A Short Walk to the Bookshop

by Aleksandra Drake

  The scent of burning pancakes reached my nose and I jumped, having been blankly staring at the pot of coffee while my mind worked maddeningly over the few bare facts I had to turn over. I scraped the ruined pancake into the trash, but the scent of it stayed in my head.

  “Don't burn the place down.” Adrien laughed from the sofa. His laugh made me want to puke.

  “Sorry. I always mess up the first pancake,” I apologized over my shoulder. I remembered that Grandma had always burned food as well. It was a family joke, that she was a consummate grandmother in every way except that she couldn't bake to save her life. I remembered my mom laughing, saying it was a miracle that the house was still standing after all these years of grandma's cooking hijinks.

  “Just be careful, babe.” Adrien's voice was like a string tied behind my eyes, jerking me back to the present. But I'd already formed a plan. The image of the kitchen filling with flames was seared in my mind now, and I knew I had one chance. In the refrigerator there was a package of bacon. Expired, but that was okay. I didn’t plan on eating it. I pulled it out and cooked it on the same pan I’d used for the eggs and let it simmer.

  “Come sit at the table. It's ready.” I called once the bad meat was cooked. In the dining room, I sat his plate down in front of a chair that would put his back to the kitchen. I sat down and took a bite, the eggs tasted like ash and seemed impossibly dry as I chewed, staring over adrien’s shoulder at the stove. The pan full of bacon grease was still on the burner, the gas turned all the way up.

  I waited. And waited. Adrien took a bite of the bacon and I cringed, but apparently it tasted fine because he didn’t say anything. He was eating ravenously, shoveling eggs and pancake into his gaping maw.

  Come on. Come on.

  It felt like an eternity passed and I feared he would finish eating before it ignited, but when it happened, it happened in a flash. Flames leapt up from the pan of grease and I jumped up. Adrien stared at me, then turned around to see the fire as well. I had no idea how much he knew about grease fires, but I had to hurry past him to be sure that he didn’t put the lid on the pan and smother my chance of escape.

  “Oh my God, what happened?” I exclaimed, dashing past Adrien and doing my best performance of a clueless cook. I grabbed the pitcher of water from the counter and, before he could stop me, I tossed the water onto the fire.

  There was an audible whoosh as the flames shot up to the ceiling, immediately catching on the curtains around the kitchen window. I shrieked, playing up my fear so as to convince Adrien that the fire was an accident. Luckily, he didn’t seem to know what to do about it, stupidly tossing another glass of water, making the flames grow wilder.

  “What the hell did you do?” he shouted. The paint on the cupboards was bubbling and peeling as he tore off his shirt, attempting to smother the flames, but the t-shirt caught flame in his hands and he tossed it onto the stove, burning his hand and adding more fuel to the fire at the same time.

  “What the hell did you do?” He repeated, abandoning the kitchen and stalking towards me, his eyes glittering menacingly.

  “It was an accident!” I cried, but he grabbed me fiercely by the hair and I screamed. I heard Athena's body thud, hard, against the door. She was awake now, and kicking up a fight like I'd never heard before. If they couldn't see the smoke, maybe they would hear my screams from the street.

  Adrien hauled me into the kitchen, I could feel strands of hair snapping from my scalp as I kicked out my feet and threw my arms around me, trying to catch onto a door frame, a counter top, anything. He dragged me towards the stove and held my face out in front of him. The heat licked at my face and I screamed, frantic, afraid he was going to push me into the flames.

  “Adrien! It was an accident! I'm sorry!” I sobbed, my hands gripping his wrist above my head, trying to pry his fingers out of my hair.

  “You wanna set the house on fire, Sparrow? You wanna die in this house with me?” He grunted, yanking my head back and forth. I felt like a rag doll under him, how was he so strong?

  “I knew you would do something like this. I knew it. I fuckin' knew it.” He was muttering, the sound of it seeping under my skin even as I struggled to make out the words over the sound of the flames and Athena's madness in the other room. Finally, the smoke alarm went off. He laughed.

