gift, but I thought . . . well, I thought you could write out some of your stories while we’re here.”

The lump in her throat was so immediate and huge, she dropped his eyes, trying to swallow over it, but it made her own eyes burn with tears. He’d gotten her a gift.

With shaking hands, she reached for the notebook and pens, staring down at them as one fat tear rolled down to the tip of her nose and splashed onto the notebook cover.

“Gris?” he said, reaching out to tilt her chin up. “You okay?”

“I love them,” she whispered, clutching them to her chest and trying to get herself under control. “No one’s . . . I mean, I haven’t gotten a gift in . . .”

He flinched, leaning forward to kiss her tenderly before drawing her into his arms, the notebook and pens trapped between their hearts.

She felt foolish for crying. It was such a kind, thoughtful gesture, and she was ruining it with self-pity. But aside from the homemade birthday card that Prudence had made for her this year, and the extra fifty dollars in her paycheck at Christmas and on her birthday, Griselda didn’t receive gifts. Not now. Not ever. Not from her mother, not from her grandmother, not from any of her foster parents, not from Maya, and certainly not from Jonah. Not counting the extra money from the McClellans, she hadn’t received a gift since . . . well, since Holden had handed her a bouquet of buttercups on her thirteenth birthday, almost ten years ago.

“Get used to it, Gris,” he said against her hair, still holding her tightly. “I’m going to get you presents whenever I want to. W-whenever I feel like it. I’m going to give you so many presents, you’ll barely remember what it felt like to have none.”

She could feel him clench his jaw against her temple, a sign that her tears were making him emotional too.

“My daddy used to give my mama gifts all the time,” he continued. “He’d come home from work with a flower or a candy bar. Sometimes he’d go into a department store and collect free perfume samples. They didn’t have much, but they took care of each other. And that’s how I’m going to be. I’m going to take care of you.”

With every bit of her heart, Griselda wanted to believe him, wanted to trust that after a lifetime of fear and loneliness and abandonment, it was possible to finally be happy. But just like before, when he’d said, “We’ll be okay now,” something inside her was skeptical. Part of her doubted she deserved happiness. Another part insisted that as much as she wanted it, something bad would happen, because something bad always did. Unlike Holden, Griselda had never had a good example of a loving relationship. All she’d ever known was turbulence, and as much as she wanted something safe and solid with Holden, she wasn’t entirely sure how to get there.

“So what do you think?” he asked her, leaning back to look into her eyes and swiping the last tears from her cheeks. “Want to write down a few stories?”

“You remind me of Mrs. McClellan,” she said, sniffling through a deep breath, then grinning at him.

“How so? She as handsome as me?”

“Full of yourself.”

“The most beautiful girl in the world was in my bed all afternoon. I get to be cocky.”
She rolled her eyes at him, gesturing to the porch with her chin and reaching for his hand. “Want to sit outside a while?”

He let her lead him outside. He scooted his rocking chair next to hers, and they both leaned back, letting the low sun warm their faces as they rested their bare feet side by side on the rough-hewn railing.

Griselda closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of wildflowers and fresh air. “Mrs. McClellan wants me to go to college.”

“College?” he asked in surprise. “College. Wow. That would be something, Gris.”

“I can’t afford it.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said softly, and she marveled at his words, unable to stop the terrifying burst of hope in her heart that sang,
I’m not alone. I’m not alone anymore.

“I have a little money,” she said, realizing that her Holden fund was now available to be spent. “Not enough for college . . . but almost thirteen thousand saved.”

He was silent for so long, she opened her eyes and turned to him. He stared at her in awe.

“You’re rich,” he said.

“It was all for you. To find you. I was saving up for this private investigator in New York. Supposed to be the best.”

“For me?” he asked. His fingers reached for hers and squeezed. “You d-didn’t give up.”

“Never.”

“Well, I think you should go to college, Gris.”

She shrugged, looking down at the notebook. “I don’t know. Some colleges have writing programs, you know? For people who like writing stories. And Mrs. McClellan talked a little bit about scholarships. I don’t know, though. I don’t know anyone who ever went to college except for her.”

“You shared your stories with her?” Holden asked.

“I make them up for Pru. I guess she overheard.”

Holden grinned, squeezing her hand again. “I love that.”

“So does Pru.”

Drawing her hand away from his, she opened the new notebook on her lap and uncapped one of the pens. She opened the cover, and wrote neatly in the middle of the first page:

FAIRY TALES

by Griselda Schroeder

She stared at her name, wondering what it would feel like to really see her stories in a book, in print, to know they were read to children before bed, ensuring sweet dreams. One of her foster mothers, Kendra, had told her she was good with kids, and Mrs. McClellan thought she had talent. Of course, Holden, who’d always loved her stories, would encourage her. Maya would get on board too. But was it actually possible to change your whole life like that? To make your dreams come true?

Her stomach clenched, and she closed the notebook, looking out at the flowers. It was simply too much good at once. She didn’t trust it. She wished she could, but she didn’t. Girls like Griselda didn’t get new beginnings and happy endings—it was safer to anticipate disaster than embrace happiness. And yet . . .

