Practical Magic (Practical Magic #2)(70)

What good would it do her to get involved with someone like him? She’d have to feel so much, and she’s not that kind. She couldn’t abide those poor, incoherent women who came to the aunts’ back door, and she could not stand to be one of them now, wild with grief, overcome with what some people call love.

She pulls away from Gary, out of breath, her mouth hot, the rest of her burning. She has managed to exist this long without; she can keep on doing it. She can make herself go cold, from the inside out. The drizzle is letting up, but the sky has become as dark as a pot of ink. In the east, thunder sounds as the storm moves in from the sea.

“Maybe I’m letting you do this so you’ll stop the investigation,” Sally says. “Did you ever think of that? Maybe I’m so desperate I’d fuck anyone, including you.”

Her mouth tastes bitter and cruel, but she doesn’t care. She wants to see that wounded look on his face. She wants to stop this before that option is no longer hers. Before what she feels takes hold and she’s trapped, like those women at the aunts’ back door.

“Sally,” Gary says. “You’re not like that.”

“Oh, really?” Sally says. “You don’t know me. You just think you do.”

“That’s right. I think I do,” he says, which is about as much of an argument as Sally’s going to get.

“Get out,” she tells Gary. “Get out of the car.”

At this moment, Gary wishes he could grab her and force her, at least until she gave in. He’d like to make love to her right here, he’d like to do it all night and not give a damn about anything else, and not listen if she told him no. But he’s not that kind of man, and he never will be. He’s seen too many lives go wrong when a man allows himself to be led around by his dick. It’s like giving in to drugs or alcohol or the fast cash you’ve just got to have, no questions asked. Gary has always understood why people give in and do as they please with no thought of anyone else. Their minds shut off, and he’s not going to do that, even if it means he won’t get what he really wants.

“Sally,” he says, and his voice causes her more anguish than she would ever have imagined possible. It’s the kindness that undoes her, it’s the mercy in spite of everything that’s happened and is happening still.

“I want you to get out,” Sally says. “This is a mistake. It’s all wrong.”

“It isn’t.” But Gary opens the door and gets out. He leans back down, and Sally makes herself look straight ahead, at the windshield. She doesn’t dare look at him.

“Close it,” Sally says. Her voice sounds fragile, a shattered, undependable thing. “I mean it.”

He closes the car door, but he stands there watching. Even if she doesn’t look, Sally knows he hasn’t walked away. This is the way it has to be. She’ll be removed forever, distant as stars, unhurt and untouched, forever and ever. Sally steps on the gas, knowing that if she turned to see, she’d find he was still standing in the parking lot. But she doesn’t look back, because if she did she’d also discover how much she wants him, for all the good it will ever do her.

Gary does watch her drive away, and he’s watching still when the first bit of lightning cracks across the sky. He’s there when the crab apple on the far side of the parking lot turns white with heat; he’s close enough to feel the charge, and he’ll feel it all the way home, as he’s high above them in the sky, headed west. With a close call like that, it makes perfect sense that he’ll be shaking as he turns the key in his own front door. As Gary understands it, the greatest portion of grief is the one you dish out for yourself, and he and Sally have both served themselves from the same table tonight, the only difference being that he knows what he’s missing, and she has no idea of what’s causing her to cry as she drives down the Turnpike.

When Sally gets home, her dark hair loose, her mouth bruised by kisses, Gillian is waiting up for her. She’s sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea and listening to the thunder.

“Did you fuck him?” Gillian says.

The question is both completely startling and totally commonplace, since it’s Gillian who’s asking. Sally actually laughs. “No.”

“Too bad,” Gillian says. “I thought you would. I thought you were hooked. You had that look in your eye.”

“You were wrong,” Sally says.

“Did he at least make you a deal? Did he tell you we’re not suspects? Will he let it slide?”

“He has to think it over.” Sally sits down at the table. She feels the way she would if someone had smacked her. The weight of never seeing Gary again descends like a cloak made of ashes. She thinks about his kisses and the way he touched her, and she gets turned inside out all over again. “He has a conscience.”

“Just our luck. And it only gets worse.”

Tonight the wind will continue to rise, until there’s not a single trashcan left standing on the street. The clouds will be as tall as black mountains. In the backyard, beneath the hedge of thorns, the earth will turn to mud, and then to water, a pool of deception and regret.

“Jimmy’s not staying buried. First the ring, then a boot. I’m afraid to guess what’s going to come up next. I start to think about it, and I just kind of black out. I listened to the news, and the storm that’s coming is going to be bad.”