Chapter 16

I can’t sleep. I don’t want to sleep. I want to lay right here, in the middle of my bed, staring at my ceiling in the dark, breathing deep, hands out to either side on both of my dogs’ backs. I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to go back there. I can’t. He was, he was hurting me. He had killed Trace, he was going to kill her. He kept forcing bologna down in my mouth. And he kept laughing and laughing. I can still hear his laugh. I sniff but don’t take a hand off one of my dogs to wipe the tears away. I need to feel my tears to know that I’m awake and I need to feel them there, feel my dogs breathing in their sleep. If, if someone was around, someone bad, they would jump up and I could feel it and get prepared and turn on the lights and hide or call the police. I can’t sleep.

I cry a little harder. But I’m so tired. I’m so, so tired.

It’s been three days since I’ve been home and I haven’t been able to sleep since. I’ve tried but he’s there, he’s always there. I didn’t have this problem the last month in Africa. I slept all the time, I slept well. I wouldn’t dream. I’d just pass out and wake up nine or ten hours later. Shit, I shouldn’t have told momma to leave. I shouldn’t have told her I was fine, that I was ok. I know she didn’t believe me. I know she’s still in town. I shouldn’t have yelled at her either like I did yesterday. That was wrong of me. And I shouldn’t have told Mike to stay in the guest house instead of here in the house with me. What if someone sneaks in? What if, what if someone he knows wants revenge? What if he didn’t really die and the police people just told me that so I wouldn’t worry?

What if he comes after her?

I gulp. “Please be ok.”

She’s in the next room. I know she’s probably fast asleep, dreaming of Aladdin taking her on a carpet ride, or of Genie making all her wishes come true. Franco sits up for a minute and makes a noise. I gasp. I think my heart stops, I don’t breathe. He sits up, licks my hand, I feel him move and then sigh.

I’m a wreck. A fucking nut job. I suck in a shaky breath of air and when I let it out I start to cry, hard. I’m so, so tired of crying. I cried last night so bad that I ended up getting out of bed and locking myself in my bathroom and sitting on the hard floor doing a crossword puzzle that I had in the basket by my toilet. I completed five puzzles and then I reorganized my bathroom toiletries. I took a shower, put on new clothes and then peeped out of my bedroom and walked through the house with both my dogs at my side, turning on every light as quickly as possible.

But there are too many windows downstairs and I was terrified someone might be looking in, planning on how to take me. So I ran back upstairs, shut my door, got in the bed and covered up completely. I watched an old Steve Martin movie on Comedy Central and woke up this morning with a rerun of The Daily Show blaring at me.

I’d turn the TV on tonight and watch it and try to tone out his voice in my head but I’m too scared too move. The remote isn’t on the nightstand. I tried reaching for it earlier and felt nothing. And I’m not about to get out of this bed.

Someone might grab me.

Suddenly there is a noise and I sink down into the mattress. Shit, why aren’t my dogs moving, why aren’t they attacking? I fucking told Rachel to have them trained. She was supposed to do that before I got home! Did she lie to me!? Franco lifts his head and I hear him make a small curious whine before getting up and hopping off the bed. There’s that noise again. I turn my eyes from the ceiling to the door.

Fuck, oh fuck, it’s opening. I’ve been staring at the ceiling too long, my eyes have adjusted to the darkness. I can see it. Someone’s there. Someone’s going to take me.

It’s him. He’s here.

“Justin?”

I sob.

It’s just her. Roscoe wakes up. I hear him yawn and he rolls over a bit on his side. I finally reach a hand up and wipe at my face roughly, trying to throw the tears off. I’m pathetic, sad, a sorry ass human being. I gulp and force myself to sit up and blink.

“Justin?”

“Yeah?” I lean over and turn on the light on the nightstand and I see her. She’s wearing one of my t-shirts and a pair of my boxers. I didn’t want to get her flannel pajamas and have her roasting and everything else seemed too girly or too sexual. What Rachel bought for her were these cotton slip type things, the looked too sexy for her to wear. I figured boxers and a tee would be safe. She’s staring at me and there are tears streaming down over her cheeks. For a moment I panic, thinking something’s happened to her, maybe something or someone has scared her.

