hannibal; abigail/will, abigail/marissa; r; mercy we abstain (1/1)
title: mercy we abstain
fandom: hannibal
pairings: abigail/will, abigail/marissa shurr
rating: r
warnings: sexual content
summary: abigail reflects on her best friend and her father when will takes her back to minnesota.
Abigail had never flown first class before. She watched Will pop a Tylenol into his mouth. He was shaking, his eyes resting on her for only a few moments before skittering away again. It made her think of Marissa, of her eyes shifting in the autumn light.
She put her hand on Will’s. It felt hot and she could feel the nervous beat of his heart.
*
The plane taxied into the gate at St. Paul after a slightly bumpy landing. Abigail had watched for ice as it set down on the runway. Ridges of dirty snow lined it. It had reminded her of Nick Boyle, of her own indelible grubbiness.
She looked at Will again, wishing he would meet her eyes, the way he had at the hospital. He reached into his bag and took another Tylenol.
“I felt terrified. And then…I felt powerful.”
“You felt good. To end it all. To stop it all.”
“You know if you take too many of those you can damage your liver.”
His eyes flicked towards hers. She held his gaze for a moment, savored it. The way he met her eyes made her flush. Abigail wondered what the rest of his skin felt like and wondered if he would meet her eyes if he was inside of her. As soon as this thought crossed her mind (the way Marissa had crossed her mind), she remembered the look on her father’s face as he sent her towards another girl with her hair and skin and eyes, a girl who thought that she was safe talking to someone who was so much like her.
Her mind immediately clamped down on these images. She remembered the way her father would smile while she beguiled the others, how his smile had filled her with a sickening, numbing hate that curled into her stomach and made her see red.
*
It had been a warm October that year. Warm for Minnesota anyway. Marissa had walked her home sometime in the middle of the month. The leaves were changing and the sun shone through them and Marissa’s hair had shimmered in tints of gold and yellow and red.
They had been talking about their upcoming college tours and how excited they were. Abigail was a little jealous of Marissa because she was getting to tour out of state colleges in places like California and New York. She had never been to those places and though she loved Minnesota, she wanted to leave it behind, to see who she was in another place.
“I bet you’re happy to be getting away from your dad huh?” Marissa was looking at Abigail in a sideways manner. Abigail didn’t say anything. Her father had been acting more and more erratic since she had taken the ACT the year before. Of course Marissa knew something was wrong, she was in and out of the Hobbs house almost every day.
Abigail changed the subject. The truth was that she had woken up to find him standing over her bed, staring at her, the knife he used to gut deer gripped in his hand. She had laid stock still, hoping he hadn’t noticed that she was awake in the darkness. He had stood there for a few minutes (it had felt like hours to her) before stalking off again.
After that night, he had started to be more severe about what she wore and who she was with and when. He had even done it in front of Marissa and yelled at her mother when she’d tried to intervene. But she hadn’t told anyone about that night.
Standing on the front porch of Abigail’s house, Marissa had reached out and touched her face, her thumb running down her cheek. Abigail could still remember the look in Marissa’s eyes. The touch had sparked an electric shock that felt like it had woken up every nerve in her body.
Abigail’s breath caught for a moment and she looked and saw that her father’s truck wasn’t in the drive way and her mother’s Buick was nowhere to be seen.
The house would be empty. Marissa was looking at her still, saying nothing. She was waiting. Licking her lips nervously, Abigail asked, “Do you want to come in?”
*
They rented a car at the airport and drove north towards the cabin.
Abigail watched the bleached white roads slide by, as her fear grew and grew with every passing mile. She wondered if Will knew how she had been a part of it. She thought of the way she had talked with those girls, how she had eaten with them and laughed and gossiped with them. She had done what she’d had to do. Her father had wanted to kill her, to eat her, to stuff pillows with her hair and turn her bones into sealing putty.
She had always known she would never let herself be reduced to parts.
I was his daughter. I was his daughter but that wasn’t enough.
