………....A SECRET IS A HUNGRY THING..…………
A secret is a hungry thing. It eats you alive until there is nothing left to be eaten. It tears you up and spits you out, leaving you bleeding on the floor of an abandoned bathroom near 21st street. With nothing to speak for but your mammoth addiction to heroine and the old Nintendo games. It takes away all that you were, and replaces it with false information routing towards a good for nothing druggie who never even existed. Who never even existed… before you lied… before I lied. It was late in the summer of 2016. I was 15. A few friends at school invited me to THE coolest party of the year… everyone would be there. Including the hottest guy in school. So, without my permission, I accepted. I crawled out of my 1st story window at around 10:07 with a human shaped group of pillows stuffed under my cover to give them the illusion that I was still there… still sleeping… still safe. Anyways. I waited outside until my friend came to pick me up. Once we arrived at the party she and I split up (she found her boyfriend and started making out) I started walking around, looking for booze. I found some. I drank some. Too much. All I remember from that night is drinking way too many shots, smoking something, and waking up in bed with some guy I’d never even seen before. I felt confused… dazed… worried… scared. I looked around to see where I was. I wasn’t at my friend's house anymore. I was in a bedroom… With an IV attached to my wrist. I felt high. Why did I feel high. Not high. Low. Like someone had given me sleep meds… with confusion pills taped inside as well! The man next to me look to be in his 30’s or 40’s… I would have never consented to this, I told myself. What’s going on? I tried to get out of the bed to see where I was, but I was handcuffed to the headboard. “What’s going on?” I asked myself again. A gust of wind through the rafters on the window open, resulting in two things. One, I could hear people outside yelling in another language… Thai or Chinese… I couldn’t tell. Two, the man woke up. He grimaced at me in a weird way and grabbed my breast. I screamed. He twisted my nipple, causing me to scream me. He was mad. Why was he mad? Who was he? I still don’t know. I’ll never know. He slapped me across the face, and left. I was left sitting on the bed, listening to the various people outside, with a red face and tears dripping down my cheek. I fumbled for my phone… I was going to call for help. But I couldn’t find it. Or my clothes. Or anything I had brought the party last night. I looked around again, I tried to use all of my senses, maybe that will tell me where I am. The room was dark, but not too dark… like the morning sun was lighting it up, but it was still grimm. The floors and walls were made of rugged concrete, and there was a thin white sheet on the bed. The IV in my arm was attached to one of those carts that they have near hospital beds… but without the heart monitor… or the hospital. It smelled dusty. I could still hear the noise coming from the streets below. I looked at my body, full of bruises. Why did I have so many bruises? Where was I? What was going on? I scream. Nothing. I scream again, longing for help. Tears drip down my face as I contemplate the possible explanations for this. Was I drugged? That’s obvious. Of course, I was. I think. I can’t make up my mind. I fumble for something… anything. I never believed in God. How can an invisible man in the sky sit around watching children starve to death, but be worried about what two people do in bed? The idea of prayer seemed ridiculous to me… But I was out of ideas. So I prayed… I prayed to a God I didn’t believe in to wake me up. To let me arise from this nightmare. “Please, don’t let this be real. This isn’t real.” I continue this for a while, until I end my pleading with the socially conventional recitation of “In Jesus name I pray, Amen.” I begin to scream, but I am cut off by a big, bulky man in a black sweatshirt. He begins to yell at me in Thai… I still don’t know what he said… He sounded angry. Had I woke him? He stomps over to my IV cart and turns a nob… Within moments, I feel reality slipping away into a paralyzing alter universe. The world goes black. My mind goes blank. My heart slows down. My eyes shut. And I sleep.
Chapter Two
I woke up with the same dazed feeling as I had fallen asleep with. Still naked. Still bruised. Still scared. I take a deep breath and try to pull out the IV, but it hurts, and I’m too weak, so I give up. Each breath feels like fire, each heartbeat feels like a giant is stomping on my chest, and each thought is filled with regret. I have a thought, a painful one. What about my family? If I hadn’t snuck out and gone to the party, they wouldn’t have been out a daughter. Words ring in my head. “Out a daughter” I had already predicted my fate. How long had I been there? How long will I stay? I try once more to pull the IV from my veins, but much to my dismay, the IV had another idea. To stay, painfully inside of me, leaking what I can only assume to be drugs into my weak body with each passing moment. I wanted nothing more than to escape that place and go home. To converse with my over protective parents, and endure it as my older brother pulls my hair. I urn for the sweet sound of my cat’s purr, or the annoying buzz of my alarm clock telling me to go back to hell… I mean school. Unconsciously, I call it hell. I used to do it consciously, but, now I don’t realize that I’m doing it. I think, that we humans do self-destructive things to escape reality… Or even lie to ourselves to avoid the truth. I still call school “Hell” not because I think that its worse than this… but because I know school was real… and I refuse to believe that this is too. So, if I prioritize the Hellishness of school, over that of this situation… Maybe it will all go away. Maybe I’ll wake up to my alarm clock telling me to go back to hell… regardless of the fact, that that’s where I went in my sleep. Yes, my sleep. I’m sleeping. If I close my eyes and lay down, this will all go away. So, I do just that. I close my eyes, I lay down, and I try to sleep. I would have succeeded, had it not been for the same man as last time coming in. Except this time he wasn’t there to mess with my daily dose of drugs. He had a look on his face… like the kind of look rapists wear. My heart started to pound as he unzipped his polyester jeans. My breathing was reduced to the rarities as he sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled his pants to the floor and uncovered my bare body. I tried to thrust my body forward, as to knock him down, but, still being cuffed to the bed frame… my movement was in a deprived state. His hand cuffed my throat, and his grasp tightened with each passing second, I could feel my face turning red and purple as his hands crushed my esophagus. There are certain things in life, that you will learn to block out. To forget. To burn the mental images left behind, in a raging fire of regret. This was one of them. When fear and pain mix together it to a petrifying collision of real life nightmares, you have no other choice than to delete the memory, or live it over and over again.
