The Girl in the Treehouse

by Jennifer Asbenson

  When I didn’t feel like a kid, I treated the others like the special girls I cared for. We colored pictures and then gave fake awards to the best artist. We watched a lot of movies, sometimes the same film over and over. The flame inside me stayed ignited by the thought that I would one day be able to tell my story and captivate audiences.

  Once, while I gazed at the TV, flashes of my past fantasies of being a storyteller and an actress danced in my mind. Movies were my passion. When I thought of the dreams that made my heart sing, I became hopeful. I wondered if I’d ever be strong enough to leave the mental hospitals for good; I wondered if I’d have the ability to survive on my own.

  But within the walls of the hospitals, I was sheltered. If the madman was real, he didn’t know where I was. Even if he did, he would never be able to enter through the doors. The joint was built so that no one could escape, and I assumed that also meant it was difficult to get in, unless he came on a 5150, but that wasn’t his style.

  YET AGAIN, MY IMAGINATION SUGARCOATED the truth. The sight of the security guards reminded me that I was rich and famous. So rich and famous, I’d get bombarded if I ever left my giant mansion. So sought after, I had a stalker. My private chefs were on hand at all hours and prepared healthy food three times a day. My caretakers never offered me sugar because they cared too much—that’s why they were called “caretakers.” The colorful pills that I accepted with grace were flown in just for me; they were meant to heal my broken heart. The shower fairy always provided razors so I could shave my armpits and legs. She was also paid to French braid my hair every once in a while. The guards came in my room every hour when I slept to assure that no one had broken in and attempted to steal me or the shoe on my back.

  The delusional mind I so often wished to silence had, yet again, saved my life. Eventually I would not be able to tell the difference between make-believe and actuality.

  My boyfriend, Trevor

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Beautiful Believer

  The most powerful form of love is ‘self-love.’ Some people need love from others in order to love themselves. When you love yourself, you can easily love others, and you no longer require them to validate you with their love.

  From experience,

  Jennifer Asbenson

  It had been about a year since I told everyone I was kidnapped. Since then, my life consisted of work and mental hospitals. When my new evening shift ended, I drove straight home to my parents’ house, made something to eat, watched Cops, and went to bed. I rarely altered from this self-set schedule. But Tyler’s attempt to disrupt my routine finally paid off when I accepted her invitation to a friend’s house.

  The home was a beautiful Spanish-style sanctuary. Large reddish tiles led to two dark wood doors. The entrance sat behind a white awning, with side curtains that tied to the stucco walls. Is this the correct house? I wondered as I knocked.

  Tyler answered the door and introduced me to her new man’s friend Trevor, who lived in the house with his mom. On this particular night, Trevor’s mother was elsewhere.

  The entrance to the Palm Springs house was a mixture of cottage and jungle. It was breathtaking: trees everywhere, grass patches, and potent roses. Every part of me admired the luscious surroundings. My treehouse would have fit perfectly in the yard of this home, blending in exquisitely.

  Someone once told me that the first thing a woman does when she goes to the house of a potential suitor is to imagine if she could live there. Apparently, women have done this since the Dark Ages. During the first visit to Trevor’s house, I didn’t consciously wonder about this ancient practice. Looking back now, I see that I did.

  Our eyes met. I pulled mine away and asked Tyler where the bathroom was. On the way, I explored the hall and the entrances of the rooms with my eyes only. Surely, the distractions would ease my nerves.

  Trevor was tall, dark, and handsome. He was friendly, too, and very funny. One glance at him made me feel happiness again.

  Throughout the night, Trevor gazed at me frequently. He insisted that in the white outfit I was wearing, I looked like an angel. He was not too shy to tell me this repeatedly.

  Nervousness caused me to seek a few moments of refuge in the bathroom often. The linen-walled room was dimly lit by a cinnamon-scented candle. Could it get any better? I thought. The candle flame fluttered with the beat of my heart. The instant I had laid eyes on him, I was in love—proof I still had a heart.

