The Perks of Being a Freak (Editing)

6. I'm Guessing That No One Is Coming To Save Us

I have the very bad habit of losing my head when I get angry. I don’t always make the best decisions, but thankfully I don’t lose my temper very often. Sometimes I can keep myself in check, but more often than not I end up lashing out or, even worse, shutting myself away.

So instead of talking to Emily like I probably should have, I wandered through my memories, taking everything in.

It was all black emptiness in my Dark Space, except for the memories. Floating spheres of light. They shimmered and shined, like gems splayed out in front of me, or stars in the sky.

Once, when my family was still a family, we went camping. Honestly, it was a pretty miserable camping trip. Aaron refused to come, Max complained the entire time, Cody and Seth made it their goal to try and make me scream as many times as possible, and Lucy was just a baby. Cody unzipped the window by my bed one night, and there was a storm. My bed, all my stuff, and me got soaked, and I had to sleep on the floor of my parents cabin. When I went with Max to get water in the canoe, he refused to row, stayed in the boat while I pumped, and then I had to carry the jug all the way back. It was almost as big as I had been at seven years old.

But then, the last night that we were at that campground, I snuck out of the tent and went to watch the stars. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so it was all a little blurry, but what I could see was incredible.

The stars seemed huge and were bright, burning gold. There were thousands of them up in the sky, and the moon was a crescent sliver of light among them.

Now these memories seemed the same. Bright disks of all different sizes, surrounding me, rotating so that they faced me all the time. Their edges were fuzzy, blurring into the darkness.

I wandered through them, chest still aching from Emily’s betrayal. I watched my ninth birthday party, the one where we rode the horses. I saw a younger version of myself try to hit a pinata. I saw my brother Seth break it instead. I had been so angry at him that day. It had been my pinata. I had wanted to break it.

My parents came into the scene, and I choked a little bit. What if I never saw them again? My last words to them had been horrible. I couldn’t leave it at that. I had to see them again. I had to get out the cell.

But how? What if they were trapped in the Dark Room forever? Would we starve? Would someone come to save us?

For some reason, I doubted it.

How would anyone know where we were? How could the police get to us?

But I had to be strong. I had to be optimistic. I couldn’t ask these answerless questions because they would just depress me.

We would be saved.

Even if we had to save ourselves.

Feeling disembodied, I strode through my life. I saw my brothers, sister, and myself at the beach, playing together in the waves, all six of us together. I saw my first swim meet, and felt my youngest brother Seth patting me on the shoulder after my race. I felt again the pride of my violin recital.

But then I saw the note that my parents had left on the kitchen table beside the half-eaten birthday cake with my name on it. I saw myself riding in the back of a taxi cab instead of in my moms minivan. I sat on the couch, eating a frozen pizza in a dark house. I curled up alone in my room and cried myself to sleep.

Over and over again.

I remembered why I had said the horrible things that I had said to my parents. I remembered why I had run, and only came back home much later. I remembered hoping that my parents hadn’t called the cops, and then being disappointed when they hadn’t.

Maybe I should have regretted the argument that we had before I was kidnapped, but I didn’t. There were some things that needed to be said, and I only hope that my parents heard them. 

Because I might never get the chance to tell them again.

But that wasn’t optimistic.