Love You to Death

by Bebe Faas Rice

  By the time she reached school the next morning, she was seething with anger. How could she have let Quinn treat her like that?

  To make matters worse, she overheard Nick telling everyone that this morning, when he went out to his car, he found his headlights bashed in. Julie didn’t say anything, but she had a sickening feeling that Quinn was responsible.

  She was at her locker when Quinn came up behind her, lifting her hair and kissing her on the nape of her neck. “Hi, sugar!”

  He was behaving as if nothing had happened between them, an innocent smile on his face.

  How could he? How dare he think he could treat her the way he had yesterday and then make everything all right with a kiss?

  “Leave me alone, Quinn,” Julie snapped. “I don’t want to talk to you. You owe me an apology for what you did yesterday. And until you do, and until you’re ready to sit down with me and talk out our problems, I’d prefer you leave me alone.”

  She slammed her locker shut, turned on her heel, and left.

  Quinn stared after her, but she didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Leave me alone.

  Leave me alone, he thought. Julie. My Julie, and she wants me to leave her alone.

  That was what Alison had said.

  Is Julie going to betray me the way Alison did?

  No. He refused to believe that. She’d just been a little upset, that was all. But what about? He couldn’t remember. His mind was a blank. Yesterday—what happened yesterday—seemed fuzzy. He couldn’t remember what he and Julie had done, and why she was angry with him.

  He’d have to think about it, figure out what was wrong and what to do about it. No big thing. Julie loved him. Everything would be all right.

  He couldn’t think straight today, what with this pounding headache. . . .

  Again he left school early and went home. Mr. Reed was sure to get him on this one.

  Grady greeted him when he entered his apartment. What would he do without Grady?

  He lay down on the bed, a cold cloth over his head and Grady nestled close beside him, and slept. His sleep was restless, marred by ugly, troubling dreams. Dreams of broken glass and screams. And blood. Lots of blood.

  He awoke trembling and covered with sweat. Grady had wandered off somewhere. When he’d stopped shaking and got his breath under control again, Quinn got up, showered, and dressed. Then he left his apartment and drove over to Poco’s Pizza, where he worked.

  “Glad you could make it tonight, Quinn,” his boss said. “We’ve got a lot of delivery orders.”

  One of his last deliveries was for a slumber party. It must be a birthday, Quinn thought, being a weeknight and all. Most slumber parties were on Friday or Saturday nights. And here it was, nearly midnight on a school night, and those kids were still up and bouncing around.

  He pulled up before the house, a large, sprawling ranch style with a vast front picture window. Suddenly he felt almost dizzy with a sense of déjà vu.

  He remained in the car, staring through the window at the young girls in the living room, his pizzas growing cold on the seat beside him, the cheese hardening.

  They were laughing, he noticed.

  Alison and her friends were laughing at their slumber party that night, he thought. Laughing at me. Laughing because they knew they’d made a real fool of me.

  “Leave me alone,” Alison had said. But, of course, he couldn’t do that. He’d loved her too much. And he’d been sure that some day soon she’d realize she loved him, too. That was the way with love, wasn’t it?

  So when he’d received that letter from Alison—and he’d been sure it was her handwriting—he was deliriously happy. Hadn’t he known all along that things would turn out this way?

  In her letter Alison said she was sorry for the mean things she’d said to him and promised she’d make it all up to him if he’d meet her after dark in the local park, in an isolated spot where the older kids went to make out.

  His heart had been beating wildly when he arrived at the park. He could hardly wait to see Alison. Could hardly wait to tell her how much he loved her.

  And then, suddenly, he’d been seized from behind. Alison was nowhere in sight, nor were her silly girlfriends. He was being yanked and dragged around by some big, husky jock types. He knew who they were, even though they wore ski masks. They were three of those older guys Alison and her friends ran around with.

  “We’re not going to hurt you, kid,” one said. “We only want to teach you a little lesson. And you know what that is, don’t you?”

