About 12 Years Ago

Lynn

I'm a waitress at the Starburst Diner in the town of Fairview, Illinois.

I'm a beauty queen, Miss Teen Illinois, Miss Earth United Illinois, hoping to become Miss Illinois next year.

I love working with animals.

I was a waitress.

I was a beauty queen.

I loved working with animals.

I am a prisoner.

My mind wants to live in the past, wants to remember only the good times. But my reason still won't always let it. Even though I've been locked up in this dark, windowless room for a long time. Years it feels like, although if it were years, then I'd already be dead.

I've been beaten and raped and choked until I almost died. Blindfolded and threatened and tied up for so long my arms went numb. It feels like this torture has lasted a lifetime. But it can't have, or I'd be dead by now. I'll be dead soon. A part of my mind already is.

Day and night have no meaning for me anymore. Hours and minutes have no meaning anymore. My past—who I used to be—has no meaning anymore. I'm not even inside my body anymore.

My body is just a shell, a thing to be used by the cruel, vicious, ruthless men who locked me up in here, tore my clothes off and tied me to this bed. The man who abducted me visits. Many others visit too. Often. Sometimes one at a time, sometimes in groups. I don't see their faces anymore. They're not real. I'm not real anymore. This is just a nightmare.

Some are worse than others. The man who tied me up is the worst. I imagine a snake slithering across my body when he rapes me. Maybe it's because he told me his name is Lizard. He's a coldblooded snake, he doesn't need the name to announce him. I'd know it even if I never knew his name. He's not the same man who grabbed me in the dark parking lot behind the diner I worked at. I don't know that man's name and I don't want to know it. I hardly know my own name anymore.

Lynn! It's Lynn!

But maybe it's better to forget. Because I'm never getting my life back. All that I was is already gone, and I will die in this room. I'm still holding on, but barely, and it grows harder and harder to do. I no longer feel anything when they grope me, rape me, hit me and choke me. Hear nothing when they speak to me.

Just nothing.

Maybe it's time I forgot my own name too. There's nothing left to hold onto anyway.

I can hear yelling and crashing through the door of the room I'm in. They're coming to me and they're loud. In the beginning, I used to cry and scream when they came. Now I don't make a sound. Because I feel nothing at all. Even the pins and needles in my arms from being tied to the bed for hours and hours and days are gone.

Sometimes they untie me. It's not mercy, just a practicality. If you keep a person in the same position for days and weeks on end they get bedsores and other problems. I know, because my great-grandmother spent most of my childhood lying in bed. She had to be turned. Had to be talked to. But she never spoke. Just like I don't. She was ninety-four when she died, I'm twenty-one. But what does it matter? Years have no meaning when you can't count the hours. I'm ready to die. But I don't even wish for that anymore. I don’t wish for anything.

Thudding footsteps are growing louder in the hall. I can hear the sound of boots kicking against doors, wood crashing against concrete walls.

"Lynn! Lynn, are you here?" It's been a long time since I heard my name.

The man who took me doesn't use it. He calls me Lollipop. I don't answer to that name. I don't answer to anything.

There's more crashing in the hall. It's getting louder, closer, more urgent.

"Lynn! Where are you?"

I recognize this man's voice. Barely. It belongs to the guy who always hung around the diner during my shifts. Except on that night when I was taken. He wasn’t there then. For awhile I feared he was one of the men raping me while I was blindfolded.

But, no. None of them were him.

Sure, he was a rough and rugged biker, but he was different. He almost asked me out a few times, but couldn't quite get the words together. But I would've said yes. Despite the scar that covered half his face and which was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen when he first walked in. I would've said yes, because he had kind eyes and a soft voice, and he made me feel safe and wanted and seen the way no other guy who came into the diner to gawk at me and flirt with me ever had. The way no other man ever had. I liked spending time with him and I wanted to spent a whole lot more time with him. But he never asked me out, so I never could say yes.

"Lynn!" he yells again. "Are you here?"

