I do, though. I saw it. Her eyes flickered the slightest bit and a twinge made her wrinkle her nose. She didn’t like those questions.
“I don’t know what’s in store for me. I’m going to school, living on my own for the first time, and I like it. I do hope that someday I will find someone, but I . . .” Her voice drifts and she’s silent for a moment. She bends her head, her hair falling in front of her face, and I watch, mesmerized yet again, even though I’ve seen this many times. “I’m not sure it’s in the cards for me,” she finishes softly.
“What isn’t in the cards for you? Marriage?” Lisa is like a dog with a bone. She never lets go. Not until she gets what she wants. And she wants to sexualize Katie. In a nice way, in a proper way, with marriage and children and all the things we’re expected to do as good little citizens of the world.
“All of it,” Katie says with a nod, lifting her head, her gaze meeting Lisa’s once more. “I don’t know if I’m capable of it. Of trusting anyone.”
And that last sentence is what kills me.
He ruined everything. Fucking everything for this girl. She trusts no one. She believes she can love no one. Worse, I wouldn’t doubt for a moment she thinks she’s unlovable.
I can relate. I am unlovable. At least, that’s what I always believed, for all these years as I continued on and tried to find a new way to live my life. Not under the shadow of my father, who sits on death row almost gleefully. I wonder what he thinks of Katie’s interview.
Because I’m sure he watched every single fucking second of it. Just like me.
Just like me.
He wasn’t coming back.
I figured he was full of crap. A liar. I didn’t know who he was. Or what his name was, either. What did he want? How did he find me? I didn’t even know where I was. I caught a glimpse out of the storage shed’s dirty window the first night I was brought here, right before the man slipped the blindfold over my eyes and shrouded me in darkness. But all I saw was an empty backyard, with the exception of a lone, faded and chipped horse that looked like it came from a carousel leaning against the fence. Seeing that horse made me feel sad. It didn’t belong here.
I didn’t belong here, either.
The man hadn’t come back since early this morning. He brought me a donut for breakfast and I devoured it, not caring that the glaze was damp and sticky and that it tasted stale. I was starving. I was still starving. My stomach growled and I pressed my forehead against the wall, closed my eyes, and willed the hunger pains to go away.
My mom’s face loomed in my mind and I squeezed my eyes closed even tighter, trying to cling to hope, to the future. I saw her face, Daddy’s face, my sister’s face, Sarah’s face, and I hoped they weren’t too worried about me. That they were looking for me. Were they? Would they find me? Would anyone find me?
No.
The tears came. Slowly. My eyes burned, my throat ached, and I swallowed the sob, forced it down like it was food and would sustain me for a little while longer. I needed something to sustain me. I’d lost all hope. He’d be back soon. He’d touch me, force himself on me, put his mouth on me, and oh my God . . .
I banished the thoughts, the horror, the realness from my brain. Shuttered it closed, like I’d become so good at doing.
When I shifted my legs, the chains were loud as they clanked against the floor and I winced at the twinge between my legs. I hurt everywhere, but especially there. I was bruised and battered, the inside of my thighs black and blue, my chest, my legs and arms . . .
Marks everywhere. He was brutal in his handling of me. Like I was a rag doll, tossing me around, readjusting me, spreading my legs, moving my arms, tilting my head just so. He wanted me to look a certain way, every single time, and I didn’t understand it.
I thought about his hands. Blunt fingers. Wide palms. The sound they made, like the crack of a gunshot when he slapped my face. The sting of my skin every time his hands made contact, the crawling just beneath my flesh, like little worms twisting along my muscles and bones, burrowing deeper inside me. I shivered, and fear made my stomach clench. He’d be here soon and I didn’t know if I could take another visit from him. I didn’t know if he could take another visit. After what happened last time . . .
I tried to swallow. My throat was scratchy like sandpaper, the tendons enflamed. I had bruises there around my neck. I wouldn’t doubt if they were formed in the imprint of his fingers, five little marks on one side, five purplish smudges on the other. From when he choked me so hard my head hit the mattress with a dull thud again and again and I swore I was going to black out.