by Daya Daniels
Once Gabriel was done, he moved the thick towel over the top half of me, then shifted me to wash my lower half. My feet, my legs—between my legs. I couldn’t stop my tears from falling. Gabriel paid them no attention. He only continued with his task. When he moved to roll me over onto my stomach, I wailed holding on to the sheets with shaky fingers. I sobbed into the mattress, not knowing any pain in my life that was close to what I felt now.
“Shit. I’m sorry, Lily, but I really need to do this.” I bawled into the pillow while he caressed my shoulder.
He removed more bandages, washed me and placed the towel on top of me to keep me warm. Then rolled me back onto my back, as I shook uncontrollably from the agony.
“I’m giving you as much pain meds as your little body can tolerate. I can’t give you any more,” he said apologetically, touching my forehead with his big hand. “You’ll feel much better when I am done, trust me.”
“Where am I, Gabriel?”
“You’re in the Bitterroot Mountains. You’re in Montana.”
I was disoriented at the thought that I was in a completely different state. I looked out the window and could see the steep snow-covered rocks and peaks of the Rocky Mountains clearly off in the distance. I believed him.
What the fuck was I doing in Montana?
I finished eating the breakfast that Gabriel prepared for me. A simple English muffin with butter, a sliced apple, and a cup of green tea. I faced the wall, away from the sunlight of the windows, to wallow in a moment of self-pity. The intricate swirls of the wood grain on the wall in front of me held my attention for a moment, while I thought about my current situation. I began to weep quietly to myself, allowing my thick tears to soak the plush pillow beneath me.
I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about what happened. I wanted to push it out of my head and never think of it again but it kept creeping back, taking up all available space in my brain. I shut my eyes, trying to push the sensations and images out of my head. I could fucking remember it all. Would it ever stop? Would I one day wake up and just be able to forget? I’m not sure how long I remained staring at the wall but it had to be a while. Heavy footsteps moved across the floor, stopping when they reached where I rested.
“I’ll close the drapes in a few minutes so that you can get some sleep,” he said, walking across to the windows.
I buried my wet, swollen eyes into the pillow, sniffling softly.
Gabriel peeked over the side of me, sliding his hand towards my face and gently brushed my cheek with his fingers. He took a deep, long breath and stepped away. He returned with a soft washcloth, slipped it into my hand and then palmed my shoulder.
“I’ll give you something for those tears, Lily, so you can sleep,” Gabriel murmured, adjusting the drip pole. I felt the hot liquid slowly entering my veins, relaxing me, willing me off to sleep. “Please rest. When you wake, you will feel a little better.”
He collected the dishes from the table and left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
It was warm when I awoke. The room was dimly lit with the only light coming from the fireplace across the room. It crackled softly in the silence. Its orange light casted moving shadows against the walls. The moist feeling of warm water was against my skin. Gabriel’s large form stood over me. He was moving about, not paying much attention to my face. The top half of me was covered by a thick white towel. The bottom half of me was exposed.
“You’re awake,” he whispered as he washed me, moving the warm cloth over my stomach.
The familiar scent of eucalyptus filled the room. I ran my tongue over my teeth, noticing they’d been brushed. I took a deep breath, registering the pain that still radiated from my rib cage when I tried to move. I was tired of being in and out of sleep. I had no sense of time. I didn’t know what day it was or the time. It was as if my brain was in permanent sleep phase, not concerning itself with much besides making sure that I healed.
Gabriel’s hands moved gently across my skin. “You’ve been asleep.”
“How many days, Gabriel?”
“Two,” he told me. “Don’t worry. It’s good.”
I dropped my gaze to where my hand rested against the bed and noticed that the sheets that lay underneath me were now navy blue. They were still as soft as the ones before but they had been changed. I wasn’t sure when that happened.
