Page 50 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

Lou first goes to the bathroom while I run water over my torn wrists at the sink. My gaze falls on the wide scar that is usually hidden by the leather strap. It goes once around the joint and looks like a burn. The monster didn’t give a damn if my skin tore, bled, or wept through the bonds. He also never switched sides like I do with Lou. A few times, he even made me dip my hand with raw flesh in a bucket of salt. I had to count to fifty, often more. Sometimes, when the weather changes or the seasons change, the scar tissue starts to sting. Then, I smell salt and blood in the air, hear myself counting, and feel the pressure of the suppressed screams in my lungs. The memory of the pain sickens me.

I quickly put the bracelet back on. Luckily, today’s fresh wounds are in a different spot.

I’ve just finished as Lou emerges from the bathroom.

“May I take a shower?” she asks, her voice monotonous as if she’s been alone for the past few years.

“Sure.” I shake my hands to let the water roll off. “Shall I get you your shampoo and shower gel?”

She grimaces like she’s about to burst into tears.

“You can also use my things,” I say quickly. I open the closet above me and pull out a brand-new black-pepper-and-mint-scented body wash and Irish shampoo. I hand it to her and she immediately retreats into the tiny shower room.

Maybe she’s afraid I’d only picked out shower gel for her that turns me on. I have no idea what’s going on in Lou’s head. After what she just threw at me, I don’t know anything anymore except that she strongly despises me. But that was to be expected. It simply takes time. I’ve always had to wait for the most important things in my life: for the lid to open, for escape, for food to be found, for fights, and for the healing of wounds afterward. Maybe that’s why I’m so impatient with everything else.

While the water is running in the shower, I gather the things I’ll need for Lou later: Iodine, a pair of scissors, and the herbal ointment with rosemary. As I go to the mirrored cabinet in the bathroom to get Band-Aids and gauze bandages, I hear her sobbing.

Not just a little bit, but so violently and desperately that a cold hand closes around and squeezes my heart. I can’t help it and stand close to the door—it’s like a compulsion. I don’t deserve anything else. I told her I could handle her feelings, but this is tough. She cries and cries like she can never stop, like she’s choking on her big deep sobs.

I swallow. I would like to go in to her right now, but that would be the worst thing I could do. She doesn’t want me, nothing of me.

When the pounding of the water suddenly stops, Lou immediately becomes dead quiet.

I turn to the water gauge behind me. The red lamp lights up. I silently walk a few feet away from the door. “You used all the water in the tank!” I shout loudly.

Silence. Moist, hot air seeps through the gap between the floor and the door. “Are you all right?”

Still silence. A bad feeling overcomes me. She couldn’t have found razor blades, they’re well hidden. “Louisa? Everything okay?” Has she passed out?

When she doesn’t answer again, I throw the door open without giving a thought to the fact that she might be naked. She stands before me like a mummy, wrapped in a white towel but completely frozen. What can be seen of her skin glows scarlet, looking almost burned. I make a note in my head that I need to turn the water heater’s maximum temperature down so she can’t intentionally scald herself.

She walks past me far too ghostly, disappearing into the RV’s bedroom and pushes the folding door shut behind her.

It takes an unbearable amount of self-control not to run after her to hug her, stroke her hair, and promise her that one day everything will be fine. I just know it. No one resists forever, and if you can’t change the circumstances, you accept them as normal. You stop fighting.

I set out a tray with water and a bowl of oatmeal and wait another hour for her to calm down. Before going to her, I stir hot milk into the flakes.

“Lou?” I pull open the folding door with one hand.

She sits in the dark with the shades drawn, staring straight ahead, kind of at me, but actually sort of through me.

“Here, for you, something to eat.” I set the tray down on the bed in front of her, then turn on the light.

She’s wearing the black T-shirt and capri Levi’s jeans. I chose both pieces independently of her clothes because I liked them so much. The wide neckline of the shirt reveals her delicate collarbones. They stand out, reminding me of two finely curved wings.

Lou’s expression is still as if frozen.

“You have to eat something,” I say after standing by the bed for a while, waiting.

Lou doesn’t move. Sighing, I pull up the shades and slide open the window to let in some fresh air. It is already evening, but there is still quite some light. The clear whistle of a hermit thrush penetrates the RV, and in the background, the toc-toc-toc of a woodpecker sounds again. “I won’t leave until the bowl is empty.”

Apparently, the threat does its trick because Lou starts eating: spoon in the oatmeal, spoon in the mouth, swallow. And she repeats the movements like a robot. Inanimate.

Just as mechanically, she drinks the water I give her.

As I bandage her chafed wrists, her condition does not change. Listless, she lets everything happen to her, following my words like a marionette, completely without will. To be on the safe side, I press the ointment for bruises between her fingers so she doesn’t feel like I’m using the injuries as an excuse to touch her. Like a sleepwalker, she rubs her arms absently like she’s a million miles away. Finally, I tend the abrasions on her knees before putting the ointments back in the kitchen cupboard.

I realize I must chain her now even if everything inside me is against it. I hesitantly go back to her.

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