Page 5 of The Oath We Give

“No,” he says simply.

Up to this point, I had no plan. I’m not even sure I really knew why I’d scrambled to the back of the closet to fish out this number from a forgotten pair of shoes.

When he came to see me at the hospital, I was bitter.

I’d thought my self-loathing and anger would push me through life. Fuel my need to live, but over the months, the rage deflated. A punctured balloon. Now, I’m left only with a hollowness in my chest that feels like being stabbed with knives soaked in memories.

A therapist I saw for a while said it was the grief. I’m grieving the girl who died in the basement and trying to make amends with the one that remains. I think I’m just tired.

Sleep rarely comes without nightmares, and the days are filled with anxiety, constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting and waiting for the day my monster makes good on his promise.

The pressure alone is too much. The weight has shattered my shoulders, and I’m tired of suffocating. I can’t breathe, ever. Why can’t anyone see that? Can they not see me turning purple? The hands of my mind choking me?

Because every time I look in the mirror, I see it.

“You told me you knew what it was like to fight demons you can’t see,” I start, not sure where I’m headed but hoping the end destination makes sense. “Did you mean that?”

There is more background noise, the sound of a bed creaking and a blanket rustling around. Muffled voices hushed in the night. My cheeks warm as I shake my head. This was stupid.

“I’m sorry, you’re probably busy—”

“I meant every word,” he blurts, interrupting my rush to get off the phone.

My head leans against the side of my house as I gaze up at the stars, wondering if wherever he is, he can notice how dim the usually bright sky is or if that’s only a side effect of what happened to me.

Silence tumbles into our conversation, and all the buzz from his side of the phone goes quiet as the clicking of a door echoes in my ear. It’s mute wherever he is now. It makes me wonder what he’s doing, if he’s able to keep living after everything that happened, if I’m the only fucking one still stuck.

He breaks the sound of stillness with a voice like gravel.

“Why’d you call?”

I’d laugh if I could. It’s the same question I’d ask if a girl I hardly knew called me at one in the morning. I mean, why did I call him? Who even is he to me?

“I—”

“Don’t lie.” The intrusion isn’t cruel, not a demand. Instead, it feels like a harsh truth, as if he knew what I was thinking before I spoke. “I’m just a voice on the phone. Don’t think of me as a person. Just a voice, an ear.”

He owes me nothing. Not an ounce of kindness or a second longer on this ridiculous phone call, but he’s here, anyway. And it’s that tender generosity that breaks something in me.

I have no one.

I’m surrounded by people and well-wishes, but I am utterly alone with my thoughts. There is no one I can talk to about the experience that is haunting my dreams and slowly feeding.

No one gets the fear or the shame. How it didn’t just leave when I was rescued, that it exists just beneath the surface of my skin. Yet, no one cares enough to peel back the first layer, all of them too afraid of just how dark the blood I’ll leak into them will be.

They all want to know the horror of the basement. News stations want an exclusive, papers want direct quotes to feed human curiosity, but no one cares about the aftermath of what it did to me.

I’m only a headline to Ponderosa Springs. A trophy for my parents.

“I don’t have anyone else—” I swallow the lumpy truth in my throat. “I don’t think anyone understands what’s happening to me.”

“They can’t see the demons, can they?”

I shake my head, my cries coming out choked as I struggle with the simple reply of“No.”

No one sees any of it. How one minute I feel strong, and the next, I am breaking. How I hate myself for what happened, and the guilt of my weak will eats at me. It’s a shame I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

“I was abducted a year ago today.”