Carly has tears in her eyes. I’ve told her everything, every last detail. Most of the time, my eyes have been on my coffee cup. Some of the memories are still pretty raw, pretty painful. Like that last night. The last time he hit me. The time I decided was the last time.
“I can’t believe you’ve been carrying this around inside you for so long,” Carly says quietly. “I can’t believe you’ve been walking around with this in your heart. You poor thing.” She reaches across the table, squeezing my hand.
“It’s okay,” I tell her.
“It’s not! You went through hell. Now…now I guess I understand a little more. Why you weren’t dating. Honestly? I used to question that myself. Why such a nice, pretty person didn’t have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend, whatever. Why you were alone.”
“Now you know.” I shrugged. “It happened. It happens to a lot of people. We just don’t talk about it. Christopher was the first person I told.”
“Why did you tell him?”
“Because…he found me. Lucas.”
Carly’s rocked to her core. She covers her mouth with both hands. “Oh, no! I can’t believe it!”
“He was texting me, sending me messages on social media. He’s insane, point-blank.”
“Uh, yeah. He sounds that way. When’s the last time he reached out to you?”
I look over at the wall behind the coffee machines. There’s that article, framed. Right where I hung it the day I opened the place. I point to it, explaining what I got in the mail yesterday. Why I called Christopher, why I didn’t come in this morning.
“Jesus. You should have called the police, too!”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly. Honestly, he just happened to call me a few minutes after I opened the mail. I was desperate. I needed him to protect me.”
“And he did.”
“He did. He came running.”
“Oh…” Carly’s eyes light up. “Even though he’s not supposed to be in town?”
I nod. Now she gets it. “You can see, then, can’t you? Why I feel the way I feel? I can’t turn my back on him. Within minutes, he was at my door. In the house. Inspecting every last inch, just so I would feel safe. Even the crawlspace.” We giggle. It’s so nice to have a girlfriend to talk these things out with. “I was too afraid to come in to work today,” I explain. “It was too raw, too fresh.”
“Why did you come at all?”
“I had to talk to you. More importantly, I can’t let Lucas rule my life. I can’t. He wins if I let him do that.” I shake my head, pointing to it as I do. “He’s in here. So deep. I have to get him out. He could be hundreds, thousands of miles away. But he’s planted seeds, you know? He might as well be right up in my face all over again, screaming about the butter being too cold to spread on his bread. That’s what he wants, too. I can’t let him have it.”
Carly gets up, gives me a hug. “You’re good people,” she says with a smile once she releases me.
“So are you,” I say.
“And so is Christopher,” she adds.
My eyes fill with tears. At least she gets it. One down, the rest of the town to go.
###
We finally close up shop. It’s much later than we have to, I realize. We sat talking for hours, long after closing time normally occurs. It felt so good to get everything off my chest, I completely lost track of time.
We stand outside the shop together, Carly and I. “Thank you for listening to me,” I say, hugging her again. “It means the world.”
“I’ve got your back. Just let anybody try to say anything against you. I’ll set them straight,” she promises.
“That means the world, too, but I don’t want you getting yourself into hot water on my account. Just steer the gossip mongers my way. I’ll be the one to set them straight. You don’t have to fight my battles.” I give her a smile and another hug. She’s such a good friend. I don’t know what I’d do without her right now.
“Are you going to Christopher’s?” she asks just before we part ways.
“I think I’ll take your advice and go over, yeah. First I want to go home to change.” There’s flour all over my clothes.
She smiles. “Maybe you should pack an overnight bag?” She giggles, and I swat at her with my gloves. We walk to our cars, laughing.
I drive home feeling oddly buoyant. I should write a book, I decide. All about the lies we tell ourselves. We have ourselves convinced no one will ever understand us. We can’t share our story with others. People will judge us, shun us. We’ll feel ashamed. That’s nonsense! I laugh at myself, out loud, at the thought. It’s total nonsense. We can’t live in our hearts all the time. When we’re hurting, we have to reach out and share our stories. Who knows? Maybe another person can relate, and our bravery will help them, too.
I’m feeling extremely confident as I climb the stairs, digging my keys out of my bad. I’m even humming, I realize. Something I haven’t done in ages. I can’t wait to get to Christopher’s. I know I can make him understand where I was coming from earlier today. Even if he’s listened to my message and is still brooding, I can get through to him somehow. I just need the chance.
