Never Let You Go (a modern fairytale) (12 page)

“He said, uh, he said he shot you.”

“He tried, but he missed.”

Holden shuddered, holding her tighter. “The g-g-grave—”

“Cutter.”

“No. He said C-Cutter ran off.”

“He lied. It was Cutter in the grave, not me.” Griselda looked up at him, shaking her head. “The police found him buried in the front yard. After you left.”

His face contorted. “C-Caleb s-s-said that w-w-was y-y-y—”

“Breathe,” she said without thinking.

He did. He took a deep gulp of air, his chest pushing into hers. She felt him sway a little, which reminded her how badly he was injured.

Worried because they were so close to the top of the stairs, she stepped away from him and noticed that his face was not only wet because he was crying, but because he was dripping with sweat. Beads started in his hair, running down the sides of his face. She looked down at his chest and realized that what had looked like brownish blood from a distance was actually pinkish red and spreading. He was bleeding and probably needed his bandages changed.

She searched his eyes, which were still wild and disbelieving. His shock at seeing her was masking the pain, but he needed to lie down before he lost his strength, and she needed to re-dress his wounds.

She lifted her chin toward the apartment behind him.

“Can we go inside, Holden?”

He gasped, drawing away from her, searching her eyes for a long moment.

“Seth,” he whispered firmly, then took her hand and pulled her through the open apartment door.

She’s alive. She’s alive. Gris is alive.

It was an endless litany in his head and a celebration in his heart as he guided her into his home.

“Holden, I think—”

He turned to face her after closing the door behind them. “I don’t go by Holden anymore.”

She flinched. “It’s your name.”

“N-not anymore. I go by Seth.”

She dropped his eyes, looking down at the floor. “I don’t understand.”

“I haven’t been Holden in a long time.”

“But you’re not Seth.”

“Yes, I am.” He sighed, wondering where to even begin. “Gris,” he started, but before he could gather his thoughts, she interrupted him.

“If you’re Seth, does that make me Ruth?” she asked, her voice soft but bitter as she cut her eyes to his.

“
N-nothing
makes you R-Ruth,” he said harshly, clenching his jaw and staring at her for a long moment before shuffling past her into the small living room. He lowered himself onto the tattered sofa, the pain from the movement making him gasp.

“Lie down all the way,” she said, putting her hand under his arm to help ease him down. “Where are the clean bandages? This one under your heart looks seepy. I’ll change it.”

“Are you a nurse?”

“No.”

Lying flat on the couch, he looked up at her, still in a state of semi-shock that after so long she was suddenly here. In his apartment. With him. Near him. Touching him. He had so many questions: Where had she been all these years? Had she ever tried to find him? Was she okay? Did she still dream of him as he dreamed of her?

“G-Gris. J-just talk to me.”

She met his eyes briefly before looking back down at his wound. “After I bandage you up, okay?”

“You’re still stubborn.”

Her eyes flashed to him, and her whole face softened before it crumpled, tears tumbling from her eyes. She gestured to the back hallway off the living room.

“Bathroom back there?” she asked through sobs.

“Yeah,” he said, watching her go, hating it that she had to leave his line of sight even for the two minutes it would take for her to collect the supplies.

When she came back a few minutes later, her face was dry, though her eyes were still glassy and puffy from crying. She knelt down beside him on the floor, reaching for the bandage near his heart. He reached up gently, closing his fingers around her wrist, then sliding them up to clasp the back of her hand to the palm of his.

“Leave it for a minute.”

He twisted his neck until his cheek rested on the coarse, nubby material of the old couch, staring at her face.

“I never thought I’d see you again.”

She clenched her eyes shut, wincing as fresh tears fell down her cheeks in rivulets.

“I hoped,” she gasped, and her sweet breath touched his cheek like a blessing. He let go of her hand, reaching to place his palm on her cheek, swiping away the tears with his thumb. She leaned into him, opening her shattered eyes. “God, how I hoped.”

“Wh-where have you been, Gris? What happened after—”

“Please let me change the bandages, Hol—”

“Seth.”

She grimaced instantly, drawing back from his hand and letting it drop back to the couch. She stood up and looked down at the bandage.

“I need to clean it with some warm water.”