  After I pulled myself together in the bathroom, I looked in the mirror and pumped myself up with words of courage. The exhaust fan muffled my whispered madness.

  “You look like a freakin’ angel! An angel! Act normal. Just act normal.” Then I took a deep breath, flushed the toilet, and returned to the living room. Trevor awaited my arrival with a huge, toothy smile.

  “Are you having stomach issues or something?” he asked.

  My face turned beet red. “Huh? Oh, no. No … Nooo. I’m okay.”

  He stood, as if to leave the room. “My mom has medicine. No big deal.”

  “No, I’m fine. Really. I was … just …” My finger pointed toward the bathroom. “I’m good.”

  He was silent for a second as he checked me out.

  “Aren’t you hot in that sweater?”

  His thought switched. “Wanna run to the store to get some beers?”

  If my dad had heard this, he would have said Trevor had diarrhea of the mouth. Trevor talked a lot, with a bunch of positive energy.

  He did not demand an immediate answer.

  “Oh. Beer?” I asked, confused. I looked over his shoulder to see Tyler and her boyfriend on the back patio; her boyfriend released a puff of smoke from his mouth. Does Tyler smoke now? I wondered.

  The music played loudly on the stereo, nestled behind glass doors beneath the TV. Tall black speakers that displayed candles and framed family photos rattled throughout the living room. “Hotel California” was a smooth, familiar tune, but I had no idea who sang it. Trevor knew it too well. He rehearsed the lyrics and studied my face.

  “Woo!” he yelled suddenly. His body seemed flimsy. My eyes focused on his every move.

  He held an empty beer can in his hand. “The Eagles are the fuckin’ best!” He squished the can with his lanky fingers. A nervous laugh could not be contained, although I tried to cover the sound with my hand.

  “C’mon! Let’s go!” He had a skip in his step as he exited through the open front doors. My head quickly drew back, and my eyes widened. I threw caution to the wind, grabbed my purse, and galloped beside him. This is what a normal person would do, I thought.

  He hopped into a raised, shiny black Jeep Wrangler with no doors. “Do you have a car?” he asked as I got a running start to mimic him.

  This was the perfect time to impress him. Not everyone our age had a car, and I knew mine was badass. “Ya, a little white one.”

  He began to pull out of the driveway and fiddled with the stereo. “Oh ya?”

  He looked up and spotted the white Mazda RX-7. A look of surprise hit every inch of his face. His tongue was in the way as he spoke. “Whose car is—is that your car? Shut up!”

  He parked the Jeep. “Let’s take that!”

  Trevor functioned at full throttle, which was good, because I was a snail. The balance this created between us was apparent.

  Trevor rode shotgun as I drove my two-seater sports car. He continuously referred to the passenger seat as a shotgun. His enthusiasm made it funny.

  A few blocks from his house, his excitement exploded. “Let’s see how fast this baby can go! Let’s live a little!”

  I pointed at the liquor store. “Wait! Isn’t this the store you wanted?”

  “Ya!” He jumped out after the car was parked. I stayed in my car, mainly because I had horrible anxiety. And I usually walked differently around new people—I moved on the balls of my feet, like a nervous dancer. It was too soon in the relationship to show my insecurities. Instead, I sat and practiced cute expressions i
n the rearview mirror.

  As I drove back to his house, I successfully steered the conversation off the car’s speed potential. Trevor began to ask me a lot of personal questions. A fear surfaced from somewhere deep. If he knew the real me, would he turn and run and never look back?

  Back at his house, we played cards and drank a lot of beer. The more I drank, the more I liked myself.

  Even though Tyler had made many attempts to invite me to Trevor’s, I was confused at why she didn’t stress how fun the experience would be. She probably had, but I was too negative and into my own routine to imagine the best. People often pointed out how I overreacted to even the mildest circumstances, but this experience was way better than I could have imagined. I knew it would change my life.

