Trapped

My life hasn’t always been this bleak. I used to feel the grass on my toes and the sun on my face. I used to feel the leather of a steering wheel under palms and the feeling of control. I used to go to bed every night thinking about my friends and what I would do with them on the weekend. I used to be alive.

Now I am just living.

He took me when my life was about to begin. When I could remember the feeling of a warm embrace from my mom, and the sound of my dad’s laugh. It was the summer before my freshman year of college. I had just graduated highschool and I felt my entire life ahead of me. I had a plan, I had a roommate, I had my class schedule, I even had sheets for my new bed. That’s when I was snatched off my road and left on a dead end. No plan. No love. No life.

There are many what ifs about that night. What if I hadn’t gone to the bar that night. What if I hadn’t drunk that drink he handed me. What if the bartender who watched him spike it had said something. What if my friends hadn’t left me there with him thinking I was going home with him anyway. What if. It’s hard to spend 4 years thinking about what could have happened when it already did. It can drive one insane. That’s what he tells me. He tells me I’m crazy and I should be happy here, with him. 

The first week I spent alone in his room, “our room” he calls it, he told me he’d give me space. That I needed to come to terms with my life and stop daydreaming about the fake one I used to live. I’d scream at him when he called it fake, because it was real, and he was the one who had stolen it away like it meant nothing. After a while I stopped yelling. I let him lock me in the room when I was having one of those “episodes” as he called it. Code for a “you kidnapped me and I want my old life back” tantrum. He tried to seduce me into some Stockholm Syndrome type shit, as if I was some crazy bitch who wanted his validation. When he realized I wasn’t going to budge, he just left me to my depression. I sat on the couch all day and moved to the room at night. It became ritual, routine, life. The door was always locked, so I stopped trying. 

In the beginning, he tried sneaking pills into my food at night. I could feel the hard pill in my mouth like I was some dog that needed coaxing. I would spit it back at his face. He began putting the powder in my food instead so I stopped eating. He finally stopped after 4 days of me refusing food and barely drinking water. He bargained with me, he pleaded, and he gave up. A month later he began to try again, and in order to make him stop, I just fake swallowed them and spit them out when he turned away. It was satisfying to defy him, even in this little way. 

One night it took him so long to turn away that the pill had dissolved under my tongue. I tried to throw it up but he had blocked the bathroom. When I awoke I felt no different. Still, there was something evil about those pills, I just know it. 

He knew I had given up trying to escape when I stopped talking about my old life. I stopped trying to guilt him into letting me leave. He would always just tell me that he was my life and I had nothing out there, no one who cared for me like he did. I would tell him stories of my mom tucking me into bed at night and my dad sitting next to me reading stories. I would tell him what my friends were like, each and every one of them. How Margaret had bangs and straight, greasy hair. She wanted to become a professional singer, but her voice was nasally and untrainable. How Sarah had the most beautiful eyes, and how she would brag about her grades like any of us cared. How Catherine had huge, frizzy hair that would just be manageable if she learned how to style it. How Annie had the most beautiful body, but the ugliest face. She would throw herself around at any boy who looked her way, even the ones taken by her friends. 

As I would ramble, he would start to tear up. At first I believed I was piercing his hard exterior and he would see that the life he snatched me from was better than this nothing life, but he never listened long. He would get up and slam the door to his room and stay there alone, for hours. It was as if he was sad I couldn’t just let it go and live with him forever in this hole of despair.

What he knew didn’t change the truth. I was going to escape one day. I just had to keep convincing him I had become complacent. I stopped talking about my real life all together. I began calling his room ours. I even tried seducing him into thinking I was okay. If he ever brought up my life I would agree and tell him that it was fake and meaningless and that he was where I needed to be. That this little apartment was and always will be my true life. 

At moments when I was at my lowest I almost forgot about life outside of this place. Life outside of his pristine, gray apartment with its new furniture and clean kitchen. At moments I thought, it could be worse, he could have killed me instead. Or he could be messy. He was almost OCD in the way that he cleaned everything I touched three or four times until he was satisfied. When I asked about it, he would tell me we’ve all got our issues, and stare into my soul like I had one too. Like he wasn’t the psycho kidnapper. 

When I forgot about my life outside these walls, it lifted the weight of sadness off my shoulders, but only for a moment. If I had kept on track I’d have just graduated college, my adult life beginning with a job, or an internship, or a new apartment. My beloved room at home with its light purple walls from elementary school and the shelves and shelves of books. I used to be smart, driven, head stuck in a book, effortlessly getting good grades without trying much. Now I just sat around waiting for my life to begin, but it never would. The first time I asked him for a book he told me that I never used to read, but I told him he didn’t know me. He said he’d never seen me read before as if he had ever offered to give me one in the first place. I gave up trying to explain.

Around a month ago was when I started to think to the future and not the past. A month ago I began to plan. I studied his schedule. When he went to the grocery store. When he went to the bathroom. When he woke up and when he went to bed. I had his little life written down on a piece of paper, belittling it down to basic necessities. He almost never derived from the sheet. His life was planned and sterile. I would find a hole if I looked hard enough. A dirty little mark in his life that he just couldn’t scrub away. Yesterday, I found it. 

I watched as he ate his breakfast, the same every morning, staring at him over my own. He barely looked at me anymore, like I was a burden he wanted to forget about. He used to dote on me and ask me how I was feeling, and if I felt any better, but it seems he gave up a long time ago. I’m going to feel better today. I’m getting out. He spooned more of his oatmeal into his mouth. I watched. He put his bowl in the sink. I watched. He scrubbed it clean. I watched. Finally he looked at me.