Will glanced at her. “Abigail? What’s wrong?”
Nausea swept over her, making her head spin.
“Pull over.”
“What?”
“Pull over! Right now!”
She could taste the other girls in her mouth.
As soon as Will pulled the car over, she opened the door and vomited on the road.
*
She had led Marissa upstairs. Abigail had no idea as to how the roots of what was happening had gone unspoken for so long. But she looked at her friend and felt a warm wave of reassurance well up inside of her. Marissa smiled at her, their hands twined together as if this was always how it was meant to be.
Abigail pushed open her bedroom door and Marissa followed her inside. They looked at each other for a moment in the silence of the empty house. Abigail reached out and brushed her hand across her friend’s cheek. Marissa smiled and then leaned forward and kissed her.
It was very chaste at first. Abigail wondered at how the other girl’s lips felt against her own. She had only ever kissed a couple of boys, one at camp, one from school and never really spoken to either again. This was the same but totally different at the same time. There was no knot of anxiety in her stomach. There was softness to it.
They paused for a moment and stopped to look at each other. Abigail could tell that Marissa was taking a measure of her. She reached out and ran her hand through Abigail’s hair, stopping at her jawline to cup her chin. Abigail met her friend’s eyes. They were warm, not hungry. Looking carefully, she saw no one but herself reflected there.
Abigail had always trusted Marissa and she knew that Marissa trusted her. It was the main reason that they were here now. There had been a part of Abigail that had always known that there was something between them and both girls knew how important it was for this to be kept a secret.
They had known each other’s family since they were children and they knew the heavy consequences of the town they’d grown up in.
She gripped the hem of Marissa’s coat and pulled her close, ready for whatever came next. Their lips met again, but this time Abigail knew what she wanted. She kissed Marissa more deeply, more fiercely, her hands touching the other girl’s hair, thinking how sweet everything felt in this moment.
This is me. This is mine. This is all mine.
*
A puddle of steaming, half-digested Jack In the Box stared up at her from the icy asphalt of the highway. Abigail stared at it for a moment, the bite of the acid still in her throat. She groaned a little at the pain in her sides and back.
Closing the door of the rented sedan, she shrank into her seat. She was embarrassed. She had only ever puked in front of Marissa at some shitty house party when she was seventeen and when she had been sick when she was a little girl, in front of her mother.
The thought of her mother made her want to curl herself into a ball.
She stole a glimpse at Will to find that he was holding out a pack of gum. He gave her a slightly strained smile. “Here. I hate the way my mouth tastes after throwing up. I mean, I’m sure everyone does.”
A small smile began to bloom on her face.
“Thank you.”
She took a piece and carefully unwrapped it. The deep blue wrapping shimmered in her hand. She stuck the foil in her pocket, saving it to spit the gum into, the way her mother had taught her when she was a kid.
Will smiled at her. For a moment Abigail felt ugly, pasty and depleted and much too human. She looked back out the window, at the snow-dusted trees and the pattern the line of their tops etched across the sky.
She felt a feather light touch on her left hand. Will was looking at her, awkward and concerned. “Are you alright?”
Abigail smiled tightly at him. She considered lying to him but before she could calculate which words to use, she realized how exhausted she was. “No,” she said. “No, not at all.” She smiled at him to keep herself from bursting into tears. The light touch on her hand grew heavier and he wrapped his hand around hers.
His touch still sent little jolts of electricity buzzing through her nerves. She folded the stick of gum in half inside her mouth and began to chew. The peppermint shivered across her tongue as she met his eyes.
They were warm.
*
They had taken off each other’s coats and pulled each other closer as they began to kiss more ardently. Marissa’s hands had slid up Abigail’s shirt and Abigail could feel them gently pressing against her hips. She wondered what would happen if they kept going. She’d never had sex before and she was nervous.
Marissa’s hands wrapped around her and Abigail kissed her more deeply as Marissa cupped her ass. Lust swept over her and she started to pull Marissa’s shirt over her head. Marissa raised her arms, but the shirt caught on one of her earrings and they had to stop to untangle it.
