Hold Me Close

by Megan Hart

  “I got rear-ended. I came up too hard at a red light. I’m fine. Damage to the bumper, but that’s it.” Effie clicked off the television, cradling the phone against her shoulder.

  “Shit. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “For what?” she said. “Would you have come over and made me tea?”

  “Maybe.”

  Effie laughed without humor. “Sure you would’ve. You’re a regular fucking Mary Poppins.”

  Silence. Bill sighed. Effie pressed her lips together, closing her eyes, thinking of the way that door had opened.

  Who are you?

  “You could come over, if you want to.” She kept her voice light. “My mom took the kid. She won’t be home until tomorrow. We could watch a movie. Order pizza.”

  He wouldn’t agree to it, of course. This was Bill on the line. All at once, though, Effie could think of nothing but having him there next to her. Having someone. Anyone.

  “Never mind,” she whispered, already steeling herself for the refusal.

  “I’ll be over in half an hour.”

  He was there in forty minutes, two frozen pizzas in one hand and a paper sack with a bottle of Bushmills in the other. “This won’t fuck with your meds or anything, will it?”

  “I’m only on ibuprofen. And I could use a drink.” Effie still wore a pair of yoga pants and a slim-fitted T-shirt with a hoodie sweatshirt. She’d brushed her teeth, but not her hair. Looking at Bill now, she thought maybe she should’ve put on some mascara, some eyeliner, something. She’d been less than glamorous in front of Bill many times before, but somehow she was now made shy by the way he stood in her front room.

  In her kitchen, she sat at the table while Bill preheated the oven and slid the pizzas onto two stoneware pans. He cracked open the bottle and poured them both a glass.

  “Oh, the ice maker doesn’t work,” Effie said when he tried to get some through the fridge door. “You have to get it from inside.”

  Heath would’ve known that already, she thought and shoved it immediately away. Heath was not here. But Bill was.

  He handed her a glass rattling with cubes and brimming with whiskey. “Here. Sip it. Don’t gulp. Pizza will be ready soon. You need to eat something, and I don’t want any bullshit about it.”

  Effie managed a small nod. “Thanks.”

  Bill took the chair across from hers. He held his glass in two hands, spinning it before taking a drink. The whiskey made him grimace, but he drank again almost at once before setting the glass on the table. He looked around the kitchen.

  “Nice place.”

  “Thanks,” Effie repeated. There didn’t seem much else to say.

  Fortunately, she didn’t have to think of anything. Bill took over the conversation, regaling her with stories about his job and the wacky things he’d had to deal with in the past couple of weeks. He kept them light. Funny. She appreciated the effort he was making.

  After the pizza, Effie took Bill into the den to pick out a movie on streaming. When he put his arm around her shoulders, Effie stiffened for a second or two before relaxing into his embrace. Bill looked at her.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I just...” Her shrug sent a soft wave of aching through her, despite the medicine and the booze.

  Bill took his arm away from her and put an inch or so of distance between them. “I get it. Your boyfriend might not approve.”

  “I’ve told you a million times. Heath isn’t—”

  “Not Heath. That other guy. The one with the glasses.” Bill frowned. “That guy.”

  “Oh.” Effie chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment. “I’m not seeing him anymore.”

  Bill put another inch between them. “Oh. I get it.”

  “Get what?” Effie frowned and wished she’d poured herself another glass of whiskey.

  Bill’s brow furrowed. “He dumped you, so good old Bill’s here instead.”

  “That’s a stupid thing to say, and you know it.”

  “Why’s that stupid? I know you’ve been dating him. That guy. Like he mattered, like he made a difference. Next thing I know, you’re inviting me over here. I should’ve figured it was because he dumped you.”

  “He didn’t dump me,” Effie snapped, defensive, because part of what Bill was saying was true. “We agreed not to see each other again. It wasn’t working out.”

  “No surprise there,” Bill muttered.

