Page 52 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

Arriving on my land has never felt so good. Lou, last stop, we’re here! I want to shout back to her, but I doubt she’ll share my enthusiasm. I slam the RV door and walk a lap around the graveled bay as if I have to check if everything is still okay like with a house you return to after a long time. The white spruces still form a high circle around the clearing and seem motionless like sentinels. In front of the spruces lies a dense green carpet of young willowherbs. A few bees buzz around the closed buds.

For a moment, I breathe in the fresh air scented with pine needles and look up at the visible patch of blue sky.

I spontaneously decide to bring Lou out here tonight. I left her alone for the past few days, but maybe that wasn’t wise. These past two days, she has even stopped eating and she is losing more and more weight. Something has to happen.

Having dumped the gray and black water, I clear the pit for the campfire and gather wood and birch bark. When I’m finished, I go back to Lou.

She lies on the bed, hollow-cheeked and pale like she does every evening when I ask her if she wants to sit by the campfire with me. Somehow, she looks so surreal as if she no longer belongs in the real world anymore, only in mine.

“You must eat.” My eyes fall on her collarbones, which protrude more than they did a week ago. “If you don’t do it voluntarily, I’ll force you.” It would be awful to have to feed her food like a goose to be fattened, but I’m determined to go through with it.

But even my threat doesn’t break her apathy. I carefully sit down next to her on the edge of the bed. She doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink.

“I always loved how full of life you are. It was like nothing could bring you down,” I say softly.

Her eyes shimmer, but she continues staring at the ceiling.

“I know exactly how you feel right now. It’s like you’re lying in a glass coffin.” I close my eyes for a moment, thinking about the day in the Yukon I wanted to die, all the days I wanted to die. “Dead but not buried. You can see and hear everything around you but everything is muted. The sky could be bright blue, but for you it’s gray. When you reach out to touch something, all you feel is cold glass.” I don’t know who or what makes me find these words. No idea where they come from, but they seem to be touching something inside of Lou. She turns her head and stares at me wide-eyed.

I force myself not to grab her hand. “I wish there was a way to make this more bearable for you. I wish I could be the one to shatter that glass for you, but I was the one who put it there.”

Her stunned gaze burns into mine. I drop my head, wipe my face as if that takes all the blame away from me. Lying here, she’s not the Ash Springs girl anymore. For the first time, I clearly realize that I am destroying her. Just as I feared at the beginning. My darkness is too much for her. She withers before my eyes like a plant without light.

“I should have taken a different girl and spared you,” I hear myself say, and for a split second, I believe it. Then Lou would still be Lou. But the point is: there never was another girl who could have helped me out of my darkness, so there never was another option. And now we have to get through it somehow.

An hour later, I go back to her with a fully loaded tray. She is still lying there, laid out to rest. Inwardly, I steel myself against my reluctance to use brute force to make her eat.

“I made you some oatmeal with grated apples, anything else would probably hurt your stomach. And, Louisa, I’m not leaving until you finish it.” Threats have worked before.

After a while, when she still doesn’t move, I pull her up and tuck the covers behind her in case she’s too weak to sit up.

I lean toward her so that my face is close to hers and glare at her with uncompromising hardness. “Eat!” I truly don’t want to force her, but I see myself cradling her head in my arm, opening her jaw, and then holding it shut to make her swallow. The thought makes me miserable, although I’ve done it to her before, but at the time it was only water. For some reason that didn’t bother me at all.

I rise and stand in front of the folding door with my legs apart and my arms crossed.

Lou doesn’t look at me, but grabs the spoon stuck in the cereal as if in slow motion. Her fingers shake so much she can barely hold it. Furtively, she withdraws her hand and tenses her shoulders, shrinking.

She won’t eat!

Give her time, Brendan, don’t freak out! She’s not doing this to provoke you. She’s simply afraid of you.

Without taking my eyes off her, I move to the other side of the bed and sit on the edge.

“We’ll be staying here for a while, so you won’t have to spend the whole day in the back room anymore,” I say, trying to distract her from the tense situation.

She grabs the spoon again. It rattles against the edge a few times and she flinches. I pretend to look out the window, happy to hear her eating at some point.

After a few minutes, I turn to her and catch her looking slyly at me out of the corner of her eye. There’s something new in the blue of her eyes, a tiny gleam, maybe a question.

Can I trust you?

You truly won’t hurt me?

For a brief moment, I feel like my chest is full of confetti tickling me from the inside. My cheeks burn and I look at her hands. They’re still trembling.

Since it grows dark late in the evening, I light the campfire and put on my old gun belt. It’s more practical to hang your keys and wilderness paraphernalia on carabiners from the strap so you don’t have to rummage around in your pockets all the time.

When I come back, Lou is still sitting on the bed exactly as I left her. Her pastel yellow blouse is rumpled and her blue jeans are far too loose.

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