Abigail remembered how Marissa had giggled the whole time, and the way her white cotton bra had looked. She also remembered the way her friend’s breasts had felt in her hands when the shirt had finally been pulled away and thrown to the floor. The wanting had been so much that Abigail hadn’t even tried to take off her bra, she had just clumsily stuck her hands under the cups. The underwire had scratched her knuckles but she hadn’t even noticed. Marissa had let out a mewling noise and Abigail wondered if anyone had ever touched her like this before.
She pulled her hands away while they were still kissing, yanking her shirt over her head and began undoing the fly of Marissa’s jeans. The kissing was getting sloppy now, both girls completely lost in each other’s bodies.
This was how Abigail would remember Marissa the day that they found her, all warmth and long hair and wet mouth, beautiful and half naked in her arms.
*
After Abigail had told Will she was hungry again, he had pulled over in a town called Northfield. There was a mostly empty diner in Walker. Abigail had felt awkward admitting she was hungry again after throwing up in the road like that, but Will, true to form had made no mention of it and had simply pulled off the road at the nearest town.
Once inside they both ordered food. Abigail wondered if he was only eating to make her feel better. She watched him over the top of her menu. She liked looking at him; it felt good.
Searching back through her memories, she tried to remember the last time she had liked just looking at someone or just touching them a little. Briefly, her mind lighted on Marissa again, and the way they had been before that day in October. The little touches here and there, the looks between them. It had felt good and sweet and innocent. A little like this.
But she was still afraid. Part of it was a fear of him, but the rest was…other things, a swirl of darker things, things that made it impossible to think or taste food or move.
He met her eyes for a moment and her eyes flicked back down to the menu. He made her feel like she was being lit on fire and drowning in a lake that was iced over at the same time. It frightened her.
But he saved my life!
And he killed me her father’s voice boomed inside her head. Her toes curled tightly inside her shoes and all her muscles felt as taught as the string on a bow.
And then I was free from you she thought fiercely. She could see her father’s smile in her head, the smile he would give her once she had bent to his will again, when she would offer up another girl on the altar, to keep living for a few more days, a few more weeks. He had never been satisfied for long.
That smile said, You will never be free of me. I am in your blood.
Abigail shot up from her seat in the booth, smacking her thighs against the table in the process, and practically sprinted to the bathroom.
She almost threw herself through the door, but then she heard a splash of water and women’s voices laughing and the flick of a lighter. The smell of cigarette smoke was leaking from under the door.
There was a feather light touch at her elbow. She whirled around, ready to face her father, to kill him with her bare hands if she had to. But it was only Will, looking awkward and concerned again. He seemed so unlike her father in that moment, she found it impossible to believe that he could imagine being him the way he did.
They fell into an embrace and pressing her face into his jacket, Abigail inhaled his scent. He smelled of his soap, and a little of dogs. Underneath that, most comforting of all, was the smell of just him, of Will. She remembered looking up from the floor at him, covered in her blood. His hand had been pressed on her throat and she had been so sure, so sure she would die, just as her mother had surely died, in that godforsaken house she’d called home her whole life.
She tightened her grip on Will, wishing she could just disappear into him. She almost told him right then, about the other girls, about Marissa, about the feel of her father’s hot, sour breath in her ear as he told her how he had killed every single one of them and how she would be next, any day she would be next.
Will hugged her just as tightly and she could feel the stubble of his beard against her temple. He was so warm and she could feel him shaking still.
Abigail wanted to comfort him. The thought of kissing him crossed her mind; the way Marissa had kissed her had consoled her even when things had been so dark and so hopeless. She started to move towards it, but her stomach felt like a tightly knotted wet rope. But before she knew what was happening his hand was on her cheek and when she tilted her face up to look at him he kissed her.
