My Only Hope

  The sun is sinking low in the sky, falling lower than my spirits. It's been six months since the disappearance of Katy Samson. Six months since my kidnapping. Six months spent in a cell-like room with a single-pane window smaller than my head. Six months enduring unspeakable violation and abuse from a man I cannot name. A man I cannot picture without crumpling like a paper ball. 

  This is the man who took me from my parents. This is the man who took what I hoped to give to one I adore. This is the man who killed that one I adore when he took me away. 

Arthur

 It was a bleak February afternoon. His auburn curls shone like the sun in a cold, dim galaxy. His rosy cheeks and warm smile with that familiar gap between his front teeth stood out to me as if he were an angel coming to fly me to Heaven. He was mine. My boyfriend. My best friend. My light. As we tumbled into his pickup, he noticed my shivering and warmed me up with hot chocolate he bought earlier and a kiss. We pulled into the drive-in and set up the blankets in the bed of his truck. Hours swirled by as we settled into the world of superheroes and adventure. 

  As the credits rolled up on the screen, we were pulled back into reality. After packing up we decided to get some pancakes at a nearby diner to celebrate our 1 year anniversary a bit more before taking me home. An innocent decision that would result in my never going home at all. 

  The diner was a ghost-town. Of course, we saw this as a plus, eager to devour food that would surely be cooked much faster. The meal came and went. Syrup went from the bottle to the plates, and occasionally on the table. We ate, laughed, and paid. After zipping into our jackets, turning into Eskimos, we opened the diner’s doors and ‘braved the storm.’ 

    Next to the navy pickup stood a man so pale the moonlight could’ve bounced off of him and danced around the parking lot like ice shards. His stone-cold blue eyes were practically glowing underneath his hood. His glare was for me, and it pierced me like a knife, sending shivers down my spine. Arthur thought nothing of it, whistling to himself, arm wrapped around my limp form. As we approached the truck and the monster beside it, the sound of a cocked gun rang out like a siren, the shots that followed exploding like tanks. Before I could process what had happened, Arthur fell to the concrete, blood a shade darker than his hair stained his face and throat. Kicking and screaming, I was restrained and knocked out with some sort of chemical I cannot place, but guess to be chloroform. 

  Light seeped into my vision as I awoke in the cell, chains on every limb confining any attempt to escape. Where had he gone? Not a moment before the boy who defended me on the playground was beside me whistling Bob Marley. Now his mangled body lies lifeless in a Denny’s parking lot. 

   Months passed this way. It was my idea to go to a diner, Arthur wanted to take me home. I felt some ignorant need to defy my parents and their now understandable curfew. If it weren’t for me, Arthur would still be alive, playing soccer, working at the pet store down the street from our neighborhood. Brightening up the days of everyone who met him. The physical torture and separation from the world was no more unbearable than the remorse I felt each day and the desperate ways in which I wished I could change the past. 

  All that’s changed since the first day of my capture is that I no longer have chains on my hands and I can walk around the “room”. Not that it does me any good. I’m a puppet. An object. He thinks he loves me. He thinks I can feel love for him with this minuscule change in restriction. Each day, as the sun sinks lower into the sky, my hope of escape becomes pulverized into shards as small as the stars that appear after the light is gone. 

  A few days ago, a family moved into the house that sits next to this hell-hole. The small bit of joy I’ve felt in half a year was when I noticed that I could see the bedroom of the two teenage daughters. They have no idea what it feels like to be a prisoner and victim of such violent abuse. Surprisingly, I’m not bitter. I only worry that their lives, friends, possibly boyfriends, are in danger of being demolished like mine was by this criminal who lives next door to them. These people have no idea what goes on here. I wonder what it would be like to talk to them. How they would react if they could see the misery here in the night. If they would get involved or stay silent. Who knows? Maybe we would’ve been friends in school if I hadn’t been the girl in that parking lot last February. 

