I finally stumbled upon some pertinent information by accident. Legally, too—during a civil search, I found the documents for the purchase of Katie’s house.
Meaning . . . I had her address.
I pulled up her house on Google Maps and studied it. Older. Small. Tiny front yard, rosebushes line the white fence. There’s a little porch with a swing on it. It looks like a safe neighborhood, quiet, that borderlines a grove of towering pine trees.
She’s lived there a year. The deed is in her name only. No guy. I’m assuming she doesn’t have a guy.
I’m really fucking hoping she doesn’t have one.
The interview is on right now—I’m watching it again because there’s something about Katie’s voice that soothes me. Gives me hope. Makes me yearn. We’d forged such a connection then, when we were young and felt like no one else understood us. Her parents severed that and I told myself it was for the best. I didn’t need her, didn’t want to need her, so I forgot about her.
Or so I thought.
Now I’m fucking obsessed. I want to meet the Katie of today and tell her I’m sorry. That I hope she’s happy. I want to ask her if the ghost of my father still haunts her.
Because he haunts me. Constantly.
“What are your plans for the future?” Lisa asks Katie. The interview is almost over.
“Right now I just live day by day,” Katie responds, her sweet voice filling my head, invading my thoughts. I pause in my search and lift my head, studying her image on my TV.
So beautiful. Her golden-blond hair is long and wavy at the ends and her blue eyes are dark, like a midnight sky. She looks innocent. Like an angel.
She could be my angel. She could save me. If I could just see her, talk to her. Just once.
“You must have some plans, don’t you? Things you wish for? A career? Marriage? Children?” Lisa persists.
The flinch is there, so subtle I’m sure the average person wouldn’t notice.
I do, though. I saw it. Her eyes flickered the slightest bit and a twinge made her wrinkle her nose. She didn’t like those questions.
“I don’t know what’s in store for me. I’m going to school, living on my own for the first time, and I like it. I do hope that someday I will find someone, but I . . .” Her voice drifts and she’s silent for a moment. She bends her head, her hair falling in front of her face, and I watch, mesmerized yet again, even though I’ve seen this many times. “I’m not sure it’s in the cards for me,” she finishes softly.
“What isn’t in the cards for you? Marriage?” Lisa is like a dog with a bone. She never lets go. Not until she gets what she wants. And she wants to sexualize Katie. In a nice way, in a proper way, with marriage and children and all the things we’re expected to do as good little citizens of the world.
“All of it,” Katie says with a nod, lifting her head, her gaze meeting Lisa’s once more. “I don’t know if I’m capable of it. Of trusting anyone.”
And that last sentence is what kills me.
He ruined everything. Fucking everything for this girl. She trusts no one. She believes she can love no one. Worse, I wouldn’t doubt for a moment she thinks she’s unlovable.
I can relate. I am unlovable. At least, that’s what I always believed, for all these years as I continued on and tried to find a new way to live my life. Not under the shadow of my father, who sits on death row almost gleefully. I wonder what he thinks of Katie’s interview.
Because I’m sure he watched every single fucking second of it. Just like me.
Just like me.
He wasn’t coming back.
I figured he was full of crap. A liar. I didn’t know who he was. Or what his name was, either. What did he want? How did he find me? I didn’t even know where I was. I caught a glimpse out of the storage shed’s dirty window the first night I was brought here, right before the man slipped the blindfold over my eyes and shrouded me in darkness. But all I saw was an empty backyard, with the exception of a lone, faded and chipped horse that looked like it came from a carousel leaning against the fence. Seeing that horse made me feel sad. It didn’t belong here.
I didn’t belong here, either.
The man hadn’t come back since early this morning. He brought me a donut for breakfast and I devoured it, not caring that the glaze was damp and sticky and that it tasted stale. I was starving. I was still starving. My stomach growled and I pressed my forehead against the wall, closed my eyes, and willed the hunger pains to go away.
My mom’s face loomed in my mind and I squeezed my eyes closed even tighter, trying to cling to hope, to the future. I saw her face, Daddy’s face, my sister’s face, Sarah’s face, and I hoped they weren’t too worried about me. That they were looking for me. Were they? Would they find me? Would anyone find me?
No.
The tears came. Slowly. My eyes burned, my throat ached, and I swallowed the sob, forced it down like it was food and would sustain me for a little while longer. I needed something to sustain me. I’d lost all hope. He’d be back soon. He’d touch me, force himself on me, put his mouth on me, and oh my God . . .
I banished the thoughts, the horror, the realness from my brain. Shuttered it closed, like I’d become so good at doing.
When I shifted my legs, the chains were loud as they clanked against the floor and I winced at the twinge between my legs. I hurt everywhere, but especially there. I was bruised and battered, the inside of my thighs black and blue, my chest, my legs and arms . . .