The knot in her stomach felt less heavy for a moment, as she thought back to all the times she had imagined this. A few weeks before, she had touched herself for the first time in over a year, alone in her bed at Port Haven, imagining kissing him and the way he looked at her. She was still frightened of sex and could not bear to think of Marissa, because she could only see her friend impaled on those horns she’d helped to clean.
The door to the women’s room swung open and two giggling waitresses came out. “Oh!” one of them exclaimed at the sight of them. Abigail pulled away from Will immediately. The other waitress smirked. “Sorry,” she said and the two of them went back to the front counter, whispering and stealing looks back. Abigail wondered how they must look.
*
She and Marissa were in her bed now. They had been fooling around for what had felt like days. Both girls only had their underwear on and both were tired. They had been talking, about school, about the future, friends, whatever their minds lit on. Marissa rested her head on Abigail’s bare shoulder and was tracing slow circles on her chest with the tips of her fingers.
Abigail smiled. She wondered if she had ever felt this good before.
And then, a terrible thing happened. She glanced at the door, which stood ajar and floating in the darkness of the hallway was her father’s face. Her breath caught and she could feel blood rushing to her head. The bottom of her stomach dropped away. He was looking right at her, staring at her, staring at the girl in her arms. She looked down at Marissa, who hadn’t noticed anything and was talking about whether she should major in Physics and Astronomy or Chemistry.
When she looked back, he was gone.
*
Abigail had jerked away from Marissa after that, throwing on her clothes, shakily talking about how her parents could be home any minute. Her friend had agreed and hadn’t noticed that anything was wrong until Abigail refused to kiss her goodbye. Marissa had looked hurt and left, not saying anything except “See you tomorrow.”
As soon as she was gone, Abigail threw herself onto her bed, and began to sob. When she looked up, her father was standing next to the bed again, the knife gripped in his hand. She drew in a breath to scream but it froze in her throat. The knife gleamed and she remembered how it had felt to gut a deer with it. It would cut through her skin like it was butter.
When she looked in his eyes, he said, “I’m going to kill you.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Please. I’ll do anything. I don’t want to die.”
*
Will was acting strangely.
He kissed me. Abigail watched him cautiously from across the table. After the waitresses had left them in the little hallway, he had looked at her like he had never seen her before. The same look had been on her father’s face, the day that he had caught her with Marissa, the day he had finally shown her who he was.
He’s never really known me, has he?
All of it unsettled her.
*
They had eaten in silence and then gotten back into the car.
He said nothing to her. Finally, after an hour of strained silence Abigail talked herself into saying something.
“Why did you kiss me?”
He looked at her, confused. “Wha- when did I kiss you? I-I would never kiss you, you’re just a kid.” He looked away from her straight ahead. He way lying about the second part, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t remember kissing her.
Abigail stared out the window, tears welling up in her eyes, tears she kept from falling through sheer force of will. How was it possible? She didn’t think he was lying, she trusted him enough for that.
So what was happening?
Without warning, Will pulled to the side of the road. He turned off the car and turned to look at her. He leaned across the gearshift and put his hand on her face. He leaned in and kissed her again. She kissed him back despite the twist of anxiety that had curled its way around her heart. She wondered if this was what love felt like.
But even as they touched each other, Abigail could feel him slipping further and further away. Wordlessly, he stopped kissing her again, turned the car back on, and pulled back into the road. He took the turn off towards the cabin.
Abigail stared at him. Did he even know what he had done? She was alone with him, so far away from anything. Everything had started out so well and now things were wrecked again. She absently wondered if she could get anything she wanted without it being completely fucked in the end.
Marissa was dead. Her father was dead. Will was, she was almost completely sure, insane. He thought he was her father, but then he kissed her. He thought he was her father.
He’s not my father.
They passed the sign for Cass Lake. They were almost to the cabin. Abigail steeled herself and looked at Will again. He looked at her and smiled, concerned and awkward again. He didn’t remember it.
Abigail thought of the two hundred miles between her and her old house. I can just hitchhike back if anything happens. I can run away. I will run away.
She gave Will a strained smile, wondering what would happen next.