Chapter Three
I live now in the wheel of treachery. The pain, remorse, regret, and a plethora of other useless, but never ending emotions, is sticking to its plan of repetition. I cry, scream, and attempt to pull my IV out multiple times a day, but without fail, I fail. I want nothing more than to wake up from this. To wake up warm in my bed, happy, unharmed, alright. I’ve been trying to keep track of my days here… I’ve counted seventeen so far. Seventeen segments twenty four hours of pure torture. Whether that be from the drugs or the sex slave part of my new life. It’s all torture. I’d give away anything just to escape. Those seventeen days aren’t even counting those for which I cannot remember. I try to deny the fact that when I scream, and he comes in to turn up my drugs, I wake up with more bruises on my body, and the feeling of rape left behind. I sat staring at the wall for a few ours, my jaw hanging low simply because I no longer had the will to care anymore. He walks in to my room, except this time he was wearing a different kind of look on his face… A kinder one. I wondered if that was possible… for anyone like him to be kind even in the slightest… to care even a little bit. He spoke in very rough English, his voice rough and edgy, but softer than normal. “Are you hungry?” He asked, staring at me with crossed arms and furrowed brows. I try to respond, but I can barely speak anymore. My voice horas from screaming, and weak from malnutrition and drugs. I nod my head ever so slightly as to inform him that I am, indeed, starving. He nods back and exists the room nonchalantly. From what I can see, it’s about 6 PM, so he most likely is either taunting me still, or actually decided to give me dinner. I try to roll over, but my limbs and muscles are like jelly. I remember a few months ago when my family had a barbeque for my older sister’s graduation party. There were tons of people there… Men, women, children, aunts, uncles, boyfriends, girlfriends, moms, dads, etc… Everyone was having so much fun. There was music and dancing and great food, my dad was always a great cook. The party lasted until about 1am, and by the time everyone had left, I was beat. I shrugged upstairs and fell into my bed and nearly fell asleep before my mom came in. “Callie… Since your sister is going off the college soon, your father and I agree that you should start being more social, you know, to make some friends…” “I have friends,” I fired back “and I don’t need to be more social to be happy, okay? Now can I just go to bed?” She looked vaguely disappointed in my response. As if she was really excited for me to ‘spread my wings, and discover a world beyond books’. Her head hung low, and she let out a deep sigh “okay, I guess… But we will talk about this more in the morning, okay?” “Ugh, fine, but, my answer is noy going to change.” I knew she was probably right. I knew that after my sister moved out, I really wouldn’t have that many people to talk to. “Alright. Goodnight honey, I love you.” She said affectionately while curling her fingers through my thick brown hair. I shoved her hand off my head and rolled over, “Night.” I said sternly. She looked hurt that I had refused to say “I love you too”, but I was stubborn and tired. I should have said it. God, why didn’t I say it back. I do love her, and I miss her so much. I’d do anything to just go back to that night and tell her that. I \’d do anything to just go back. I snap back to reality when He opens the door holding some rice and a cup of tea. I try to smile, to be polite, for perhaps if I do, I’ll get fed more often. He brings over my dinner, and sits on the bed. I expect him to unbuckle his pants, but instead he just frowns. Not even at me, or in an angry way at all. More sad. I want to ask him what’s wrong, because that’s just my nature… But I can’t seem to get the words to form. This monster, this man who has ruined my life, has suddenly shown a human emotion. But I don’t care. For the first time in my life, I am getting joy from his suffering. As the tears form in his eyes, my heart gets this feeling of excitement and bitterness. I feel vindictive and his sadness is feeding my soul. He has tortured me for so long, and now I get to watch him crumble. So, I don’t ask what’s wrong. I want to tell that bastard to get out of my room, but I know that would cost me my dinner, and that’s not a price I’m willing to pay. We sit there in silence for a few minutes, with nothing but the deep sigh of his crying, and the gentle hum of rain outside. He mutters something in Thai, but I don’t care to ask what it was. He lets out a long breath, and stands up to leave. As he begins to exit my room, he turns around and says “things will change tomorrow,” and walks out, closing the brass door behind him.
