Where To Find It
// The Florencia Lozano Homepage
Excerpts courtesy of The Florencia Lozano Homepage
Excerpt from Chapter 3
Daylight broke on the springtime forest. The ground was still white and pure of interruption. The frozen brooke down the way glistened like diamonds throughout the countryside. It had been a long time since Todd had returned to his mother's cabin. He had decided that he was once again willing to be in this place. This place that had held such mixed emotions for him. He loved his mother, this much, he knew. But parts of him hated her for leaving him with that monster. That so-called adoptive father she had made the mistake of marrying. Marriage! What an institution! Institution was the right word all right. "Anyone who could ever be dumb enough to marry SHOULD be institutionalized," his mind wondered.
His memories of her were powerful and overwhelming all of a sudden, especially, here, in this place. But this time seemed different. He glanced over to the passenger side of his car. He smiled inwardly, not wanting to totally show his happiness outwardly, but truly feeling giddy again, this springtime, staring at his guest. He was here with a new woman, this time. One that wanted to be with him, here, in this place of twisted torment. The world was not a place he wanted to be. But this little piece of it was possible to exist in. Especially, now that Delgado had agreed to exist in it with him.
Existing in it was made more comfortable by Tea's insistance that they shop for supplies. He had told her where it was he wanted to take her and she was touched that he would want to share that place with her. She saw it as an effort for him to open himself up about some of his childhood torment. If, in her opinion, they could possibly get through some of the muck that was his childhood, they stood a chance together, for real!
When they had stopped at the Exxon up the road from the cabin, she had insisted on only a few items out of the norm, which he had no problem buying for her, if it kept her near him, at least for a little while. She had always been so easy to please. They bought the staples they would need for a few days there, with a promise of a trip to a bigger store for stocking the place, if they decided to stay longer. He wasn't sure how long his urban-tainted woman could stand the wilderness, but he honestly knew she would try.
Excerpt from Chapter 18
Tea: I was angry. I’m still angry. But you tried so hard to be tender at a time when I really needed you to be tender. You read my emotions like a book. I needed to feel like you cared and you did. And you conveyed those emotions at the perfect moment. You made me forget, by holding me tightly, that I was angry with you. Then you started talking about “doing it,” and you were taking my clothes off of me……
Todd: (raising his voice) You were wet. And tired. And cold. And I just didn’t want you to go dying on me, because you had lost faith in me. In us.
Tea: I could never loose faith in us. I just didn’t understand your anger earlier out at the car, when I was dancing in the snow.
Todd: You want to know what that was all about? I’ll tell you. You and I were having a great time. We stopped at a place that was very special between me and my mother. And then HE showed up.
Tea: Who?
Todd: (flustered) The man. The man that always ruins everything in my life. The one who hides under my bed at night, waiting to get me.
Tea: Your father.
Todd: My supposed father. The man who taught me everything I didn’t need and nothing I do need.
Tea: What do you need Todd?
Todd: I need to know how to love you. I need to know how to make you stay with me not because it’s what I want, but because it’s what you want.
Excerpt from Chapter 34
No matter how hard she tried, which wasn't hard, she couldn't lift her head or her eyes up. Her soul was stripped from her body and she truly had no will to live. She had succumbed to Todd's way, to Todd's will, and he had become her whole world. She finally understood Todd. She understood his mentality. Nothing else mattered with him gone. Not herself, not her family or friends. Not even Shorty. It wasn't Tea's job to tell this child, his child, that because of his love for her, because of his love for Tea, that because he thought Tea dead, he now lay torn and twisted, literally this time, at the bottom of the Gilbert's Run Cliffs. How could she ever look Shorty in the eye and tell her it was her fault her father was gone forever from them both?
"Perhaps, someday, I'll find the courage, mija," Tea thought. "Better you know the truth, the whole truth about your father, than to think he simply killed himself for no reason at all. You should know, mija, he didn't die alone and lonely. He died loved...by both of us!"
She could feel tears welling in her eyes. This was not a good thing. Powell could use it against her. Powell WOULD use it against her. Her tears dried quickly as her heart began to race. If she couldn't feel, he couldn't touch her...hurt her. But since she knew she could feel, she always felt, his touch would drive her mad. Her mind cluttered as the intensity of her anxiety rose. She had entered Hell. Todd had been tormented and twisted, but he had loved her and protected her from his darkness. And even more, he did have a heart for others as well. She was entering the belly of the dragon and would probably not survive this journey into the blackness of complete and total fear. Powell re-tied Tea in the backseat and drove away.
White. Pristine. Serene. "This must be heaven," he thought to himself as he began to stir. "How did my body stay in tact?" he wondered aloud. "I guess the big Guy can't stand a mess either...he's too much like Peter that way," Todd mused.
"Oh God!" Todd rose to his knees grasping his hand together and praying. "I can handle just about anything, if it means Tea and I can be together, but not that. Please tell me my punishment is over and I won't have to see him here. I would have actually thought this out if I thought he'd be here. God knows, excuse me, You know I deserve that, but not her, not Tea."
"Tea? Where are you?" He looked about frantically. He rose to his feet screaming her name. "Teaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!! Where are you, Teaaaaaaa?" Tea? Tea? Teaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!" His mind raced recklessly as he realized he must have fallen out of the car before it plummeted to the rocks below. "I couldn't even kill myself right," he sighed desperately as he patted his body and realized he wasn't dead.