It doesn’t matter, she thought. I’ll survive.
fandom: hannibal
pairings: abigail/will, abigail/marissa shurr
rating: r
warnings: sexual content
summary: abigail reflects on her best friend and her father when will takes her back to minnesota.
Abigail had never flown first class before. She watched Will pop a Tylenol into his mouth. He was shaking, his eyes resting on her for only a few moments before skittering away again. It made her think of Marissa, of her eyes shifting in the autumn light.
She put her hand on Will’s. It felt hot and she could feel the nervous beat of his heart.
*
The plane taxied into the gate at St. Paul after a slightly bumpy landing. Abigail had watched for ice as it set down on the runway. Ridges of dirty snow lined it. It had reminded her of Nick Boyle, of her own indelible grubbiness.
She looked at Will again, wishing he would meet her eyes, the way he had at the hospital. He reached into his bag and took another Tylenol.
“I felt terrified. And then…I felt powerful.”
“You felt good. To end it all. To stop it all.”
“You know if you take too many of those you can damage your liver.”
His eyes flicked towards hers. She held his gaze for a moment, savored it. The way he met her eyes made her flush. Abigail wondered what the rest of his skin felt like and wondered if he would meet her eyes if he was inside of her. As soon as this thought crossed her mind (the way Marissa had crossed her mind), she remembered the look on her father’s face as he sent her towards another girl with her hair and skin and eyes, a girl who thought that she was safe talking to someone who was so much like her.
Her mind immediately clamped down on these images. She remembered the way her father would smile while she beguiled the others, how his smile had filled her with a sickening, numbing hate that curled into her stomach and made her see red.
*
It had been a warm October that year. Warm for Minnesota anyway. Marissa had walked her home sometime in the middle of the month. The leaves were changing and the sun shone through them and Marissa’s hair had shimmered in tints of gold and yellow and red.
They had been talking about their upcoming college tours and how excited they were. Abigail was a little jealous of Marissa because she was getting to tour out of state colleges in places like California and New York. She had never been to those places and though she loved Minnesota, she wanted to leave it behind, to see who she was in another place.
“I bet you’re happy to be getting away from your dad huh?” Marissa was looking at Abigail in a sideways manner. Abigail didn’t say anything. Her father had been acting more and more erratic since she had taken the ACT the year before. Of course Marissa knew something was wrong, she was in and out of the Hobbs house almost every day.
Abigail changed the subject. The truth was that she had woken up to find him standing over her bed, staring at her, the knife he used to gut deer gripped in his hand. She had laid stock still, hoping he hadn’t noticed that she was awake in the darkness. He had stood there for a few minutes (it had felt like hours to her) before stalking off again.
After that night, he had started to be more severe about what she wore and who she was with and when. He had even done it in front of Marissa and yelled at her mother when she’d tried to intervene. But she hadn’t told anyone about that night.
Standing on the front porch of Abigail’s house, Marissa had reached out and touched her face, her thumb running down her cheek. Abigail could still remember the look in Marissa’s eyes. The touch had sparked an electric shock that felt like it had woken up every nerve in her body.
Abigail’s breath caught for a moment and she looked and saw that her father’s truck wasn’t in the drive way and her mother’s Buick was nowhere to be seen.
The house would be empty. Marissa was looking at her still, saying nothing. She was waiting. Licking her lips nervously, Abigail asked, “Do you want to come in?”
*
They rented a car at the airport and drove north towards the cabin.
Abigail watched the bleached white roads slide by, as her fear grew and grew with every passing mile. She wondered if Will knew how she had been a part of it. She thought of the way she had talked with those girls, how she had eaten with them and laughed and gossiped with them. She had done what she’d had to do. Her father had wanted to kill her, to eat her, to stuff pillows with her hair and turn her bones into sealing putty.
She had always known she would never let herself be reduced to parts.
I was his daughter. I was his daughter but that wasn’t enough.
Will glanced at her. “Abigail? What’s wrong?”
