Chapter Nine Andrea and Gordon
It hurts to drive, but the pain is dull. The disbelief is sharp. Huge. All-consuming.
Gordon is a troll. There are gargoyles. Other fairy tale creatures.
I shove all of those thoughts away. Crazy as it is—those things are not important.
What does matter? Gordon was dead. Should have died.
I saw him on the floor, a still form with flames around him, gray, ash-like exterior catapulting me back to my horrified fascination when I first learned about the victims of Vesuvius.
Panic. Grief. An all-consuming sense of loss and missing out that makes missing my cruise seem like a glorious gift.
It felt like someone had physically crushed my heart with guilt and anguish—because I knew in that second that I’d missed out and lost him. The one. The one I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to. The one I’m never supposed to say goodbye to.
I barely recognize my own voice when I start speaking. “I don’t care that you’re a troll. I care that you almost died. I care about losing you. When I thought you were gone, even for a few minutes, it made one thing super clear.”
“What thing?” Gordon asks. He’s squashed into the seat beside me, shoulders up around his ears.
We should take his truck from now on.
Because, by some miracle, there will be a “from now on.”
“That I want you in my life for a long time. That I like you, and that everything is better when I know you’re just a phone call away. Or better still, sitting next to me.”
Gordon gasps a little, shifts in his seat, and his head clonks against the roof. “Oops.”
“You can throw my car off a cliff, and I wouldn’t care. Tonight, I just care that you are alive, and still with me. Don’t you get that?”
Silence. “No?” he says, slowly, a hesitant question in his voice.
My face feels too tight, like the skin is sunburnt, and I’m more aware of it when I smile.
Gordon makes me smile.
“I care about you. I want you around. You said most people can’t see that you’re a.... That you’re—” Okay, as shock wears off, the reality I’m living in doesn’t feel smooth, and it definitely feels like something I shouldn’t just blurt out.
“That I’m a troll. No, most people can’t. You saw a man walk into a building and survive by turning to stone. Your brain can’t accept that, either. The Mist parts, and the eye opens.”
“So... Like, it’s not a problem for us to keep seeing each other, though. I won’t tell people, which protects your secret and the supernatural community, I would guess? And I don’t have to tell my parents or nosy relatives, who would put me in the loony bin.”
I’m getting used to my statements being met with long silences before Gordon says next to nothing, or something deep and moving. As I pull into my parking lot in front of my apartment, I wait and wonder which path the conversation will take this time.
“You only care about how others would see me?” Gordon asks.
When he says it, it sounds shallow. That’s not how I meant it.
I shake my head and place my throbbing hand on his huge, smooth one, my reddened tan skin against the cool gray-green smoothness of his knuckles.
“I only care about how you and I see each other. I just don’t want you to worry that I’ll let outside things influence me.
My heart was screaming tonight. That’s something I can’t tune out, Gordon. ”
Gordon raises my hand slowly, carefully. Presses his cheek to it in a way that melts my heart. “Don’t you want a human man to love you?” he whispers so softly that I can barely make it out.
Love? It is suddenly harder to breathe, and not simply because of the rawness of my throat.
“Are you able to turn into a human man?” I ask.
Maybe he can. Who knows? It doesn't matter, but now I’m curious, and hey, my Gordon almost died.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the orange inferno and smell the stench of ignited gasoline.
I have to ask things when I think of them, because I just got one hell of a reminder that there may not be another time.
“No, Andrea. That’s something I’ll never be able to do,” Gordon admits.
“Then, no, I don’t want a human man to love me, because that man wouldn’t be you,” I say, tone so firm that even Tita Carla might flinch.
“If anyone is going to love me, I... I mean, I know it’s soon.
” I trail off, suddenly unable to put so many intense feelings into words.
I push my hair back, wincing when I hear it crackle.
“If someone were going to love me, someday, I hope it’s you,” I blurt, and then heave myself out of the car, feet screaming when I put weight on them. “Come in?”
Gordon is already out of the car, first aid bag in hand. “Coming,” he murmurs.
“If someone were going to love me, someday, I hope it’s you.”
Andrea’s words are repeating in my mind, and each time, I feel my heart lift higher.
Then I think of all she doesn’t know about trolls, about my past, about the way I was raised, or how my parents lived until my father forced things to change. I think of how near-death experiences change people... For a while.
