The Lonely (18 page)

He
shakes his head, "No. You had some teeth removed and filled and they stole
you from the hospital. It was a simple surgery. Your parents were in the
waiting room."

I
read the article and look up at him, "Do they know?"

He
nods his head slowly, "Yes. They know the basics. You're alive and not
ready to see them. We needed to crack the memories before we risked telling
them anything else. In case they came looking for you, before we had the chance
to do all of this."

"They
wouldn’t want me like this. I'm a murderer," I mutter.

He
slides one of his huge hands along my cheek, "You are so close, Sarah. So
close to fixing it all. Stop going backwards."

I
glance at the wall behind him. It has my name on it with a list. I frown,
"You were tracking the things wrong with me?" I ask, walking to the
wall.

"Doctor
Bradley is the best in memory recovery and PTSD. She helped me. She deals with
extreme cases of hostage situations or kidnappings. People like us who need to
learn to see the world again. Who need to see that the things we've done aren’t
who we are. Sometimes you're made to do something you don’t want to. That
doesn’t make you guilty of it"

I
look at him, "You knew where I was all along? You've been watching me? You
left me there all this time?"

He
crosses his arms, "No. I didn’t know where you were. You made it to Clovis
before the police could find you. I have searched high and low for you."

I
narrow my eyes, "How? How did you find me then?"

"Emalyn
is a pretty rare name, but combined with the name of the people who ruined my
life. It was a breeze once I saw it. When you wrote that article in eleventh
grade about the wastewater management, it came across my desk. Someone in one
of our companies thought it was an interesting article and take on things from the
perspective of the youth. I almost died when I saw that name. The combination.
I flew out immediately."

I
look around the room and shake my head, "My article? From school? What do
you do?"

"I'm
a business man, I work with my family. This isn’t our office. It's Dr.
Bradley's."

"How
are you so rich? None of this is making sense. Not that it ever has."

"I
was born rich, Sarah.
 
Emalyn and
me were with our parents that day because they were telling us they were
getting a divorce. It was our family's first outing together in months. We were
so excited. We didn’t know they took us there to tell us the bad news."
His eyes twitch with the memories.

I
close my eyes. He touches me, making me flinch away from his hand. He grabs
firmly and pulls me into his embrace.

"I
spent a couple years watching you. Studying you. I know everything about you. I
know what you hide and who you are. I brought your file to doctor Bradley, but
she was scared you were completely submerged in the Emalyn Spicer character you
had made. The life of the little lost orphan you had created. We created this
abduction and reality to help you."

I
push him away, "You tortured me and hurt me to help me?" I ask
incredulously.

"Yes.
It was the only way. We thought maybe the relationship with Sebastian would
help trigger things but when you ended it we knew. There was no other way.
Studies have shown that victims, who are at the brink of death and lose
everything, find peace all again. They gain a coping mechanism and a new
outlook on life. A new life. The New Leaf you wanted so badly."

I
feel sick and horrified and yet somehow deserving of everything he did to me.

His
blue eyes watch me. He smirks, "I have things, quirks if you will, that
are leftover from the things that happened to us all. My quirks prevented me
from living a normal life. Even close to normal. Sometimes they still do."
He swallows and takes a moment before continuing. "The nightmares were
brutal for a long time. My uncle knew Doctor Bradley. He knew I needed help. No
one believed me you were real. No one. The Spicers were sick people who
tortured and murdered little girls. They never left one alive. You were my
imaginary friend to everyone else. The girl who shot Emalyn. Everyone thought I
had made you up to deal with the fact, I had shot my own sister while trying to
kill the Spicers."

I
gasp. I never thought about the fact he would be blamed. I see him as the
little boy still in so many ways. I can imagine him trying to explain me to
them. The hopelessness he must have felt.

He
brushes my hair from my face, "You ran so fast and so far that we couldn’t
find you. Not even a trace of you. When you did get caught living on the
streets, they never imagined you were tied with the Spicer file. It was so far
away. No one clued in that you were a girl missing from Chicago, because you
weren't close to where you had been abducted from and it had been five years.
You looked so different. No one had a clue who you were and no Emalyn Spicer
was missing. You were missed in the system."

I
get lost staring into his blue eyes, "I climbed into the back of a truck.
I thought you left me. I didn’t blame you. After what I'd done I understood.
I'm sorry Eli." The memories are there like they were then - fresh and I'm
still covered in blood and filth. He is looking down and shaking his head.

He
glances at me through his lashes and grins, "When I found you they all had
to apologize. All of them. I am crazy, but I never imagined you. And I have
never forgotten you."

"Why
did you do all this?" I ask. It's the question I should have asked all
along.

"You
wished to be normal more than anything in the whole world. You were so broken
and no one knew how to help you. The orphanage didn’t know how to help you
because they didn’t know what you had been through. But I do. I get it."

"How
did you know what I wished for?"

He
runs his hand down my cheeks again, "I watched you non stop for two years.
There isn’t a thought in your mind that I can't read on your face." He
bends and brushes his lips against mine so softly. The kiss is intimate. I'm
scared of intimacy but I'm not scared of him. Not anymore. I don’t understand
why he kisses me. Why he does anything. I want to go back into the dark of the
cell.

"What
do we do now?" I ask. I feel lost and overwhelmed. I don’t know how to
find normal from where I'm standing. I've never felt more broken.

"You
go back to school and start over. New year, New Leaf, new you."

I
shake my head and snuggle in closer to him, "I don’t want to. Can I stay
here?" I don’t want anyone to see me or the things I've done.

