I curled into myself. My knees pressed against my chest. My arms wrapped around my legs. My forehead pressed against my knees, and I closed my eyes, and I tried to disappear.
"Daddy."
The word was a whisper.
"Daddy, where are you?"
No answer.
There was never an answer.
I closed my eyes, and the darkness behind my lids was the same as the darkness in front of them, and I couldn't tell the difference anymore.
The light changed.
I didn't open my eyes. I didn't need to. I could feel the shift—the warmth of something moving, the pressure of someone standing over me.
"Hey."
A voice. Male. Rough, but not unkind.
"Hey, can you hear me?"
I didn't answer.
"You're in my bar. The Lost Hours. It's..."
A pause. A rustle of fabric. A soft curse.
"It's six in the morning. Opening time. You're behind the cooler."
I knew that.
I'd chosen the cooler.
The cold was grounding.
"You're bleeding."
Was I?
I looked down at my hands. The blood was dry. The blood was old. The blood didn't belong to me.
"It's not mine."
My voice came out strange. Small. Young. The voice of someone who'd forgotten how to speak to adults.
"Whose is it?"
"I don't remember."
A long pause.
"Okay."
He didn't call the police. I heard him walk away—footsteps on wood, the creak of a floorboard, the soft sound of a door opening and closing. I waited for sirens. I waited for hands on my wrists, for cold metal, for the voice of someone telling me I had the right to remain silent.
None of it came.