“You’ve been acting strange recently.” He studied my eyes. I wondered if they had a crazed look to them.

“Strange how?”

“I don’t know, I feel like you’re staring at me all the time, but when I turn around you’re just scribbling in that notebook I bought you.” His eyebrows bunched together in concern. For me or him I did not know.

“I told you, I’m journaling my feelings.”

“I know, it’s just I thought you were getting better. I thought you were finally adjusting back to your old self but now I’m not so sure.” I never knew what he meant by old self. I usually just figured he stalked me before he snatched me, but when I asked he just shook his head.

“I am getting better. This journal is really helping. I promise.” He didn’t respond right away. He just looked into my eyes like he could decipher the truth if he stared long enough. Eventually he gave up and turned back to the sink to wash it three more times before setting it out to dry. I knew what I had to do, and I had to do it soon. I hesitated before making my decision. 

“I don’t think I feel so well.” He turned around just in time for me to hold my hand over my mouth and run to the bathroom. I shoved my finger down my throat on my sprint and made sure I didn’t make it to the toilet before I vomited all over the bathroom floor.

“Jesus!” He yelled, rushing in behind me to look at the scene in horror. He was already thinking about how many times he would have to spray and scrub to alleviate his anxiety. 

“Sorry.” I mumbled weakly.

“It’s not your fault it’s just…” He just kept staring. He snapped out of his stupor and ran to get his cleaning supplies before I could even move. I just had to wait a moment longer.

He returned with every spray and sponge in the house and got on his hands and knees.

“Go lay down on the couch, I'll clean this up okay.” He didn’t even look up. I stood there, mustering up my courage for a whole thirty seconds before I did it. I slowly leaned down, my fingers shaking, and grabbed the key hooked around his belt. In his frenzy, he didn’t even notice. I backed away slowly, turning toward the door. My eyes bulged with fear and anticipation. 

My legs wobbled as I crept my way around the corner. My fingers shook as I turned the lock. My heart almost gave out when the door stood ajar before me, inviting me back to the real world in an open embrace.

I looked behind me for just a moment, to say goodbye to the life I had tolerated for four years. I said goodbye to its loneliness, and its obsession. I didn’t need to say goodbye to him. I looked forward, and I ran. 

I was at the base of the stairs when I heard him scream my name, but I was flying. I was running at a speed only someone with no chains to hold them down any longer could run. I raced against time. I raced against a villain.

“Stop!” He yelled, “Don’t do this to yourself! You don’t know what you will find out there!” He spewed his nonsense as he ran down the stairs to catch me, slowed down by his preaching. “No one cares for you like I do!”

I reached the last set of stairs that led to the front door when I tripped. The world was a blur of pain and fear. Then I was laying sprawled in front of the door, gasping for breath. He stood at the top, staring at me like I had died, hand over his mouth. When I lifted my head he let out a loud breath of air, but stayed where he stood.

“I’m serious. Listen to me. If you leave that door I am not coming back for you. You are leaving behind the only person who ever tried to help you.” I squinted at him as my head pulsed in pain, wondering if I was even comprehending what he was saying. We stared at each other, and stared, and stared. After what felt like an hour he took my silence for agreement and took a single, cautious step down the stairs. I sat up and pushed the door open, dizzy with pain, leaving him behind forever. The last look I saw on his face was anguish.

The city streets were pulsing with life. I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down my face and the adrenaline pumping through me telling me to move. I slipped into my old life almost immediately, my hand raised to call a cab before I had even realized. 

I sat in the back of a cigarette smelling, janky old yellow car, but nothing had ever smelled more familiar and delicious in my life. I missed the smell of anything but Clorox. I missed being able to leave a fingerprint on a counter without it being erased in seconds. I missed leaving a mark on the world. I missed my parents. 

My legs bounced in the seat, anxiety washing over my limbs. I thought of how happy they would be when I knocked on their door. How we would hug, and cry, and laugh, and cry. How they would praise God for bringing me back home to them. How the smell of home would fill my nostrils and set me free. 

I was standing before the door when I remembered how crazy I must look. My hair was a mess, blood stained my clothes from my fall, my feet were barefoot. I started to smooth my hair when the door began to open. 

A million sensations came at once. My home smelled different. My dad’s hand on the doorknob was wrinklier. My mom’s voice was more shrill. She called for him to have a nice day at work when he looked up and saw my face. 

The elation I expected to see in his eyes was not present. He just stared at me like he was waiting for me to talk first. I peered into the apartment to see that it was slightly different than I remembered it. They must have let it go with their grief of losing me. I looked back at his face, where hatred had begun to bloom.

“I thought I told you to never come back.” My heart began to bleed. He must be confused. He must not recognize my face, with the four years of grief and sorrow I must look different.

“Dad, it’s me. I’m back.” I tried to walk in when he blocked the door.

“Don’t let your mother see you this way. Leave now before I call him.” 

“Call who?” He sighed in frustration and closed the door, shutting us into the hallway.

“I told you if you didn’t get help you could just go and live with your crazy boyfriend and live in your delusion, so go do it. I already tried fixing you but you can’t be fixed.”

“Dad?” I laughed nervously, hoping this was some sort of practical joke. I had been kidnapped for god sake.

“I told you to go.” The tone of his voice shocked me to my core and sent me back to another time. In that moment, the entirety of my life rushed back at me in full force, sending me stumbling backwards, falling to my knees on the floor, gasping for air. It was then that I realized my fault. I wasn’t kidnapped. My life wasn’t great. I was broken and I could never be fixed.