I try to keep the elation and blooming, bright feelings buried.
And then, I think of her kisses during the fireworks. Of how Andrea reached for me when she first regained consciousness. How she still wanted to hold my hand as her head cleared and she drove home.
It could be guilt. I feel guilty. Almost got her killed. What if she’d decided to investigate with me? She was hurt just following me!
Cold sweat pops out on my brow and makes a line down my spine.
Andrea enters her apartment and says, “I’ve never had burns like this. This dress is ruined. Shoes, too. My hair. I don’t know what to do first. I should know all of this. My mother is a nurse. My cousins. My brother... Don’t get me started on my brother.”
This I know. Caring for people in emergencies is something I can do, even if I’m not good at making small talk while I do it. “It is because you’re in shock. You’ll know what to do later. For now, that’s why I’m here.”
Andrea turns, face set. “You’re here because you care about me. And I care about you. Unless everything that happened before the fire was a lie.”
“No! No, of course it wasn’t. But I was never going to let things go farther, not until you knew what I truly was,” I explain.
Chopin comes trotting out of the bedroom, whiskers twitching and tail carried high with a question mark curl at the top.
He runs right to Andrea, opening his little mouth in a wide “mroooowr.” “I didn’t want to kiss you.
Or get close to you. But I couldn't help myself, Andrea. That’s not a good thing.
That’s not the kind of man you should want. ”
Andrea crosses her arms. “You have an awful lot of ideas about the man I want when you barely know me.”
“You know you want me, and you barely know me.”
Andrea ends the glaring match by sighing, wincing, and patting the cat. “Why didn’t you want things to go farther?”
“Because I’m a troll. A monster. That’s something you needed to know, but not something I could have told you.
Not without you thinking I was insane,” I huff.
The cat comes to me now, sniffing me, looking up at me reproachfully, and unlocking some stupid instinct in me that requires me to bend down and pick up the fluffy little creature.
“Is that why you bolted out of here after dinner?”
“Partially.”
“Partially? What’s the rest?”
I put the cat down so I can throw up my hands in exasperation—muted exasperation, obviously, since throwing my arms around in Andrea’s neat little apartment would probably break something.
“Should we really be discussing this now? You need to run those burns under cool running water for ten to fifteen minutes, then I want to apply burn cream and wrap them in gauze. That’s going to mean you have to stay off your feet and also limit the use of your injured hand for a day or two.
” My mouth twitches, and duty, want, and a broken sense of right war inside of me.
“I can take care of everything you need around the house. Come by a few times a day.”
Andrea plants her feet, grimacing. “I’m not going anywhere until I know the rest. You left because you couldn’t tell me you were a troll. Valid. Understandable. But now I know. So what’s the rest?”
All the words I usually keep bottled up escape around this woman. I growl for a moment, and then the words explode from me. “I don’t know how to love someone, or like someone, or date someone. I have desires that would be wrong to act on without you knowing what I am—”
“But I do now,” she interrupts.
I shake my head. “Knowing and understanding are two different things. My kind? Trolls? They are hunters. Scavengers. Killers. Humans, wild animals, domesticated animals, other trolls, even other kinds of supernatural creatures like selkies and centaurs are all prey. My kind? Kills your kind.” I don’t look away.
I watch carefully, wanting to see the look of horror and realization cross Andrea’s face so that this can end, and I can learn to live with a broken heart.
I’ve been living with a stony one for years; what’s another crack in the rough surface?
“Oh. Ohhh.” My breath comes out raspy, but it’s not only from the smoke. It’s the shock. The realization.
Why he left. What Gordon’s life was like.
No music. Touch means pain.
Few words. No kindness.
Raised by killers... So he leaves—to save people. Paying back debts that he didn’t even owe.
My heart squeezes and then expands, ballooning open with the rush of affection I feel for the huge “monster” who literally comes off as the shyest, sweetest man, quietly plowing along saving lives—and cats. And hot mess teachers who just need a life, not a personal tour guide and a love interest.
“You said your mom is a nurse? Should we call her to come over and look after you instead?” Gordon asks, voice flat.
“Did you ever kill anyone?”
“No.” The word is soft, serious. Gordon’s face stays the same, expressionless—except for the eyes. The eyes are black pools of pain.