  As he pulled me away from the kitchen, I acted on instinct, grabbing a ceramic flower vase from the counter and hurling it with all the force I could muster at the window. The glass shattered and the flames whipped up with the gust of wind that rushed in. The smoke rose, pouring out the window.

  Adrien went wild. He looked at me, then at the window, at the smoke and flame and the sound of chaos all leaking out into the outside world where people could see. I watched him waver in that moment between the need to put the fire out, to restore order and control, and the overwhelming urge to punish me.

  I don't remember him letting go of my hair, but he must have, because when he punched me it was with his right fist. I felt a hideous crunch as his knuckles made contact with my eye socket and I crumpled to the ground. Blood poured from my nose. I'd never been slapped before, let alone punched, and it took a moment for me to even realize what had happened.

  When I looked up, he was silhouetted against the rapidly spreading fire in the kitchen. I expected him to say something stupid and cinematic. “If I can’t have you no one can.” Something. Anything. Anything would have been better than the awful silence as he stared at me where I crouched on the ground. The look on his face was almost heartbreaking. Like I had betrayed him. I guess I had.

  He never actually said the words “If I can’t have you no one can” but I could see them in the way his eyebrows knit together and his mouth twisted as he kicked me in the stomach. For a horrifying moment I thought I was going to vomit. Strange, that the thought of throwing up on the floor at his feet was so much more upsetting than the fire or the looming threat of imminent violence. I gasped, my lungs aching for the air that had been knocked out of them. He lifted me up by my shoulders, and I felt limp in his hands, hardly able to hold myself upright.

  His fingers dug into my skin and he shoved me so that he could pin me with one hand on my neck against the wall and I felt more than saw the twisting of his torso as he reached for the gun tucked behind him in his jeans. From that moment I became something new. Something wild. A part of me fell asleep, the part of my brain that was afraid or that even had the cognitive ability to have coherent thoughts at all went totally dim. Behind it arose the instinct to live, at any cost. My memories disappeared. He was no longer Adrien, the trainer, the stalker, the man. He had no name now, he was a beast. The pain in my face and my ribs faded from my awareness.

  I was like a downed powerline, snapping on the pavement. I lashed out in all directions thoughtlessly. I screamed, I clawed at his face so hard that ugly red gashes marred his gaunt cheeks and dark blood gathered under my fingernails. I felt the bones in his wrists as I twisted them. I threw my fists at his face and my knees at his groin.

  I don’t know how it happened. Maybe my wildness and thrashing caught him off guard and knocked him off his balance, but somehow, I had hold of the gun. It was heavier than I expected, and warm with the heat of his skin. I rose it to his face and he froze. Chaos seethed around him, the fire now spreading into the dining room. It sounded like Athena had nearly clawed through the door and she was howling in a way I’d never heard before. But Adrien was still, blood trickling down his chin from the gashes on his face was the only movement in him.

  “Are you going to kill me, Sparrow?” He sounded like a kid. Something twisted in me but it wasn’t pity. It was disgust. Disgust at him but also disgust at myself. I had made him so big in my mind and in my life. He’d been shadowy, almost non corporeal, an idea, a construct, and he took up so much space. I’d been living off only half of my mind, the other half always being occupied completely by the Idea of Adrien. Looking at him now, he was so small. He wasn’t even much taller than
me. And he was thin. And he was crying.

  I really did want to kill him. I almost did. The muscles in my arm and my fingers twitched with the anticipation. I don’t know what stopped me. Some fear of future guilt, maybe. Instead of putting a bullet between his eyebrows, I pointed the gun towards the living room window and shot. The kickback hurt my shoulder but I didn’t stop. I kept shooting until it wouldn’t shoot anymore, blasting out the window in a shower of glass and noise that, if anyone happened to be passing on the road, would be impossible to miss. I threw the gun aside, having rendered it useless, and bolted for the bedroom. I needed to get my damn dog and make it out of this house. If I made it out of the house, I would live. No matter what. Smoke poured from the kitchen into the hallway and I feared that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the bedroom door, but I did, Adrien on my heels, gripping at my waist and my hair and attempting to bat my hands away from the door. I heaved my shoulder against the door as hard as I could, pulling Adrien’s weight along with me so that the wood splintered.

