Because I have rights. (Doesn’t everyone?)
And because my situation is somehow a woman’s issue (as opposed to a human one).
I reach into my pocket and hit Record on my phone in case she has anything helpful to say that I can play back later (doubtful but optimistic).
DR. WHITE: How have you been?
ME: The same as last time.
DR. WHITE: And how is that?
ME:
DR. WHITE: Did you visit the pet shelter like we talked about?
ME:
DR. WHITE: Jane? Do you need a tissue? I see you’re eyeing the box.
ME: Do you mind if I just hold the box?
DR. WHITE: Of course, help yourself. We talked last time about making contact with some of your friends.
ME: I don’t really feel ready for socializing yet.
DR. WHITE: Are you still having panic attacks?
ME: Yes. Once or twice a week.
DR. WHITE: When do you find that you’re getting them?
ME: In the middle of the night, when I’m lying in bed, thinking too much.
DR. WHITE: Thinking about what specifically?
ME: Him.
DR. WHITE: Him? Meaning the man who abducted you? The man who locked you in his trunk and kept you captive for seven months?
ME: No, I mean Mason. That’s who I’ve been thinking about.
DR. WHITE: I see.
ME: I miss him.
DR. WHITE: Can I get you a fidget cube?
ME: A what?
DR. WHITE: You’re pulling out all of my tissues.
ME: Oh. Sorry.
DR. WHITE: Okay, so getting back to those panic attacks … Do any of the exercises I taught you help?
ME:
DR. WHITE: Jane? Can I get you something?
ME: No. I just need to stretch my legs. It’s hard to sit for so long.
DR. WHITE: Would you like some water? There are cups on the shelf behind you.
ME: Water?
DR. WHITE: You’re holding the jug. Come and sit back down. I was asking if any of the exercises I gave you helped with the panic attacks.
ME: The visualizing helps. Then, once I’m breathing better, I go into the closet. That helps too. I’ve set up a comfortable area.
DR. WHITE: In your closet?
ME: Is that unusual?
DR. WHITE: It’s just that a lot of people who’ve experienced confinement often report having symptoms of claustrophobia. Does being in the closet ever bring on your panic attacks?
ME: No. I told you, the closet makes me feel safer … hidden.
DR. WHITE: I see.
ME: So it is unusual?
DR. WHITE: Let me get you that fidget cube.
ME: Where are they?
DR. WHITE: The fidget cubes? I have a whole basket over … Jane?
ME: Where are they?
DR. WHITE: Where are what? Jane, what are you looking for?
ME: Why does it smell like honeycomb candles?
DR. WHITE: Jane, please come take your seat.
ME: I knew it. I smelled it. This is a honeycomb candle, isn’t it?
DR. WHITE: Jane …
ME: Where did you get this?
DR. WHITE: This isn’t really about candles, now is it. Please, come sit down. Let’s talk about what’s bothering you.
ME: How about the fucking candle.
DR. WHITE: Would you like me to throw the candle away?
ME: Don’t bother. I’m leaving.
DR. WHITE: But our session isn’t over. Jane …
When I get back out to the waiting room, Mom stops knitting and drops the needles onto her lap.
“What happened?” she asks. “It’s barely been twenty minutes.”
“Jane?” Dr. White’s voice again.
“I’m done,” I tell Mom, refusing to look back.
“Don’t be silly. You still have thirty more minutes.” Mom resumes her knitting—her version of tough love.
“I want to go now,” I assure her.
“No,” Mom insists. Knit, knit, knit. “We planned this. You promised me. I had to move two other appointments to make today work.”
“It’s okay,” Dr. White says, her voice as soft as shit.
“No, it isn’t.” Mom’s fingers work faster as if a scarf will fix everything.
“How about if we give you a choice,” Dr. White says. “We can try this again now, or we can reschedule for another day.”
“No,” Mom snaps, answering for me. “Let’s be responsible adults and go to our scheduled appointments.”
Poke.
Loop.
Pull.
Repeat.
Dr. White: “I’m giving you a choice here, Jane. So what do you say?”
“I’m leaving,” I tell her, going for the door.
“Jane—no!” Mom shouts.
But it’s already too late. Her yarn-tangled self is no match for my need to flee. I take the exit stairwell, bolt down two flights, plow through the lobby, and go outside, where the air is less stifling and doesn’t smell of honeycomb.
I run for five blocks, looking all around me, jumping at the blare of a fire engine and the slamming of a car door. A girl crossing the street shouts in my direction. I freeze in place, thinking she’s talking to me, but then her face lights up as a woman with blue braids waves at her.
I keep moving forward, scurrying across No Name Park and finding myself in front of Popular Chain Hotel. Here, I flag down a taxi and climb into the back, careful to close the door gently—no need for loud noises.
I lock the door behind me and try to breathe at a normal rate. Why didn’t I bring my phone? Why aren’t I carrying anything sharp?
“Where to?” the driver asks—an older man, at least seventy years old. He looks harmless enough, but still, I could hold my own against him if it came to that.
I check my pockets—fourteen dollars. “I have enough for an hour,” I tell him.