Nausea swept over her, making her head spin.
“Pull over.”
“What?”
“Pull over! Right now!”
She could taste the other girls in her mouth.
As soon as Will pulled the car over, she opened the door and vomited on the road.
*
She had led Marissa upstairs. Abigail had no idea as to how the roots of what was happening had gone unspoken for so long. But she looked at her friend and felt a warm wave of reassurance well up inside of her. Marissa smiled at her, their hands twined together as if this was always how it was meant to be.
Abigail pushed open her bedroom door and Marissa followed her inside. They looked at each other for a moment in the silence of the empty house. Abigail reached out and brushed her hand across her friend’s cheek. Marissa smiled and then leaned forward and kissed her.
It was very chaste at first. Abigail wondered at how the other girl’s lips felt against her own. She had only ever kissed a couple of boys, one at camp, one from school and never really spoken to either again. This was the same but totally different at the same time. There was no knot of anxiety in her stomach. There was softness to it.
They paused for a moment and stopped to look at each other. Abigail could tell that Marissa was taking a measure of her. She reached out and ran her hand through Abigail’s hair, stopping at her jawline to cup her chin. Abigail met her friend’s eyes. They were warm, not hungry. Looking carefully, she saw no one but herself reflected there.
Abigail had always trusted Marissa and she knew that Marissa trusted her. It was the main reason that they were here now. There had been a part of Abigail that had always known that there was something between them and both girls knew how important it was for this to be kept a secret.
They had known each other’s family since they were children and they knew the heavy consequences of the town they’d grown up in.
She gripped the hem of Marissa’s coat and pulled her close, ready for whatever came next. Their lips met again, but this time Abigail knew what she wanted. She kissed Marissa more deeply, more fiercely, her hands touching the other girl’s hair, thinking how sweet everything felt in this moment.
This is me. This is mine. This is all mine.
*
A puddle of steaming, half-digested Jack In the Box stared up at her from the icy asphalt of the highway. Abigail stared at it for a moment, the bite of the acid still in her throat. She groaned a little at the pain in her sides and back.
Closing the door of the rented sedan, she shrank into her seat. She was embarrassed. She had only ever puked in front of Marissa at some shitty house party when she was seventeen and when she had been sick when she was a little girl, in front of her mother.
The thought of her mother made her want to curl herself into a ball.
She stole a glimpse at Will to find that he was holding out a pack of gum. He gave her a slightly strained smile. “Here. I hate the way my mouth tastes after throwing up. I mean, I’m sure everyone does.”
A small smile began to bloom on her face.
“Thank you.”
She took a piece and carefully unwrapped it. The deep blue wrapping shimmered in her hand. She stuck the foil in her pocket, saving it to spit the gum into, the way her mother had taught her when she was a kid.
Will smiled at her. For a moment Abigail felt ugly, pasty and depleted and much too human. She looked back out the window, at the snow-dusted trees and the pattern the line of their tops etched across the sky.
She felt a feather light touch on her left hand. Will was looking at her, awkward and concerned. “Are you alright?”
Abigail smiled tightly at him. She considered lying to him but before she could calculate which words to use, she realized how exhausted she was. “No,” she said. “No, not at all.” She smiled at him to keep herself from bursting into tears. The light touch on her hand grew heavier and he wrapped his hand around hers.
His touch still sent little jolts of electricity buzzing through her nerves. She folded the stick of gum in half inside her mouth and began to chew. The peppermint shivered across her tongue as she met his eyes.
They were warm.
*
They had taken off each other’s coats and pulled each other closer as they began to kiss more ardently. Marissa’s hands had slid up Abigail’s shirt and Abigail could feel them gently pressing against her hips. She wondered what would happen if they kept going. She’d never had sex before and she was nervous.
Marissa’s hands wrapped around her and Abigail kissed her more deeply as Marissa cupped her ass. Lust swept over her and she started to pull Marissa’s shirt over her head. Marissa raised her arms, but the shirt caught on one of her earrings and they had to stop to untangle it.