“What happened?”

“I had a bad dream.”

She sniffs and runs her hands under her nose and moves her eyes from me to where Franco is rolling on his back in front of her feet. It makes her smile and I gulp and push the covers off of me. Roscoe gets up and goes over to his dog pillow by the window. He circles around twice and then plops down. I realize now how hot I am. It’s so warm in this room and I’m glad to have the sheet and the blanket and the comforter off of me, though I was happy they were my shield moments ago.

How pathetic. I need a fucking shield.

She immediately comes over and slides beside me on the bed. She keeps a good distance between us and just stares at my face. I reach over and brush my fingers over her cheek. “What happened?”

She shakes her head, a silent way to tell me she doesn’t want to say.

“Stay right here. I’ll be right back.” I say to her and then slide from the bed and go to my bathroom. I would go downstairs and get her water out of my filter, but I’m a little scared and I don’t think she’ll care about tap water anyway. At night, when I get thirsty I’ve been using this same cup, my water cup. It’s a big plastic mug styled cup with a Lakers logo all most completely washed off. I’ve been too frightened to go downstairs. I fill it up with water, take a big gulp and come back to the room to find her curled up with Franco, letting him lick her face and neck. He’s in love with her. His tail is smacking against my bed.

I snap my finger and point to the pillow that Roscoe is on and he jumps down and goes to lay on it. Sarah pouts and I hand her the cup. “Drink some water, ok?”

She nods and takes the cup from me. She drinks just like Stephen, holding the cup to her face with both hands, drinking slowly, breathing into the cup with each gulp, staring at me. I just stand there and watch her and then go over to the door to shut it. She hands the cup back to me silently. “All done?” She nods and giggles and sinks against the pillows.

I smile at her and walk back into my bathroom and set the cup on my sink.

Then I realize what I’m doing. I’m supposed to be teaching her. I should have told her to do that herself. I shouldn’t have asked her “all done.” And shouldn’t have said it in that tone that my mother use to use when I’d wake her up in the middle of the night and whisper to her that I was thirsty.

I was about eight years old when one night she said, “come with me.” We walked down to the kitchen and she pointed to the cabinet: “open that”. I had this little stool and pulled it out, stepped on it, opened the cabinet and she proceeded to tell me to pull out my own cup and go to the sink and get my own water. She even told me that if I spilled something to get a paper towel and clean it up.

I never again went to my momma to get water for me at night. She told me I was a big boy, that I could do that myself.

And I yelled at her yesterday. I told her she didn’t know anything, that she was clueless as to what was going on with me. I told her to leave and not push me or pressure me. I yelled at her, told her I’d call her if I needed her, if…if I wanted to see her. She left trying not to weep. I told her to stop treating me like I was a child, like I was lost. But she was right. I am lost. And she knew this would happen. I want to treat Sarah like an adult, but every time I try to she just gets this blank look on her face and draws into herself. She did it tonight at dinner. Mike brought us over some steaks. I told him I was craving red meat. She had never had it. I had to cut her steak for her. She seemed to have a hard time chewing at first, but finally figured it out. I had to show her how to put her plate up in the sink. She was amazed by the dish washer.

And momma knew. She knew this would happen. She knew that I’d want to treat Sarah differently than I would be able to. I have to treat her like a child because that’s what she is. But dammit, she’s not a fucking child! And the more I treat her like that, the more she’s gonna get stuck. I wanna pull her out of that.

I’m not doing a very good job.

As her guardian I need to protect her and provide from her, but I get now why momma was so concerned. I also have to raise her. It’s like, I don’t know, she’s my child now or something. I don’t feel like her father or her brother or anything like that. It’s different. But she’s my responsibility and I’m in charge of raising her up, making her grow and I don’t know how in the hell to do that.

