I walk into the kitchen with a stack of dishes, and the moment I’m in the room, I take a deep breath. It’s only for a few seconds, but it’s the first time all day I’ve been alone in a room besides the bathroom. That, more than anything, is slowly driving me crazy.

Well, and I’m trapped. I don’t know when, or if, I’ll get out.

And I have no idea what’s become of Gabriel. I don’t know how to get in touch with him, whether he’s still in South Carolina, or whether he wants anything to do with me anymore.

I think he does, and I want to trust him, but the reality is that I’ve got no clue. I don’t know shit about shit, locked in my bedroom like the worst kind of princess.

I put the dishes in the sink and turn to go clear more off the table, but instead Zeke walks in, carrying a serving bowl and a gravy boat, and makes a face at me. I think it’s supposed to be subtle, and it is not.

“Pantry,” he mutters under his breath, eyes wide as he nods his head toward the pantry, just for good measure.

I head over, with him right behind me.

“I was just wondering if we were out of bread flour,” he says, his voice a little too loud, and I roll my eyes.

“Just chill,” I tell him, more than a little cranky.

“Sorry,” he says, checking behind him one last time.

Then he pulls something from his pocket and shoves it into my hand: a phone and a charger, the cord wrapped around it. Instantly I lift my shirt and shove it into my pantyhose, both of us on high alert, adrenaline and relief both prickling through me all at once.

“Thank you,” I whisper. I feel ridiculous, but tears are coming to my eyes, tears of gratitude and love for this kid, the one who’s risking his own freedom by helping me.

“It was Gabriel,” he whispers, raising both eyebrows urgently.

My heart leaps in my chest.

“The phone was?”

Zeke nods and suddenly, I’m grinning like an idiot.

“He found me and I told him you needed a — oh, he said he put his number in it,” he says, just as someone else walks into the kitchen. “And he said he’s not leaving town without you. YEAH, I THINK WE’RE OKAY FOR BREAD FLOUR, WE’VE GOT PLENTY.”

I ignore my brother’s terrible, obvious acting and stay in the pantry for another moment, staring up at shelves. The lump of the phone inside my pantyhose is slowly getting warm, and I just stand there and feel it against my skin.

It might work, I think, excitement and nervousness crackling through me. This might really actually work.

* * *

Two hours later, I finally escape to the bathroom. There’s a guard outside my door, but I reach deep into my pantyhose and pull out the incredibly uncomfortable phone, which has slid straight into my crotch since it’s small and compact.

It’s kind of hilariously appropriate, really.

I sit on the toilet lid, totally clothed, and turn it on. I’m not particularly good at using smart phones, since I’ve never been allowed to have my own — shocker, I know — but in a couple of seconds I’ve opened my contacts.

There’s just one number, and just looking at those stupid ten digits makes me smile, my heart lighting up like a bonfire. I didn’t really think he’d just leave, not after everything, but I didn’t know for sure and now I do.

Nothing happens. No answer, and I just stare at the phone for a long moment, practically willing it to text me back.

What if he gave me the wrong number by accident?

What if he changed his mind?

What if Zeke is secretly screwing me over and I’m actually texting my father right now?

The last one doesn’t make any sense, but it rattles my nerves anyway. I’m already a prisoner here, why the hell would my father need more evidence against me?

I click the screen off, shake my head, and plug the phone into the wall since I won’t have a lot of chances to charge it. I’m sure Gabriel is in the shower, or has his phone off, or any one of a thousand other reasonable explanations that don’t involve him changing his mind between yesterday and today.

I brush my teeth, wash my face, and use the bathroom as slowly as possible, deliberately dawdling so Gabriel can text me back.

Then, just as I’m about to give up and shove it back into my crotch:

I make a fist with one hand and jam it to my mouth, because my eyes are filling with sudden tears. I feel like a dam just broke because of this one quick, sweet text, but I’ve never in my life been so glad to see tiny words on a little screen.

I bite my lips together, trying not to laugh. I think it’s the first time I’ve actually wanted to laugh in days, and I’m sitting on a closed toilet with a guard outside, staring at a phone.

Outside the bathroom door, there’s a shuffling sound as my guard moves around. I can virtually hear him hesitate nervously before he finally knocks, the sound hollow and timid.

