Page 2 of Beyond Repair, Part One (Damaged Duet #1)

Nina

" I t's time, sweet Nina."

Dad didn't mean it in the way I took those words. I knew he wasn't suggesting I just move on. No, he just meant I should move out. Live.

How could he possibly think I would ever be ready to leave?

"I agree with your dad, sweetheart."

If dad's statement stunned me, my mom's had thrown me headfirst into a sobbing mess. Loneliness crept in on my heart that day, even as my mom cried along with me. Their embrace of love and support only served to remind me that soon I wouldn't have this.

They didn't say those things to make me feel bad, but to encourage me to start living my life again. Because an almost twenty-one-year-old should want to move out and live an independent life. And who would ever turn down full financial support and a small house on their parents’ dime?

Me . I tried to say no. I tried really dang hard. I begged .

"I'm not ready," I wept, hoping they would see the terror ripping me apart. Two and a half years wasn't enough; how did they not see that?! My parents gave me sad smiles, and I knew they had made the decision for me.

Ready or not, I had to figure out how to survive on my own in one month and two days.

" N ina!"

My eye twitches in vague awareness of Mom's shout, yet her call coasts over me like a puff of air.

Absently, I tug on the strings of my fluffy beige pillow.

The dry texture between my fingers keeps me here in the present.

A time and place I don't want to be but subconsciously know is my only option.

Because if I drift far enough away, I worry I'll fall right back into that basement.

The basement that sucks me in and torments me every night.

It's been two and a half years since I escaped, but I brought plenty of that hell home with me.

I'll never truly be free.

Even if the monster is ever caught and sentenced to life behind bars, or killed, I'll still never be free. The things he did to me will always stain my soul and scar my mind.

I can't think without stumbling over another wound that healed in a jagged, puckered tripwire that slams the alarm on all my trauma responses.

Trauma responses . That's what all my therapists have called my issues. How can they put a label on all the darkness sucking the life out of me?

I'll never be free . No matter what I'm labeled, I'm still stuck in that basement, being starved and beaten.

Phantom pains is what my doctors call the lingering aches in my knees from scrubbing the monster's floor until I collapsed.

"NINA!"

The pillow tumbles off my lap with the wicked force of my fearful jump. My shaky hand clasps at my chest, begging my heart to calm down.

"Y-yes?"

The door handle rattles, and there's murmuring on the other side of the door. "Unlock the door." Shoot, I hate when Dad’s mad.

Cringing, I scoot to the edge of my bed and leave its comforting warmth. Chills race up my calves from the hardwood floors under my bare feet. It may be summer in Utah, but I won't ever get my bones to unfreeze from the basement that sucked the heat right out of me.

I can't help but curl in on myself as I unlock and twist the handle. They're mad . Cracking the door open reveals my parents’ frantic gazes that search for any signs of injury.

I've never harmed myself. At least not on purpose. I may forget to eat and hydrate myself. Sometimes I'll sleep for eighteen hours or only close my eyes for forty minutes a night, but I've never sought to inflict pain.

After all these years, I have no idea how to convince myself I'm not in that hellhole anymore. It's as if I still function like I did when I was in captivity for eighteen months.

"Yes?" I whisper, stepping back and away from my dad's towering height. He would never hurt me, and I yearn for him to wrap me in his arms, but I know I've disappointed him by locking the door.

"You know what happens when you don't listen..."

I gulp and shudder, my body actively trying to push the monster's voice from my mind.

Dad's eyes soften a fraction as he studies me. "Nina, why did you lock the door?" I shrug, not remembering actually doing it. He sighs. "We talked about this."

You did, I want to say. Coming home after a year in a psych facility, my parents were scared, and rightfully so.

They were worried I would do something like kill myself, I think.

So the door to my bedroom was removed, and my bathroom door didn't have a lock.

Until a few months ago. Apparently, they're still afraid of what I might do if I'm alone.

"I—" I hesitate, not sure if I should speak my mind. I never complained about the lack of privacy or asked for my door back. It didn't matter, not much does except my parents and our home. It was an unconscious decision to lock the door. Maybe it was to help me feel safe.

"What, sweetheart?" Mom encourages, her eyes imploring me to finish my thought.

"I guess I didn't realize that was still a thing. Since, you know..." I pick at the string hanging from my long T-shirt. "I'm moving out."

Mom deflates and immediately looks at dad like he can fix this. Fix me . Once again, my dad sighs and scrubs a hand through his dark greying hair.

"You're right. We were just..."

When he trails off, I only nod. What is there to say? I know I'm not normal, heck I barely look alive, so why would they think I wish to be alive?

Do I want to be alive? I have no clue how to answer that now, just like I didn't know how to answer it at the psych facility. I'm positive nobody believed my answers when they were doing the suicide screening before I could be discharged.

I'm not sure what it feels like to be alive anymore, so how would I know? I barely have the energy to sit through an entire movie, let alone end my life.

"We found a house," Mom says cheerfully, if not a little hesitant.

My heart sinks to my belly and I have to fight to keep the tears from building in my eyes.

"And it's all yours, sweet Nina," Dad adds with a big smile. There's sadness in his gaze too.

I can't smile back, because even if I’d rather not die, I don't want to live either. A house of my own...I'm about to be forced to do exactly what I'm afraid of.

I'm scared to live.