For the past few days I’ve tried to teach her things, but most the time she gets confused and I get frustrated and I give up on her and let her go back to watching TV. And she does that a lot, but I’ve also found her exploring my house, looking at things, through things. I found her staring at my awards one day in my office. I was going to tell her about them but she didn’t ask. She rarely asks and that bothers me. Most kids have so many questions it’s annoying, Sarah has so few that it’s worrisome.

I’m starting to think that maybe, maybe I can’t make her better.

I think that’s why I got so mad at my momma yesterday. I should have never done it. I should have never hurt her feelings like that, and I should have never done it in front of Sarah. She didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day. She just stared at me. She’s always fucking starting at me.

But this is the first night she’s come to my room. The first night I kept checking in on her and finally gave up to sleeping in my bed. I thought it would happen easily, ya know first night back in my bed and all, but I was restless. Last night I had my nice little romp around the house and in fact she was the one to knock on my door this morning and ask me if it was ok to go downstairs. She still asks me things like that, still asks for permission. But tonight, tonight she’s scared.

It’s like she was the first day here, after her nap. Everyone was still at the house, we had eaten the “welcome back from being kidnapped” cake and I had awkwardly talked to my family trying to pretend that I was ok. She slowly came down the steps and was terrified of them. I tried to introduce her but then realized it was best for her just to keep to herself. My brother’s stared at her and she stared back, like kids do when they don’t know each other. I was pissed at my family for ignoring her at first, but then took it as a blessing realizing that if they did try to converse with her she and they would be more confused. She’d get upset and they’d probably think I’m crazier than I already am.

During the little party I took her outside with me to walk my dogs in the back yard so she could get away. She clutched to me but seemed ok. She freaked out the first time we took her out of the hospital.

I didn’t know why she was doing that and it scared me horribly. I thought they were gonna make her go back in, but we rushed her to the car and she plastered her face to the window and looked up at the sky and the trees. I realized then that she hadn’t been outside. The last time she was outside they had carried her to an ambulance and the last time before that, well, I guess was when she was taken.

Maybe I’ll take her on a walk tomorrow, around my yard. Maybe I’ll do that before I take her to the doctor.

“Justin?”

I suck in a breath and realize I’ve been standing there, holding onto the counter and staring at the drain in my sink. I walk back into my room and find her curled up under the covers. “Yeah?”

“I…I thought you left.”

I shrug. “I just went to the bathroom. Remember…” I point over my shoulder to the doorway. When I showed her around my house, she became amazed by the marble and the shower and then giggled and laughed at the big footed tub I have. She said that she wanted it and I promised her she could use it. Then I realized I should probably teach her how to shower, but…well I’m not quite sure how to do that without seeming like a pervert. “I showed you yesterday.”

She shakes her head and sniffs. “I’m my dream. You left. And I was here alone. And I didn’t know what to do….and…and…”

That look comes over her face, that ‘help me Justin’ look, that ‘save me Justin’ look. I sigh and quickly slide in the bed and pull her into my chest.

“Shh…”

She grabs my shoulders and buries her face in my neck. It’s then when I realize that I’m only in boxers. I took my brace off to sleep. It itches and I feel like I don’t need it anymore. But I guess it kind of hurts lying on my side like this. Oh well. It’s weird having to hold her. Her body is that of a woman, yet she’s not. It’s confusing, sometimes I have to keep reminding myself that she is an adult and needs to not be treated as a child. Then in other moments like this I have to remind myself that she’s still a child, she knows nothing about the world, about herself. I’m usually pretty nervous being around people I don’t know with my shirt off, like in photo shoots. But, but this is ok. I just hope she doesn’t think since I’m not fully clothed I’m trying to do something like ‘uncle’ did.

I try not to do anything like him. He was a bastard, psychotic, but I don’t want her comparing us.

“And he found me.” She’s crying. Fuck, I hate it when she cries.

I run my hand over her hair. It needs to be cut, like professionally done, not the chopping job he must have done. Maybe I’ll take her one day, get her a nice adult make over. I bet she’d like that.

“Sarah…” She pulls away and looks at me. Her eyes are huge, staring at me, not blinking, praying that I’ll make it better, that I’ll make it all go away. God, I wish I could all make it go away.

Why can’t I just make her better?