Abigail remembered how Marissa had giggled the whole time, and the way her white cotton bra had looked. She also remembered the way her friend’s breasts had felt in her hands when the shirt had finally been pulled away and thrown to the floor. The wanting had been so much that Abigail hadn’t even tried to take off her bra, she had just clumsily stuck her hands under the cups. The underwire had scratched her knuckles but she hadn’t even noticed. Marissa had let out a mewling noise and Abigail wondered if anyone had ever touched her like this before.
She pulled her hands away while they were still kissing, yanking her shirt over her head and began undoing the fly of Marissa’s jeans. The kissing was getting sloppy now, both girls completely lost in each other’s bodies.
This was how Abigail would remember Marissa the day that they found her, all warmth and long hair and wet mouth, beautiful and half naked in her arms.
*
After Abigail had told Will she was hungry again, he had pulled over in a town called Northfield. There was a mostly empty diner in Walker. Abigail had felt awkward admitting she was hungry again after throwing up in the road like that, but Will, true to form had made no mention of it and had simply pulled off the road at the nearest town.
Once inside they both ordered food. Abigail wondered if he was only eating to make her feel better. She watched him over the top of her menu. She liked looking at him; it felt good.
Searching back through her memories, she tried to remember the last time she had liked just looking at someone or just touching them a little. Briefly, her mind lighted on Marissa again, and the way they had been before that day in October. The little touches here and there, the looks between them. It had felt good and sweet and innocent. A little like this.
But she was still afraid. Part of it was a fear of him, but the rest was…other things, a swirl of darker things, things that made it impossible to think or taste food or move.
He met her eyes for a moment and her eyes flicked back down to the menu. He made her feel like she was being lit on fire and drowning in a lake that was iced over at the same time. It frightened her.
But he saved my life!
And he killed me her father’s voice boomed inside her head. Her toes curled tightly inside her shoes and all her muscles felt as taught as the string on a bow.
And then I was free from you she thought fiercely. She could see her father’s smile in her head, the smile he would give her once she had bent to his will again, when she would offer up another girl on the altar, to keep living for a few more days, a few more weeks. He had never been satisfied for long.
That smile said, You will never be free of me. I am in your blood.
Abigail shot up from her seat in the booth, smacking her thighs against the table in the process, and practically sprinted to the bathroom.
She almost threw herself through the door, but then she heard a splash of water and women’s voices laughing and the flick of a lighter. The smell of cigarette smoke was leaking from under the door.
There was a feather light touch at her elbow. She whirled around, ready to face her father, to kill him with her bare hands if she had to. But it was only Will, looking awkward and concerned again. He seemed so unlike her father in that moment, she found it impossible to believe that he could imagine being him the way he did.
They fell into an embrace and pressing her face into his jacket, Abigail inhaled his scent. He smelled of his soap, and a little of dogs. Underneath that, most comforting of all, was the smell of just him, of Will. She remembered looking up from the floor at him, covered in her blood. His hand had been pressed on her throat and she had been so sure, so sure she would die, just as her mother had surely died, in that godforsaken house she’d called home her whole life.
She tightened her grip on Will, wishing she could just disappear into him. She almost told him right then, about the other girls, about Marissa, about the feel of her father’s hot, sour breath in her ear as he told her how he had killed every single one of them and how she would be next, any day she would be next.
Will hugged her just as tightly and she could feel the stubble of his beard against her temple. He was so warm and she could feel him shaking still.
Abigail wanted to comfort him. The thought of kissing him crossed her mind; the way Marissa had kissed her had consoled her even when things had been so dark and so hopeless. She started to move towards it, but her stomach felt like a tightly knotted wet rope. But before she knew what was happening his hand was on her cheek and when she tilted her face up to look at him he kissed her.
The knot in her stomach felt less heavy for a moment, as she thought back to all the times she had imagined this. A few weeks before, she had touched herself for the first time in over a year, alone in her bed at Port Haven, imagining kissing him and the way he looked at her. She was still frightened of sex and could not bear to think of Marissa, because she could only see her friend impaled on those horns she’d helped to clean.