He nudged my legs open, slowly pushing my knees up and apart gently, so that my feet were planted firmly on the bed. I let out a low groan at the discomfort. He washed between my legs and then placed a towel there drying me. I felt myself drifting off again until I heard the irritating sound of something buzzing. Gabriel held a small trimmer in his right hand.
“I’m sorry. This will just take a second.”
I tilted my head to look down, shocked at what he was about to do.
Gabriel’s brown eyes met mine. “Your monthly came on,” he said simply.
Kill me now.
He shaved the light hair between my legs quickly until there was nothing left. When he was finished, he slid a long thick white cloth between them underneath me that reached up to my lower back.
“I’ll write it down—the date. So you will know when it will come again.”
I shut my eyes and sighed, turning my head to face the wall. When he finished, he dried me off and applied moisturizer to my skin from head to toe.
“Are you hungry?”
I nodded. “A little.”
“Good, I haven’t eaten either. Soup?” He smiled.
“Yes, that’s fine.”
Gabriel quickly left the room and returned with a large bowl and one silver spoon, making himself comfortable on the edge of the bed. He jumped up and muttered something to himself, pulling a .44 Magnum out of his waistband and setting it on the nightstand. The gun made a heavy thud when he placed it on the table. My eyes went wide looking at it but Gabriel didn’t seem to notice. He unwrapped a small package which held two crackers and crushed them into the bowl.
“It’s better like this...the soup.” He winked.
I mustered a small smile, looking at him. He dipped the spoon in the bowl and put it to his lips, blowing the hot steam away. I opened my mouth when he moved the spoon towards me and ate. He then took a spoonful for himself. We ate like this in silence until the entire bowl was empty. Then I started to sob.
“You’ll get better, I promise,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled softly.
Gabriel placed my hand in his, smoothing the back of it softly with his thumb as he watched me intently. I peered at him again, looking him over. His hair was dark and thick and his full lips were absolutely kissable. His beard was always trimmed and was just as dark as the hair on his head. He was handsome, while I knew I looked like an absolute trainwreck. I panicked at the mere thought that I’d have to look in the mirror at some point.
“Nothing to be sorry for, Lily,” Gabriel said keeping my gaze. “I’ll wash your hair tomorrow.” His face was the last thing I saw before I fell off to sleep again.
Gabriel told me that it was just after three thirty in the afternoon and the day was a Tuesday. I’d lost track of everything since being in the mountains. I didn’t know what day or week it was or what month, nor the time on most days. I didn’t have a watch. I relied on him to tell me and he only told me if I asked.
Gabriel entered the room carrying a small basin filled with water that had small sections cut out of the circular rim of it. He slid me down gently from the top of the bed, so that I was lying flat and slipped a pillow underneath my shoulders. The dip in the side of the basin perfectly accommodated the back of my neck, so that my head hung over the edge of it. I focused on the wooden beams in the ceiling above me for a moment, while he made himself comfortable. I noticed strands of my hair still smelled like cigarette smoke. I nearly threw up from the smell.
His hands were gentle as he untied my hair and let it hang loosely over the basin, running his fingers through it. I tried to fix
my gaze on the ceiling but every now and again, my eyes flitted over to watch him. Gabriel wore a fitted dark-green T-shirt and had pushed the sleeves up. It was the first time I noticed that his forearms were covered in tattoos to his wrists—so many that I could barely see his skin. His fingers were bare, long and thick with bluntly cut nails at the ends. I loved to look at his hands. I didn’t understand what my obsession was with them. The men I’d known either had soft hands or their hands were too rough, but Gabriel’s hands were something different.
“Lily, no need to be nervous. I think I know what I’m doing. I found a shampoo and conditioner that I think you’ll like,” he said, shoving the Aveda bottle in front of my face.
“Okay.” I chuckled.
When the warm water touched my scalp, I let out a small moan that I hadn’t meant to. Gabriel squeezed out a glob of shampoo that trickled down my hair. He massaged it gently working the shampoo into my scalp. He used a small jug to rinse it out.