  Athena tore out like a bat out of hell, all teeth and snarling. Adrien howled, but his grip on me only tightened as Athena ripped at his thigh and he pulled me down with him to the floor. I heard a high pitched yelp as he kicked Athena with force so that she slammed against the wall. Then his hands were on my throat and he was squeezing so hard. Merciless. His eyes were at both blank and fiery at the same time. Brown. Darker brown than Diedrich’s. Chocolate brown.

  He didn’t have the time to kill me there on the floor with his hands on my throat, because Athena was back. Adrien screamed and reared back, letting go of me so that I could scramble away from him. I registered a pain in my shin but it was distant. He grabbed me by the ankle and I tumbled again, tripping into the doorframe of the bathroom. From my spot on the ground, I saw the baseball bat, just where I had left it. Without thinking, I reached for it, grabbed it, and twisted around, swinging madly. The bat made contact with the side of his head. I hit him again. He let go of my leg and this time when I ran away from him, he didn’t get me again. I ran towards the front door, screaming for Athena. She was still attacking Adrien, but at my call she followed me.

  The sweat coating my skin froze in the cold outside. My leg hurt now; just above the ankle was a sharp, burning pain that made my run more of a hobbled skip. I made for the road, Athena at my heels, barking and turning circles around me despite her own limp. I noticed her front paws bleeding where she had worn down the nails to the quick against the bedroom door. There was other blood too, blood in my eyelashes and in my mouth.

  I waved my arms frantically at an oncoming vehicle. A dirty white pickup truck driven by an elderly woman. The only thing I would remember about her appearance was the heavy turquoise earrings that dangled near her shoulders, swinging madly when she shook her head emphatically after I begged her to take me to the bookshop.

  “You need a hospital. Your leg’s busted and so’s your face. This your dog?”

  “Yes it’s my dog.” I must’ve said. “I want to go to the bookshop. There’s someone I have to get to.”

  The woman called me an idiot and the truck lurched dramatically as she made a sharp turn at speed, pulling out a phone and dialing 911 as she drove me out of West Bend.

  Chapter Twenty

  Waking up in a hospital wasn’t anything like in books. There was no amnesia. No moment of not knowing where I was. I woke up and the first thing I thought of was the sharp thudding sound that that baseball bat had made against Adrien’s head. Then there was the pain. My entire face hurt, it throbbed and the throbbing seemed to extend beyond the confines of my body. I must have groaned, or moved, or something, because a weight on the mattress next to me lifted and then there was a hand on my shoulder.

  “Sparrow? Are you awake?”

  “Diedrich? I tried to get to the store but she wouldn’t take me there,” I mumbled. “Ow. My lip.”

  “Yeah, it’s split pretty bad. You don’t have to talk just now, it’s alright.” He sounded so strange, his voice almost sounding like it was coming from far away, or like he was talking through his hands. My neck was stiff but I turned to look at him. My left eye had that heavy feeling of being swollen, but my right one was more or less fine.

  “Oh, don’t cry. Please don’t cry,” I told him. He pushed his lips together and dashed his cheeks with the back of his hand before leaning down and pressing his forehead into the mattress near my hip.

  “Sorry. I’m so sorry.” I thought I heard him say. Looking down at the crown of his head, I noticed how gray he was getting. My fault, probably. I lifted my hand and placed it on his head, sliding my fingers through his hair, looking at the deep bruises and redness on my knuckles.

  “Where’s Athena?”

  “She’s here. She’s fine. Twisted her ankle and her nails have seen better days, but she’s fine. Worried about you.” I couldn’t quite lift my head to look over the edge of the bed, but Diedrich reached down and I heard the sound of Athena’s collar jingling. Knowing she was in the room relaxed me and I closed my eyes.

  “So what’s wrong with me?”

  “Broken leg. Broken nose. Those are the big ones. Other than that it’s bruises and scrapes. That sort of thing. You slept for a whole day. It’s Wednesday.”

  “The house?”

  “The kitchen is...well...we will fix it up together. Still standing, though. Your mother is coming, booked a red eye flight as soon as she heard. Paula is picking her up from the airport.”