“You okay in there?”

I roll my eyes.

“I’ll just be one more minute!” I call.

He shuffles away.

I don’t know what to say to that, because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy and a little lost and adrift all at once, because if I’ve done something to deserve Gabriel, I don’t know what it was.

It doesn’t feel like enough words, or like the right words, but I can hear my new guard shuffling his feet around outside the bathroom so I decide to find the right words later. I grab the charger and the phone, shove them both deep into my pantyhose, and step out of the bathroom.

“Sorry,” I tell the guard, batting my eyelashes through my best fake-innocent smile. “You know how us girls are in the bathroom, always taking forever.”

His face is half amused, half terrified, like I’m about to say the word menstruation and then he’d have to raise the alarm.

“No problem, just making sure you’re safe,” he says.

Safe. Sure.

“Perfectly fine,” I say, and walk to my new bedroom, the guard two steps behind me.

* * *

And then, I bide my time for a day. It’s not so my father lets his guard down; the man has plenty of problems, but being dumb isn’t one of them. It’s for my new guards, and for Pearl, who’s basically written I told you so on her forehead.

But finally, two days later, I’m lying awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Since for once I’m not wearing pantyhose, for the time being the phone is jammed into the side of my underwear, and I’m lying perfectly still, willing myself to get out of bed and finish this plan.

Pearl rolls over in her sleep, and Joy sighs, flopping one foot out from under her covers. There’s a thin yellow line underneath the door, and I wonder whether my current guard is sitting there. Maybe he got up to pee, maybe he’s taking a break because it’s past midnight and he thinks we’re all asleep.

Just try that way one more time, I think, still motionless in my bed. Sneak out and call Gabriel, there’s no reason to practically burn everything down, to alienate almost everyone you’ve ever loved...

The plan’s not actually arson, but it might be worse.

I don’t move. I know I can’t sneak out, because I tried. The first night and the second night that I was trapped here, I tried, and it didn’t work either time. The guards all think they’re here for my safety, and they are very diligent.

I take a deep breath. I sit up in my bed, long flannel nightgown rustling around me.

Pearl and Joy don’t move, and slowly, I put my feet over the side of the bed, seeking out the hardwood floor, standing as quietly as I can. They don’t wake up.

I cross the room to our closet, open the door, get in, close the door. It’s small and uncomfortable, but at least in here the light of the phone’s screen won’t wake my sisters up.

I turn it on, open the email program, take a deep breath, and start typing the email I’ve been planning for days. It’s got a long and varied list of recipients, each of whom took me several bathroom trips each to find.

The Huffington Post. Politico. Time. Newsweek. The politics desk at the New York Times; a reporter at CNN my father is always complaining about; the Washington Post’s Capitol Hill beat. Then, smaller markets: the Huntsburg local news, the Huntsburg Sentinel-Star, all the Charleston papers and TV reporters.

This is the nuclear option, because this email has everything. It’s got my current predicament, being held prisoner by my father, a United States Senator who just happens to be currently running for re-election; it’s got the cult-like police-state my family lives in; it’s got my coerced marriage at nineteen; it’s got Lucas’s forced “heterosexualization.”

In short, it’s got everything that my father doesn’t want the voters to see, all the ugly things he hides behind his facade of “old-fashioned American values” and “return to morality.”

I include pictures. There’s one of my father that I sneaked yesterday, reading the paper, just to prove I am who I say I am. There’s one of my driver’s license, one of the guard outside my room. If I were a reporter I’d still be skeptical, but with all this, I’d at least ask some questions.

Before I hit send, I text Gabriel again. I want to warn him but I don’t even know how, because it’s not like I know what the fallout from a nuclear bomb will be.

I pause, suddenly unsure of how to tell him all this information.

It’s so cheesy, and I know it is, but tears spring to my eyes anyway. For all that I’ve told him time and time again I don’t want to be rescued, right now I don’t care. I’ve got someone on my side, and that’s what matters.

Gabriel wants to drive me into the sunset? Fine with me.

Sitting in the closet, I grin like an idiot.

I take a deep breath and go back to the email. Out in the bedroom, I can hear one of my sisters mutter in her sleep, and suddenly, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.

If I do this to my father, what will it do to them?