“I heated the conditioner a little so it wouldn’t be cold,” he said, massaging the warm conditioner into my hair. He was so close to me that I could feel his light breaths as they puffed against my forehead. I took a peek down his shirt and noticed that just under the neck of it he was covered in more tattoos. He gave me a small laugh when he noticed me stealing glances of him but he didn’t say anything about it.
He ran his thick fingers from my hairline to the nape of my neck and pressed firmly behind my ears, repeating the movement until I moaned. I opened my eyes slowly only to look into his brown ones. He blinked slowly, looking me over, and rinsed the conditioner from my hair. Then he squeezed the excess water out and wrapped my hair up in a towel.
“I turned the temperature up slightly in here so the room is warm. Your hair should dry in a few minutes unless you want me to blow dry it.”
I giggled, honestly feeling as though he’d done enough. “It’s okay. It usually dries quickly. Thank you.“
Gabriel gave me a nod and left the bedroom with the basin and the jug.
It had been a month and a few weeks. Most of my time was spent in bed resting and staring out the bedroom window at the breathtaking view of the snow-covered mountains. Gabriel didn’t disturb me much and was adamant that I needed to rest so that I could properly heal.
There was no television. Gabriel gave me a few books to read—For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and a copy of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I finished all three of them in a matter of days. Then he brought me more books.
When he came to check on me, he either offered me food or something to drink and then left quickly. That was between my daily sponge baths and bandage changes.
Each day he made me sit up, even though my ribs were still healing. Gabriel would stretch my arms and my legs and roll my neck to relax the muscles to my shoulder daily. Sometimes I cried and screamed in agony, but still he persisted. He said lying in bed wouldn’t help. It would mean more pain, more weeks of stiffness, and a longer recovery. My right leg was still badly bruised. It was a myriad of shades of green, light and dark purple with some yellow running through it. I still couldn’t walk on it. It reminded me of a rainbow, except the colors were uglier and angrier. I was convinced it was broken each time Gabriel tried to make me stand on it, but he said that it wasn’t and that even if it was, broken bones heal.
He promised me that in a few weeks I’d be strong enough to bathe myself. I was looking forward to that. The daily humiliation of being washed and my body helplessly rolled over and washed again was getting to me.
Gabriel was good to me but I couldn’t help but get the sense that he either didn’t like or have company all that much. I didn’t hear any other voices in the house, so I figured it was only the two of us there for the time being.
I spent a lot of time talking to Rocco and Sable. Shame on them that they could never respond, I joked to myself. Gabriel told me that his dogs were the best hunting company he knew. On the quieter days like today, I was lonely. I was so used to it always just being Nina and myself that on days like today, I actually missed her. How insane was I to miss Nina, after what she did to me?
The sun was setting outside.
Gabriel came into the bedroom, I propped myself up on the pillows beneath me.
“Gabriel,” I pressed. “Where do you sleep?”
He stood up as he finished filling the fireplace with more wood. “In the den.”
“Oh, I thought maybe there was another bedroom.”
“Nope, this is it. This is usually my room. No one else lives here.”
“It’s just you?” I asked curiously.
“Yep, just me, Lily. It’s always just been me, Lily,” he said. Then he left the room.
I knew the feeling.
I gazed out the window at nothing in particular this morning. I was daydreaming a lot lately, always seeming lost in thought. In my twenty-four years, I never thought to ask myself this…even after my parents died. If I disappeared would anyone notice that I was even missing? Who would look for me?
No one is looking for me. There would be no missing person report filed. I had no one. Nina would assume I was dead and then move on with her life. I didn’t have enough regular shifts at Birdie’s Café, where I used to work, for them to even notice I was gone. I had no permanent physical mailing address. The mail wouldn’t start to pile outside of my door for the neighbors to notice that no one had picked it up for weeks.