He
chuckles. His laugh reminds me of the creepy guy kissing my thigh. It makes me
shudder. I push it away and just see him as he is. I don’t want to think about
the things he's done either.

He
clears his throat, "Sarah, you are a master of denial. No one is as good
as you are. I don’t want you wasting this. You need to work on you for a while.
And I have to go back to work."

I
don’t want to face a world where I did any of those things. I shake my head. He
lifts my chin, "You have to actually live that life you want."

I
glance up at him, "I don’t know how to live with what I've done."

He
nods, "You will. I want you to start figuring things out. It's a long road
from here but you can do it. You know the truth now. No more pretending."

I
don’t believe him. It might be that I don’t want to. I want to bury my head
back in the sand.

The
doctor's office feels different. So do I. Weeks of pacing it has improved many
things but worsened a few others.

"You're
sitting in a chair with your back to the window," she says and sips her
glass of water. I look behind me and notice I am. I frown at the window.

I
turn and look back at her, "I guess so."

She
smiles, "That's an improvement."

I
nod, "Yup." Her smiles and approval don’t measure up to what they did
before.

"Is
the lonely still coming?"

I
shake my head. "No." I don’t tell her that it abandoned me in the
dark.

"Do
you feel more free?"

I
bite my lips and do an inventory of feelings, "In some respects. I'm not
scared. But that's because I don’t care. If I die tomorrow it won't
matter."

"You
know that's not true. You have friends and a family you need to meet. If you
died you would never meet them." She is testing me still.

I
sigh, and nod, "I guess. I just feel so stripped bare. One good thing
though is I don’t feel like washing my hands all the time. It doesn’t matter if
I do or not. They won't ever come clean." I lean forward and take the
glass of water in my hand. Her eyes widen. I sip from it and even stick my
fingers into the water to fish out the cucumber slice. I take a bite. There is
a moment where it's hard to chew, but I force myself.

"That
was a bold statement. But you know that’s not true. You aren’t tainted with the
death of Emalyn." She nods.

"No.
I don’t know that. But I do know I don’t have to worry about the germs because
that was never what I was trying to get off. It's the same as the corners. I
don’t need them. I'm not in the hole. I'll never be there again."

She
watches me, "You don’t seem happier, Sarah."

I
grin and laugh. "I'm not. My brain was forgetting those things for a
reason. You and Eli made me remember them and now instead of dealing with them
slowly, one at a time, they're all in my face. I don’t know where to put them all.
I can't make them go away, so I'm numb. It's like I'm refusing to look. Like I
know the facts but I don’t want to feel them."

She
folds her arms, "That’s excellent. The way you described that was
excellent. You still are trying to put things in their places then? Make things
tidy?"

We
have had the same conversations for weeks. I'm almost ready to attack her.
Instead, I laugh and have another sip of the refreshingly cold water, "I
am. I'm better in some ways but I can't get rid of thirteen years of training
and discipline." Sometimes I miss the simplicity of the cell and the
beatings.

She
taps her fingers on the sofa and smiles softly. "Well my thoughts on that
are that you were living in a false reality. You weren’t dealing with the
things that happened to you. You can't ever heal and move on if you don’t know
that you're damaged and why. Let's move on. Have you been seeing Mr. Adams
since you freed a couple days ago?"

"Who?"

She
smiles softly, "Eli? Eli Adams."

My
inhale tugs in my chest, it catches on something like a sweater on a nail. I
shake my head. I know my face is obvious so I just say it. "He won't see
me. He texts me. He won't take my calls or speak to me. I don’t blame him. I
know it's my fault."

Her
eyes narrow, "How does that make you feel?"

Anger
flares. I want to snap at her but I take a breath. "Not good." My
voice is soft. I can't make it louder, not without screaming.

"Why?"

My
head snaps up, "WHY?"

She
jumps at my snapping at her. But it doesn’t stop me.

"WHY?
YOU FUCKING LOCKED ME IN A CELL AND BEAT ME AND TRIED TO DROWN ME AND HE
TOUCHED ME AND MADE…made me think things." My voice drops off and gets
stuck in a heaving gasp. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed about how I feel about him
and what I did.

"Get
it out." She challenges me.

I
rock on the chair and hug myself, "I shot her and I swear I can't drop the
gun." I cry so hard I can't breathe. My tears and words are silent.

"What
would have happened had you not? Had you just stayed outside and played with
the toys."

"H-h-he
would have hurt her like the others."

"How
many kids did he leave alive?" I don’t answer or look at her. I just hold
myself and shake. She answers for me, "None. He left none alive. You saved
her a much worse fate."

"But
if I had shot him she would be alive."

"There
is no if. You have to look at the choices and the circumstances. You were
six-years old. The only thing that ever saved you was that you were hers. Not
his. He wasn't allowed near you. Even with her protecting you, you were alone
in the world."

"I
still am." I whisper, still squeezing my eyes shut. I can't do the light
of the room with the things I've put out there. The light feels too bright for
a second. It shows too much. "Can we do the grateful thing?" I
whisper again.

She
stands. I open my eyes, to see her offering me her hand. I take it.

We
walk to the mats. She lies down and pulls me with her. I lie back and close my
eyes.

Her
voice becomes the soft pillow my fears rest their weary heads upon. "You
are alive, Sarah. You made it out of the room and the house and the orphanage.
You have air and space and someone who loves you so much he would hurt himself
to break down the walls you have built. You are grateful for the simple facts
of friendship, air, and freedom. If Emalyn were here she would tell you she was
grateful for the freedom you gave her. The life you gave her. The air she
breathed and the space she got. But you need to be strong enough to let her
go."