Just Hold on to Me

There used to be an evil psychiatrist living amidst the noisy business of New York City, who liked to see the effects of isolation on the human brain. Now, he lives in solitary confinement. Lives change in an instant. 

Cindy was kidnapped first. She was living on the streets, walking for hours to find pennies on the ground or anything edible from trash cans. God blessed her a couple times a week with a couch or floor to sleep on. She had lost everything when her mother died. Her life was a rich person’s worst nightmare; nothing but a coat, a couple sets of thick, ill fitting clothing, and a large backpack. 

The doctor who ‘gave her a new home’ tricked her by offering her food and drugging her in a sushi joint. She woke up chained to the wall in a large basement (if you can call it that, everywhere she looked there was nothing but faded cement). Cindy was furious. She was crying and screaming, wondering how she could have let this happen to herself. She had fallen so far from the straight A student she once was. 

She ate what she was given. Gourmet food--strange. Glazed ham with pineapple in its folds, giant piles of mashed potatoes overflowing with dark gravy, milkshakes that tasted like dark chocolate heaven. She begged to be let go but she couldn't resist. The doctor would walk down the stairs and say nothing as he handed her big plates of food. He was nondescript, dressed well, and wore thin spectacles. Your average gray haired white man. It wasn't his appearance that was terrifying. 

A few days after her abduction, Cindy sobbed when the doctor brought down a silently panicked boy and chained him up next to her. He was wearing a glaring white polo under a blue sweater, and flawlessly tailored khakis. He was furiously shaking, his mop of blonde hair quivering. He was in shock. At first Cindy was annoyed because she knew a snobby rich kid when she saw it. But the longer the silence between them stretched, the more panicked she felt. 

That night Cindy was brought the usual, and the boy was brought a bowl of cheap Ramen. Cindy handed him a honeyed roll. “What is your name, boy? I’m Cindy. Please talk to me, I've been here alone for I think three days.” A sniffle came from the boy and he said softly, “Logan. I’m Logan. Mom made me tea last night and then I went to sleep and I woke up in that man’s car. My arm hurts.”

He pulled up his shirt sleeve, revealing a purple bruise the size of a man’s hand. My god, he drugged this boy’s tea and dragged him here. Why is he doing this?? Her dark brown eyes met the boy’s watery blue ones for the first time since they’d met. She just kept handing him her food, unable to eat much due to the swirling in her stomach, even though it was clear that Logan had never missed a meal in his life. They both cried for a long time before transitioning to sleep. 

There was a tiny window near the ceiling of the basement, completely unreachable, that let in faint noise. A police car flashing the mighty red and blue, followed by a blaring firetruck, followed by a rushing ambulance. Then the small voice of a child woke the woman.

“Cindy?” it said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m so scared. I don't want to die.” Something told her that she needed to hug Logan and comfort him.

“You’re not gonna die. Just hold on to me.” 

They passed the days like this. Cindy would give him almost half of her food because the doctor never gave him much. Then they would listen to the noises outside the window and cry and then fall asleep holding each other, desperate for some kind of human love. Desperate for a stranger to care. Cindy started praying again. Their hair was becoming matted. Dark, curly hair and straight, light hair becoming unrecognizable. They couldn't stand the state of things, so Cindy started memorizing the doctor’s schedule; it was time to leave. 

Cindy realized that around the golden hour of the day, when the tiny window turned her light brown skin to honey and illuminated Logan’s eyes, there was no man coming to the basement or footsteps upstairs for a couple hours. If they could drop the chains somehow, Logan would fit through the window. It was dangerous, crazy thinking, but being in this crazy man’s basement was worse than being homeless. At golden hour the next day, Cindy held her hand up to Logan’s ear and whispered a shaky plan.

Logan started crying. “It won’t work,” he kept saying. “We won’t get out of these chains.”

Cindy thought long and hard, tugging on her nearly black hair. But the next day she formed an idea. When the man came down and served them dinner she asked for some exercise, and the man actually let them out of the chains. He watched them closely. Cindy stooped down and picked up the plate he had brought her, pretending that she was about to eat a pile of green beans. But her arm swung up and brought the plate hard onto her captor’s head. The glimmering, white china fell into shards on the cement floor, a strange scene of hope and freedom. 

She grabbed Logan’s hand, screaming, “Hold onto me!” over and over, in a panicked frenzy. They ran up the stairs to the basement door. It was locked. Dead-bolted and hopelessly locked. Cindy screamed and banged on the door, not realizing that Logan had ran back down the stairs to the unconscious form of the man. He yelled at her to stop. 

“Why? Why should I stop? No one is ever going to find us and we’re just going to stay here forever…”

“There is someone else in the house,” Logan said calmly. “There are no keys on him so someone else locked the door. You need to be quiet and get me through the window.”

The window. Cindy had forgotten. What if the rich boy gets out and leaves me forever with the man in the basement?? She wouldn't be able to fit through, so helping the boy out would be her only choice. She had to trust him because they were running out of time. They ran to the window. She hoisted Logan onto her shoulders and he struggled to push the rattling thing open. Then he squeezed through. “Come back for me! Find the police!” She cried. Logan was sprinting away. 

Police lit up the street, and the evil doctor was knocked out cold. They broke down the basement door. They broke down everything. They wrapped Cindy in a blanket and Logan’s desperate parents were grasping at him and crying expensive crystal tears. The EMTs found no wounds on either of them. When Cindy spotted Logan she ran to him, dropped to her knees and hugged him tightly, both crying and thanking the latter. Cindy had kept them hopeful, and Logan had gotten them out. They would never forget each other. You can't forget someone like that. 

When Logan’s parents saw this hug, a crazy Puerto Rican woman they didn't know hugging their sweet boy, they dragged him away, kicking and screaming, “Cindy!” She watched him go, jealous of the warm bath and satin sheets he was going to experience. She still had nothing. The police took her to a homeless shelter and explained the situation to the workers. She was given a cold shower and a bed. 

A year later, Logan sat for breakfast in the dining room with his mom and dad. When he went to the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice, he heard his parents talking about a news article. Something made him stop and listen at the door. 

“It’s the woman, right here in the news,” said Dad.

“What woman?”

“The one from a year ago. When Logan was taken...She was there with him. She overdosed and died. It’s crazy.”

“Are you sure it's the same woman? What's the name?”

“Cindy Rodriguez.”

Logan dropped his glass on the floor, the air exploding with the sound of shattering crystal.