Eight years ago
High-pitched beeping drummed through the room. The steady, even tone obliterated every other sound. Washing them out like white noise.
It was kind of soothing. A thin connection to the environment where she felt otherwise so disconnected. It took her attention off the other stuff. Off the ugly. The terrifying. The black fog that tried to hedge her vision.
At least there was no pain, though. Not physical, anyway. A numbness had seeped into her limbs, one she was certain had something to do with the liquid flowing from the bag into her arm.
The woman in white had connected it. The same woman currently trying to talk to her, smile at her. The one whose mouth moved, but words never made it to her ears.
All she heard was the beeping. It was like a hammer. Loud and clear. Demanding every little bit of her attention.
The lady’s smile faltered at her silence.
She didn’t want to see the woman’s disappointment. So she looked away and found a small black dot on a wall, so faint it was almost invisible.
It wasn’t invisible to her. She saw it, and she didn’t let go. She watched the dot as if it was part of her. Like if she looked away, the fog would disintegrate and reality would ravage her mind.
For a while, voices continued to sound around her. The words were static in her ears. But even if they weren’t, would they even make sense to her?
Probably not. A lot of the world had stopped making sense over the last week. For a while, she’d been thrust into a darkness so black that she could have sworn she’d never see again. So many times, she’d wished for freedom. Was this freedom? A little white room with a bag of liquid to take away the pain?
She didn’t feel free. She’d dragged herself out of the depths of hell, yet every thought was still soul-destroying. Every breath a battle.
She felt just as trapped as she had in that basement.
The woman leaned over and touched the bandage on her chest, adjusting it. There was another bandage on her thigh. Scars were forever, weren’t they? So she’d carry these scars for a lifetime. An eternal reminder of her suffering.
They were nothing compared to the internal wounds. Invisible scars that no one could see but her.
Maybe she shouldn’t have wished for freedom in that basement. Maybe she should have wished for something more final.
The fog tried to clear again, the pain attempting to creep through the cracks. She tugged the fog back, keeping it there by sheer will and desperation. Focusing on the beeping, she allowed its predictable rhythm to soothe the frayed parts of her soul.
Endless minutes passed like that, until someone stood in front of the dot and her vision blurred. The calm foundation she’d built in this small room rocked. Threatened to crumble.
It was a chest. A man’s chest. Not the man she’d been forced to look at for the last week, the one who had shattered her very existence.
No. This was a different man. His chest was wider. And somewhat familiar. She could see it moving, like he was talking. But the beeping still decimated all other sounds, including his.
The chest started to get bigger. Closer. The man was coming toward her.
No. She didn’t want him closer. She didn’t want any man close, ever again.
Her heart began to hammer in her chest. The beeping doubled, the steady rhythm that had become so familiar altering.
It wasn’t until his chest was right in front of her, touching distance, that it paused.
She wanted to scream. Cry at him to step back. But her voice felt broken. It was a brokenness that matched the rest of her. One she’d become intimately familiar with over the last week.
He was still speaking, his chest still rising and falling in uneven waves.
She tried to block him out, did block him out for a moment…but suddenly, something disturbed her fog. A scent. One that overpowered the smell of ammonia and antiseptic that had filled the air since she’d woken. It was a mixture of Scotch and Old Spice.
Scents of her childhood.
The smell was so familiar, she forced her eyes up. First to his shoulders. Then to his neck. When she reached his face, she saw the tears. Then she saw the eyes. Her eyes. Or at least, eyes very similar to her own.
His mouth was still moving, but she didn’t need his words to know the emotions he was expressing. He wore them on his face like a mask.
Pain. Frustration. An anger that ran so deep it would probably never be soothed.
And just like that, the fog cleared. Her chest cracked open as she watched her father cry for the daughter he’d lost. The daughter who’d been taken. Tortured. Brutalized. The daughter who was gone forever.