  Effie got off the couch to stand in front of him. “He wasn’t the kind of guy I could be with long-term, okay? I thought he was. I wanted him to be. But he wasn’t.”

  Bill sat forward to put his elbows on his knees. “So you come running back to me.”

  “My God,” Effie said, stunned. “You’re acting like you care.”

  Bill stood, forcing her to take a few steps back. “What makes you think I don’t?”

  They were quiet then. Effie crossed her arms over her chest. Bill went into the kitchen and brought back two more glasses of whiskey, but Effie didn’t want any now.

  The problem was, she had no idea what she wanted.

  “Do you?” she asked finally.

  “Of course I do.” Bill sat on the couch again. “Sit down.”

  She did, one knee tucked beneath her so she could turn and look at him. “I never know, with you.”

  He reached to push her hair off her face, then over her shoulder. He let his touch linger a moment or so on her cheek before dropping his hand. Bill shrugged.

  Effie closed her eyes for a second, thinking hard. Then she leaned to kiss him. Soft. Sweet. A brush of lips, the tentative hint of tongue. Bill pulled her onto his lap.

  Effie groaned, though not with pleasure. “Ouch.”

  Bill kissed her again, too hard. Effie turned her face just enough that his mouth skidded to the corner of hers. He pulled away.

  “You want me to leave?”

  “Did you just come over here to fuck me?” Effie asked.

  Bill’s eyebrows went up. “Why else would I come over?”

  “To take care of me. To make me tea. To make sure I was all right?” She tried to push off his lap, but she was too stiff and sore, and Bill grabbed her wrists to hold her still.

  “I brought you pizza and booze.” Bill smiled, charming. Sly. “Isn’t that better than tea? And making you come would be better than pizza. C’mon, Effie. Let me get my mouth on that sweet pussy. You’ll forget about everything else.”

  For an hour, she thought. Or less than that. She’d used him for that purpose in the past, but now the thought of him touching her turned her stomach. She pulled at her wrists to free herself from him and got off his lap.

  “I’m an asshole,” Effie said. “I thought maybe... Shit. I thought that just maybe...”

  “Ah, here we go again. You thought what? I’d be your hero?”

  Effie looked at him. “You’ve rescued me before.”

  Bill said nothing. He rubbed his mouth for a moment. Then he shook his head. No light in his eyes. No love in his voice. He got up and paced for a moment in front of her, then turned.

  “That first time I saw you in that bed, I was sure you were dead. You know that? You were so still, lying there in your own mess. Like some kind of fucked-up Sleeping Beauty. And I thought, there’s no way that girl’s alive. Or the kid, either, the one on the floor. I was sure I’d walked in on two corpses. And then you opened your eyes.”

  “We would’ve died, if not for you.” Effie swallowed bitterness. “A week without food, we could’ve gone longer, but four days without water? The drugs in our systems? We were both almost dead when you showed up.”

  “Sheila Monroe was the reason you didn’t die,” Bill said flatly. “If she hadn’t come to the house looking to score drugs from that creep Andrews and found you both, I
’d never even have stopped there. She came running out screaming, alerted the neighbors, left all the lights on upstairs. Door to the basement with all those fucking locks... Christ. The locks...”

  Effie and Heath had never told anyone the part Sheila had played in what went on in the basement. It was true that if she hadn’t come looking for the drugs Daddy had so often given her, Effie and Heath would’ve died. It was also true that implicating her in the abuse Daddy had heaped on them would’ve ruined her already pretty shitty life. Heath had been the one to plead for Sheila’s clemency, and Effie had gone along with it because it had been important to him. She’d never really understood it—but then she’d never been the one forced to do the things Heath had done. If he could forgive Sheila, so could Effie.

  “You were the one who answered the call. She left us there. You’re the one who came in and found us. We’re alive because of you. And then, later, when we started fucking. You saved me then, too, more times than I can tell you. When I look at you, that’s what I see.”

