Page 7 of Haunt Me

Our story.

I take it, as Spece would say, from the start.

The Elliot sisters chat room

Manuela: Wait, we knew Isaiah was in love with En before he said it on stage?

Faith: I did.

Manuela: Wanna tell me how, miss smarty-pants?

Faith: Why else would he call her two admittedly clinically insane older sisters ON THE PHONE, and keep talking to them for a full seven minutes (yes, I timed it) just before he had to be on stage?

Manuela: He was practically suffocating on that phone call. I thought ‘I have never actuallyheardsomeone die, and I hope this isn’t the day I do’.

Manuela: But there is so much we don’t know. About them, I mean.

Faith: I know. I hate it.

Manuela: Hate what?

Faith: That there is so much we don’t know. And we never will.

six years ago

Massachusetts

four

The whole world knows the story. The story of the kidnapped girl who survived in captivity for sixteen years and was eventually rescued and returned to her family. But I need to tell it again.

To tell it now. To tell it to myself.

I have never stopped thinking about this, about our story, but I have never gone back, fully, to immerse myself in the memories. I wasn’t strong enough, and I’m definitely not strong enough now. If anything, I am weaker than ever. I am more broken than I have ever been.

My heart feels so fragile that a feather could knock it over. But I don’t have the luxury of waiting a second longer. I need to go back.

I need to start the story from the beginning, and stay with it until the end. I need to remember everything and I need to add the truth woven in: a truth I never knew, nor would have imagined in a million years.

I need to dive back into the icy, murderous waters of the past.

Into the pool filled with poison.

I have avoided going into these memories for four years; I have run from them like the plague.

And now I dive in, head first, letting the ocean plunge me into this story that ended my old self, the old Isaiah, and will probably completely kill what’s left of me this time around. But so be it. If it finishes me, it finishes me. I’m done being a coward.

The story begins.

Eden’s Old Phone

Eden: Today I got my very first phone. Dad says at fifteen and a half I’m old enough to have one now. Yay! There are only two contacts on it so far, his and yours. So, I just wanted to say, hi.

Eden: Hi!

F:Hi back haha

F:This feels so weird.

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