To Keep Alive

Chapter One

So BEFORE YOU START READING, you should know that this story is technically completed but I never finished detailizing(???). The first half of the story is pretty great with a good amount of detail, but the second half is just really short summarizing. I'm writing this author's note nearly three years after I wrote the actual story. I published it, then took it down. I found this story buried in my countless Wattpad drafts. I wrote this not really knowing how serious rape/kidnap is or how to write about a twisted/messed up character. Honestly River is hot, yeah, but you kind of get a normal guy vibe off of him. So I guess what I'm trying to get across is that this story isn't great, it was done by a clueless middle schooler... so have at it if ya still wanna read. (You'd probably have a better time with my other stories... the newer ones for sure.)

I opened my apartment door and took off my shoes. I went into the kitchen to grab a bowl of leftover spaghetti. Today had been particularly slow at work and I was oddly exhausted. I finished my meal and trudged up the stairs to my room.

I was a librarian and worked at the St. Peter Local Library. I was short, thin, and very unnoticeable. For crying out loud, I was a twenty-three year old virgin.

I grew up in a trailer, my father always drinking and beating my mother and my mother always too tired to help me with anything. But I didn't let that stop me. I studied hard, but... money. Sometimes it didn't matter how much you studied and studied and studied, you needed money. I couldn't pay my way through college, so I had to settle as a librarian. For three years I was a librarian.

And nothing happened. Ever.

So on my twenty-third birthday, I begged for something dramatic and world-shattering to happen.

And something did.

Just not quite what I expected.

When I opened the door, three tall, scary men were waiting in my room. I tried to flee, but one of them quickly caught me and slammed me against the wall. I was instantly dizzy and my head started to pound.

I was thrown onto my bed and the man in the center started unbuckling his pants. I screamed, but it was muffled by a hand over my mouth soon replaced by a gag. I was held down while the man in the center started to touch me.

I was scared, but mostly, I was depressed. I knew that after this day, my life would never be the same. I was a twenty-three year old virgin, and I supposed that this was life telling me to move on, that my virginity would be lost anyway. After they were done, I was numb. I stared blankly at the ceiling, not bothering to get up, but staring at the same spot on the ceiling for four hours. Soon, it was time to go to work.

"Caroline Erickson," I told myself in the mirror, "No one can ever know about this."

I washed the grime off my body, still feeling dirty and used and then headed to work.

 I was a librarian, and I liked my job. Sure, it wasn't everything I had dreamed of, but it was a safe work environment. It was quiet and filled with books. 

The truth is, no one would ever believe if I told them I was raped. I was small, only 5ft tall and weighed 103 pounds. I had zero curves and I just seemed to quiet and not outgoing enough to be attractive.

I had pale orange hair and pale green eyes. My skin wasn't smooth and porcelain, in fact, it was a bit tan. My hands were rough from all the paper cuts I got from the library books. People would just assume I was getting desperate for attention.

And that was sad. I had no friends what so ever, no one to look out for me, and absolutely no one to talk to. I couldn't even afford to hire a therapist.

I couldn't sleep at night, and in the morning I felt sick. I felt robotic... and broken.

Sometimes I would look in the mirror and cackle like an insane person. I had been raped and there was no one in the world who knew, no one who cared. I never cried, though. I thought about it, but no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't cry.

Dramatic.

Life-shattering.

Yeah, I got both.