Salvation

by Sarah Sorana

  The little angel in my hands shattered against the wall of the dining room, and it took me a minute to realize that I'd thrown it.

  "Yes, a terrible influence," I said. "Rescuing me from kidnappers and taking care of me when my parents couldn't. Truly awful. What a fucking asshole he is."

  "Megan!" my father snapped. "I understand that you're upset, but that's no way to speak to your mother. Apologize, at once."

  My mother looked at the shards of the figurine across the room, staring sadly at them for a moment.

  "It's not a big deal," she said. "We're all upset. No need to apologize, sweetheart. I'm just so glad you're back."

  My father subsided, but glowered a little.

  "That boy is a hoodlum. A bad influence. He's involved in heroin and God knows what else, and that's not the sort of man I want around my little girl. You can do a hell of a lot better than some jumped-up biker gang boss."

  "Enough," my mother said, before I could even open my mouth.

  She reached out and patted my father's knee.

  "Will you please get the hand vac?" she asked him.

  He sighed, and headed for the basement door.

  While he was gone, she fixed me with a stern look. The drying tear tracks on her face gave her a quiet dignity.

  "Did they touch you?" she asked me, quietly and matter-of-factly. "Did they rape you?"

  "No," I said. I couldn't hide anything from her. "They were going to, and they talked about it, and threatened it. I think... I think they were saving it to scare me."

  "Did you have sex with Merle last night?"

  "What?" I asked.

  "Your timeline doesn't add up, you spent the night with the boy. It's a reasonable question."

  "No," I said, looking away. "Nothing happened. He was a gentleman."

  She nodded.

  "So, we don't need to get you the morning-after pill," she said. "That's good."

  "What's good?" my father asked, coming back in the room and kneeling to vacuum up the dust of my anger.

  I got up to help.

  "Let me," I said. "It's my fault."

  ----------------------------------------------------------------

  I couldn’t sleep.

  Not there, not in that room.

  I couldn’t wear pajamas and crawl under the blankets. Even opening the drawer and fingering the flannel pants I normally wore had me almost sweating with fear.

  Finally, I curled up in the bottom of my narrow little closet, on top of my shoes and clutter, and slept there, with the light on.

  If you could call it sleep.

  It wasn’t exactly restful.

  “I need you,” I whispered. I wished Merle were sitting next to me, reassuring me with his strong body, his warm presence, his little quirk of a smile.

  I grabbed my phone. He’d given me his number, after all.

  Can’t sleep, I texted him.

  Not surprised. Look outside. The response was almost immediate.

  Crawling out of the closet, I looked out my window, and saw a motorcycle parked a few houses down, under a streetlight.

  There was a solitary figure on it, helmet on. I couldn’t see where he was looking, but he was set up to see my window and the front door of my house.

  Is that you? I asked, my heart rising in my chest.

  No, buddy of mine. He’ll keep an eye on your place tonight.

  I crawled back to the closet.

  I was watched over.

  I was protected.

  It wasn’t enough to let me sleep in my bed, but, shut in the closet, a boot wedging painfully into my hip, I finally caught a few minutes of rest.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------

  The next morning, my mother knocked on the door to my room and cheerfully told me it was time to get ready for school.

  Seriously?

  We were in some sort of bizarro world.

  I pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I didn’t bother to see what was in my bookbag, I just grabbed it off my desk and headed down to the kitchen for a snack.

  “Bus’ll be here in ten minutes,” my mother reminded me, grabbing an apple on her way to her own office.

  Right. The bus. To high school. Okay.

  I was a jangled sack of nerves on the school bus, trying to keep someone from sitting next to me, and I fled inside the building as soon as the doors opened.

  That was worse.

  In the crowded hallways, the tight classrooms, there was always someone in my personal space bubble. By first period, I was about ready to punch the next person who touched me. I didn’t know how I was going to last through a whole fucking day of this.

  History class shouldn’t be too bad.

  Ms. Jefferies didn’t believe in assigned seats, so I was able to take a spot by the door, near an open space.

  I wasn’t feeling too penned in, and, even though all the other students were grinding my last nerve, I took a deep breath and grabbed a random notebook from my backpack.

  I wrote the date at the top of the first clean page I found.

