I don’t know what that reward will be, but more will come if I continue to bend to his will. He demands. I submit. Reward. I know the whole point of bending is to get someone to their breaking point because once they’re broken, a person can build them back however they want.
I know he wants to break me. I know he wants to build me back into Sara, his daughter. I know that’s why he took me because if he did it for the typical reason men abduct young girls, that would have already been revealed. In that way, I don’t have to fear him, but at this point, bending to breaking and becoming Sara seems just as terrifying.
All I’ve got left of myself is my name and the images of the life I had. If I become Sara, all of that goes. If I bend, then I’ll break, and a knife will run across the throat of that whole life.
“Sara, are you asleep? We need to talk sometime. You can’t stay in there forever.” Three more knocks.
The dark seems to circle around me tighter until it feels like a python coiled from my ankles to my chin. I wake up feeling like this all the time. Like I’m being suffocated. I wake up feeling like I’m dying, gasping for breath, and it isn’t until I’ve managed to catch my breath and remember where I am that I wish the dark would just finish the job already. Just suffocate me and be done with it.
The dark constricts more tightly around me, and when I choke out loud, I realize why I feel like something’s choking the breath out of me—I’m picturing him. In my mind, I’m holding on to the picture of him on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, staring at me like we had forever.
We did have forever. For all of thirty seconds before someone stole it because we were both fools to believe in the promise of forever. The only promise is that there is no promise. Forever can be destroyed as easily as a blade of grass can be trampled. Forever is fragile. Forever is fleeting. Forever is finite.
Forever is gone.
When I clear the image of him from my mind, I feel the black recede. When I bury the image in the dusty, dark attic of my memory, I feel the black almost disappear completely.
“Sara? Just talk to me. We can work this out. Everything can go back to the way things used to be, I know it.”
His voice doesn’t sound as evil as it used to. Without travelling through the film of panic, I think I’ve translated his tone more accurately—it’s sadness I hear. After everything, I’m better equipped to identify it.
I haven’t spoken to him in days, maybe weeks. I gave up shouting at him and screaming for answers. I gave up demanding to be let go and threatening that he’d be found and locked away for good.
I gave up.
I guess I was finally ready to give up the rest.
“Yeah?” My voice is hoarse from underuse. It’s strange how it can become the same after hours of screaming, but I guess silence is its own kind of scream. “I’m awake.”
I feel another piece of me crumbling away into that void, but it doesn’t stop me. I’m going to fall apart either way—I might as well do it with the chance of finally getting out of this hell like he’s been promising from the beginning. I’ll earn my freedom . . . by imprisoning the old me.
Outside the door, he is quiet. When I hear him clear his throat, it sounds like he has to dislodge something from it.
“I’ve missed you so much.” He clears his throat again. “I’m sorry I had to put you in there, Sara, but I couldn’t have you getting away from me again. I know you were confused when you left with your mom. I’m not angry. I’m just happy you’re back.”
I feel tears well in my eyes, but I force them to seep back into wherever they came from. Jade was crying, but she was gone. Or about to be.
“Me too.” My hollow voice echoes in the small space. Already I don’t recognize it.
“I’m going to open the door and let you out, but you have to promise you’re not going to try running away again. You have to promise that if I let you out, you won’t try to escape.”
I hear the key clicking into the lock, but it hasn’t turned over yet. He’s waiting.
When I close my eyes, it’s dark. It used to feel the opposite. That was part of the reason why I slept so much. Now though, it’s darker when I close my eyes. “I promise. I won’t run.”
I couldn’t run if I wanted to. Those muscles have been turned into mush from the feel of them.
He’s still waiting. I know what for, but in order to say it, I have to build that wall between lives a little higher. I have to make it a little thicker.
“I promise”—the word tastes bitter in my mouth—“Dad.”
He sighs, then the key turns. He’s come in before to change my bucket and drop off fresh supplies, but he’s always ordered me to tuck into the corner and close my eyes. He isn’t demanding that right now.
Is this my reward? All of it or part of it? The chance to catch a glimpse of light—to see something other than black—makes my body rock with a sob. Light. After being held captive by weeks of dark, the slightest flicker of it would light up my whole world.
When the door opens, I’m blinded by light. I have to cover my eyes because it’s daytime for the first time when that door’s been opened, and I feel like the sun’s blasting five feet in front of me. I never knew light could be just as blinding as its counterpart, but I’ve been learning lots of lessons lately.
Even though I can’t see it, I feel it. It’s subtle warmth. It attaches to my skin until I can almost feel it seeping deeper.