Without meeting his eyes, she turned and crossed the room and into the kitchen. He listened as she ran the water to warm, rummaging around for a bowl. The pain was ratcheting up now that his adrenaline had stopped pumping, and the area below his heart where he’d sustained the deepest cut burned and throbbed like a fever. Finally she returned, placing the warm water on the floor beside the couch. Without warning, she reached for a corner of the bandage and ripped it off.

“Jesus!” he cried, his eyes shooting open wide from the pain.

“I can’t call you Seth. It’s not who you are.”

He made a groaning sound, followed by a short exhale of stored breath. When he jerked his chin up to look at her, he found her less sad and more angry for the first time since their reunion.

“Yeah, it is,” he bit out. “You saw me last night. It’s
exactly
who I am.”

“No,” she said firmly, then more softly, “No, Holden.”

She shook her head, dipping a paper towel in the warm water and gently dabbing at the incision over and over, mumbling under her breath. It was an action so familiar his heart contracted, compressing his lungs, which struggled to draw a full breath.

“. . . Seth . . . ..name of a danged crazy perso—”

“Stop mumbling, Gris.”

Her eyes darted up to meet his. “Zelda.”

“Huh?”

“My name is Zelda. I don’t go by Griselda anymore,” she said tartly, “and I sure as heck don’t go by Gris.”

Though he tried to catch her eyes, she kept them down as she made this speech, concentrating on his wound. She folded another paper towel and pressed it gently against his chest until the skin was clean and dry. With sharp ripping sounds, she tore open two bandages, arranging them carefully over the clean incision before tearing off strips of white surgical tape to secure them.

“Z-Zelda?” He tried it out, and it felt so devastating and wrong and foreign to his mouth that tears burned at the backs of his eyes.

“Yeah?”

“No. I c-can’t c-call you that.”

“Too bad.” She reached down for the basin and stood up, giving him a hard look, her beautiful lips in a taut, angry line. As she stared at him, her face softened, and she reached into the supply basket for an amber vial of pills. “You’re in bad pain.”

“I’ve known worse.”

And because she knew this was true, her eyes flooded with tears, and the muscles in her throat visibly tensed, as though swallowing an ocean of terrible memories. He watched her, feeling every emotion that crossed her face, remembering that when she flinched, she blinked quickly first, and when she was trying not to cry, she clenched her teeth and tried to swallow the sadness away. He saw it all. He felt it all. He remembered it all.

Still holding the container of painkillers, she twisted the top off with her teeth and leaned down to let one white pill spill onto the couch beside his face.

“I’ll get you water.”

She headed back to the kitchen, where she placed the basket on the counter, and he heard the water running in the sink again.

“You know what?” she called to him, stepping out of the kitchen and standing across the room with her hands on her hips.

“What?”

She stalked back to the sofa, dropping to her knees beside him and offering him a glass of water.

“I ain’t calling you Seth.”

Her use of the word
ain’t
was so unexpectedly familiar, it pinged in his brain like a ball peen hammer as he gulped the water. When he lay back down, she reached for his arm. Her hands were soft and warm and a little damp as she turned his forearm over to look at the underside.

His heart beat like crazy as her eyes found her face in the swirls of ink, and she gasped, staring for a long moment before suddenly bending forward to press her lips against his skin, against the letters “H+G” tattooed there. The pain of his injuries and the shock of seeing her again? In terms of intensity, it all paled in comparison to the sensation of her lips touching his skin, and it was several seconds before he realized he was holding his breath. As he forced himself to exhale and drag in a shredded gasp, she raised her head to find his eyes. Bending his arm at the elbow, she showed the tattoo to him.

“You didn’t get ‘S+R’ tattooed on your arm, Holden—”

“Gris . . .”

“It says ‘H+G.’ ‘Holden plus Griselda.’ So, I don’t give a good goddamn
fuck
who you are to Quint or Clinton, or, or, or to
the Man
or anyone else—”

“G-Gris!”

“—because you are
Holden
to me. I lost too much, and I held on too long for someone named
Holden
, so you either get used to me saying that name again or—”

“G-G-Griselda!”

“What?” she yelled.

“Okay.”

“Okay what?” she asked, holding her breath.

“You win.”

“What do I win?”