I suck in a breath. I hate that she dreams about him like I do. I feel like it lets him win, ya know? It still lets him take over. But he’s dead and he’s gone and he can’t hurt her or me any more. I just have to believe that and I have to get her to believe it. I have to. “You know, you know he was a bad man.”

She shakes her head and moves her hands and arms to grab me around the waist. “I don’t know…”

It’s been the hardest part I guess. It’s hard to figure out if she really has any idea of what happened to her. The doctors in Africa said she has some type of idea, but that her anxiety and stress levels were high in the hospital and well, I don’t know because I didn’t see her for so long and I’m not sure what all went down in the hospital. From what I could find out, the first few weeks she was there, she was…she was insane. Like not, ‘oh, she likes to watch Disney movies and has the ability of a 5 year old even though she’s 20 something.’

No, she was…she was screaming, yelling, crying, hitting. They couldn’t calm her down. They had to sedate her...like he did. He was shot dead while holding her, holding a gun to her. The man she had trusted, the man who had brainwashed her into thinking he was God, the man who fucked her up, the only man in her life was killed in front of her. And even though he deserved it and she deserved to be free of him, I can’t imagine what that’s done to her mind, how much more that’s fucked her up. And she was alone, I wasn’t there and Trace wasn’t there. I can’t imagine how scared she was.

I shake my head. I shouldn’t blame the doctors in Africa and I shouldn’t blame myself for not going to see her sooner. I wanted to, God I did. No, no all of this is his fault.

Fucking pathetic shit that he was.

And I still don’t know if she realizes he was a bad man, that he took her from her family, if she even knows she has a family. I don’t know if she misses him, or if she knows how he kept her locked up, the lies he told her, the drugs he gave her, if she knows that having sex with him was wrong. If she even really knows what sex is.

Today she was watching TV, I was on the phone with Trace. She was watching a soap opera. I thought she had fallen asleep on the couch, but she hadn’t. I was going to turn the TV off but the phone rang. Halfway through I noticed some horribly cheesy sex scene about to happen. One of those really impassioned ones with the cheesy music behind it, where the man is ripping off clothes. I don’t know what soap it was, I’m sure it’s one my mom watches. I remember shaking my head at how corny it was but then realizing she was sitting up, staring at the TV. I went over to her and looked at her and she was just staring.

Her eyebrows were bunched and her mouth was open a little, like she was in shock. I turned the TV off and asked her if she was ok. She just stared at me and didn’t say a thing.

She didn’t understand it.

I focus in on her now and wipe her tears away with my fingers. “Do you understand that he did things to you he should not have?”

She gulps. “I don’t like it.”

I don’t know what she means. I don’t know if she meant to say ‘I didn’t like it’, or if I’m doing something wrong. I hope I’m not pushing her too much. I know I get impatient. It’s only bee three days and I’m already impatient with her, but I’m trying. God damn, am I trying.

“What don’t you like?”

She licks her lips and then pulls away and stares at the ceiling. She wipes on her own face and sighs. In that moment she seems suddenly so much older. “I’m not like you.”

I breathe deeply. Well, that…I guess that’s a good thing that she realizes that. It means she has some sense that something is wrong with her that needs to be fixed. But, I guess I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little broken myself. Being able to invest so much time and care into her helps me forget that a little bit, helps me keep going, helps me look forward, helps me not think about myself so much.

It’s just when I’m alone, like at night, when I start to freak out. Maybe, maybe we should start sleeping together…like not in the bad way, just in the same room. I guess, I guess that’d be wrong. I guess being independent is something she needs to learn.

“No, no you’re not like me. But we can work to make you like me.”

“You saved me.” She turns and stares at me and for a moment I forget who she is and what has been done to her and see her as the beautiful woman that’s laying in my bed, looking at me like I’m her everything. But as soon as it’s there, as soon as I start to feel that maybe she might be coming around, she smiles and giggles and curls into me and says, “You’re my prince.”

And my heart breaks and my hopes are drowned and I’m back to the beginning.

I sigh. “I don’t have a horse or a castle.”