She turned slightly to look at Holden, whose head was back against the chair, eyes closed. The bruises around his cheek and eyes had improved a lot since yesterday. The discoloration over the lid was already gone, and though the reddish black below his eyes was still visible, it was turning yellow now. His cheek was still swollen, but like his eyes, the discoloration was already improving. His lips—lips that had touched hers so lovingly all afternoon—were pillowed and perfect, and his nose and cheeks were dotted with freckles. Just over the left side of his lip, closest to her, there was a larger, darker freckle, and suddenly she longed to kiss it, to own that tiny part of him just in case she ever lost the rest.

“Holden?” she asked softly, still staring at his face. “Why’d you stay so long with Caleb Foster?”

***

He was grateful that his eyes were closed so she couldn’t read them as his stomach dropped. He’d known this question was coming, of course, but he dreaded having to answer it. He could barely get his own head around the conflicted feelings he had for Caleb. He didn’t know how to explain them to Gris.

He took a deep breath, turning to her and opening his eyes slowly. Her face, so beautiful in the golden sun, made his lungs freeze with fear and longing, and he held his breath before letting it out with a hiss.

“I’ll try to explain,” he said. “W-will you try to understand?”

She nodded slowly, her body shifting in her rocking chair to face him. His eyes dropped briefly to her breasts then skated up to her lips, praying that those parts of her wouldn’t be forever off-limits to him after this conversation.

“K-kiss me first?” he asked, a feeling of panic almost choking him.

“Tell me first,” she answered, sitting back, staring away from him, out at the meadow.

So he did. He told her about waking up on Caleb’s front porch, a fresh grave in the front yard, blood on Caleb’s shirt.

“He told me you were d-dead. He changed our names. I was c-crying for you, so he knocked me out again,” he said, his hand instinctively touching his temple. “When I woke up, it was n-nighttime and I was sitting in his t-truck. I don’t know where we were. Somewhere in western West Virginia, I guess. Maybe K-Kentucky. The first few w-weeks . . . I don’t r-remember them all that w-well.

“D-during the day, we’d drive. S-sometimes we’d s-sleep in the truck. S-sometimes he’d get a motel room. When we s-slept in the truck, he handcuffed me to the s-steering wheel. When we s-slept in a motel, he handc-cuffed me to the bed. Said I needed to be ch-chained up until R-Ruth had loosed her power over me.”

“Holden,” she said softly, and he turned to her, watching tears run down her face.

“He drank a lot. M-most nights. Wherever we were. He’d ch-chain me up first so I couldn’t run.” He looked at Griselda, feeling stunned by the force of the memories, that dead feeling he’d lived with for so long coming back to him as he relived those days. “N-not that I would’ve run.”

“Why not?” she asked, her face contorting with confusion as she smoothed her tears into her hair.

He wanted to touch her, wanted to hold her, but he didn’t dare reach for her. It was hard to keep talking, but he did his best to explain.

“B-because inside . . . I was d-dead.” He swallowed. “You were g-gone. My f-folks and gran were long g-gone. Didn’t m-matter what he d-did to me. I didn’t c-care.”

“What . . . What
did
he do to you?” she asked in a terrified whisper.

“He fed me,” said Holden, looking out at the wildflowers. “He gave me a place to s-sleep.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “He never t-touched me wrong.”

“But he still beat you?”

Holden shook his head, clenching his jaw. “Only w-when I mentioned you.”

She was silent as she absorbed this. “He just . . . stopped?”

“Yeah,” said Holden, nodding. “He said he’d c-cut the c-cancer out of our lives, and I was s-saved.”

“Because I was dead.”

Holden finally turned to her and whispered, “Yeah.”

Her forehead creased as her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “Did you . . . God, Holden, did you . . .
like
him?”

“Sh-short answer? I hated him.”

“Long answer?” she asked.

“It’s c-c-complicated,” he said, his heart racing faster as he tried to figure out how the fuck to explain his actual feelings.

“I need to hear it,” she said, her voice low and thick, her tears still falling. “I want to understand.”

Holden swallowed painfully, clenching his jaw before nodding. “In his m-mind . . . he thought I was Seth. He truly b-believed it. And he truly b-believed that killing Ruth would save Seth.” He winced as he looked at her. “I know it sounds c-crazy, but in his own way, he was p-protecting me . . . uh, Seth.

“When we went to diners, he’d order his food, then turn to me and ask, ‘What’ll it b-be, little b-brother?’ all p-pleased and p-proud that I was w-with him. And the waitresses would look back and f-forth between us, at the age difference, and s-sometimes s-snicker, and I’d f-feel . . .” He felt the old anger surge up. “. . .
mad
. B-because he was just t-trying to . . . you know . . .”

She’d dropped her glance to her lap halfway through his remembrance, but now she looked at him, her face white and destroyed. “He wasn’t,” she paused, taking a deep breath, “your
brother.
He
abducted
us. He
tortured
us.”

“You th-think I don’t know that? I was th-there, Gris.” He shifted in his chair suddenly, showing her the crisscrosses of mangled scar tissue on his back. “You th-think I d-don’t remember? I remember!”