“F-fucking call me Holden if you have to! Jesus!”

Her face, which was frowning, softened immediately, her lush lips tilting up as a rogue tear trailed down her cheek.

“Holden,” she whispered, on a let-go breath, reaching forward to brush his hair off his forehead and press her lips to his skin.

His eyes fluttered closed at this reward, and his aching heart eased, knowing the first real shred of peace since the last moment he’d seen her.

Gris. My Gris. She’s here. She’s alive.

Her lips parted as she drew back, and she took a deep, shuddering breath before leaning back and sinking down on her haunches. She found his far hand and wove her fingers through his, then lay her arm gently across his chest, resting just under his neck, careful to avoid his injuries. He knew she was crying when she lowered her head beside his on the sofa. The crown of her soft golden hair nuzzled his cheek as he readjusted his fingers so that his palm was flush with hers.

“Now what?” he murmured near her ear, trying not to close his eyes. The pills were kicking in, and the pain was finally subsiding, but he fought against the lull of exhaustion that threatened to pull him under. They needed to talk. He needed to find out where she’d been, how she’d survived, who she’d become. He needed to be sure she’d still be here when he woke up.

Her voice was tender but felt far away. “Now we rest for a little while, and then we’ll talk.”

“Gris—”

“Don’t worry, Holden. I’m not going anywhere. I promise I’ll stay.”

“Okay,” he sighed, tightening his grip on her hand before closing his weary eyes and yielding to sleep.

***

“I better go back,” said Gris, burrowing her forehead into his neck, her breath soft on his skin.

“N-n-not yet,” he whispered, holding on tighter to her body. “Stay.”

He’d noticed her breasts more and more lately, since they’d both turned thirteen. They weren’t big like an adult’s, but they weren’t small like a child’s anymore either. They were obvious under her worn-out yellow dress and more pointy when it was chilly. He tried not to look at them, especially during the day, when the Man would beat him for even peeking at Gris, but he liked the way they felt—all warm and soft—pushed up against his chest at night or in the early morning, like now.

“Okay,” she sighed. “I’ll stay for a few more minutes.”

“G-Gris,” he whispered. “W-what’ll it be like?”

“When we’re grown-ups?”

“Yeah.”

She leaned back a little, looking into his eyes, the dawn sunlight filtering in through the crack in the cellar doors making her hair more blonde than red.

“Well,” she said, her eyes lighting across his face before settling on his eyes again, “someday someone will find us here. We’ll be rescued, and they’ll take us back to D.C. And because we had so much trauma, they’ll put us in the same foster home again. And I’ll still come to you every night just like now.”

“Mm-hm,” he encouraged her.

“And we’ll go to school and study real hard. Soon enough, we’ll be eighteen. And then you’ll buy me a ring at the mall and ask me to marry you.”

“Yep.”

“And it won’t be a fancy wedding because we got no family, but maybe Marisol will come.”

“B-b-but not Billy.”

“Nope. He ain’t invited,” she agreed. “And one day we’ll have babies.”

“And we’ll never, ever leave them. W-w-we’ll be the best p-parents ever, Gris.”

“Yep. The very best. And we’ll buy a little house, not in the city, and we’ll work real hard to make it nice. We could have a garden, ’cause we know how to do that.”

“I don’t ever w-want to g-garden again.”

“Why not? Ain’t the vegetables’ fault that the Man makes us grow ’em.”

“I hate everything about b-b-being here. ’Cept you.”

She touched her forehead to his. “Holden, I—”

Suddenly the lock clicked at the top of the stairs, and her eyes flew open. She rolled soundlessly to the floor, and Holden watched in horror as she crawled as fast as she could to the panel while the Man’s heavy boots made their way down the stairs.

They’d discussed this before, and Holden know that Gris had a terrible decision to make. If there wasn’t enough time to get back to her room, she would huddle against the door and act like he’d forgotten to lock her in last night. She vowed to never risk letting him know about their panel, or they’d lose each other for good.

Holden’s heart sank as she made her decision, moving past the panel to huddle against the door to her room and pretend that she’d slept there.

The Man finally stepped onto the dirt floor, and Holden clenched his eyes shut, desperately hoping that the Man would believe that he was asleep and that Gris had slept several feet away from him beside her door.