  Late at night, Tyler and her boyfriend separated from Trevor and me. Trevor swam in the pool in his backyard paradise and encouraged me to swim in my bra and underwear. At first, I hesitated, but then my tipsy brain reminded me that I had a nice figure. My pants, tank top, and sweater were flung onto the ground, and I jumped into the deep end.

  When I returned to the surface, Trevor swam to me and held me like a sleeping baby. We began to kiss. In a sexy attempt to sweep hair out of my face, I exposed the cuts I had forgotten to hide. His eyes immediately averted. He was concerned.

  “What the hell?”

  His mouth opened, and he struggled to find his next words.

  “Are—what?”

  I swam away and reached for my beer on the deck. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” After spotting the ladder, I climbed out of the pool and reached for my towel.

  I pointed toward a structure across the backyard. “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?” he asked.

  A wooden, octagon-shaped gazebo hid behind the trees. I wobbled toward it. “What’s in here?”

  He climbed out of the pool and quickly toweled off. “The gazebo!”

  Trevor ran barefoot down the dark path and met me inside. He flicked the striker on the lighter he quickly located. He adjusted the face of a small radio, wiping away the spiderwebs strewn across it. Music began to play as he searched for more unhidden webs and lit fire on them.

  “So, did you try to kill yourself or something?” he asked.

  A laugh unintentionally flew out of my mouth. “Me? No!”

  We sat on his mom’s massage table and shared a joint he pulled out of a drawer under the radio. He kept a lookout for spiderwebs and occasionally ripped into one with the squirmy flame. The marijuana convinced me to talk.

  “Didn’t Tyler tell you what happened to me?” I asked.

  “No. What happened to you?”

  He then became the jaw-dropped, one-person audience to my horror story. The entire time, he sat with his eyes wide and his mouth stiff.

  My wrists were lit by the lighter. “These cuts here are from the twine.”

  The flame exposed my left forearm. “And the ones up here are where he cut me with the knife.”

  I lied to cover my self-inflicted wounds. He would never love me if he thought I didn’t love myself, so I faked it.

  He never sought out or burned down another web while I spoke. He believed me. His belief in my story lifted my spirits, so much so that I became excited about a shooting star. Of course, I made a wish for Trevor to love me.

  “I’ll kick that motherfucker’s ass and rip his head off.” His wild comments made me laugh.

  “That stupid-ass, sick fuck! I’ll show him!”

  His sympathy and compassion wove stitches throughout my lacerated soul, and my cutting ended there.

  When I wasn’t in mental hospitals or at work, I was usually with Trevor or in regular hospitals. Even though I was significantly happier, I always thought I was sick. Hypochondriacs truly believe they are sick, even though they are fine, one doctor had assured me.

  My health always worried me, and I often thought I was about to die. As I grew older, I began to realize I would not feel loved at the hospitals anymore like I did when I was a child. Sometimes a lost day would prove worth the trip to the emergency room, but usually not. The mental hospitals, on the other hand, guaranteed joy.

  Trevor brightened my life and taught me how to live. His zest for life, his passion for the guitar, and his social skills made my wounded soul mend rapidly. But because I no longer knew how to regulate or limit myself, I’d soon be fighting for my life again.

  There was always a lower level of lowness, and it always found me.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It’s Raining Nickels

  My family and I had just returned from Laughlin where I had won one thousand nickels. Actual coins dropped out of the slot machines.

  Most people would have traded the nickels for paper money, but not me. I wanted the coins. This was the first time I had ever won money. I had never seen so many nickels in my life, so I decided to keep them. The silver coins were shiny and pretty, and I enjoyed the click they made when I dropped them back onto themselves as they slipped through my fingers.

  Once home, I put all the nickels in my little sports car. The glovebox, ashtray, and middle console were stuffed and all of the nooks and crannies too. If I showed Trevor all the nickels I won, he would be proud of me. The thought of us paying the Del Taco drive-through cashier with nickels amused me.

