Her eyes, which were dark and sort of vacant looking, swung to mine, and though she was looking right at me, it was as if she didn’t see me at all.
“You,” she answered simply. “You’re the one who tried to kill yourself.”
The reply was like a current of supercharged electricity slamming into my chest and electrocuting my entire body. I fell back against the boat. The wood on the bottom dug into my scalp and shoulder blades the second I collapsed. I stared up at the endless sky, inky black without the presence of stars. It served as a backdrop for the memory that overtook my brain, flickering to life like a B-rated horror film.
The terror of the present fell away, and I was transported back to the past.
The night I tried to kill myself.
I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of my own frantic breathing. My lungs wheezed and burned, but I begged them not to fail. If they did, a fate worse than death would befall me.
I was so out of practice in running, but I did it anyway. It was hard and I was scared, but part of my brain flickered with freedom and the rush my limbs got from being able to move the way they were meant to.
My bare feet were cold and numb. I could feel the flesh ripping with every step I took. The rocky, uneven ground tore into my soles like a hungry wolf after the first scent of fresh blood. I kept going, trying not to stumble as I glanced behind me every few seconds.
I heard him yelling, the sound of breaking branches and rustling trees as he lunged after me. He was angry, so, so angry.
I didn’t care. This was my chance, the only one I’d ever had and probably ever would again.
Long-fingered trees reached out to me, my hair tangled in the branches, and I felt it torn from my scalp as I continued to rush. The smell of earth and water was all around, the air tinged with something sweet… something like honeysuckle.
He hollered again, and I tripped and fell. My hands and knees smacked into the ground, the palm of my hand slicing open on a jagged rock. Shoving up off the ground, I continued running, looking for somewhere to hide.
Not far ahead, there was an old hunting stand. I remembered it from the one time I was allowed on this side of the island. I remembered staring up at it, wondering what the view would be like that high above the ground and wondering if I would be able to signal for help.
Glancing behind me once more, I saw he was out of sight. Hope sparked inside me, an emotion I genuinely thought had drained away completely. I surged forward and leapt onto the tree. The ladder leading up was broken, so I had to climb partially up the tree to get to it.
My fingers and toes shredded on the bark, but I clawed my way up until my hands closed around the ladder and I was able to scramble the rest of the way. Once atop the hunting stand, I didn’t admire the view or scream for help. I squished myself as far into the corner, as close to the rotted railing, as I could, rocking back and forth, praying he would forget this place even existed.
The sound of him crashing around below made my body tremble so violently I had to scoot forward so I didn’t fall off the edge of the stand. The view caught my eye, and I noticed the endless stretch of lake just beyond the platform. The sun had nearly set; the hour was twilight, quickly fading into night.
Below, the water was moving rapidly, smacking against itself. The color was ominous and turned up a putrid brown shade.
“Got ya!” he growled, his voice nearby.
A small whimper escaped my throat, and I went to the other side of the platform to stare down below the tree. Our eyes met and held.
He smiled.
I wondered if I would see a pleasant smile ever again. I probably wouldn’t even recognize what it looked like.
“Nowhere to go now,” he intoned and started his climb up the tree.
Frantic, I looked around, trying to figure a way out. But there was none. I was trapped. He was coming for me, and the spark of hope I’d felt only moments ago extinguished.
A tear tracked down my cheek, and I wished for death as I had a thousand times before. Death would be far better than the existence I was sentenced to.
I was young, though, something he loved to taunt me with. As if my age were a weapon. He liked to remind me I still had decades before my body even thought about giving up on me. Decades to be nothing but a prisoner, a slave to be used and abused.
No more. If my body refused to give up on me, then I would give up on it.
He crested the ladder and hoisted himself onto the platform. His dark hair and eyes made him look like Satan. He was practically salivating, and I swallowed back the urge to vomit.
“Stay back,” I warned, throwing out a palm to shield myself.
He laughed. “You’re mine. Mine to do with what I will.”
“No,” I said, rallying from my bone-deep exhaustion to put up a final display of defiance. “Never again.”
He must have seen the look in my eye, or maybe he smelled the death already clinging to my bare skin. He gasped and started forward, but it was too late.
I took a running leap off the high stand, plummeting into the rocky coastline of the lake. Cold water slammed into me, enveloping me. It slid down my throat and into my nose. My body wanted to rise back up, but I forced myself down and found a moment of pure peace, something I hadn’t known in so very long.
Maybe drowning was a peaceful way to die. It was quiet down here. The water didn’t hurt me, but sort of cushioned my body as I waited to die.
I’d daydreamed about killing myself, about dying, so many times. I lived in fear, though. Fear of everything around me, of everything done to me. I had even been afraid of dying.
But now I knew. I knew death wasn’t scary. It was freedom.
My lungs seized, breaking into the peace I reached for. My body began to fight what was happening, and I surged toward the surface. Even as my brain shouted, No! my body took control.
The closer I got to the surface, the clearer the dark figure became. He was here. Of course he was. He couldn’t even let me die in peace.
I hated him.
My head broke the surface, my lungs gulping in giant drafts of oxygen.
“You’re mine,” he yelled, reaching for me.
I kicked and fought, slapping away his hands.
“No!” I went back under, but he grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked.
I fought him again. My wet body made it easy to slip away. I started to tread backward, though my limbs were sluggish and heavy.
I watched him pick up the oar he used to row out to where I’d been. “When you wake up, your punishment will be waiting,” he growled, swinging the wood down.
My body sank with the force of the hit, the dark, cold water claiming my body as unconsciousness claimed my mind.
In the end, it hadn’t been a bad way to die. Life had been far, far worse.
I didn’t die.
I’d merely fallen unconscious, carried away by the overzealous current, then floated to the surface where I bobbed and drifted to where Eddie had been walking.
He’d been trying to knock me out so he could tow me back to shore. He hadn’t tried to kill me.