It’s an eerie sense of calm, that rolls of your body after extreme pain. As if you are only allotted a certain amount of tearful sobs before your nose becomes raw, your eyes run dry, and your lips crust over with that white spit. It’s almost comforting, taking you back to the time when things were simpler and you invested as much energy into crying over a boyfriend or not being able to go out. You know, because those were the things that threatened to end your life as you knew it. Stupid. It’s strange though, I fear that I have nothing left in me to fight this, not that I’m accepting things, but that I’m allowing them to unfold. With or without my consent--I know that this reality...will unfold.
I can hear him, I presume it’s a man because of the heavy sounds his footsteps make creaking across the floor as he paces. I picture him like a caged tiger, pacing and thinking, thinking and pacing. Growing more and more restless with each footstep. Is it strange I cannot remember his face? I guess that’s because it all happened too fast. I wish I would have fought him harder, I wish I would have done alot of things. How can you rationalize the cliche phrase, “everything happens for a reason” in situations like this?
He has started bringing me food. I didn’t eat it at first, but my ravenous hunger forced me into it. Secretly, I was hoping it was laced with poison so I could end my misery. I thought about starving myself to death--but the idea of poison seemed less painful. Sadistic, but I have begun to wonder what will happen to me. My future seems more frightening than death. He doesn’t know how to cook, it makes me feel like he has been alone his whole life, rotting away in solitude fueling his sick mind. He brings me toast, white bread which I hate, and various fruit from a can. Sometimes, if his opera music isn’t playing I can hear him open the can, and then I know that I will be eating soon. My life has boiled down to listening to the life of the man who has taken mine from me.
The knock at the door interrupted my thoughts. I swear my heart stopped beating. The door nudged open and a ray of light sliced through the dark. His slim shadowy frame hovered nervously, tentatively, “I um, brought you your lunch. I hope you like it.” He inched forward and set the tray down on the floor, a safe distance from where I sat.
“Are you going to say thank you? Are you going to say anything?” His small voice inquired.
“Who the fuck are you?” I snapped, the rage boiling up in my body.
“I had to protect you. I’m sorry the circumstances aren’t ideal, I really am sorry.”
“Protect me from what? I don’t think anything could be worse than this, death trap.”
“Death trap?” He sounded surprised, his face still covered in the shadow.
“Just put me out of my misery. Why are you even feeding me?” I felt the hatred seething off my tongue, I wanted to claw out his eyes. I hated him, my faceless captor.
He struggled with the words, clearing his throat awkwardly, after what felt like minutes he whispered, “because I love you.”
Part 4
I have ate 3 meals. I have lived another 3 days. We have not spoken since, mainly because I ignore him and turn my back to him when he enters the room. I have never contemplated how to kill someone until now, I think about how I can escape and how I can kill him in the process. He should not live for what he has done to me. I need to keep track of time, so I decided that the day he said he was in love with me was Monday. The worst day of the week. So today is Wednesday. Humpday, I used to have 4 classes on Wednesday, comfort myself with knowing I would be going out with my friends Thursday night--I think that’s why it is called Humpday, you need the promise of tomorrow to get you through it.
I haven’t seen the sun in so long, I just want to move again, to live again. I have started doing jumping jacks, push ups, and crunches. That is the only time I feel something, feel movement, hear my own breathing. I think I need to try something different, a different tactic. They always say that having someone love you gives you power, love makes you vulnerable, extends you for the opportunity to get your heartbroken. So, perhaps in some way I have power over him. If he loves me, he will want me to be happy. I mean, there is a chance I have got it all wrong. Obviously he is a sociopath, normal people do not go around kidnapping young women in a taxi cab. But, If he is, in love with me, he must know me. If he knows me, he must have been watching me. For how long? And protecting me from what? Do I know him? Has he gone unnoticed, undetected, in my everyday life? I hate that all I can do is sit here with these thoughts, how ironic that now I’m obsessing about him. So I guess the common thread between me and the sociopath is obsession. Tomorrow, I will try and change my tactic, appeal to the emotional side of him, the weak..vulnerable side.
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