She looks up at me and smiles, “You have doggies.”

But I’ll take this. I’ll take innocent, childish, happy Sarah over scared and upset Sarah any day. She’s happy with me and right now, that’s...that’s all that matters.

And I’ve stopped thinking about my own nightmares and I think she’s forgotten hers. “Do you want to stay here tonight?” She nods, her forehead moving against my shoulder. “Ok…”

I roll over and cut off the light and then lie on my back. I pull up the covers over us and pray she’ll stay on her side, curl up and start to breath deeply. I pray she’ll just go to sleep.

But she curls up to me, throwing her arm over my stomach and resting her cheek against my chest. It forces me to lift an arm around her and I can feel her bare legs against mine. It’s been a long time since I’ve lain with a woman in my bed, but this isn’t a woman. Dammit Justin, stop thinking that!

I take in a breath and put my arms behind my head, hoping that if she just holds on to me I can’t be to blame for anything. I can’t touch her in the wrong way or anything if I’m lying like that. I also try to get my mind off the way she’s pressing into me and bring up the appointment we have tomorrow with her therapist. “Tomorrow I’m going to take you to meet this lady who’s going to be your friend and help you, ok?”

“Huh?”

“Her name’s Lisa.”

“Lisa.” She whispers.

I talked to the woman on the phone after spending a lot of time researching therapist in the LA area that deal with supremely traumatic patients. At first this doctor thought I was the patient, but when I told her about Sarah she didn’t say anything. She knew who I was, knew the story. There was a good 20 seconds on the phone that neither of us said a word. I knew she was going to turn me down. I knew she was going to say that she didn’t do that type of work, but then she sucked in a breath and said “Bring her in Thursday at 11. And we’ll talk.”

Sarah is silent for a bit and I start to think she might have fallen asleep. So I put my hand down against her head and smooth her hair and the touch her back. “Do you not want me to be your friend anymore?”

I sigh. “No…” I guess she’s not asleep. “No Sarah… I’m your best friend, remember.”

“Always.” She squeezes me and sighs.

“A…always.” I start to feel my eyes water and I swallow the lump that’s forming in my throat. I don’t know why this is making me want to cry, why it’s hitting me so fast. I guess everything makes me cry now, ever since I’ve been kidnapped and turned into a pussy. I guess it’s comforting to know she’ll always be my friend, that she’ll always need me.

But she doesn’t even know what that means. She doesn’t even know that she needs me. I reach up and wipe at my face roughly. I’m being ridiculous. I’m being pathetic.

I feel her move and for a moment I don’t know what she’s going to do. Then I feel her lips press against my skin on my face and I can feel her smile there. “You’re the good guy,” She whispers and then leans back down against me and sighs.

She falls asleep quickly and I don’t know how she does it. My body shakes with sobs and finally she rolls away from me, slinging an arm over her face. I curl up on my side, my back to her and cry into my pillow. I force myself to stop, to suck it up, to be a man, but I break even more, and force my face into the pillow to quiet myself. I’m trying so fucking hard to be the good guy. I’m trying to do everything right. I’m trying to do what my head tells me, what my heart tells me.

I’m trying to make this better for her. And I know its stupid and I know I have a small chance of making it right, but I gotta try. And I am trying. I’m trying so hard. But it’s so lonely. I’m in this on my own. I have been for a long time, before I came home, before I was rescued, hell before I was kidnapped.

They all thought I was fine, my momma, my family, Cameron, Trace, Johnny. They all thought I was great, that I loved to be independent, that my world was perfect.

They were wrong.

I look over my shoulder and see her in the dim light, breathing deeply, her arm now over her chest. I roll over and curl up to her and watch her sleep, so gentle, so peaceful. I carefully rest my head next to hers and wrap my arm over her stomach. I need to hold her, I just have to. She sighs and leans her head towards mine. I stare at her. I stare at her and realize I’m not alone anymore.

There’s Sarah. And she won’t leave me and she’ll always need me and…and I won’t be alone. I’ll never be alone. She calls me her prince, tells me I saved her.

But she’s wrong…she’s so wrong.