Dahlia

THE NEW DEADBOLT ON my bedroom door makes a klunk sounds as my father locks me in.  It’s pitch dark and lonely as the last cell in Alcatraz.

By the time my dad’s hired guns arrived at the cabin I was dozing on the couch, waiting for Davis to come back.  I heard the front door open, and in my stupidity got all excited thinking that he was there.  He had texted that he wouldn’t get there for a couple more hours, but I just figured he couldn’t stay away from me and had come back early.  I bounced through to the living room, already wearing my happy face.

My heart sank when I saw it was two of my father’s paid muscle dead-heads, there to take me home and back to my indentured servitude and upcoming nuptials.

Sylvia was there waiting when I arrived, her eyes red rimmed because she was so worried about me.  I’d been gone three days.  The Mercedes had a security tracker in it and once the ice cleared my father sent his goons looking for me.  Knowing that if the car was on that road, I was surely here in the cabin.

The soreness between my legs reminds me in every sob of Davis.  How foolish I was to think I could just fly off and start some sort of new life after knowing him a few days.  Meet some white knight on the side of the road and be transported away from my gilded prison.

I lie in my bed, losing track of time, seconds becoming minutes becoming hours.  I know it’s early morning when I hear a key in the lock and the door opens.  I don’t move my face from the pillow, sure it’s my father coming in to make some demand or lecture me again about family loyalty.

“Sweet.” Sylvia’s soft voice breaks into my melancholy.  “I brought you your favorite.”

She comes in with a tray full of Oreo’s and and two enormous glasses of milk.  Over the years, this has been something we share.  We sit in my room, dunking the dark chocolate cookies and talking about anything.  I love her so much and the thought that my father is now holding me hostage by threatening to turn her into I.N.S. punches me in the gut.

“I’m not hungry.”  I turn my head away.  She doesn’t know of my father’s threats.  She’s never shared with me her status and I don’t care.  I just could never let her go through that. 

“Oh, you don’t need to be hungry to eat Oreo’s and milk.”

She places the tray onto the bed and takes her seat next to me. I flop over onto my back, pondering my fate while still feeling all the tingling and wonder left in my heart and body by Davis.

But when I hear her dunking an Oreo... even in my melancholy state I can’t resist.  I scoot up and join her, in silence at first.  Then finally, I break open in sobs and tell her everything about the last three days and the man I still can’t believe I fell for, ass over teakettle, so fast.

“Oh, sweet.  It can happen that fast.  That’s the best kind of love, you know?  That kind that swoops in before you can think twice and takes you to all those wonderful places.  It doesn’t take time always to find love, some people just have fate and destiny on their side. Serendipity.  Let your father calm down, explain this to him as you did to me.  He can’t force you to marry that Petrov boy.  It will all work out.  What’s the worst he can do?  Kick you out?”

I don’t dare tell her what he’s holding over me, as I know Sylvia would take the fall for me in a heartbeat and I can’t allow that to happen.

My head spins.  My chest aches.  I’m trying to figure out any way out of this mess, but everywhere I turn there seems to be a wall.  If I run away again, if I could even get out, Sylvia would pay.  If I marry like I’m supposed to, I’ll lose Davis forever.  I could try to talk to my father...

Never mind.  That’s the worst option of all.

Sylvia and I eat the cookies until we are both nearly sick and I tell her more than I probably should have about the time I spent with Davis.

“You’re glowing.”  Sylvia brushes my hair back from my face.

“It’s called ugly cry afterglow, Syl.”

“No, sweet.  It’s more.  It’s love.  Nothing looks like love but love.”

She gathers up the empty milk glasses onto the tray and stands.  The ache in me won’t stop and I can’t imagine living with this feeling forever. 

Sylvia nods her head toward the bedroom door. 

“Come on downstairs.  Your father went to his room. I don’t care if I get in trouble for letting you out.  Your father’s a terrible man, Dahlia.  I’ve known that for years.  And then when your mother left and didn’t want you to come with her, so sad for you, sweet.  Such a beautiful, lovable girl to come from two cold hearts. Only reason I stayed was you.  Let’s go.”

I reluctantly slink out behind her, wearing my baggiest pair of jeans and a grey zip-up hoodie.  I know my father would be so proud of his princess and her fancy clothes.

In the kitchen, I hop up onto the counter and watch Sylvia work.  My eyelids are swollen and heavy.  My head is pounding and I can’t think beyond the next minute.  I never knew what a broken heart felt like, but now that I do I can’t imagine this pain ever going away.