He pulls his hand away and I spit out the bits of bread lodged in my mouth.
“You see?!” I scream. “I'm supposed to trust you? I'm supposed to believe you don't want to kill me when you've been killing me little by little every single day? You can beat me, you can strip me. Put me out in the woods. But I won't eat!” I screech at the top of my lungs.
There's no logic in my protest. This strike started out to keep me alive, but he might kill me right now. No. This is about something else. I'm still not sure what. It's not survival, that's for sure.
He picks up the tray and flings it across the room, juice, toast and hardboiled eggs exploding every which way.
“You want to play this fucking game?” he points a finger at me. “You have no idea how bad things can get. I'm gonna give you one day to reconsider. Because if you don't, you will know what it really feels like for me to want to kill you.”
He marches out of the cabin, slamming the door so hard I swear he's dislodged the frame.
I let out a desperate scream. I don't know what I'm doing or why. I don't know if this man cares that I live or die. And it hurts more than anything to think he might actually care more than my own mother. The man who mocks me with articles reminding me that I am one of the forgotten. The man who keeps me locked in a room. I'm supposed to believe he wouldn't dare poison me?
The mess he left torments me. Not in the way that I want to pick through the debris to eat it, but in that it roils my stomach. I run to the bathroom and vomit bile.
“Nononono…” I whisper to myself with a sudden realization, the thought so traumatic, that perhaps I've deluded myself into thinking of grand poisoning conspiracies.
In nursing school, we had to take a psychology class. I remember learning that sometimes people disassociate to protect themselves from their reality. As I crawl into bed, that thought sits on the surface. I'm unwilling to fully uncloak it and examine why I would make myself believe I was poisoned, and exactly what aspect of my reality am I trying to mask.
I don't want to hit her or torture her. We had a good thing going for a while. A routine. We gave each other what the other needed. She was complaint and it seemed accepting of the circumstances. Then one minute, I'm watching her masturbate to thoughts of me, the next she's in a frenzy claiming I've poisoned her.
She had asked me for weeks for ways to stimulate her mind. Maybe I fucked up and was too hard on her. But now, if I give her something, it'll make her think acting up reaps benefits. No. Four months and I'll have to go back to square one. No contact. No food. No water. Until she breaks again. Hopefully this time, it'll be even harder on her and she'll realize she needs me. That she's happier when she just accepts that.
But I still don't get it. Yes, she was acting a little odd, but not much more so than what I see average people doing alone. Average people talk to themselves, they cry alone, they do all kinds of weird things when no one's looking. Her demise came so abruptly.
I keep rethinking my strategy. What if starving and isolation completely break her and I'm left with just a shell? No, I want her, the parts of her that fit into me. Maybe, in trying to kill the parts of her that get in the way, all of her is dying.
It's been two days since I tried to force feed her, and in my desperation to communicate, I even brought a notepad. I felt like a little bitch scribbling that shit to her. Like I have to explain myself. But she's just stuck in her head.
I haven't gone back. Not to watch her, not to feed her. I needed time to carefully think of how I can steer her back onto the right path. But it was two days of agony, not touching her, smelling her, tasting her. Not even getting a peek at her silky skin and long, wavy hair. She thinks she's the only one who wants company. That disciplining her isn't an exercise in discipline for myself. But all I ever fucking wanted was to be a part of their lives. A part of someone's life. Indispensable. Why is she suddenly fighting what seemed inevitable?
I trudge over to the cabin, first canvassing it. There's a trail of ants leading up to the wall where I threw the food. They are crawling in and out of the slats, collecting little crumbs. I take my boot and scrape it against the colony. I enjoy destroying their little collective. I'll have to clean the cabin sooner or later, it'll start to stink and I like to take care of the things I build.
I make my way to one of the peepholes facing the main room. She's not in there. So I go to one facing the bathroom. There she is, looking pale and weak, hunched over the waste hole like she's gonna vomit. She heaves, but there's nothing left. I can't tell what came first now. Maybe she is really sick and it's giving her a real reason to believe I've poisoned her.