by Lindsay Becs
I’m screaming, can you hear me?
My skin is crawling, but there’s no healing
I haven’t stopped smiling since I walked away from table #13. Tara teased me about it the whole rest of the day after she told me to be careful and that she’d cut off his balls if he hurt me. She’s so dramatic, but I love her for it.
Once I get back home, I open up the book from the library and try to find what constellation he drew for me this time. I’m getting frustrated trying to match and find it.
When I showed Tara, she had no idea and told me that his pen probably just leaked. Jerk.
I shut the book, letting out a frustrated growl, which means it’s time for me to run. I change and tie up my shoes, ready to let the air hit my face. I’m surprised to see that the sun is already going down when I step outside. I didn’t realize how long I’d been looking in that book. I stretch for a minute and then take off. The only sounds around me are music from the local bar, a dog barking in the distance, a few cars driving on the near-empty streets, and the sounds of my feet hitting the pavement. I love running when everyone else is nestled in their homes for the night.
Running late at night or early in the morning are my favorite times. I, of course, don’t tell my mother or Dr. Greer this. You’d think that since I was snatched off the street as a kid, I’d be scared to be alone at all, never mind running in the dark by myself. But I find it so healing and refreshing. Maybe it’s part of my brain wanting to have my freedom back after it was taken for so many years. Even if I don’t remember it.
I’m making my way back home and beginning my cooldown when I notice a big truck at the motel down the road. I wonder if that’s where Tavin is. Of course it is, dummy. I shake my head at my foolishness and look again toward the motel. But this time I see a man watching me. He’s leaning over the rail. I can see the red of the butt of his cigarette light up the dark. A shiver runs through my body. I can feel his eyes on me. It makes me nervous and excited, all new things to me when it comes to men. I swallow down my nerves and finish my walk back to my door.
I unlock the door but gasp before opening it, feeling someone behind me, around me, with me. I turn around to see who’s there. I look down the stairs, side to side, but see no one. I’m just being silly. My brows pinch together, confused by why I feel this way tonight. Perhaps it was the man watching me? I’ve never felt anything but safe since I moved here. No paranoia in sight, ever.
I take a shower and try to rid my mind of all these foreign feelings and thoughts I’m having. I don’t know where they’re coming from. I make a cup of tea and climb in bed to drink it while I read my book. It’s a funny one about texting gone wrong between a couple and there’s this baby goat. Books like this make me feel like maybe I can one day meet a man and be normal. Maybe.
Selene: 7 years old/ Endy: 10 years old
“Relax.” I jump when I hear a gruff voice talk to me. It sounds like he’s talking through a microphone. “Take off your nightgown and sit on the bed.”
My eyes bolt open and I look to where I hear the voice coming from, a box on the wall, but I’m met with my own reflection in the mirror. My eyes are red, and my hair is a mess of tangles. I try to comb it with my fingers, but it’s no use.
“I’ll bring you a brush to use if you’re a good girl and do as I say. Can you do that for me, lovey?”
I shakily nod my head before I lift my nightgown off, leaving it on the floor, I’m too afraid to disobey. I climb into the bed and crawl under the pink blanket as fast as I can, pulling it up to my chin, and wait. After what feels like hours, the door opens and I see Endy. I smile when I see him, but he won’t look at me.
I’ve been here for twenty-six days. I know because I make a mark on the wall every day. After I got here, I was kept alone for two days. I was so hungry and cold. After the first week, Endy had come to bring me into the house. The mean man took me from the pink room into the bathroom where he watched me take a bath. I didn’t like it. He smelled funny and kept smiling at me. When I was done, he gave me a pair of underwear and a nightgown to wear. But he told me I had to sit on his lap and hug him before he’d let me get dressed. I tried to hit him, but he turned me over his knee and spanked me on the bare butt until I cried and listened and did as he said.
That was the first night Endy came to see me, letting me out of the cellar of darkness. After that night of looking at the stars we became friends. Since then, he comes to me each night and brings me extra food. One night he even brought me an extra blanket. He doesn’t talk much, but neither do I. I feel safer knowing he’s around though. He told me I could trust him and I do. I think he’s all I have.
Endy is looking down at his feet as he walks across the pink room to the bed where I am. I’m excited to see my friend. Without thinking, I throw the blanket off and crawl to the end of the bed to meet him, my nakedness forgotten. I see he has a brush in his hands. He always brings me exactly what I want. He is my best friend now after all.
“You can brush your hair now, lovey. But only if you give the boy a kiss and say thank you,” the voice says again. Endy’s head whips to the side and glares at the voice box.
“It’s OK,” I whisper. He looks down at me then for the first time since walking in. I sit up on my knees and smile at him, but he won’t smile back at me. “Thank you for the brush,” I say before I lean forward and kiss his cheek.
I sit back and try to brush my hair, but it’s too tangled. Endy is almost to the door. “Wait!” I yell, making him stop with his back still to me. “Will you brush it for me? It’s too tangled for me to do it myself. Mommy always had to brush it for me.” He turns slowly then. He looks to the mirror first and then to me with a small nod of his head. I smile at him again. I really like Endy and how he takes care of me.
