“Jade Childs?” the older man says, lifting his hands when I try crawling away again.
The collar tears at my scab as I move. I feel more warm trickles wind down my neck, soaking into the collar of my sweater.
Both men look at me like they’re having to try very hard to keep a brave face. The younger one has a harder time with this. Each time his eyes drop to my collar, the length of chain trailing off of it, he diverts his eyes like the sight is too much for him.
I don’t blame him though. The first time I saw my reflection in the mirror— that metal collar fitted around my neck—I threw up. I didn’t stop until my stomach was empty and my throat felt raw from the acid.
When I don’t say anything, the older man lowers his hands and digs something out of the front pocket of his vest. It’s a photocopy of a picture of a girl. Not the same girl whose photo is hanging on the wall beside me.
“Are you Jade Childs?” he asks me, turning the photo toward me.
I stare at the picture for a minute, trying to remember her. I stare at it for another minute, trying to remember what she liked and who she was and what her dreams were. I can’t though because that girl’s gone. The life and soul was choked out of that girl years ago, compliments of the collar still around her neck and the man who locked it there.
The men are waiting for my answer, so I shake my head and look away. “No, I’m not her. I’m Sara Jackson.”
I EXPERIENCED A living nightmare once. I’d hoped life would spare me a repeat.
My head is foggy from the drugs they’ve pumped into me. My body’s numb from the same. When I tried ripping out the IV so I could attempt to invoke one clear thought of my own, my hands were confined. They keep telling me I’ve been saved and am safe, but so far, none of this feels any different from what Earl Rae did to me.
He burst into my life and took me without my consent as they did. He confined me to a small space, pumping me full of drugs as they are doing. He punished me when I didn’t do what he wanted as they have. He restrained me when I resisted, taking away my freedom, just as they have.
If this is what being saved means, I want a pass. I want my old life in that small house in the middle of nowhere back because at least there, I’d gotten used to it. I had a schedule. I had fifteen feet of freedom inside a house instead of being strapped to a small hospital bed.
I’ve been told I’m at Seattle Mercy Hospital in Seattle, but I’m not sure how long I’ve been here or really much of anything else. The nurses and doctors whisk out as quickly as they whisk in. With the drugs pulling me under every few minutes, I’ve probably only been here for hours instead of the days it feels like.
I could ask. They probably would answer me. I could ask what happened to Earl Rae. I could ask where I’ve been living for years. I could ask just how many years I’ve been missing. I could ask any one of the million questions I have, but I don’t because I know the answers can be summed up in one phrase—I don’t want to know.
If I want any chance of making whatever kind of life a person like me can have going forward, I have to bury all of the past and pretend it doesn’t exist. The only way to have a future is to murder the past. To cut its throat, let it bleed out, and bury it in an unmarked grave.
The machines surrounding me beep every few seconds. I guess that means I’m alive, but I’ve never felt so dead. Well, other than those first few months after Earl Rae took me. The machine on my left shows my heart’s still beating, but it isn’t. Not really.
The room is dark and quiet. They gave me a private room when I was whisked in, and I’m thankful for that. My life has been so small for so long I’m not sure what would happen if I were thrown into all of the stimulation of the outside world all at once. The light, the noise, the smells, the people . . . I panic just thinking about it.
My head’s melting into my pillow again—the drugs are strong—when the door opens. At first I think it’s a man coming in, but when the person moves closer, I can see it’s a woman. She has short hair, is tall enough to play in the WNBA, and is in slacks and a button-down shirt. She isn’t dressed like the doctors and nurses. She isn’t in a SWAT uniform either. She’s wearing normal clothes—the first person I’ve seen in them.
She moves slowly across the room after closing the door. Her shoes barely make a noise on the tile floor. “Good evening. I’m Dr. Argent. I’m a psychiatrist who works with the hospital in certain instances. Is it okay if I sit down and talk with you for a minute?”