  I nodded. Or at least I thought about nodding. It felt like every muscle in my body was sore, like I’d been running non-stop for days. The real thing I wanted to ask was on the tip of my tongue. There was a sense of finality about everything, sitting there in that clean, pleasant hospital room. It almost felt wrong to say his name and open up the possibility of unfinished business. But I had to know.

  “Adrien? Did he...did he get away?” I asked tentatively

  “No.” The breath whooshed out of me like a calming breeze. “He’s here in the hospital. He’s worse off than you. Police are here. So either way, you won’t be seeing him again.”

  “Either way?”

  A nurse came in then. She was wearing mickey mouse scrubs and bright pink sneakers and she talked like a pre-school teacher. Her hands were small, but strong and proficient as she chattered away while changing my bandages. The room went silent as the talkative nurse left, the door clicking shut behind her. It was sunny out, and I gingerly turned my head toward the window, closing my eyes and letting the sun warm my face.

  “Was he there when I came to the house?” Diedrich asked quietly after a time.

  I nodded slowly.

  “I’m a fool. A damn fool. I never should have let you leave.”

  I chuckled, a low, almost silent sound in my throat. Gradually, the chuckle evolved into a laugh. It hurt to smile, he was right about my lip being split, but I couldn’t stop it. I smiled through the stinging pain.

  “What’s funny?” Diedrich asked, bewildered.

  “I did it. I survived.” I continued to laugh. “Diedrich, I set my kitchen on fire trying to get someone to notice trouble from the street. I fought him. I was sure I was gonna--” I winced, bringing my hand up to my lip. “Ow.”

  Diedrich shushed me gently, laying his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t try to talk if it hurts.”

  “Is he close?” I whispered, the laughter dying in my chest.

  Diedrich shook his head. “He’s in a different area of the hospital, I’m not sure where exactly but I guess he’s in worse shape than you are.”

  “I knocked him a good one,” I said, attempting a grin before thinking better of it.

  There was a faint buzzing sound and Diedrich checked his cell phone.

  “That’s Paula. She’s got your mom and they’re headed here now. Can you eat?”

  “I can try,” I said, gingerly scooting myself up against the headboard. He said I’d slept for a whole day, and my stomach testified to the truth of that. Th
e last thing I’d eaten was that peanut butter sandwich, it felt like a lifetime ago.

  “I kept expecting you to wake up any minute, so I had them bring up lunch even though you were still asleep.” He pushed a tray closer to the bed, laid out with a sandwich, a jello cup, and a half-pint carton of milk like they serve in elementary schools. I went for the jello first. Everything felt a little unreal, like the light was too bright and the jello too sweet, but I settled into the unrealness, breathing slowly and carefully and reminding myself that I was alive.

  When my mom burst through the door, the tears came.

  “Mom!”

  She flung herself over the side of the bed, wrapping me in a hug that was so tight it hurt, but I didn’t care. I squeezed her back as hard as I could, hot tears stinging my battered face. The familiar scent of her perfume washed over me as I pressed my forehead into the crook of her neck, sobs heaving my shoulders.

  “I never should have let you leave,” she said, mirroring Diedrich. “Baby, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I murmured, my voice muffled by her sweater.

  “Your poor face. My sweet girl. Am I hurting you?” She leaned back, grasping me by the shoulders.

  “A little.” I laughed.

  “Broken nose? Broken Leg?” Her eyes were scanning over me.

  “And scrapes and bruises.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “I just did.”

  Paula was standing behind mom with tears in her eyes, her manicured fingers covering her mouth. I lifted up a hand and she came forward to hug me next. Mom continued to ask me questions. Whether my eye hurt, (I took this to mean that I had a pretty brutal black eye, I didn’t ask for a mirror) if I needed a drink, did I want everyone to leave so I could sleep more. She was a fountain of questions. Most of them were yes or no, so I just nodded or shook my head quietly. As time wore on, I felt like I was waking up by degrees. By the time the sun was beginning to set, I had come to terms with the fact that all of this was real, and I was tired again.