  It looked stark and sloppy, out of place in my math notebook, which was color-coded by section.

  Whatever.

  Ms. Jefferies walked in the door, pulling it shut behind her.

  “No,” I said, half rising out of my seat. “I’m - I’m not feeling well. Can we leave the door open today?”

  My teacher gave me an odd look. She was a quiet woman in her mid thirties, and I’d gotten along with her in the past.

  “Not a problem,” she said. “We’re glad to have you back.”

  “Apparently she went somewhere without hairbrushes,” I heard a girl behind me mutter.

  It was true, I hadn’t done anything with my hair, let alone put on makeup.

  I didn’t write a single word of notes.

  After class, Ms. Jefferies dismissed the others, but asked me to stay back and talk to her about my absence.

  “Your parents were very vague,” she said, “They seemed concerned for you. I hope everything is okay.”

  “I’m worried about getting caught up,” I said, not meeting her eyes.

  “You’re a bright girl, and you can do this. Would you like to do every assignment to get caught up, or just write me a ten-page essay?” she asked.

  “I’ll take the essay,” I said.

  “If you need anyone to talk to, or somewhere to sit for a bit, you can always come to me,” she said.

  “Can I go now?” I asked. “I’m going to be late.”

  She nodded, and I left, taking a deep breath before fighting my way through the crush.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------

  “How was school?” my mother asked when I got home.

  “Fine,” I said.

  Fine. Fine. Everything was fine.

  Who was I kidding?

  Nothing was fine. Nothing would be fine. I couldn't understand why anything would be fine again. I had been kidnapped and held alone, and I was afraid, and all I knew was that my parents hadn't called the cops, and the man I should be frightened of had rescued me.

  I kept thinking about my mother asking if we'd had sex. We hadn't, but it had been such a near thing, hadn't it?

  I flushed with a mix of embarrassment and pleasure as I thought about how I had pressed myself against Merle, naked and wanting.

  Him not claiming me as his own, then and there, was sort of a relief and sort of made me want to die.

  Did he not think I was attractive enough? Interesting enough?

  Old enough?

  Fuck, I had to stop thinking about this, I had to stop thinking like this.

  I padded up the stairs, dropping my bookbag on the banister where it usually lived until the next day of school or whenever my mother tidied it away, rolling her eyes at me.

  When I shut my door behind myself, I was faced with an ugly truth:

  My bedroom, the space that had once been my haven, my
little escape from the real world, was no longer somewhere I could relax.

  Instead of falling backwards onto my bed and kicking my shoes off, stretching in the warm sunlight coming through my blinds, I found my feet frozen to the floor.

  I couldn't go to the bed. That's where I had been when they took me.

  I made myself take little, trembling, halting steps towards it. All I wanted was to stretch out and bask, like I had done for years, and I was beyond furious that those assholes had taken that from me.

  My fists clenched.

  No.

  No way, Jose.

  I grimaced to myself - No way, Jefe.

  That man couldn't take this from me.

  I forced myself over to the bed and reached out a trembling hand to smooth the coverlet. Instead of flinging myself down, I eased myself onto the bed, sitting gingerly on the edge.

  Ready to spring up.

  In no way relaxed.

  Fuck me.

  I swung my legs awkwardly up onto the mattress, easing my back down until I was resting. Sort of.

  I shut my eyes.

  "Keep your mouth shut," I heard my kidnapper say, his voice low, accented, and cruel.

  I sat bolt upright, eyes open, staring around at the room, which seemed to get smaller and smaller with each breath I took. Was this how people felt when they were going crazy?

  I felt like I could reach out one hand and touch the knob of my bedroom door, open it, save myself from this suffocating tomb, but my hands wouldn't unclench from the blankets.

  I was trapped.

  Again.

  This room was going to be burst into any minute. I had to run, I screamed to myself to run, but I couldn't find the strength to move my legs, to unclench my hands, to take any control of my body at all.

  This was completely consuming. I was as afraid, sitting in my own bed, as I was when el Jefe was tormenting me.

  I felt a scream rise in my throat, and I swallowed it down.

  I wouldn’t cry out.

  My parents hadn’t tried to find me, I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction now of letting them swoop in and save me - swoop in and see me like this.