  He couldn’t answer. He was being held too tightly around the neck by a burly arm.

  “Well,” the voice went on, “since you don’t know, I’ll have to tell you. The lesson is that in the future, when a girl says to leave her alone, you leave her alone, okay?”

  “We’re talking about Alison,” another said. “She’s asked you nicely to bug off, but you won’t do it.”

  Although Quinn put up a fight, he was thrown to the ground. Two of his captors pinned down his arms and shoulders while the third unhooked Quinn’s belt and yanked his jeans off.

  Then they ran away, carrying his jeans, leaving him there humiliated and half-naked, to make his way home as best he could without being seen.

  When he finally reached his house, he was in a terrible state. Alison—his beautiful Alison—had been in on the terrible thing that had just happened to him. She’d written that letter. She’d schemed with that bunch to make a fool of him, and they were probably all together now, laughing at him.

  He dressed quickly and got into his father’s pickup truck. His father wasn’t home. Probably out somewhere with his drinking buddies.

  Quinn was too young to drive. Too young for a license, but he knew how to change gears, what pedals to push. He started the motor, and the truck lurched down the street.

  He drove toward Alison’s house.

  All the lights in the house were burning brightly. He drove past slowly, looking in.

  It was a sprawling, ranch-style house, with a huge picture window in the living room that looked out over a long, level lawn.

  He could see right into the living room. Alison and three of her girlfriends were moving about the room. They were laughing. He was sure they were laughing at him, making fun of him, saying what a fool he was.

  Then something came over him. Something he couldn’t control.

  A red haze swam before his eyes, and before he realized what he was doing, he’d backed the truck up the length of the street, floored the gas pedal, and came at Alison’s house at top speed, driving across the lawn and hitting the picture window with a shattering force.

  The truck came to a halt against an inner wall of the living room. He saw two of the girls cowering in the corner, screaming. The third was kneeling on the floor crying, and bleeding from the many wounds inflicted by the flying glass.

  And Alison . . .

  He looked for the girl he loved. He felt his heart wrench, twist, nearly push its way out of his body when he saw her.

  She was lying on the floor, a terrible, bloodless shade of white. A large shard of glass, like a crystal dagger, was embedded in her throat.

  The truck door was twisted and jammed, but he managed to wrench it open and make his way through the debris of the living room to Alison’s side.

  She was dead. Alison was dead. He’d killed her.

  His lip was bleeding and his head hurt from the blow he’d received in the crash. He felt dizzy. Everything seemed unreal to him.

  He was sobbing uncontrollably when the police arrived. . . .

  Quinn found himself crying now as he remembered it, just as he had cried four years before.

  But Alison did betray me, he thought. I didn’t want to believe it at the time, but she did.

  The guys in The Place told me that was always the way it was. Even the best ones could get tripped up by a girl. They said nobody believes it, though. Everybody thinks the one he’s in lov
e with is perfect. Can do no wrong.

  So what about Julie? Will she be like Alison? No, Julie loves me. She’d not faking it. I know she loves me. And yet lately . . .

  No. Julie’s the real thing. She’s my second chance at happiness. My chance to finally do it right. I hurt her somehow, can’t remember how, but I have to make it up to her. Somehow.

  He started his car and drove away, his pizza undelivered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “I’ve got to see you, Julie. I’m about to go crazy thinking about you.” Quinn’s voice was low. Sincere. Repentant.

  Julie sat up in bed and propped a pillow behind her back. “Quinn, do you know what time it is?” she whispered into the phone.

  “I know, but I couldn’t sleep. I wondered if maybe you were lying there thinking about me, too.”

  She had been, but she didn’t want to admit that to him. She didn’t want to give him any more power over her than he already had. She was still angry with him.

  “So what do you want?” she asked coldly.

  “I told you. I need to see you. I need to see you real bad.”

  “Why?”