“That’s not exactly a destination.”
My only destination is to escape my every thought. I don’t want to answer more questions or be counted on by anyone. I just want to stare out the window at life passing by: a rush of colors, and shapes, and swirls, and obscurity.
Too blurry to make decisions.
Too distracting for future-planning.
Too far from others to disappoint.
“Could you just take 95 and then do a loop back?” I ask.
Thankfully, he doesn’t say anything else. He just puts the car in drive and pulls away from the curb.
THEN
11
The monster controlled the light. There were no wall switches, only the motion sensor in the bathroom. l was reliant on him to show me the time of day. Light coincided with mealtimes, turning on just before the delivery of breakfast and clicking off shortly after dinner.
For breakfast that first morning, he left me waffles, yogurt, and a container of tomato juice (but again, with no utensils). After I was done, I squatted down by the dresser and tried to pull it toward me, as far as the chain would allow: barely three inches. I slid my hand into the open crevice and scratched at the wall, hoping to make a mark with my fingernail.
It didn’t work. The nail bent. I needed something sharper.
I searched everywhere—in the food cabinet, under the bed, behind the fridge, and inside the bathroom closet—before finally discovering a jagged edge on my sweatshirt zipper, where the metal had gotten mangled. I used the edge as a pen and made my first tally mark, denoting Day One, unsure how accurate it really was.
How many days had I already missed?
And was it really, truly morning?
It could’ve been midnight for all I knew, but with no windows to see outside, fluorescent lights and breakfast delivery were all I had—my primitive version of telling time.
It was on the thirteenth tally mark that a male voice screamed—an angry, pleading wail that spread chills across my skin. Was it the monster’s voice? Had th
e police finally come?
Would I finally get to find out who he was?
And what really happened?
I crouched down by the cat door just as a female shouted, “Let me out! Please, I’ll do anything!”
Another scream followed—a hysterical one; the girl started laughing.
I pushed the panel open, able to hear more voices shouting—men and women, in different parts of the building, at varying degrees of volume:
“Hello?”
“Who’s there?”
“Shut up!”
“Is he coming?”
“I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die…”
“Just die already, will you?”
The police weren’t here. The joke was on me. We were caged like animals, but how many of us were there? How big was this place? And what were we all waiting for?
Each of the voices seemed to be coming from at least a few floors away. At first, I assumed people were talking to one another. But then I realized no one’s voice seemed to be in response to anyone else’s.
We were too far apart to communicate beyond those cries. But still I cried along with them, happy to join the choir.
THEN
12
By the sixteenth tally mark, I realized I hadn’t yet bathed. Or brushed my teeth. Or taken my hair out of its ponytail. I was still in my running clothes. My rain boots were still on my feet.
During those first couple of weeks, I hadn’t sifted through the dresser drawers either, except to notice they were full of clothes—nothing sharp to protect myself. The fridge was stocked with drink bottles I hadn’t touched (all plastic, none of them glass). The cabinets were full of snacks I had no appetite for—some of my favorites too, like the vanilla-flavored granola bars I used to bring on my runs, the peanut butter–filled pretzels Mom had to drive thirty minutes to get, and my preferred trail mix from Wild Willow Market (the kind with the dried mango bits).
But I didn’t have much appetite. And I could smell my own skin, like week-old chicken left in the fridge. Meanwhile, my head wouldn’t stop itching. Maybe I’d picked up lice. More likely, my scalp was caked with oil; bits of skin collected beneath my fingernails each time I scratched.
I fished inside the dresser for a fresh pair of underwear and I found several. They looked all too familiar: same green-and-yellow stripes, same floral and checked patterns.
My size.
With lace hems.
And the same soft cotton fabric.
I withdrew my hands. My stomach twisted into a knot. Were these my things? From my home?
I blinked hard as if that would change the canvas—turn the stripes into stars, make silk out of the cotton fabric … Then I ventured to pick up a pair, letting it dangle from my finger. The hem was pierced with a price tag, from Cha Cha La Mer, one of my favorite shops in the city, showing these things were brand-new.
Did he buy them just for me, knowing what I had in my drawers back home? How was that even possible?
It wasn’t possible.
There had to be another explanation.
I searched the bras. They were my size as well: 32B with wireless cups (the kind I used), in seashell pink (the color I always bought because it remained invisible beneath a tee). I pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt next—both in my size, from Run Like Wolves, a brand I loved but could rarely afford.
The scent of lavender and pine lingered in the air. It was the smell of the Cha Cha La Mer store. I’d asked about it once—what made the shop smell like that, smell so good. Was it a fragrance I could buy—something we could sell at Norma’s? The saleslady told me it was the store’s best-kept secret.
Was this his?
Knowing my brands?
And what I liked to eat?
Nothing made sense, except the obvious: He’d been watching me long before I was taken.
Had he seen me undress?
And pawed through my things?
Both of those possibilities rolled into a tight-fisted knot beneath my ribs, making it hard to breathe. I yanked a hoodie from the drawer and slunk down to the floor, crying into the crumpled sleeve until at last I drifted off to sleep.
THEN
13
“Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place. I have plenty of gifts.”