The door to the women’s room swung open and two giggling waitresses came out. “Oh!” one of them exclaimed at the sight of them. Abigail pulled away from Will immediately. The other waitress smirked. “Sorry,” she said and the two of them went back to the front counter, whispering and stealing looks back. Abigail wondered how they must look.
*
She and Marissa were in her bed now. They had been fooling around for what had felt like days. Both girls only had their underwear on and both were tired. They had been talking, about school, about the future, friends, whatever their minds lit on. Marissa rested her head on Abigail’s bare shoulder and was tracing slow circles on her chest with the tips of her fingers.
Abigail smiled. She wondered if she had ever felt this good before.
And then, a terrible thing happened. She glanced at the door, which stood ajar and floating in the darkness of the hallway was her father’s face. Her breath caught and she could feel blood rushing to her head. The bottom of her stomach dropped away. He was looking right at her, staring at her, staring at the girl in her arms. She looked down at Marissa, who hadn’t noticed anything and was talking about whether she should major in Physics and Astronomy or Chemistry.
When she looked back, he was gone.
*
Abigail had jerked away from Marissa after that, throwing on her clothes, shakily talking about how her parents could be home any minute. Her friend had agreed and hadn’t noticed that anything was wrong until Abigail refused to kiss her goodbye. Marissa had looked hurt and left, not saying anything except “See you tomorrow.”
As soon as she was gone, Abigail threw herself onto her bed, and began to sob. When she looked up, her father was standing next to the bed again, the knife gripped in his hand. She drew in a breath to scream but it froze in her throat. The knife gleamed and she remembered how it had felt to gut a deer with it. It would cut through her skin like it was butter.
When she looked in his eyes, he said, “I’m going to kill you.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Please. I’ll do anything. I don’t want to die.”
*
Will was acting strangely.
He kissed me. Abigail watched him cautiously from across the table. After the waitresses had left them in the little hallway, he had looked at her like he had never seen her before. The same look had been on her father’s face, the day that he had caught her with Marissa, the day he had finally shown her who he was.
He’s never really known me, has he?
All of it unsettled her.
*
They had eaten in silence and then gotten back into the car.
He said nothing to her. Finally, after an hour of strained silence Abigail talked herself into saying something.
“Why did you kiss me?”
He looked at her, confused. “Wha- when did I kiss you? I-I would never kiss you, you’re just a kid.” He looked away from her straight ahead. He way lying about the second part, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t remember kissing her.
Abigail stared out the window, tears welling up in her eyes, tears she kept from falling through sheer force of will. How was it possible? She didn’t think he was lying, she trusted him enough for that.
So what was happening?
Without warning, Will pulled to the side of the road. He turned off the car and turned to look at her. He leaned across the gearshift and put his hand on her face. He leaned in and kissed her again. She kissed him back despite the twist of anxiety that had curled its way around her heart. She wondered if this was what love felt like.
But even as they touched each other, Abigail could feel him slipping further and further away. Wordlessly, he stopped kissing her again, turned the car back on, and pulled back into the road. He took the turn off towards the cabin.
Abigail stared at him. Did he even know what he had done? She was alone with him, so far away from anything. Everything had started out so well and now things were wrecked again. She absently wondered if she could get anything she wanted without it being completely fucked in the end.
Marissa was dead. Her father was dead. Will was, she was almost completely sure, insane. He thought he was her father, but then he kissed her. He thought he was her father.
He’s not my father.
They passed the sign for Cass Lake. They were almost to the cabin. Abigail steeled herself and looked at Will again. He looked at her and smiled, concerned and awkward again. He didn’t remember it.
Abigail thought of the two hundred miles between her and her old house. I can just hitchhike back if anything happens. I can run away. I will run away.
She gave Will a strained smile, wondering what would happen next.
It doesn’t matter, she thought. I’ll survive.