  Julie’s voice was remote, hostile, but it was a growing struggle to keep it that way. The sound of his voice over the phone was giving her the usual fluttery, shivery feelings.

  “Because I’ve got so much to tell you. Things have gone bad between us, but I love you, Julie. And I want everything to be the way it was before.”

  Julie didn’t reply, so Quinn said, “I could come over right now, if you’d let me.”

  “No, not now,” she told him quickly. “What would you do, crawl in my window again?”

  “Well, maybe you could come out and we could drive somewhere,” he suggested.

  Julie pulled the covers over her head, so that she and the telephone were in a little tent, a soundproofed cocoon. She was sure Mollie was asleep, but didn’t want to take any chances. What she had to say to Quinn was private. Very private.

  “Look, Quinn,” she said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “You looked so beautiful that time I came in your window,” Quinn said dreamily. “Your face was scrubbed and shiny, and your hair was hanging down your back. I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”

  “That’s why it isn’t a good idea for us to see each other right now,” Julie said sharply.

  She took a deep breath and continued. “You know, Quinn, you and I don’t do the usual things kids our age do on a date. We don’t hang out with a crowd or go to parties. We’re always alone, just you and me.”

  “I thought you liked it that way,” he protested.

  “I did. I do.” she said. “I mean, I like being alone with you, and that’s the problem. There’s such a thing as too much aloneness.”

  “Not for two people like us,” Quinn said.

  “Especially for two people like us,” Julie insisted. “What do we do on a date? We go someplace in your car and then we sit and park. And then you start kissing me and I sort of blank out about things—important things like the fact that we don’t really know each other. Why can’t we do things with other kids? And why can’t we talk about it? Why can’t we discuss your jealousy, Quinn? It’s getting worse. It scares me. You acted like a crazy man yesterday.”

  “Wait a minute,” Quinn said. “Let’s talk about this kissing in the car stuff, Julie. You know I’d never do anything you didn’t want.”

  “That’s the trouble. I do want it. The kissing. The being close to you.”

  “So,” he said, “then what are we doing wrong?”

  Julie sighed. “We aren’t doing anything wrong, Quinn. It’s just that this physical attraction we have for each other is always the center of every date. And if I sneaked out tonight to be with you, we wouldn’t talk. You know we wouldn’t.”

  “So what are you saying we should do?”

  “I’m saying let’s make a date for tomorrow night. A real, old-fashioned date, none of this out-of-the-way parking stuff. Early dinner, maybe. Sixish. It’s a school night, remember, and Mom’s started cracking down on my curfew. The Calico Giraffe would be nice. It’s quiet and cozy. We can sit in a back booth and talk. Only talk.”

  “Is that what you really want, Julie?”

  “It’s what we really need, Quinn.”

  When Quinn picked her up Wednesday night, Julie was surprised to see a large, fat old cat in the backseat.

  “Is this Grady?” she asked. “The famous Grady? I thought I’d never have the honor of meeting him.”

  She felt so happy, so lighthearted. Grady, Quinn’s beloved cat, was a good omen. She had a feeling in her bones that the old cat would bring them good luck. They’d work things out tonight, she and Quinn, she just knew it. They were special. Their love was special. They would talk out their problems and then live happily ever after.

  Quinn looked over the back of his seat at Grady, who was gazing out the window, the very picture of injured dignity.

  “I hope you don’t mind me bringing Grady, but I hated leaving him at home,” Quinn said. “I had to take him to the vet’s this afternoon for his shots, and he’s kind of mad at me. So I figured he’d feel better if I let him come in the car with us.”

  Julie liked the tenderhearted way Quinn cared for his cat. She deliberately closed her mind to the way he’d acted on Monday, when he’d driven off so abruptly.

  The Calico Giraffe was on the same street as the popular local hamburger hangout, and Quinn, who obviously had never been to either before, seemed surprised, then upset at their proximity.