I walk into the house, flipping the light switch as I do.
When the lights don’t go on, I feel sick. In a split second, everything becomes clear.
Then I’m hit over the head, and it all goes black.
###
Where am I?
I wake up, and everything’s dark. I’m moving, aren’t I? Being bounced back and forth, gently. Like being in a cradle. I’m rocking in a cradle. It’s actually kind of nice.
I close my eyes again, wanting nothing more than to sink into the darkness around me. It’s so sweet, so good, just relaxing like this. Not having to be worried, not having to defend myself or work my way through dark, confusing rumors. Just…being.
Wait.
No.
I can’t go back to sleep.
I open my eyes again. I stretch out my legs…only they don’t stretch all the way. Not even a lot of the way. They’re folded, my knees close to my chest.
I try to stretch out my arms, but they, too, are only going so far. There’s a wall in front of me. I try to roll onto my back. There’s a ceiling right above my head, so low I brush my shoulder against it as I turn. God, it’s so small. So closed in. I feel panic overtaking me. My heart is racing. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.
No. Calm down. Breathe. In. Out. You’ll be okay.
Where am I? I’m moving. That’s one of the first things I realized, right? I’m moving. Where? How?
What’s that smell? Exhaust? And the sounds. Traffic? Are those cars passing by? Oh, my God. The trunk of a car. This isn’t a ceiling. It’s the lid of the trunk.
“Hey!” I scream, pounding my fists on the roof. “Hey! Help me! Let me out! Please!” The car keeps moving, as though I hadn’t said a word.
I turn as best I can, trying to kick out the tail light. I’ve always read you can be found in the trunk of a car by kicking out the tail light and waving your arm. Only there isn’t enough room in the trunk for me to get up enough force. I can’t kick my legs hard enough because I can’t pull back far enough. I struggle, getting sweaty, crying with frustration. What’s going to happen to me?
I try pounding on the lid again. “Please! Let me out! I can’t breathe in here!” Whoever it is, they don’t care. I can tell from the hum of the engine the car doesn’t so much as slow down.
Who’s done this to me?
There are bits of clothing in here. I can tell them from touch. I might have to wrap them around my hands if I want to do any more punching on the trunk lid, so close to my head. It’s a blessing I’m not claustrophobic. I laugh harshly at the idea of a blessing in this situation. There are no blessings here. I’m in the trunk of a car, being taken God only knows where, and I’m counting my blessings. Amazing.
I raise one of the pieces, a shirt, to my nose. I know this cologne. Of course, I knew what was happening the split second I flipped the light switch. It’s Lucas. He found me.
I think back to that idea of writing a book. I’ll have to include a chapter on the moment you realize your abusive ex has finally come for you. You try to turn on the lights inside your house, and they don’t work for the first time. You know, in that instant, that it’s all come to pass. Your worst nightmare has come true. He’s here. Somewhere. And he’s been waiting for you. It’s all been for nothing, all your hiding and dreaming of something better. He’ll never let you go. He wasn’t joking when he said he’d never let you go.
And then he hits you and knocks you unconscious.
My head throbs painfully, as in response to my thoughts. He hit me hard. Now I’m glad I didn’t go to sleep when I wanted to, for fear of a concussion. I touch my fingertips to the sore spot on my head. It stings, and my fingers feel wet. I’m bleeding.
What’s he going to do to me? I could try screaming to him from the trunk, but that won’t do any good. He’s probably in a frenzy by now. He might even kill me.
I think about my parents. I wish I could have spoken to them one more time.
I think about Carly. For the rest of her life, she’ll remember hugging me and laughing with me as we left the store. It’ll be one of those memories that plays in her head for years, over and over. Laughing and joking about taking an overnight bag to Christopher’s, just before Lucas kidnapped me.
Christopher. Oh, God. What will he do? Why didn’t I go straight to his house? None of this would be happening.
I have to keep breathing or else I’ll pass out. Panic threatens to overtake me. I hang on by the thinnest of threads. All I can do is lie here and think. About what might happen. What I can do about it. And whether anyone will come to help me before it’s too late.