Fear has a way of crippling me, making it impossible for me to think or put one foot forward.
I wasn’t scared earlier. When everyone was here helping me get moved in, I didn’t feel fear digging its claws into me the way I feel it now. I didn’t even feel it right after I walked my parents and Sam’s family to the door to say good night.
They were the ones fighting the fear bug then, lingering at the front door, reminding me to call if I needed anything at any hour, confirming they’d be back over after breakfast to finish unpacking. The look on Mom’s face had convinced me she was going to spend the night camped out on my front stoop, but she left. After Dad practically dragged her away.
The fear doesn’t hit me until I start turning off the lights, one by one, around my little apartment. The fear doesn’t find me until darkness casts its veil around me and welcomes me into it.
I focus on my breathing and tell myself I’m safe and there’s nothing to be scared of, but it doesn’t help. The fear only gets worse with every light that switches off.
The apartment is still in Sammamish, in a gated community. My parents even had a security system installed, and Dad pulled me aside before they left to tell me he’d stationed canisters of pepper spray at my front door, back door, kitchen window, nightstand, and in my purse. He’d also propped one of his old bats in the corner of my bedroom. I know he’s just trying to make me feel safe—they all are—but the security system and pepper spray and gates make the world seem more scary, not less.
The apartment is about a thousand square feet, but as it gets darker, it shrinks. First down to half its size, then a quarter, until it’s become a small, dark closet I feel trapped inside of.
My hands tremble as I walk through my new room toward my bed. I’ve set the alarm, double-checked the locks, made sure the stove is off, and turned off the lights. This is what adults do when they go to bed. They don’t break out in a cold sweat and feel like a scream’s crawling up their throat with every dark second that passes.
This is being an adult. The first day in my new life. I knew it would be hard . . . I can handle it. This night will be the hardest. Tomorrow will be easier, and each one after will follow the same trend until I can flip off the lights, crawl into bed, and fall right asleep. Until one day, the dark won’t hold sway over me.
My heartbeat is the only thing disturbing the silence.
When I sit on the edge of the bed, I tell myself to lie down and crawl under the covers. I can’t. The dark isn’t as thick as the kind I’ve known, but the little bit of light cutting through the drawn shades is drawing patterns on my walls, sketching images I’m reading too much into.
When I close my eyes, the dark’s still there.
My heart picks up speed, and my breath follows.
A crashing sound erupts from right outside my room. It’s so loud that when I spin around, I expect to find a smashed piano that has dropped from the sky in front of my rocking chair.
But my room’s the same. Nothing’s different.
I hear another crash; this one seems even louder. If it’s not inside my room, it has to be right outside my room. From the sound of it, just outside my window or the back door coming off the miniscule laundry room.
Someone’s trying to break in. Someone knows I’m here and is coming to take me. For another decade or forever this time. He’s here, and this time, I’m not getting out.
I grab my phone from my nightstand, fly across the room, and duck into the closet. After throwing the doors closed, I slide back until I find the corner. I can’t tell if the crashing noise I hear is an echoing in my head or real. So I cover my ears and close my eyes, but it’s still there. It can’t be real. I couldn’t hear that sound with my ears covered like this—it would be duller, not so sharp, like it’s clapping right between my ears.
I tell myself this, over and over again, but it doesn’t chase away the fear. Fear stays fitted around me like a suit of armor, heavy and impenetrable.
I lift the phone and focus on its light. I want to call my parents. I want to beg them to come get me and keep me safe. I want to ask them to lock me in a cell that no one has the key to. I want to ask them to hide me from the world for the rest of my life so I don’t have to feel like this.
Right now, I’d exchange uncertain freedom for a safe cage. I wouldn’t think twice about it.
That’s why I know I can’t call them. I can’t let them know I’m so terrified I just want to crawl into Mom’s lap and let her rock away my fears. I can’t let them know I feel so exposed that I want to slip under their blankets and fall asleep between them.
I can’t let them know I feel the same way they do, because then I’ll never get better. I’ll continue to stagnate on my best days and decay on my worst.
I can’t get better by giving in to my fear—I can only get better by facing it.
When I hit the call button, it isn’t the number to my parents. It’s not even the one to Sam’s cell. It’s the number I still have in the number one spot.
Even though I haven’t called it in two weeks. Even though I should probably delete it. Even though . . . he’s still in the number one spot.
My hands are still shaking as the phone rings, but they’re not quaking as they had been.
The phone rings twice, then three times, and when it hits a fourth, I worry he’s not going to answer. I worry he’s never going to answer again because I’ve done enough damage and he’s had enough.