I feel the anxiety stampede through me as I gaze out the tinted window of the truck. Do I look different? I definitely feel different. I wonder if everyone will be able to see the scars of my experiences sliced all over my skin. I guess I’m about to find out.
I barely allowed myself to miss anyone while I was gone, and all that suppressed emotion is threatening to break through the surface of my facade. I’m finally home. My eyes burn as I fight back tears.
“Remember what we talked about. Only recount very vague details. You were kidnapped, drugged, and you don’t remember much of your time in captivity.”
I frown and nod.
“It’s important you keep the accounts of what happened to yourself.”
I nod some more. I understand. I really do.
“Am I ever going to see you again?” I ask Jett with a shaky voice.
“Maybe. It’s up to you.”
“If I forgive Kayne?” I narrow my eyes.
He shrugs. “We’re a package deal.”
The tears I’m trying to contain fall. I sadly realize that I’m never going to see Jett again. It feels like my soul has been ripped from my body, and now I’m losing my best friend in the process.
“No tears, sweet thing.” He wipes my cheek with his thumb. “Time to be the strong girl I know you are. This is your decision.”
And I stand by it.
“Where are you going now that this is all over?”
“I have some unfinished business of my own to take care of.” He fiddles with the cuff of his sleeve. “But don’t miss me too much; I might not be as far as you think.” He winks.
“What does that mean?”
“It means just because I’m leaving now it doesn’t mean I’ll be gone forever.”
I look at him like the crazy man he is. I’m too tired for riddles.
“Go on.” he nudges me. “Time to go home.”
I hug him one last time and step out of the car.
Time to go home.
After my very teary return, I spent months trying to acclimate back into some semblance of a ‘normal’ life. I quit Expo (despite Mark’s protests), started seeing a psychiatrist, and spent most of the summer down the shore—away from the city and the reminders of the past. Reminders ofhim.
I meant it when I said I never wanted to see him again, and when I finally felt like I was moving on, a package arrived on August twenty-eighth, my twenty-third birthday. It was a large, rectangular, white box with a plain white card and a simple white bow. When I opened the card, I nearly fell apart. One word was inscribed on the inside:
I ripped open the box with overflowing tears to find two dozen miniature red velvet cupcakes. I cried even harder. I didn’t even know why. I vowed to put Kayne Roberts behind me, and up until that moment, I thought I had. But one look at that word and a whole world of emotion let loose. I tore up the card and chucked the cupcakes in the dumpster on the side of my building. I just couldn’t. I was leaving for school, and that’s where my focus had to stay. I would never again let someone take my hopes and dreams and future away. Never. I had no idea who Kayne was. He deceived me from the very moment I met him. How do you care about someone you don’t know at all? On a basic human level, maybe. But to love someone, expose yourself to them, and trust them with your entire heart?
Hell no.
I left for Hawaii the very next day.
If I had ever wished to see paradise, I had finally arrived. Oahu is beyond beautiful—the landscape, the flowers, the ocean. Being five thousand miles away from New York, I could breathe. It was a new beginning, and I took complete advantage. I learned to surf on the beaches of Waikiki, hiked to the top of Diamond Head, and snorkeled with tropical fish and sea turtles in Hanauma Bay.
The dark clouds had finally separated. Or so I thought.
I didn’t even realize it was happening. It was like a tiny tear in your favorite shirt that you never even notice until there is a gaping hole in the seam. I tried to ignore it, tried to keep myself busy with classes and extracurricular activities, but it was always there. The heaviness in my chest weighing me down. Thoughts of him fogging my mind. And once I acknowledged the feelings sprouting inside me, they grew rapidly, like radioactive flowers.
You can’t love him, I kept telling myself. He kidnapped you, held you captive, forced you to wear a collar and be his slave. And he did it all under false pretenses. None of it was real. I pounded that mantra into my head. None of it was real. “I would kill for you.”