I turn my body around so my back is to his front while he stands behind me. He slowly brushes the tangles out of my hair section by section. It’s so quiet in the room, only the sound of the brush in my hair is heard. I can’t take the quiet any more, not when I have someone with me. I have enough quiet when I’m alone. Pulling the blanket back up around me, I sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” while he continues to brush my hair. It seems fitting since Endy always tells me about the stars at night.
“It’s done now. No more tangles,” he says after a while. His voice sounds short and harsh, not as light and caring like when we sit and watch the stars.
I tilt my head back to look up at him, the top of my head on his stomach. “Thank you,” I say again with another smile. This time I see a small smile try to break on his face.
“You’re welcome,” he replies and nudges my nose playfully with his finger.
“Perfect,” the voice says, making us both jump.
Endy pulls away from me and stomps to the door, slamming it behind him. Did I do something to make him mad? I hope not. I really like him.
“Don’t give any mind to him, lovey. Now that we’ve heard you sing, let’s see you drop the blanket and dance,” the voice says.
I do as I’m told, hoping that I Endy will still come to see me tonight.
I wake up wanting to crawl out of my skin. I feel violated and ashamed. But I don’t remember actually doing anything wrong other than just knowing that the things I was told to do, that I did, were wrong.
When I came around at the hospital, part of the reason they sent me to the psych ward was because I’d often take my clothes off like it was normal. I quickly learned that it wasn’t.
At the group home, I learned that lots of behaviors that felt normal to me weren’t normal at all. I learned what shame and guilt were. I felt them every time I did something that made others uncomfortable. For years this happened. But my nakedness was the biggest.
I saw a teacher to learn everything I’d missed from not being in school. Or as much as I could learn to be able to function in the world. It’s hard to cram nine years of school into two years with a broken, immature mind.
I saw a life coach
that helped me navigate through life. I learned about morals, rights and wrongs. I learned about what was socially acceptable and what wasn’t. I learned that much of what I became used to and knew, wasn’t acceptable at all and considered wrong.
Between the two, I felt wrong because everything I did was wrong. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. Even now, whenever I think about those first years back, it makes my skin crawl. I feel all the shame come back.
But I don’t remember all the reasons why.
I never fell back to sleep after I woke in the early morning hour, my mind reeling from it all. My dreams were changing and I didn’t know why. But they felt more like memories than made-up dreams.
I’m tying my apron behind my back when the bell chimes. I look over my shoulder to see who it is, expecting it to be Stan, a regular who’s often the first customer of the day, but it’s not. It’s him, the drawer of my constellations. I turn my head back around and smile to myself. I smooth my hair back, pulling it up into a ponytail before I turn around.
“Good morning,” he says when I turn, a grin on his face. I feel mine heat in return. It seems to be all I do when he’s around.
“Morning.” I smile back. “You can have a seat wherever.”
“Can I sit in the same booth as yesterday?”
“I’d like that. Coffee?”
“Please.”
We both turn our different directions inside the empty café. Tara doesn’t come in for another hour. I typically open on my own since not many come in this early. It’s only me and Danny, one of the cooks, here.
I’m trying to calm my nerves and shaky hands as I walk to the back table where Tavin is sitting. I set down his coffee mug, not looking at him yet. “Pancakes?” I ask, pouring his coffee.
“Yes. Two eggs scrambled and bacon, too, please.”
“You got it. I’ll go put that in for you.”
“But you’ll come back, right?”
“Sure.” I blush again. Minutes later, I return to his table with his food. “Anything else you need?”
“Just you to sit with me,” he says, looking at me in a way that makes it impossible to say no. I take a seat across from him like I did the day before. And like then, I can’t look at him. I’m picking at my nails, needing to busy myself while I sit here awkwardly. This all feels so foreign. Is this OK to do? To sit with a stranger while they eat? I don’t know, but I think if it wasn’t, Tara would have told me.
I can’t take the silence anymore. “What was it that you drew on the check yesterday? I tried to look it up, but I couldn’t find it.” I steal a glance at him then. He’s watching me like he’s waiting for something, but I don’t know what.
“It was a star constellation called Columba.”
“What does that one mean?” I find myself asking without thinking.
“It means The Dove. It’s a smaller one that is harder to see. Most people call it Noah’s Dove, like the one from the story of Noah’s Ark. The dove that flew back to let Noah know that the flood was receding. A symbol of hope.”
“I like that.”
“There’s hope in the small and faint. I felt that with you yesterday.”
I can’t help the smile that tugs on my lips when he says that, and my cheeks flare again. I bite my lip to attempt to hide my growing smile.
“Why do you do that? Bite your lip to hide your smile, I mean.”
“Habit, I guess. I don’t…I don’t do well with people. I don’t always know how to act or talk to them right.”
“I think you do just fine. Don’t hide your smile. It lights up your eyes when you let your smile go.”
My heart starts to hammer in my chest at his compliment. “Thank you,” I whisper, not knowing what to say next.
