The car was stuffed with tension. That used to make me nervous and chatty, wanting to fill in every jagged crevasse of silence so everything would feel round and smooth. Now, the tension of silence seems so trivial compared to the terror I have survived.
I refused to let the doctor perform a gynecological exam. She insisted, even had the Sheriff come and try to talk me into it. He did--though I’m certain this was good news for him--but I grew hostile. I wasn’t going to let anyone invade me. They’d think it was because of the trauma. That’s what I want them to think. But it’s because I hold a secret inside of me, one that only Sam and I share.
“Vesp,” Carter whispers tenderly as he rushes towards me. His eyes gloss with emotion and that's the moment when I erupt. I was devastated when I lost my grandmother. I cried for days. But after a while, the sharpness of the pain dulls, and you try not to think of the person. That helps the pain recede. Eventually, you stop thinking of them because you realize that's the best way for the pain to stop. Then one day, you can think of them, you can speak of them and it doesn't always stab at your heart and take your breath away. You think you're safe. I remember I thought I was. About two years passed since she had died. I had moved on. And then I was cleaning my room when I found a picture in one of my drawers. It wasn't a good one—the angle tilted, she's reaching out for something that's out of the frame, my leg is peeking into the shot on the floor beneath her. I'm probably sitting down, playing with something. It's of no significance, the photo. Nothing momentous. No one is posing. She's not even smiling. It's probably why it was discarded in a drawer. And yet, when I saw it, when I was unable to brace for the memory of her, for the void—grief shocked me and I found myself in tears.
I had done the same thing with Carter. Pushed him into the recesses of my thoughts. I had forgotten him and the future I had envisioned. When I see him, the grief breaks out of its restraints and takes hold of me. This life, the one I have been redeposited into so mercilessly by Sam, was dead to me. I mourned Carter, this world, and now I'm somehow supposed to believe any of this is real. None of it was ever real, not if it could be taken away from me so easily. Seeing Carter is just like finding that photo. It doesn't bring him back to me. It only brings back the pain.
He wraps his arms around me, but I'm not ready for his touch. His arms are long and lithe, not firm and forceful. He smells of his cologne and the sterility of his hospital, not of man and forest and shampoo lingering on damp hair. Carter is the stranger now, but I know that it's wrong to feel that way, so I let him take what he needs.
After I finish another round of questioning, Ridgefield leads us out a backdoor. I haven't seen them, but it's clear the press is beginning to accumulate outside. He gives me a knowing nod, and a gentle reminder that they will call me with progress and that they may have more questions. I thank him, and Carter places me in the passenger seat of his car as if I was fragile as a glass ornament.
The apartment Carter leads me into is unfamiliar. Not in the abstract sense. When I was taken, he was living with his parents, saving up for his own place. It looks like he moved on with that plan.
“I thought, maybe, going back to the house so fast wasn't a good idea,” he says meekly.
“It's nice,” I mutter, eying the stark interior.
“I haven't had much time or need for decorating. I'm always gone anyway. Maybe you can help me with that,” he suggests, his voice tickled by a tense chuckle.
I give him a tight-lipped smile. I thought I was chatty. It seemed so amongst Sam's silence. But now, I have so little to say. I'm used to long stretches of time without a sound, and now voices seem unwelcome, invasive.
“Are you hungry? I can whip you up something to eat.”
I am. Starving. More importantly, I want to give him something to do other than study me, wondering how he can approach me without shattering me into pieces.
“Sure. I'll take anything. I'd like to take a shower though.”
“Of course, of course!” He hastily leads me to the bathroom, leaving me with a towel and instructions on how to get the perfect temperature using the fickle shower knob.
I lock the door behind me. A ritual I suppose. The click reminding me of the heavy latching sound every time Sam left me in my room. A punctuation. Once telling me I was safe, then as time went on, that I was alone.
The police took my hefty bag and left me in a paper gown. I watch myself in the mirror as I pull it off. My hair is so much longer than when I left, my already slender body, thinner. I run my fingers along my belly. There's no outward evidence of what I once held inside of me. And even though it took me a while to accept the idea of him or her, I came to feel like a mother, to feel sadness at what never was. And no one can ever know. Not even Sheriff Ridgefield.