  “What’s going on, Julie?” he asked suspiciously. “How come you always have to have your buddies close by for backup?”

  “Please don’t do this,” she pleaded. “Don’t start in on your jealousy routine again.” She reached over and took his hand. “This is the sort of thing we have to talk about, Quinn.”

  Where was my head when I picked this restaurant for our date? Julie asked herself. I ought to know that the least little thing sets him off these days. I should have found a place in another part of town. Tara and some of the gang might be hanging out around here, and Quinn is bound to make a scene.

  She’d even overheard Tara and a couple of the others making plans to grab some fast food and then go over to Tara’s house. How could she have forgotten? Mr. and Mrs. Braxton were out of town for a few days, so Tara had the place to herself.

  Julie knew what that meant—a little party in Tara’s famous hot tub. She’d been invited to those parties often enough and had always refused. She was afraid Tara was going to suggest skinny-dipping, and the thought filled her with horror.

  As Quinn pulled into a parking spot right across the street from the Calico Giraffe, Julie looked around anxiously for any familiar cars. Much to her relief, she saw none.

  Quinn turned off the ignition. “Watch out for Grady,” he warned as she opened the door on her side of the car. “He likes to run off to do his thing, and then he gets lost, dumb cat.”

  Too late. Before Julie could draw the door closed, Grady had slipped past her, his warm, soft fur grazing her ankles, and was now bounding down the middle of the street.

  “Grady! Get back here!” Quinn called.

  “Grady!” Julie echoed. Then, as she saw an all-too-familiar dark-green sportscar approaching, she called more urgently this time, “Grady!”

  But Grady didn’t stop.

  The green car was traveling fast, and the driver evidently didn’t see the cat loping toward it down the center of the street.

  “Grady!” Quinn screamed.

  There was a thump and a screech of brakes.

  Then silence. A terrible silence.

  Grady lay at the edge of the street where he’d been flung by the force of the impact. He wasn’t moving. A thin line of blood trickled from his nose.

  Julie and Quinn ran over to the cat. Quinn dropped to his knees beside it.

  “He’s dead,” Quinn said, picking up the cat in his arms an
d cradling it, rocking it.

  Then, his voice cold and menacing, he said, “They killed Grady.”

  He said it again, as if he couldn’t believe it. “They killed Grady. Murdered him.”

  Julie knew who “they” were. Tara, for one. It was her little green sportscar that hit Grady, and she’d been behind the wheel.

  In a dim recess of her mind, she watched Tara, Nick, Shelley, and Colin get out of the car and come toward them. They seemed to be walking in slow motion, every step taking an eternity.

  Finally the four of them reached Quinn and Julie.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Tara burst out. “I didn’t see that cat until it was too late. It just came out of nowhere.”

  Quinn turned his head and gave her a look of cold loathing. “He didn’t come out of nowhere. He was in the middle of the street. You might have seen him in time if you hadn’t been speeding. And if you’d had your stupid eyes on the road.”

  “Now look, Quinn,” Colin said, putting his hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “I know how you must be feeling right now, but—”

  Quinn angrily shook him off. “No, you don’t. You don’t know how I’m feeling right now. If you did, you wouldn’t be standing here. You’d be running like hell.”

  “Is that some kind of threat?” Tara demanded.

  “It’s not a threat,” Quinn told her. The expression on his face made her take a step backward. “I ought to kill you for what you just did.”

  “Quinn, please!” Julie cried, pulling on his sleeve.

  Quinn ignored her.

  “Did you hear me?” he asked Tara. “I’d like to see you dead for this.”

  “He’s gone nuts,” Nick said. “Let’s get out of here before he does something crazy!”

  “But isn’t there something we should do?” Shelley protested.

  Colin took her arm and pulled her away, toward the car where Tara and Nick were already headed. “Maybe later, when Quinn’s got a grip.”

  They drove off slowly, almost reverently, as if by doing so they could being Grady back from the dead.