“This would look adorable on Shelley, with her heart-shaped face.”
My mother’s voice startled me awake. I sat up, my heart pumping hard, half expecting to see her, only to discover that I was still in the room, still curled up on the floor.
My mother’s voice continued to play in my head on a continuous loop. I pictured her standing at the kitchen table in her snowflake-printed bathrobe with her basketful of gifts: the melon-printed cap, the snowball-maker, the faux-fur glovelettes, and the turquoise watch …
And I threw up in my mouth.
“Please!” I shouted over and over again as if the monster might hear me and change his mind. I crawled to the door and listened for him to come.
But it was silent now.
There were no other voices and not a single footstep.
The only sound was the rushing of water, as though through a pipe, reminding me I still hadn’t showered. The thought of taking off my clothes, after finding the underwear, was even worse than the smell of my skin, the stench of my sweat (like concentrated vinegar).
Door hinges whined from the end of the hall. I poked my face through the cat door and waited for the click of the latch and the jostling of keys. It took twenty-two steps before his legs were finally within view—faded jeans, frayed hems, brown heavy work boots.
“Please,” I begged. “What do you want? What can I do?”
Why was I here?
Who were the others?
The dishes rattled as he set down a tray. I caught a glimpse of a red plaid shirt and a bright green watch. No tree-limb tattoo. Was it farther up his arm? Or maybe the monster bringing me food wasn’t the same one who’d taken me.
“Who are you?” I pleaded after thirty-six tally marks. “Do you work for him? How much is he paying you? My parents will quadruple it.” I stuck out my hand, trying to grab at his boots; I knew them by heart—every mark, stain, stitch, and scuff. I noticed on days when his laces were double-knotted, and when the leather was damp, when I could smell the rain-soaked hide.
On some days, I’d have given anything for him to come into my room and beat me—to throttle my neck, throw me against the wall, cut me with a knife, or set my hair on fire. At least then I would’ve had a fighting chance. And at least then I might’ve felt on the outside a fraction of what I’d been experiencing on the inside—that gnawing-singeing ache.
“Let me out!” I shouted after thirty-nine tally marks, throwing myself against the door and pounding it with my fists. I grabbed the side of the cabinet and tried to rip it from the wall. But I fell back—hard—hitting my head on the bed frame. A spray of flashing lights shot in front of my eyes. But still it didn’t stop me.
I hurled the trays, chucked my boots, rattled the chains, kicked the table.
Shook the fridge.
Tossed the snacks.
Pulled the drawers.
And threw the clothes.
I flipped the mattress, tore up the sheets, screamed myself hoarse, and thrashed until I saw blood.
Needless to say, I was a very naughty girl, and it got me absolutely nothing, except a big mess to clean, an egg-shaped bump on my head, and a gash by my eye. The blood from the gash pooled onto the cement. I watched it for several seconds, wondering how much blood one would have to lose before passing out.
And what would happen then?
Would trays of food collect in the hall? Would the monster assume I was dead and come inside to check?
What would it take to die? How long would I have to bleed? My heart pounded at the flurry of questions, at this sudden surge of power.
And then I saw it.
As if by fate.
&nb
sp; A box of Cocoa Loco brownies.
I must’ve whipped it across the room without having noticed the smiling square of chocolate on the cover of the box. Otherwise, I would’ve paused, because they were Shelley’s comfort food of choice, with the layer of chopped walnuts and the drizzle of white frosting.
Had the guy assumed they were one of my favorites—maybe from spotting them in the forefront of our snack cabinet, through the window in the kitchen? Or maybe he’d seen my mom stocking up on boxes at the little red store in town.
The funny thing was we’d only kept Cocoa Loco brownies around for Shelley’s visits, and so finding them in the monster’s cabinet, among all of my favorite go-to snacks, and knowing he’d misunderstood, as trivial as the detail was, gave me a smidge of satisfaction.
He didn’t know everything about me.
I held the box against my chest, thinking how it’d never failed to make Shelley’s face light up. When her boyfriend, Mitchell, lied about his boys’ night out, or when she’d bomb a test at school, all I had to do was flash the Cocoa Loco name, and all hope would be restored.
The light in the room blinked once before going out completely and leaving me in the dark. But suddenly that was okay, because I had the box of brownies.
I navigated to the bed, pretending to be in Shelley’s basement during one of our sleepovers, imagining we’d just watched a scary movie and decided to call it a night. “I miss you,” I whispered into the darkness, snuggling the box closer and picturing Shelley’s smiling face.
THEN
14
When I woke up again, my head ached. I lay in bed, waiting for the lights to go on, unable to shut off the memory that reeled inside my brain: One late summer night, not long before I was taken, I came home to find that the window in my bedroom had been left wide open, including the screen. I never asked my parents about it, figuring Mom must’ve hiked up the pane to let in fresh air.
But why would she also open the screen? And why, especially, would she do so in the nighttime, when moths and mosquitoes could fly right in? It wasn’t as if it’d been left like that from earlier in the day. The pane and screen had been closed when I went out to meet Shelley at dinnertime.
Jane Anonymous Page 4