I only had a post office box and when that became full the post office would just close it and throw my mail into a bag. It would all go unnoticed. There wasn’t even a cat at home, patiently waiting for me to return so it could be fed. It was as if I didn’t exist. I closed my eyes for a moment and let the sunlight coming in through the bay window soak into my pale skin.
I watched Gabriel yesterday from this very window while he chopped wood outside. His rifle leaned against the oak tree in front of him. Rocco and Sable wandered nearby and played. Gabriel picked up each heavy chunk of wood and placed it on a stump. He was strong. He would find a position on the stump, position the wood, prepare his swing and then bring the axe down without stopping for rest. Each time the wood split it made a loud crack. He continued splitting wood for almost an hour despite the chill outside.
The sound of his footsteps snapped me out of my trance. Gabriel strode towards me, smoothing my dark hair to the side, pushing a lock of it behind my ear. He took a deep breath looking me over. Gabriel’s touch was comforting but he touched me differently, almost possessively, like he owned me—like I belonged to him.
“I know what you’re thinking, Akecheta, but it won’t change anything. It would only prolong the pain and you will live it repeatedly, until you can purge yourself of it.”
I rolled away from him, allowing my tears to soak the pillow. I wanted revenge. I wanted to know why this happened to me but I knew I couldn’t change it. It was self-gratifying just to imagine me righting the wrong against me, although I knew it would never happen. The entire vile experience was mine to live with, forever.
“Do you believe in revenge and that it is justice?”
“Yes. But you have to be prepared to lose a little bit of yourself, Lily, while seeking it.”
Gabriel wiped the tears from my face softly.
“I’ve always felt like prey—most of my life. I’m tired of fighting.” I sniffled.
He nodded. “It’s okay, Lily. The world is made up of all sorts of people, some of them parasites and they feed off you until you’re sucked dry or until you’re dead. You’re away from them now. They can’t take anything more from you.”
“I just wish I was stronger, you know.” I laughed a little, feeling pathetic.
I wasn’t sure what I’d do now with my life, after leaving here.
He ran a hand over his beard. “See, but you are strong.” Gabriel moved his fingers down to the base of my neck and held it there for a moment, checking my pulse.
“Your hear
t is beating at around sixty-three beats per minute. That is the heartbeat of an athlete. A strong resting heartbeat,” he said giving me a handsome smile.
I laughed.
“You’ve always been on your own?”
“Yes,” I said bitterly. “Since I was twelve, sort of.”
I expected him to ask more questions but he didn’t. He grabbed an apple off the table, chomping into it and offered me a bite.
“Don’t you want to know more about me?” I asked him.
Gabriel ran a hand over his dark beard. “I know everything I need to know. You are twenty-four. I’m thirty-two,” he said raising his eyebrows at me, giving me a smirk. “Just in case you were wondering.”
I gave him a nod.
“I figure you will tell me the rest about you when you’re ready.”
I pursed my lips and looked away from him, relaxing a little now that I’d discovered that he didn’t want to know my life story which I was certain he already knew was fucking sad.
“Did you grow up here?”
“No,” Gabriel breathed out. “I grew up on reservation land up near Alberta.”
“Oh,” I said quietly.
“I’m glad you won’t have to bathe me anymore or change my gross bandages, but thank you.”
He laughed. “It’s no problem. I’m not the squeamish type. There isn’t really anything that repulses me, Lily.”
We sat in silence for a while.
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful but why didn’t you take me to the police, Gabriel? So you wouldn’t have to deal with me.”
“The police…” he said with a huff. “That’s not the way we do things around here, Akecheta.” He looked at me for a moment. “I’ll assume that whoever did this to you, it wasn’t random.”
“No, I don’t think it was.”
Gabriel let out a deep grunt and then handed me a ball. I tossed it to Sable and watched it bounce around the room. She stopped it under her paw and brought it back to me, dropping it in my hand with her mouth so that I could throw it again.
