No One Will Know

1. I Was Leaving Town When...

I’ve been careful. Careful my entire life. I lived in a small town where nothing happened; I walked maybe a block by myself my entire life.  I never talked to strangers. I was careful. I was careful. But even being careful didn’t save me. It couldn’t save me.

Bzzzzzzzz.

My phone goes off and I jump, the pen I’m holding making a nice little line on the paper I was writing on. I sigh, putting the pen down and quickly checking the text message that ‘oh so nicely’ interrupted my concentration. Happy Birthday, Addison! I read, before closing the phone and sticking it in my back pocket. I can’t think about my friends today.

Because if I think about them then I think about how there’s a chance I won’t talk to them again. Because today, the day of my eighteenth birthday, I’m leaving this town, and I don’t have any plans to come back. It doesn’t matter how great my friends are, I can’t live here anymore, I can’t  live in this town and I can’t be around my crazy, abusive family anymore.

I’ve been planning this for a while, saving up all the money that I’ve earned during my two part time jobs, applying for numerous colleges and getting a roommate near the college I plan on attending. Despite planning all of this, though,  I didn’t tell anyone. All anybody thinks is that I’m attending the community college in the fall. But I’m not. I’m attending NYU, all the way across the country. So that’s all I’m thinking about as I finish writing a note to my parents (so they won’t go to the cops) and stuff my bags into the car that I own and now, official pay for insurance on.

The only thought I have as I pull into the gas station is that I’m worried that someone I know might ask where I’m going, why I need the full tank of gas in my car. And someone does ask, and all I do answer is “I have to drive somewhere for work today.” They don’t press for anymore answers, and I don’t give any. But I think there is a problem with that, because I’m so preoccupied with my thoughts that I don’t notice the person starting at my car until they are literally right in front of me, staring down at me.

The man is approximately six foot five, meaning he is about a foot taller than me. His eyes, they are grey, a dark grey, menacing as they look at me. He’s only maybe five years older than me, but he looks worn, as if the world has torn him apart in a not-so-nice, I hate the world type of way. I feel a shiver go through me as he says, in a husky sort of voice. “Nice car.”

I don’t know this man, which is a bit strange in as small as a town as I’ve lived, where everyone seems to know everyone, and he definitely doesn’t know me. I can tell that by the way he talks and expects me to answer. Because anyone who knows me knows that I don’t talk to people that I don’t know.

I only nod and move past him, glancing over my shoulder and looking/half glaring at him as I fill up my tank with gas. I feel my house key in my jacket pocket, and I’m glad I haven’t thrown it out yet. It could make a good weapon. I’m hoping I won’t have to worry, that he’ll just go away, but he’s not going anywhere. I prepare my voice to scream as I take the pump off and get ready to leave.

I sigh in relief as I watch him walk away, and look towards the drivers side, thinking that he’s probably gone off to his own car or something because I don’t see him around. But I get this feeling, you know the one where you can just tell that something might happen to you? I put the keys in my door and unlocked, looking around. Nothing. No one is around.

It being a small town and all, its not unusual for me to be the only car at the gas station, so that’s not weird, but its just so quiet.

I’m removing the keys and opening the car door when, out of nowhere, bam. My head is slammed against the car and tape is plastered over my mouth, my hands a second later grasped from behind, some sort of cord tied around my wrist. And I’m so dizzy, so lightheaded, spots dancing in front of  my eyes that I can’t think when I’m shoved into the back seat of my own car, and its moving, and its moving away, and I’m moving away.

From the town, what I wanted, but away from my own mind too. And I can’t think.

I can’t think. I can’t scream. I can’t move.

And the world is black.