Page 1 of Release Me

1

NADIA

God stopped answering my prayers years ago.

It took me too long to notice it—the way every hopeful utterance was met with silent indifference from an empty sky mocking me for daring to look up, for thinking there was anything waiting for me in the clouds besides raindrops that fell for the sole purpose of washing away my tears, invalidating their existence, and disappearing my pain.

But once I noticed, I stopped praying altogether.

Until tonight.

Tonight, the sky is clear. Dark and starless with not even a moon in sight, and I hope the absence of distractions will make it easier for me to be heard.

Tonight, I’m trapped in a car with a man who is under the influence of every illegal substance known to man, traveling almost a hundred miles per hour, headed straight for a tree that was standing long before God and I became estranged.

Tonight, I’m thinking of my mother and how she used to say everyone prays in the end, and I’m wondering if she prayed when she knew death was imminent.

I bet she did.

She probably prayed for me. That I would have a good life even though the only family I’d ever known was trapped on a doomed tube of metal falling from the sky.

Maybe she prayed for herself. Maybe she held my father’s hand and prayed to live.

I don’t know what that’s like. Wanting life. Craving survival.

We take the curve, and the car spins out. He presses the brake and curses. Wild blue eyes with blown pupils swing in my direction, begging me for something. Reassurance. Direction. I don’t know. Whatever it is he wants, I can’t give because I’m preoccupied with the foreign flavor of hope on my tongue.

The tree is a hairsbreadth away. Burnt rubber scents the air, and the quiet prayer becomes a chant that bursts out of me.

Fierce.

Desperate.

Final.

“God, please just let me die.”

2

NADIA

The aching in my shoulder indicated the arrival of a June thunderstorm hours before a raindrop fell from the sky. When the clouds decide to open up, I’m a full city block away from where I need to be, and I sprint—with the only copy of my resume I could afford to print over my head—down the sidewalk to try and make it to the doors of the grandiose building housing Cerros Hotel before the white blouse and black pencil skirt I splurged on for this job interview are soaked through.

Splurge.

If I wasn’t so busy dodging rain drops the size of my fist, I’d laugh at the word. At the way it suggests that I, a desperate girl in a strange city running from more than the inconvenience of mercurial clouds, have two red cents to rub together let alone use to indulge in fashion-based luxury.

In truth, these clothes aren’t worth the money I paid for them or the energy I expended haggling with the sales clerk in the thrift store around the corner from the roach motel I’m staying at to get the price down. I’d used the five bucks I saved to buy the first set of heels I’ve worn since I climbed out of the wreckage of an accident that should have claimed my life and ran like I wanted to live.

Now I’m running again, but it’s not for my life. Well, at least not directly. I won’t die if I don’t make it to Cerros in time to interview for the waitress position I saw advertised online when I was browsing the job boards in the library. Not today at least. Maybe in a few weeks when the money I stole off of the dead man whose unseeing eyes still appear in my dreams runs out. I’ve been careful with it. As careful as I can be when the motel I’m staying in doesn’t have a working fridge or a stove, and I have to eat out for every meal. As careful as I can be when I had to set half of the scarce amount aside, so I can buy a bus ticket to somewhere far away if he ever finds me. As careful as a person can be when what you have wasn’t enough to begin with and you’ve spent months without a job because being anywhere that isn’t your crappy motel room feels unsafe and you have no valuable skills outside of years of trading your body for money that never, ever touched your hands.

My chest burns, and there’s acid churning in my stomach. Lazy waves made of toxic waste lap at my ribs, caressing the shame that carved itself into my bones the first time I was sold to a stranger to pay for someone else’s debts. It cuts right through the meager meal I had for breakfast—two saltines and the watered down remnants of a cup of sweet tea I had with dinner the night before—and unleashes every anxious thought wrapped around my gut.

I can’t do this.

I don’t belong here.

I’m a joke. A whore. A walking, talking waste of space.

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