Over the next hour, conversation comes easily. I tend to Stan when he comes in but otherwise, I sit with Tavin while he finishes his breakfast and sips on coffee. It’s comfortable. Which is weird. I’m sitting with a man I don’t know, talking and smiling openly.
But it feels good.
It feels normal.
I like it.
I like him.
6
Tavin
She still didn’t know who I was. But she was talking to me. She was smiling bigger. She wasn’t hiding it. Her smile was beginning reaching her eyes. The clouds were slowly lifting. She was starting to trust me, to talk to me.
Now, I just hope that I was right in not telling her who I was, letting her remember and piece it together on her own in her own time. I didn’t want to overwhelm her, but I also didn’t want her to hate me and see a monster instead of her friend.
Endy fell into a deep sleep the night I drove away from her. He had to in order to survive, to go on. I had to let him go along with her. It hurt too much not to.
I said goodbye to her for the third time this morning, and it still hurt to leave her. I have a feeling it will always hurt to say goodbye and leave her, no matter how we part. But now, Endy was beginning to wake from a long slumber.
I gave her my number again in hopes that she’d call or text me. I don’t expect her to use it, but I couldn’t walk away without a way for her to reach me. She didn’t give me her number, but that was alright. I didn’t need anything from her other than to know she was OK. She was surviving and she was smiling. That was all I ever wanted for her.
It’s been three weeks since I left her. I had to take my days off after a cross-country trip before I picked up my next hauls that were already scheduled. My mind was swimming with thoughts of her. All I saw was her now darker-blonde hair and moonstone eyes. I needed to see her again to feel awake and be able to breathe.
The truth was, since seeing her, my mind was all over the place. I was waking from nightmares that I had lived through and pushed down years ago. Other times I’d find my mind wandering while I was on a long stretch of highway and miss my exit. This happened three times last week alone.
But mostly I was drowning in the sight of her whenever I closed my eyes. The sight of her now, the sight of her when I said goodbye. The sight of her when she was seven and scared, ten and expectant, thirteen and knowing, fifteen and beautiful.
Fuck, I’ve loved her at every age since I was a ten-year-old boy scared to defy his father. She was always my reason for being. She was my focus and the only reason I stayed as long as I did. I had to find the perfect time and escape for her. She was my everything.
She’s my everything still.
It took me months to remember her real name and find her last name and where she was from. We formed new identities together away from him. It was the only way for us to continue to live and not be taken away from one another.
All the other girls who were brought in were different. None of them had the pull to my heart like she did from the first second her weeping, stormy eyes looked up at me. My only regret was that he saw that pull between us, too. He used that against me, us, and for his own pleasure and profit. That still makes my stomach turn and bile rise when I think about it.
See, my father was a sick bastard. He kidnapped kids, filmed them, and then sold them to the highest bidder. Most were girls, but there were a few boys through the years, me being one of them. Moon and I were the only ones he kept for the long run. I guess to some degree we should be thankful for that in some sick way.
I feared my father when I was young. He literally scared the piss out of me. He beat me, tied me up, starved me, and used me any way he wanted. He’d never used me like the others in a sexual way until her. The simple act of me brushing her hair while she innocently sang through her tangles was our ticket to being his favorite.
Moon was my solace as much as I was hers. We made our own stories when we were forced together in ungodly filth. Then late at night, we’d hold each other through tears, trembling and fearful for each other.
To me she was Moon. To her I was Endy. And to us he was Zeus.
See, before I forgot her real name, I nicknamed her Moon, because Selene was no more. But S
elene was the goddess of the crescent moon, and the mortal Endymion was the first human to observe the movements of the moon. Greek mythology believes that they became great lovers. However, Endymion’s father was Zeus, the god of the sky and thunder. Knowing that he was a mortal, Endymion recognized that he’d have to part from his beloved at some point and chose to sleep eternally in an ageless slumber where Selene would visit him in his dreams. Now, their story may be beautiful, but ours was a little more difficult.
In my own fucked-up mind, I thought that as long as I was the one with her, I was protecting her. But the older I got, the more realization hit of how gruesome that thought was. It’s when I knew I had to get her out of there and not only away from him, but from me, too. As long as were together under my father’s grotesque eye, there was no protecting her.
Endy was put to sleep so Selene, my Moon, could live a happy life.
A life where Zeus couldn’t rule over her and I couldn’t hurt her anymore.
Moon: 9 years old/Endy: 12 years old
“Endy, why do I have to stay here?” she asks me while we look at the crescent moon, a sliver of light surrounded by the stars in the night sky.
I take a minute of silence to think about how to answer her as she leans against my shoulder like every other night I sneak out to make sure she’s OK. She’s the strongest person I know.
“One day I’ll get you out of here,” I finally say.
“I don’t mean leave here. I mean, why do I have to stay out here? Down there and not in the house like the others? Did I do something wrong? I try so hard not to make Zeus mad.” My heart breaks then for her. She’s not worried about leaving anymore but questioning if she failed her fucking captor. I guess after two years of being here though, it’s normal for her to think that.
