Page 14 of Miserable Marionette

Audrey, Sixteen Years Old, 1984

My pen makes its sixth loop around the small heart in the corner of the page I’ve been sketching on, an old English letter G scratched into the middle.

“What are you drawing?”

I screech, slamming the notebook shut as Gideon’s shadow falls over me, blocking out the summer sun that was pleasantly roasting my skin moments ago. “I’m going to put an actual bell on you if you don’t stop creeping around.”

His eyes flash toward the river, the large group of my classmates splashing and screaming in the shallow water of the lake. The annual last hurrah before school starts back up next week. His thick brows furrow before he gently wedges the toe of his boot under my shoulder, rolling me onto my back. My wet blonde hair sticks to my chest, my navy blue one-piece still soaked as he stares down at me. We’ve been here for three hours, and this is the first time he’s spoken, only getting up to lurk by the shoreline when I finally bulked up the courage to get in the murky lake water.

“What were you drawing, Audrey?” he asks again, his dark voice sending a chill down my spine.

“Hey Auds, I need a top for chicken!” Trent calls from the water.

I don’t hesitate to take my expedited escape. “Be right there!”

I’m wiggling out from underneath Gideon’s shadow, his presence alone enough to pin me, leaving me flushed and… confused. I don’t get far when Gideon crouches abruptly. “You’re not going to be his top.”

“What?” I chuckle, but my heart is pounding. My head feels light as he reaches out, twisting a wet strand of blonde hair around his finger.

“You were drawing them… weren’t you?”

My lips part. “Who?”

“One of them... out there.”

I wish the lake would swallow me whole. “No, I—"

“Then let me see what you were drawing.”

My grip tightens on my notepad. “No! Stop being a jerk.”

“Auds!” Trent calls from the water, but I can’t move. My chest is heaving, and Gideon sees everything. His eyes making a now familiar track of my collarbone before dipping lower. Mom said I was a late bloomer. My chest was flatter than a board until this summer. Now the straps of the small swimsuit I bought at Deb’s summer blowout last year are digging into my back.

His jaw clenches, and I can tell for a moment he debates ripping the notebook from my hands. Thanking the powers that be, he decides on mercy. “We’re going home.” An uncharacteristically benevolent choice for Gideon.

My mouth gapes as he straightens, his large hands gripping me tightly before he tosses me over his shoulder, my pen falling to my forgotten towel.

I kick, slapping at his warm back, his broad shoulder digging into my gut. “Gideon, what are you doing? Put me down!”

“You’ve played with your friends enough.”

“That’s not your decision!”

“Hush, Audrey.”

Hush. HUSH!

I smack him on the back with my notepad. “Let me down now! If you want to leave, fine, go! I’ll get a ride from someone—”

His grip only tightens, making me snap my teeth together, my heart fluttering wildly in my chest. His arm is the only thing holding me up, his palm slipping dangerously high on the back of my thigh. I swear his thumb caresses… no it twitched. Definitely a twitch. It’s the call from close by that disrupts the wayward course of my thoughts. Even then, his palms sear my skin.

“Hey, put her down!” Harry yells, joined by Trent.

Gideon spins on his heel, and I don’t need to see his glare to feel the potency of it; his body is rigid against mine… but so warm, his icy demeanor can’t touch me like it does them. He doesn’t speak, the silence stretching on. His dare hovering in the air, choking me. They don’t speak up again. They know better, and Gideon's reputation precedes him. It started with that day on the bus with Jeremy a few years ago. My dad had handled it with his parents and a stern talking-to. A few weeks later, Jermey transferred to another school. Gideon never said either way, but I don’t think he learned his lesson. I don’t think what happened on the bus was the end of it for Jeremy either, but I have no proof. I can’t say I mind regardless. Just that Gideon didn’t meet me that night at our spot, I assumed it was because he was in trouble. But Jeremy didn’t come back to school for a month, soon after the teacher told us he transferred. Good riddance, that little shit had made my life miserable.

I groan as I lift my head, giving Harry and Trent a smile. “I’ll catch up later!”

A gasp leaves my throat as Gideon's hand tightens on the backs of my legs before I’m slung down and abruptly placed in the passenger seat of his car, my notebook still clasped in my hand. “Christ, Gideon!”