  I wished, fervently, desperately, that Merle’s strong arms were wrapped around me.

  Why couldn’t they be?

  I took one deep breath, and then another.

  Uncramping my fingers was more difficult, but I finally did it, and pulled my phone out of my pocket.

  Merle’s voice on the other end of the line was just as warm, and low, and rich, as it was in person.

  “Hey, sweetheart. You okay?”

  “No,” I said, one low sob.

  His voice hardened.

  “Are you safe?”

  “I think so,” I said. “I’m at home.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I couldn’t make myself say the words - “You. I need you. Come get me. Come hold me. Be mine.”

  “I’ve got some work to wrap up, but I can pick you up for dinner in an hour, if you like.”

  Don’t sound too desperate, I told myself.

  “Sure,” I said. “Thanks. That’d… that’d be nice.”

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------

  “I’m going out,” I called.

  My mother immediately appeared at the doorway to her office.

  “Megan, I thought we were all going to have dinner together,” she said. “You know, as a family. Your father will be hurt.”

  I shrugged.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve gotta get out of here for a little bit, though.”

  She looked pained.

  “Okay,” she said. “Who are you going with?”

  I looked out the window. The car he’d dropped me off was pulling up out front.

  “Merle. Gotta run, I have my phone, love you, bye!” I called, racing out the door before she could say anything.

  I opened the door and jumped into the passenger seat.

  “No Alex this time?” I asked.

  “He was persuaded to give up his baby,” Merle said. “Figured it’d be a more comfortable ride.”

  He eased away from the curb and headed into town.

  “What do you want to eat?”

  “Not Mexican,” I said, immediately.

  “God, no,” he said. “No way. Do you like pizza?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Come on,” I said. “Who doesn’t like pizza?”

  We settled in a little Italian place near my high school, with cracked booths and enormous slices of cheap pizza.

  I picked the green peppers off of mine and stacked them neatly on the side.

  “Swap you for my mushrooms,” Merle said, pointing at my rejected toppings.

  “Done!” I said. “Mushrooms are my favorite.”

  “Far be it from me to deny you the disgusting fungi,” he said, in an exaggeratedly gentlemanly way.

  I rolled my eyes at him again, and he surprised me by sticking his tongue out back.

  We chatted for a few minutes about, well, nothing in particular.

  Finally, our food gone, Merle put down his drink and fixed me with a serious look.

  “I’m not gonna ask if you’re okay,” he said. “If you said yes, you’d be lying.”

  I opened my mouth to say that I was fine, adjusting fine, doing fine, getting right back into the swing of things at home. He held up his hand to stop me.

  “If you were fine, there’d be something wrong with you,” he said. “You just spent a week -” he broke off as a family walked past.

  “Well.” A pause. “You just spent a very unpleasant week. No one would expect you to be fine.”

  “I want to be fine,” I said, in a small voice.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

  I shook my head, then nodded.

  “Not here,” I said.

  “Yeah, good call,” he said. He’d already insisted on paying for our dinner at the counter, and so he simply stood up and offered me his hand.

  We headed to the privacy of his borrowed car.

  “How’d the talk go?” he asked.

  “It was… it was okay, I guess. They don’t want me to see you again.”

  He shrugged. “Not exactly surprising.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I traced a pattern on the dash with my finger.

  He started the engine and pulled out of the parking space.

  “Are you ready to go home, or do you want to drive around a bit first?” he asked.

  “Can we drive around?” I asked, my voice small. I didn’t want to go home.

  “Of course,” he said, and shot me a slow, sweet smile.

  I relaxed back into my seat. It felt good, just to be around him.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------

  “Megan, honey,” Merle’s low voice said.

  I sat up with a start.

  It was dark.

  “Your phone has been ringing in your purse, I bet it’s your parents,” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  He grinned at me. We were parked in the woods, and it was dark.

  “You fell asleep, it’s been almost an hour.”

  I stretched and sighed and blinked.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  I pulled out my phone and found a bunch of irritated texts from my father and worried ones from my mother. Thumbing up through to see how long they had been trying to get in touch with me, I was relieved to find that it had only been a few minutes.

  I tapped at my screen for a moment.

  “I told them I’m coming home,” I said, looking up at Merle.

  He nodded.