Set Me Free

"For not being able to save you"

"I'm sorry no one saved you."

No one came and saw me for hours. I was left alone in my little cell with nothing but my thoughts.

Thoughts about the future that lay before me. I wasn't ready to face what was ahead of me, but there was no way to change my fate. I was here now and I had to accept that. There was no need for wishful thinking or what ifs, it would only make the present even bleaker. This was my life for the foreseeable future, and it was time that I settled with the truth.

My father wasn't coming for me. He may turn my video into the police and they may attempt to look for me, but I knew that there was nothing that could be done. He didn't have the kind of money they were demanding, no one I knew did.

My mother must be going crazy with worry. As soon as she finds out what has happened, I know that it won't be these thugs that my father has to worry about. My mother can be wild when she wants to be, can command a room with one simple look. My father was in for a world of pain when she knew what he had done.

I almost felt bad for him.

When I was younger, I had a problem with bullies. It was simple things like name calling and teasing, but at that age it felt like the end of the world. Many nights I would go home to my mother, in hysterics about the latest tirade of cruelness.

She wouldn't say a word. Wouldn't soothe me with false promises or use the age old saying about sticks and stones. She would simply take me in her arms, rub my back and hold me until the pain went away. In the arms of my mother, the world didn't seem like such an awful place. I would forget about my troubles and simply relax in the protection of her hold.

I longed for that now. To feel my mother holding me, scaring away the monsters that dared to hurt me. She was my hero, my role model and at this moment in time, there was no one in the world I wanted to see more.

Tears ran silently down my face. I didn't stop them or brush them to the side, but simply let them fall in a tribute to the woman who had raised me. The woman I missed more than anything.

I wondered if I would ever see her again. Would I ever to get to hear her stupid jokes that I would simply roll my eyes at? Would I ever get to eat her famous dinners or listen to her moan about the washing up? These were things I took for granted, things I would brush off as an every day part of life. To know that I may never get to experience them again made me sadder than anything else about this situation.

And I wondered about my best friend, my roommate, my unromantic soulmate. She had been through everything with me ever since I had walked into nursery and decided she was to be my friend. How would she take this? Every milestone, we had been through them all side by side. From puberty to boys, from wild nights out to lazy ones in, there hadn't been a moment that she wasn't there to share with me.

We had made a pact years ago that we would dress up at each other's funerals. It was a morbid deal bought on by a bottle or two of wine, but somehow after we had sobered up, the idea stuck. I hope that she keeps to her word, that she will stand in the church in full costume proudly as my best friend.

I would have done the same for her.

I don't want to think about my death or the affect that it will have on the people in my life, but as I sit here I know that it's a very strong possibility. There's a slim chance that I will make it out of this, and I need to mentally prepare myself in case I don't.

I wonder what it will feel like, if every book or movie about it is real. Will there be a flash of white light and a montage of my greatest moments? Will there be more for me once I leave this world or will that be it, an eternity of darkness? These are questions I wasn't ready find the answers to, not yet, not so young.

I have so many things left to experience. Like getting married, having children, growing old with my grandchildren surrounding me. I always believed that I would grow old, that it was a certainty. I never for one second thought that my life could be ending before it had even started.

I've never been skinny dipping. I've never hiked up a mountain or swam in a cave. I've never seen the beauty of a five am sunrise or taken a moment to marvel at the stars above us. I haven't followed any of my dreams.

I vow to myself that if by some miracle I live through this that I will do everything I have been putting off for so many years. All those things I say I will do tomorrow, or next year, or when I have time, I'll do them all.

I'll go on a gondola ride in Italy. I'll climb to top of the Eiffel Tower. I'll watch the sun set on the shores of the Australian coast. I'll live, and live every day to the fullest. I won't take it for granted like I have before, I won't waste a single day.

It turns about that nothing can make you appreciate life more than death.

A little while later, there's a knock at my door. I know who it is, he's the only one here that waits before barging in.

"Come in," I allow him.

He walks in, looking around my cell before his eyes settle on me. I sit on the floor on my make shift bed, back against the wall, blanket wrapped tightly around me. I was so lost in thought that I barely noticed the freezing cold temperature of the room. Now that he had pried me from my own mind, I'm all too aware of it.

He walks further into the room before resting his back against the wall opposite me. Slowly, he slides to the floor until we're eye to eye. He doesn't smile, doesn't say a word for a while. We just sit there in silence, not for one second breaking the eye contact that we had settled on.

"How are you?" He finally breaks the silence. I don't know how to answer, what he expects me to say.

"Oh I'm peachy really. Being kidnapped and held against my will doesn't phase me at all," I snap back. I revert to my usual self, using sarcasm as a defence mechanism.

He continues to look at me as if my response had no effect, as if every word of it wasn't dripping with disdain and anger.

"I'm sorry."

I'm taken aback by his apology. The last thing I ever expected him to say was sorry. However, nothing he's done so far has been expected, at this point I really shouldn't be surprised by what he does.

"What for?" I ask. I want to hear him say it, to admit it out loud.

"For not being able to save you."