More Bitter Than Death
Page 30
And when she laughed, he wanted to laugh with her, to share in her happiness. Although obviously she never laughed at him. Why would she do that? Why would anyone laugh at him?
And then . . . They had been chatting about his future. She was sitting there in front of him on her swivel chair as if it were the most natural thing in the world, sucking on her yellow pencil, saying, “But isn’t it about time you pull yourself together? I mean, you’ve actually had two trial employment periods. You should have managed to get hired at one of those companies; you’re a bright guy.”
And he’d been ashamed. His cheeks got hot. His scalp turned red under his long, dark hair. He hated her for sitting there in her swivel chair with that pencil in her mouth like a lollipop, calling him a bright guy, hated that fucking grocery store where he’d spent day in and day out plucking old fruits and vegetables off the shelves—moldy oranges and rotten plums, with fruit flies swarming around him—detested the pointless welding training program that didn’t lead to any kind of job, hated sorting mail in Solna, and all the nut jobs who worked there. Everyone stuttering, limping, crippled—freaks.
Everyone was like him.
And most of all he’d hated himself for not being able to be like other people, “acting like folk,” as his mom used to call it before she and his dad up and died.
She puts her hand on his stomach and he can see it going up and down as he breathes.
“Hey you,” she says. “Do you love me?”
“Of course I do,” he mumbles.
Self-conscious but still happy, bursting with that grown-up love that tastes so different from anything he’s ever encountered.
“Would you do anything for me?”
He turns to her and her hand rolls down onto the soiled blanket. The last rays of sunlight are shining in through the window, lighting the fire in her hair. Warily he sets the coin down on the stack of newspapers next to the bed and places his hand on her breast.
“Of course I would,” he says.
“Even if it were horrible, really horrible?”
There is something dark in her eyes now, as if she were in pain. And he knows instantly that he would do anything to see her happy, to erase that look of pain from her face, to smooth out the furrows in her brow, to bring the smile back again.
“I’d do anything for you,” he says. “Anything at all.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Camilla Grebe (b. 1968) is a graduate of the Stockholm School of Economics and has had several entrepreneurial successes. She was a cofounder of Storyside, a Swedish audiobook publisher, where she was both CEO and publisher during the early 2000s. She lives in Stockholm, Sweden.
Åsa Träff (b. 1970) is a psychologist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy. She runs a private practice with her husband, also a psychologist. She primarily diagnoses and treats neuropsychiatric disorders and anxiety disorders. She lives in Älvsjö, Sweden.
Also by Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff
Some Kind of Peace
Before You Die
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Simon & Schuster Paperbacks
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff
Translation © 2013 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published by agreement with Nordin Agency
Originally published in Sweden in 2010 by Wahlström & Widstrand
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Paperbacks Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition June 2013
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Cover design by Eric Fuentecilla
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grebe, Camilla.
[Bittrare än döden. English]
More bitter than death / Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff ; translated from the Swedish by Tara Chace.
pages cm.
1. Domestic abuse—Fiction. 2. Family violence—Fiction. 3. Abused women—Fiction. 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Träff, Åsa. II. Chace, Tara, Translator. III. Title.
PT9877.17.R43B5813 2013
839.73'8—dc23
2012042541
ISBN 978-14516-5460-8
ISBN 978-1-4516-5464-6 (ebook)