  AFTER MEETING TREVOR, I MOVED into a small camper trailer on my parents’ property. It was time for more privacy, and if the maniac did come to the house, he’d never find me.

  A cord stretched from my parents’ house to the trailer to relay electricity. After I straightened up my twinkle-lit hideout, I got ready to go to Trevor’s.

  The night was dark, and I was excited. As I drove, I remembered Trevor’s voice when he asked me how fast the car went. The words live a little echoed through my head as if I were in a deep valley. Finally, I feel alive, I thought as I slowly began to accelerate.

  The road had many twists and turns, but I had traveled it a million times before. A concrete divider ran down the middle to separate the opposing traffic.

  My fears were abandoned; the power of my new, indestructible outlook on life reigned freely. My car zoomed by others, and the only evidence was a quick streak of light.

  My inner pendulum swung one way or the other; it rarely idled. The medium between brave and afraid was hard to find. My decisions were quick and extreme. Freedom always seemed near.

  Sometimes I felt sexy, and the test of my car’s speed was one of those times. Rebellion flowed in my blood. Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train” played on repeat—my go-to song. The music blared as my hair blew in the wind. My lack of control appeared to be total control. Fully absorbed in the moment, I channeled my inner Sharon Stone from the movie Basic Instinct. She drove fast on curvy mountain roads because she was not one to fuck with.

  Bright red flickers of light bolted from the front left side of my car. The sparks were fiery, like the flames that flutter away from a fire pit when roasting marshmallows. The flares became abundant.

  Confused by the display, I wondered if the moment was fantasy or reality. Within seconds, a significant streak of sparks met my windshield like a blooming firework. A horrifying screech roared through the vehicle. At over eighty miles an hour, my car grazed the center concrete divider of the four-lane mountain grade.

  In a panic, I rotated the steering wheel and collided with the mountain. In an instant, I was gone.

  God causes us to pass out like that to protect us. If we stayed alert the entire time, we would not be able to process the information because it comes in too fast. Also, if we are out of it, it’s easier to die and cross over.

  When you experience psychological shock, you do not feel the physical damage to your body. You are in limbo. This happens in order to give God an opportunity to decide if it’s your time or not. If it isn’t, you wake up after the accident. If it is, you never wake up.

  When I was passed out, I knew I was in limbo. I experienced some sort of dream—I felt like I was at the
carnival on a tiny version of the ride Gravitron. The amusement ride looks like a UFO. You lean against the wall, the UFO spins, the floor drops out, and the UFO tilts. Because of its centrifugal force, people stay pressed against the walls. Like on the ride, my body and mind spun fast.

  Silver, shiny stars erupted before my powerless eyes, and I witnessed a lengthy, brightened road and a compelling man. Nothing else—no pain, no thought, no regret, no worry, no dread. Only loud music, stars, a road, and a man existed.

  Meanwhile, back in reality, the speed of the car, as it struck the mountain, caused it to flip numerous times and twirl out of control. A billion nickels danced in the air. Like a ragdoll, I drifted with the motions as the car tumbled southbound. My Mazda began to glide upside down. On its roof, it gracefully slid onward down the road, with no destination in mind. The manual sunroof detached, which allowed my head access to the blacktop. Part of my scalp was replaced with asphalt.

  The car struck the center divider forcefully, came to a halt, and jolted me awake. In a catatonic trance, I attempted to evaluate the situation. The music seemed louder, and it occasionally skipped a beat. My eyes took a second to adjust to their new surroundings. The steering wheel pressed into my ribs, and blood rushed through my head. I dangled in a fetal position, trapped upside down in my mangled sports car. This is not reality, I thought. Wake up! But only my eyes and my mouth could move. Panic flooded my thoughts. It was then I realized I was claustrophobic.

  Aware that the nightmare was real, I began to fear that another car would clobber me. The only view I had was through the scrunched window. As I hung overturned and helpless, headlights came toward my eyes. I screamed over the music and out to God. Because my left arm was elongated away from my body and trapped, my hands were unable to pray.