"Yes," I croak out, my voice too soft to be heard through the door, my throat pulsing in pain because I haven't spoken in so long. Or maybe it's because the last guy who was here choked me. Or maybe it’s because I screamed.

"In here!" I yell louder, because this could be my last chance to get the hours back. To get my life back. Although I'm not even hoping for that anymore. I just want to see the sun again, feel the fresh air on my face.

Two kicks and the door to my room crashes open, thuds against the wall, the bright light in the hallway blinding me as it does every time they come to visit.

I can't see his face, can only see his black outline against the light. So I don't know if it's him. Not until he comes closer and moves so the light hits his face as he kneels beside my bed.

I'm naked and tied to the bed, but he's looking into my eyes. I was wrong, his scarred face is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"Are you alive?" he asks.

I don't nod, I don't shake my head, I don't even move. I just shrug.

"Is it her?" Another man asks from the doorway. He's just a black shadow to me.

Scar says, “Yeah”, and starts untying me.

"Let's hurry this shit along then," the guy says and moves away from the door.

Scar unties me fast, rips the dirty sheet off the mattress, wraps me in it, and picks me up like a bride. I should thank him, but I have no words. I should be scared that we'll get caught, or that he's taking me to an even more awful place, but my heart beat is steady as in sleep as he runs down the brightly lit hallway towards an open door through which the cold night air is blowing. I’m not scared at all. Maybe I'm just dreaming and he isn't really here. This feels too good to be real. It must be a dream.

A guy with a bandana covering his face is holding the back door of a truck open for us. Then I'm in the back seat, Scar still holding me tight in his lap, and we start moving. The cool night air blowing against my face through the open window feels like heaven, like freedom, like life, like everything I no longer even wished for and hardly remembered. I want to smile. I want to thank him for giving me the world back. But the words I spoke so he could find me were all I had. I'm not Lynn the waitress anymore. No longer Lynn the beauty queen. They made me into someone else. And I don't know who that is. Besides, this could be just a dream. No one speaks in dreams.

"Drive to the hospital," Scar tells the driver.

"Hell, no," the guy says roughly, whipping around to glare at us. "Do you wanna go to jail?"

"Drive to the ER, Tank!" Scar says warningly, glaring at the guy who's driving.

"Yeah, do it," the guy in the passenger seat says and the tension is broken.

Sometime later, we're parked in front of the hospital, the bright lights of the ER entrance flooding the inside of the truck. But I'm only seeing shapes shaking and I feel very light in Scar’s arms. That's because I'm dreaming. I don't want this dream to end. It's the best dream I ever had.

"I'm taking her inside," Scar says, his words flowing down to me like a soft waterfall.

"Are you crazy?" Tank asks, but Scar already has the door open and we're almost outside.

He doesn't reply, just steps out and hurries to the entrance with me in his arms.

A bandana is covering his face up to his eyes now and he has a hood over his head.

"What happened?" a nurse asks as she pushes an empty wheelchair towards us.

Scar sets me down in it. I wish to keep holding onto him, but I have no strength in my hands, no control over my fingers, so I just slip from his arms into the wheelchair. I don't want this dream to end. He saved me, and now I want him to stay with me forever. I missed talking to him while I was tied down. I want him to stay with me. I think I'm in love with him. And I think he's in love with me. I want him to stay, so I can find out if I'm right. I want him to stay, because this dream will not be so amazing without him. I'd tell him all that, but it's not possible to speak in dreams.

"What's wrong with her?" the nurse asks more pointedly, but the way Scar's eyes are locked on mine she might as well not be there.

"I wish I could've done more for you," he says in a whisper, only to me. "I wish I could've saved you."

You did, my mind is answering, but my head is only nodding a little, which I'm not even sure he can see.

"She's been through a lot, take good care of her," Scar says to the nurse, gives me one more soft and lasting look then runs back to the truck.

Thank you! My mind is screaming after him. Stay!

But I know he can't. This is my dream and it'll become a nightmare again soon. But maybe afterwards I'll dream about him saving me once more and it'll all be good again. I'll thank him then. I'll thank him the next time he comes to me in my dreams. Which I hope will be soon.