Set Me Free

'Yeah, it was good to be home.'

"Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the same as you'd been before the fall."

My mum and I rarely ever fought.

There was a short period growing up where I dyed my hair pink and tried my first cigarette, but apart from that we have always got on perfectly well.

Today we fought.

"No Elizabeth, you are coming home with me. I need to know you are safe, you need to come and stay with me." She wasn't listening to me, no matter how many different ways I worded the argument.

I just wanted to go home.

I liked living with mum and my step father. I knew I would be looked after and fussed over and I wouldn't want for anything. But I wanted to go home.

I wanted to be in my little flat, in my little room I had decorated myself, with my best friend there to watch movies with me and to take my mind off the last couple of weeks. I needed this, I needed normality. If I went home with my mother, all she would do is remind me of what I went through, how fragile I was, how I needed to be looked after.

My best friend would never dream of giving me such pity.

Believe it or not, that is exactly what I needed. I didn't need pity, I needed everyone to act like normal.

"Mum, I love you, but I am twenty-two years of age and if I want to go home to the house I pay rent in, then I will. I'm sorry and I know you are just trying to look after me, but I need this. I need to be home. Besides, Holly will be there and she will look after me. God help anyone that tries to take her on," I laugh.

My best friend was anything but fragile. I had been best friends with Holly for sixteen years now and couldn't even imagine what my life would be like without her. When I finally felt old enough to tackle this world alone and rent my own place, I knew Holly was the person to do it with. She would look after me, but not in the way my mum would.

She would hand me a shot of vodka and tell me to get over it.

Mum left not long after our little argument. I think the idea of me not wanting to come home with her really affected her. She knew that I didn't do it to hurt her, she just wanted to keep me under her constant watch.

I couldn't live like that.

When I was in the warehouse, I felt like I was constantly on display. I had no privacy, I was an animal in the zoo to them. Now I needed to be in the comfort of my own home, allowed to be alone. Sometimes, we all needed to be alone.

I wondered then if Daniel was alone, if he was lonely. Since my escape, he was all I could think of. I wanted to forget, I wanted to put this whole ordeal behind me, however every time my mind wondered, it landed on Daniel. Whether he was safe, whether he had found somewhere to stay, whether he was now happy that he was finally free.

He had been kept captive for so long, I couldn't help but wonder what the outside world would feel like to him. Would it feel strange to him to be able to do as he wishes, to go where he wished. He could do anything, be anyone, the options were now there for him. I wondered who he would chose to be.

I hoped he kept his kind heart, his quick sense of humour. I hoped that the outside world wouldn't change him too much, to be anything other than the boy who was ready to risk everything in order to help a stranger. He was the man I fell in love with.

Most of all, I hoped that he would be happy. That he would enjoy his freedom, that he would now do all the things he wished off. He told me once that he missed the beach, that he would sometimes sit back and imagine the feeling of sand between his toes, of the sound of the ocean breaking waves in the distance. I hoped that he made his way to the beach, I hoped that he got to live that dream.