35. Silly Puppet
Silly Puppet
Six p.m. is looming on the horizon, and as beautiful and fun as the wedding is, Gideon isn’t here.
I only cried twice during the ceremony, which is a new record for me at weddings.
Everything is perfect, down to the soft flurries falling outside.
Ally Kessler got everything she wanted. The music is thumping in the warm elk's lodge, the reception in full swing, and I’m surrounded by familiar smiling faces.
Seeing Jimmy’s slim frame and beaming freckled grin has made me oddly… wistful.
A handful of months ago I would be out there grinding and swaying with the best of them, but for now?
My mind is back in the quiet lobby of a funeral home with a brooding man working downstairs.
His attention to detail remaining undisturbed while I ready his paperwork.
Dusting pews like his mother before me. What comes next?
Would I be the next one to laboriously pick out a dress?
Would Gideon even believe in marriage? In a real one, not the play ones from when we were kids.
Would anyone show up? Be happy to see me promise forever with the odd boy from the funeral home just outside of town? My wine remains mostly untouched in my glass as I watch everyone dance when a cool, weathered hand finds my arm.
I smile over at Mrs. Johnson. “The shop is going to feel boring now.”
She laughs. “With my age? There’s nothing wrong with boring.”
I chuckle with her, finding her husband in the crowd talking to a group of older men. Still unsure if he had said anything to her about what happened at the shop. If he has, nobody has let on. I’m grateful for that.
“Penny for your thoughts, dear?”
I wrinkle my nose at her before gesturing to the couple slow-dancing to an upbeat, fast-paced song.
Lost to everyone but each other. “The envy bug has sharp teeth tonight,” I grumble, parroting something she told me while I caught her wistfully watching a mom push her baby around in a stroller outside the shop last summer.
“Then why don’t you head home?”
“The reception just started. I can’t leave before they even cut the cake.”
“Why not?” she quips.
I don’t mean for my answering sigh to be so loud. “It’s… I don’t know. I’ve looked forward to this all year.”
“But you’d rather be home with your happily ever after.”
Something deep in my chest gives at that. “Would he want to be, you think? You know Gideon, he’s—"
Her sudden, loud laugh makes me jerk a little, the wine sloshing out of my glass just enough to leave a single droplet on my finger the color of old blood.
“Sweetheart, your happily ever after started when the two of you were in grade school. There’s nothing in this world that boy wouldn’t do for you.
” She swats me gently on the butt. “Go home.”
My cheeks warm, my heart picking up its pace at the prospect. “What if something happens and one of the grooms rips their—"
“Audrey Fisher, I ran my shop alone before you could walk. Get out of here, or else,” she orders, making me laugh.
I bend down, pressing a kiss to her cheek happily. Taking a parting gulp of my wine before passing that to her waiting hands too. “See you Wednesday.”
“Don’t speed!”
After a soft and half-ignored goodbye to the happy couple, I’m out the door and rushing into the dark winter night toward my dad’s truck, debating the best way to demand Gideon Bell marry me.
The drive home passes in a mindless blur of excitement as I pull into the circular drive of his house.
I’m only halfway up the stairs, the snow catching in my hair, before I realize I'd left my coat at the lodge. I don’t even care, cause soon enough the bright lobby of Bell Funeral Home opens up, warring against the darkness of the moonless night, and Gideon hangs there in the doorway, his intense eyes on mine. “You’re early. Is everything okay?”
I laugh, but it’s a nervous one that doesn’t quite fall from my lips right. “Yeah, I just wanted to be home.” I stand there in front of him, shivering before rolling my eyes and taking a step in only to be cut off. “Gideon, it's cold, let me in,” I prod, frowning at him.
He sighs, his hands gripping the doorframe until his knuckles turn white. “Now isn’t a good time, Audrey.”
His words are like a bucket of ice water. And all I manage is a quiet. “What?”
“I just wasn’t expecting you so soon, puppet. Head to your house and I’ll be over later.”
I’m just staring, gobsmacked. For a brief, agonizing second, the snow is rain, and there’s thunder rolling through the sky, Gideon towering over me and demanding I go home, my lips swelling from his kiss.
“Is everything okay?” God help me, my voice breaks a bit, and my shaking now has little to do with the cold.
It’s then that a soft sob comes from behind him, understanding unfurling in my chest as my eyes strain over his lean shoulder.
Trying to find the family member it came from.
I reach out, shoving at Gideon lightly. “Don’t scare me like that, you could’ve just said there was a family here. Let me in, I’ll help you—"
“No,” he snaps, making me flinch. Whatever relief that had bloomed in my chest moments ago evaporating like a raindrop on parched dirt. “Head home, Audrey.”
I’m shaking so hard I nearly stumble onto the snow-dusted porch as he steps back, making to swing the door closed.
I kick my strappy heel out to wedge between the frame, the door biting into it painfully.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Gideon? I don’t want to go home.
Let me in now. Why are you being so fucking—"
I flinch at the visceral scream that fills the house, so loud…
so panicked. If the falling snow hadn’t already chilled my blood, it would’ve.
My eyes snap to his. He takes a deep breath, taking his time, rolling his eyes up my body slowly, but the moment they meet mine, what I see there is far from the indifferent chill from before.
I try to shove past him, but his hands band around my trembling shoulders. “Audrey, get the fuck back to your house now,” he warns, but I’m not listening to him, still struggling to get past Gideon's hands when they turn bruising.
“No, what was that, Gideon?!”
“Somebody help me!” the woman screams again, her voice hoarse, and it takes me a second too long before I recognize it.
“Jessica?!” I yell into the house, making the scream cut off as Gideon cages me to his chest, working me out of the doorway.
“Audrey! Audrey, run! Oh, fucking god!”
“Gideon, what the fuck?” I curse, my struggling taking on a panicked edge, fear bracketing my chest.
“I really wish you hadn’t come home so early, puppet.
” He sighs as I jerk in his hold. When his hand snaps to my mouth covering my nose I kick back, meeting his shin with my heel.
It's barely enough as I wiggle free, several strands of my hair getting jerked out by the root against his apron as I bolt for the porch steps.
My scream bursts against the hills as his hand knots in the back of my dress, jerking me roughly to his chest. His answering squeeze is brutal, making each panicked breath punchy and rough. “Gideon, stop!” I cry out.
“It’s okay. I’m going to fix this. Okay?
” he promises, his own voice laced with urgency as I kick, but he’s strong, his arm bracing under my chin.
My hands flying up to claw at it desperately as he drags me into the lobby.
The side table knocks into the wall as I fight, the vase his mom bought at an estate sale years ago wobbling until it crashes to the floor.
“Shhhh. Sweet girl, it’s okay. I’ve got you. ”
I try to scream, but my head is going light. Only vaguely aware of Jessica’s mournful wailing from somewhere deeper in the building.
She was right.
Oh my god, she was right.
He lets us fall, knocking his back against the stairs with a grunt as he wraps his legs around mine.
Sweat beads on my forehead as I struggle, my movements slowing like I’m working through gelatin.
The scent of pepper and eucalyptus swallows me whole as he soothes me, dotting soft kisses on my head as I suffocate.
“Don’t be mad at me, okay?” he whispers.
“I’m only doing this for us. Shhh, puppet, don’t struggle, it’s okay.
It’ll be okay, I swear.” His voice cracks as I roll my head up, his own face flushed, glasses knocked off-kilter, his eyes feverish, panicked, and wild.
I try to plead with mine, to beg. A strangled sound escapes my throat as he pants.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he pleads back. “Please, please don’t be scared of me.”
It’s the last thing I hear before my vision blurs and the room goes dark.