Chapter One June #5
The handyman stares for longer than is comfortable. Even though the sun is starting to sink now, I’m not worried about being alone out here with some strange guy—at least not this guy. “You sure you’re all right? You don’t seem... I don’t know.”
“It was just some bad news.”
“And you’re here on your own? Well, if you need anything, you call that number on the card.
My wife came up to a lodge here last Christmas and got her heart handed back to her by her cheating scumbag of a boyfriend.
She ended up at a house where I was fixing up a nursery and...
” The grunt turns to a chuckle. “I never knew you could fall in love so fast. Anyway, whatever your bad news is, I hope something here will cheer you.”
“I hope so, too.” I look around the garden and wonder if I can stay here for the summer—well, at least until the end of July, like we planned. It’s paid for, and since moving in with Daniel last month, I sub-leased my apartment for the duration of my lease.
Because he has to have “me time” with his visual mistress, I’m homeless—or I have to put up with something I’m really not comfortable with.
The idea that Daniel would keep something so big from me, and that he doesn’t even consider it a big deal, just floors me.
When the truck drives off, I flop down and sit in the shadow of the opened wooden crate, looking up at Daniel’s gift, knowing I can’t keep it now.
There will never be a big house and a garden, never be a fountain with this statue spouting water for our babies to splash in.
I’m tempted to curse, but I’m also weirdly numb. I just sit and stare, looking at dark gray stone as the sun fades away.
Like all the happiness fading from my life. If I were a poetry girlie, I’d be thrilled at how tragic and poetic all of this is.
I’m so not a poetry girlie.
Although what Daniel sent is poetic in its own way.
It’s a monster. It’s a big, broken monster. Horns like a headband, a wing that was clearly patched back on.
“Poor dude. Did you fall off Castle Mackintosh?” I murmur, looking at the hunk of rock that’s so intricately carved. I run my hands over the busted wing and admire the detail of the tattered, almost shredded kilt that clings and drapes on thick stone thighs. Muscular stone thighs.
I sneeze. The suspicious sneeze.
Daniel lied about this gift, too, I bet. I bet it was made in China in some super-industrial factory. This one’s a damaged one, broken and glued (how the heck do you glue stone? Cement, maybe?) or cemented back together.
“There is no way that some sculptor in the 1800s made you, buddy,” I grunt, pushing on the side of the crate, putting all of my rage and confusion into short, hard shoves until one more wall goes down.
“You, my friend, are probably a knockoff. Or a very expensive piece made by a famous sculptor that I’m supposed to be impressed by.
Hey, maybe you’re the real thing. Look at Michelangelo.
Or do I mean Da Vinci? I don’t know. One of those Ninja Turtle types was a really good sculptor.
You’ve got muscles and details like something in a museum.
I’m sorry I said you were cheap.” I pat his head and wonder why Daniel picked this particular statue.
It looks like he’s asleep, and he’s curled up in a strange crouch, as if he were on his side, but now he’s settled upright.
“Sorry I said you were a broken monster. You’re just a little banged up.
I don’t think you’re supposed to be a fountain, but maybe you’ll fit in the corner of my living room—if I can lug you up two flights of stairs.
Dang it, I’m going to have to move in with my parents or one of my sisters if Daniel—”
I stop talking abruptly.
My winged monster—my incredibly detailed gargoyle—is cracking.
Literally, in front of my eyes, a crack appears between the peaceful closed eyes.
I gasp and start muttering about shipping damages—and the cracks keep spreading, like something out of a nightmare. All over his face. All down his arms. Across the chest, and then slowly, almost hesitantly, over the broken wing that’s folded unevenly, the only imperfection on my surprise.
I sneeze again, three times, the last one so hard that I lose my balance and topple backward on my own flip-flops.
When I’m sitting there, staring at my present shattering, I have a ridiculous thought, but it fits.
My perfect romance was just an illusion. Not real. A fantasy. Pretend.
And I’m in a pretend world now. I have to be.
Because my gargoyle shattered into pieces—and there’s something under the stone.
Flesh. Blood. Tattered fabric. Fangs in an open, howling mouth, a tail that lashes, and then the beast falls to his knees, clutching at his side.
Now face-to-face with me.
The howling roar cuts off abruptly and turns to a snarl. Coal black eyes are staring at me in a mixture of rage and something else. Fear? Puzzlement?
I don’t know. All I know is my big romance got trashed today, and my big surprise is probably going to eat me.
“Today sucks a big one.”