  “When I look at you,” Bill said, “I see that door with all those locks. And I think, there’s no way anyone can ever get past all of that and be all right. But you managed, didn’t you? Got yourself a house, a career. A kid.”

  Effie stood up straighter despite the aches and pains. “There’s something I never told you, Bill.”

  “I’m sure there’s a lot of things you never fucking told me,” Bill said.

  “Polly is yours.”

  Bill shrugged. “I know.”

  Effie flinched. Then again. She wanted to sit but forced herself to remain standing. “What do you mean, you know?”

  “You think I couldn’t look at that kid and not see it? She looked just like I did when I was a toddler. She’s got my hair. My eyes. Fuck, Effie, do you really think I didn’t know?”

  Effie shook her head, the world rocking. “You never... How have you...”

  “I’m a fucking cop. You think I never did one of those school programs at her school? You think I never saw the two of you together? You think I can’t do the math, Effie? I knew that kid was mine the second you turned up pregnant.” Bill laughed, harsh and rough.

  Effie blinked back tears. “But you never said anything.”

  “I told you, I don’t want to be a father. I don’t want to be a husband. I don’t have it in me to be that. And besides, you were cozy enough with Heath, weren’t you?” Bill sounded bitter, though he was still keeping his expression flat and neutral and bland. “He stepped in. He’s the one you went to anyway, wasn’t it? Not me.”

  “I thought you would ask me to get an abortion. Or give it up.”

  “I would have,” Bill said. “Not that you’d have listened to me. You’d just do whatever it was you wanted anyway. And I guess I thought maybe you’d lose it the way you lost the other one. By the time I figured out you were too far along, there wasn’t much pointing in letting you know I knew the truth.”

  “All these years, you had a daughter, and you never said a word. You let me struggle.” Effie had to cough against the sudden uprush of bile.

  “You didn’t struggle. You always had him. You ran to him. You always did, and you always will. You can’t get away from him.” Bill tossed up his hands. “Shit. If we aren’t going to fuck, I’m out of here. This was stupid.”

  “You came here! You said... All those times, you acted like...” Effie couldn’t breathe. Choking, she whirled on him. “You fucking molested me! You used your power and authority or something, I don’t know, I was a kid and you took advantage of me!”

  Bill was across the room with her in his grip before she could even take a step back. His fingers gripped hard enough to hurt, even if she hadn’t already been in pain. “You seduced me. You remember that, Effie? Begging me to fuck you? Sliding all over me, your shirt all wet and see-through? You put your tongue in my mouth and your hands down my pants.”

  “You should’ve said no,” Effie gasped.

  Bill let her go so suddenly she stumbled. “Yeah. I should’ve fucking said no to you. That first time and every time after.”

  “But you didn’t,” Effie said.

  They stared at each other. Had she ever loved Bill? Had she ever thought, for a second even, that he could’ve loved her?

  “Why?” Effie asked. “Why?”

  Bill sneered and ran a hand over his hair, looking away from her before fixing her with a solid, steady gaze. “I don’t know.”

  “There could’ve been other women.”

  “There have been. Plenty.”

  Effie nodded and wiped at her tears, hating that he was seeing her this way. “But they always expected you to try harder with them, huh? They weren’t satisfied with your whole deal with not wanting to settle down.”

  “Yeah. I guess not.”

  “So...you figured I would never make you do something you didn’t want to do? Is that it?”

  “Shit, Effie,” Bill said quietly. “Can’t we just stop? Can’t we just go back to fucking and pretending that’s enough?”

  “It’s not enough. Not for me,” she said. “What if I said, let’s try? We have a child together. She’s amazing. You could get to know her. We could see what happens. We could make an effort.”

  “We can’t try anything together, you and me. It will never work. You can pretty it up however you want to, or say whatever you want, but that’s the truth,” Bill said. “Me and you? Never going to happen, not like that. And you know it as well as I do, and you know why. All the wishing in the world can’t change it.”

