Page 105 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

“Relationships mean someone can leave you. I couldn’t bear the thought of being abandoned, so I built a wall around myself.” My voice is monotonous.

“And with me it’s not there?” She gently opens my stiff fingers and the pebbles fall out. Something inside me is trembling to its core. A shadow of fear claws at my soul.

“No,” I whisper hoarsely.

“Why not?” she whispers back.

“Because I made sure you can’t leave me,” I whisper again. “I don’t need to protect myself that much. Ever since I saw you…everything has been different.” I swallow hard, trying to regain my composure. “It was…like I could see everything through your eyes…life and stuff. You were like a beam of light in a dark cave.” I hate what I’m saying, even if it’s true.

My fingers close into a fist on their own accord, but Lou pushes against it, forming a bowl out of my hand. I don’t know when she moved toward me, but she’s suddenly so close I can feel her breath on my cheek. My throat constricts and my eyes hurt like I have grains of sand in them. I still want her so bad.

“Today, I would do everything differently.” I squeeze her hand tightly. “Today, I wouldn’t kidnap you. I wouldn’t drug you… I wouldn’t touch you…” I swallow against the tightness in my throat. “But it’s too late. I can’t go back. I don’t want to lose you. Especially not now that I really know you. At first, it was merely the thought that you could make me happy, but now I know for sure.” The moment I say the words I see the truth. I’ve never wished so much to turn back time, back to the moment Lou got into my RV.

I stare at the other shore of the lake and feel bitterness and contempt rising in me. What all could I have said?

Do you want something to drink? Do you want to kiss? Do you want an adventure? Want to run away with me?

There would have been endless questions, but I didn’t ask her a single one.

“Bren?” Lou pulls her fingers back. “I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

Hearing these words, I turn to her and feel lonelier and colder than winter itself.

“Apart from kidnapping me, I mean.” She dares a smile.

I try to smile back even though I know she’s wrong. People don’t change. If I were a good person, I should set Lou free.

Lou’s words haunt me as I haul the backpack up a tree so the bears can’t get to it, and stay with me as I set up two sleeping spots by the fire. How can she say I’m not a bad person when she knows what I’ve done?

Too bad you don’t want to find out who you really are.

Dr. Watts’ sentence flashes through my mind. I wonder who I would have become had it not been for my stepfather. Would I have gone to college and studied art? Or maybe I would have turned into a pompous ass like Andrew from Hero of the Week? Would I still have turned out a loner? Who am I really?

I can’t find any answers and just stare at the flickering sky, following the stars of the Big Dipper. Alioth, Mizar, and Alkaid on the handle.

Girls’ hearts.

I just want Lou’s.

More than anything, I want a chance.

I listen to the night and hear her breathing next to me. I carefully peek over at her. She is lying on her back, facing the stars. The light of the fire plays with her hair and orange-red light reflections dance on it like fiery spirits.

I would like to crawl into her sleeping bag and hold her like last night. Just the thought of her nearness makes me shudder with fear and joy. I have so many things to think about. About so many answers that I owe her.

“Lou…are you still awake?” One of the dumbest questions ever.

“Yes.”

I pull myself together. She asked me that recently and I didn’t tell her because she was so scared. I thought at the time that truth meant closeness and I think she’s ready for it now. “You were always yearning for something to happen, weren’t you?”

The stillness of the night suddenly deepens as if a false bottom opened up.

“What do you mean?” Lou asks and I hear trepidation in her voice.

“I once told you that there was another reason why I kidnapped you.” I pause for a moment. “You wanted something to take you out of your life and lift you up like an eagle. You wanted something to turn you inside out and leave you as someone you wouldn’t recognize. Something that made your heart glow. You longed for that, didn’t you?”

Lou doesn’t answer and her silence stretches out like the infinite space above our heads.

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