   All of this has got me thinking, “what if I can get their attention?” It may be futile to hope again, but what choice do I have? If they could just see my face through the small hole that he calls a ‘window’, see how hurt, starved, and terrified I am, maybe I’ll live a life outside this place again. One of the girls’ desks sits in front of their window and she works there each night. Oftentimes, Victor, I learned his name when some man came by threatening him to give him his money for some drug trade,  forgets to throw me some sort of food for ‘dinner’ because he passes out drunk. When he wakes, he stumbles down the steps, alcohol lingering on his mouth to give himself some ‘entertainment’. Before he does, he sleeps through practically everything. The pane of glass is somewhat loose from all the times he presses me against the wall. Two days ago he left a wooden bar in here that he beat me with. It may be hopeless and if I fail, he’ll surely punish me more than I could ever imagine-- but it's my only hope. 

   When I see the girl sit down at her desk, I pick up the bar. With resolve, fear, and determination rolled into one mess in my brain I ram it against the window. Nothing happens. I’m anything but defeated. I have to get out of here. After four attempts, the window begins to budge. I go as far back as possible, make a running start, and thrust the wood into the glass so hard that my head spins as the glass shatters. I hear Victor begin to stir upstairs, undoubtedly coming to give me the beating of a lifetime, but it's done. The girl must’ve heard the glass shatter because I see her gaze fall on me. Her face shows more pity than I’ve ever seen, but it's the fear in her eyes that tells me how horrid I must look with all I’ve experienced here. I begin to scream as loud as I can. I don’t care if he comes faster, because the girl has run further into her house and just before he begins to bound down the steps like a wolf about to kill its prey, I see a tall, bald man run out of their house, phone in one hand, and a gun in the other. 

   He rushes over to the window and tells me that police are on the way, but I can barely understand. He stays right next to me but Victor bursts through the door, drunk and raging as ever, and begins to beat me senselessly. I thrust under his grasp like a wild beast until I hear a bullet whiz through the air and crack into his skull. Somehow, the man must have incredible aim, because the window is extremely small and it only took one shot to knock Victor out. The man meets my gaze and swears to get me out. 

   He stands there for what feels like hours until the sirens come screaming down the street. In a matter of minutes, policemen kick down the door. I run into one man’s arms crying more than I thought I could. He unchains me. Snot pours down my face and it burns with salt. My head throbs and I fall to the ground, exhausted and unable to walk. The same police officer gathers my broken form, no doubt starved almost to death and brings me outside into an ambulance. I become unconscious of the world around me as it is engulfed in darkness.

    I wake in a room so white and clean that in comparison to the disgusting cell I’ve been trapped in, I’m honestly startled. I meet the eyes of my mother, who holds me so tight I can hardly breathe. Then my father drops on top of both of us as we all heave and cry. His familiar scent is like nothing I can explain. It alone is euphoric. I can’t believe I’d ever see or rather smell, my parents again. My little brother pushes them away and jumps on top of me to the dismay of the doctors and my parents, but I hold on tight to him and tell them it's alright. I’ve missed Tommy most of all and kiss his little head and thank God for this moment with all my heart. I’m alive. I’m here. I hear the doctor begin to explain that my digestion system is damaged but it will heal with time. He tells me that the energy I must’ve put in when breaking the window tipped me over the edge and sent me into shock for two days. When he tells me I’m lucky to be alive, all I can do is laugh, which clearly is not the right reaction, but who cares? I of all people know who lucky I am to be alive, but the grief of who isn’t alive begins to sink in. I’ll have to live my life knowing that Arthur is gone from this world forever, and it’s because of me. For the first time since my capture, I try to tell myself that he’s still with me. In my heart, I know that he would’ve fought for me anyways and if I tried to protect him, nothing would’ve changed. It doesn’t change anything, true, but it's a start to living life without him. 

   A few hours later, the man who saved me and his two daughters come to visit. They bring balloons and tell me how sorry they are that they couldn’t have known sooner and helped me. He introduces himself as Paul and his girls, Caroline and Lena. I thank him profusely for all he did to help me and that I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. He almost begins to cry as he tells me how at that moment, he saw his daughters and only did what was right. How could he do otherwise? I get to know Caroline better and when her family decides to go home, she chooses to stay and talk to me for a while. 

   She and I become closer than any friend I’ve ever had. So, Caroline, the girl who saw everything, my only hope, still gives me hope to this day.