  She went at him with both fists, and he let her smack his face first, then pummel his chest, before he held her off with one hand. Sobbing, Effie collapsed against him. Bill held her for a moment before pushing her, hard, a few steps away. Without another word, he left her in the den and headed for the kitchen. He came back a minute later with his coat in one hand. Effie hadn’t moved.

  At the front door, her shout stopped him long enough to face her.

  “How do you know?” Effie asked.

  Bill looked...sad. For a moment, something glinted in his eyes before he steeled his expression. Gave her nothing but cold.

  “Locks, remember? All over that fucking door. That’s what you are, Effie. A locked fucking door. And it’s all you’ll ever be. At least for anyone else but him.”

  After that, she had nothing else to say to him.

  chapter forty

  “How do you get the ideas?” Heath asks, watching her. He’s been quiet until now.

  Effie’s not sure how to answer him. She uses her fingertip to smudge the lines. “My imagination. How does anyone get any ideas?”

  “I have loads of ideas, but none of them could become a drawing. At least, I couldn’t draw it.”

  She looks at him with a smile. “You could, if you tried.”

  “Nah. You have talent. That’s not something you can learn. You have to have it already.” He gets off the bed and looks over her shoulder. He points to something she’d tried on a whim. “What’s that?”

  “It’s us.” She looks at him, then touches the tiny marks she’d made inside the bark of a tree.

  “A clock?”

  “Yes.” Effie waits to see if he will understand.

  Heath is quiet for half a minute or so. Then he says, “It’s...time. It’s all the time we’ve been down here.”

  “Yes.” Effie looks up to the orangey, blurry lamps and blinks hard, but it doesn’t do any good.

  Her head still hurts from concentrating so hard on the drawing in such horrible light. Yesterday the soup had tasted faintly metallic. She’s still fuzzy from the pills that must’ve been crushed up inside it. They’d saved it the longest because it was the least likely to spoil. It’s been three days since the bright lights came on and that song, the on
e that makes her stomach sick. It’s not the longest time they’ve gone without Daddy coming into the basement, but they have started to portion out the food in case it goes on a lot longer.

  Heath looks at her. “It’s a secret.”

  “Yeah. Like we are.” Effie puts down the broken nub of her pencil. She’s used up all the paints in the set. “It’s all the hours we’ve been down here.”

  “All the lost hours,” Heath says.

  The phrase stabs Effie in her heart. “Yeah.”

  All the lost hours. She works awhile longer, smudging and shading. The clock in the tree doesn’t have regular numbers, one through twelve. She uses thirteen, fifteen. Their ages when they were taken. She uses one hundred and four, the number of weeks she’s been able to count so far. She adds some other hidden figures, just for fun.

  “I wish I had something better to use. I could probably make really great paintings if I did.” She faces him before he can say a word. “I’m sorry. That’s ungrateful. I don’t mean it, Heath. I’m sorry.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s okay.”

  Effie sits next to him to take his hand. Her fingers are dirty with the remnants of her picture. “No. I know what it takes for Daddy to give me new supplies. I won’t have it.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Effie,” Heath says in a low voice. He won’t look at her, but his fingers squeeze hers, tight. “I’ll have to do it anyway.”

  Effie curls up next to him, her head on his shoulder. “Not for something as stupid as paints.”

  “You hungry?” Heath asks. “We should eat before the lights go off.”

  She’s always hungry, but all they have left is tiny portions of disgusting food. Yeah, sure, they picked through it all to try to get rid of anything truly foul, but sometimes she thinks eating in the dark would be better. At least then they wouldn’t have to see what Daddy’s laced the food with.

  “I guess so. A little.”

  “I’m thirsty.” Heath gets up to open the creaking cupboard. He pulls out a bottle of lemonade. He shakes it, holds it up to the dim lighting. “It was opened, but it looks okay.”