Chapter 2

Vanessa wasn’t sure whether she was asleep or awake.  Awake probably.  Why would she bother to dream about the gritty way her scalp felt or the odor that wafted over her in waves from her too long neglected body crevices.  Yeah, awake.  She was pretty sure she’d never smelled anything in dreams.

It was an unexpected side affect of being in the dark for so long – this confusion over what was real and what was imagined.  Without the concrete confirmation of sight – as in, yes, I see this, I know what it is, and it’s real – everything became a mystery.  Her scalp was itching so bad she was about ready to pull her hair out by its greasy roots.  If only she could get a shower, or even a bucket of water and a washcloth.  Cleaning her body would help clarify things in her mind as well.  She always did her best thinking in the shower, anyway.

And yet, she reflected, it might be time to develop some new skills.  It was really hard to tell how long she’d been there – definitely days, but how many?   And who was the mysterious and silent person who passed food in occasionally?  She needed to do her best thinking even without a shower.

Was that a cramp in her stomach?  No wonder with the food she’d been expected to eat.  Oh no!  What if it was her moon cycle!  Yes, it must be.  That was a relief in many ways… but not here!  Not now!  And then again… perhaps she could use it to her advantage.  Plead for supplies and even embarrass her captor into letting her clean herself.  She needed a plan.

But planning required thought, linear thought.  The dark, the disorientation, the walls so close she need only reach out in any direction and feel them…this was not a place for thinking.  With no way to stretch her body, her mind felt trapped and rebellious, able to focus on the details of her confinement only briefly before escaping to realms where none of this mattered – not the dark, not the smell, not the contents of the box.  A wave of cramping embraced her, drawing her down into the darkness inside of her where there were no plans.  No plans, but many possibilities.

A noise, not too far away, brought her to attention.  “Hello?” she asked, tentatively.  “Hello, who’s there?” she was shouting now.  A brief flicker of light appeared for only a split second, but it was enough to sear into her eyeballs, and her heart jumped into action, pounding so hard she could literally hear it, like a drumbeat calling her to war.

“Whoa!  Chill!”  The hoarse voice came from the direction of the flash of light.  “I got a migraine, and it hurts like hell.”  Again through the dense blackness Vanessa heard the faint scratching noise and saw a crack of light.  “I didn’t know nobody else was here. Who the hell are you?”

“Well, now, that all depends who’s asking?”  Said the scratchy voice… she KNEW the person must really be something to hold humor with a migraine.  She was in no mood for humor, in fact, she’d been itching to rail out at somebody, anybody.  What a mess she’d gotten herself into.  She wished she’d never seen the box.  She sighed and took in a breath of the stale air.  “My name is Vanessa”, she said flatly.

“Vanessa?  Vanessa Stevens?  Vanessa?!?  What the hell are you doing here?”

“What do you mean? What..who are you?”  Vanessa felt equal parts defensive and shocked – who was this person, and how in the hell did they know her?

“Oh, my God.  You didn’t open the…oh, fuck. You did.  Vanessa Rymoldi Stevens, of all the asinine stupid self-indulgent…”

“Mom?  Mom?!?  Is that you?”

Chapter 1

Kelly looked intently at the ground.  Really intently.  As if really, the ground was all that mattered.  As if by just looking at the ground she would know all its secrets.  As if the crack in the sidewalk at her feet existed only for the purpose of revealing the meaning of life.  She studied its edges, the ants that disappeared into its darkness, the sprig of grass that delicately shoved its way out of that dark and into the light…anything that would keep her from looking up.  Anything that would help her resist the tractor beam pull of the way T’s gaze was boring into her, enveloping her, defining all the terms.

She didn’t know if she could trust herself to make the right decision, any decision for that matter, with the pressure she was feeling.  She had made plenty of bad choices before, when it came to T.  In the moment, she would feel such a rush – a heady mixture of fear and exhilaration that made her judgment vanish.  Clarity could only come later, when the mundane details of her normal life brought her screeching back to reality.  Only then would she realize that mistakes had been made, lapses of character that seemed remembered through a fog or maybe a dream.

And it had been a dream, like wandering all unknowing through some hidden portal into a completely different world, a world where what she thought of as “normal” just wasn’t relevant anymore.  A whole montage of images and sounds flooded her: “Mistakes have been made”; “I’m the person your mother warned you about” ; “Just say no!”; “Anchors aweigh!”  She shook her head abruptly at the vision of dancing sailors.  This was getting her nowhere.  On the other hand, going nowhere was at least safe – whereas going to T-ville…

Just then T’s rough palm reached out and encircled her right forearm.  Oh – the searing sense of touch, slamming her back into this physical reality.  Her body at once reeled away and simultaneously yearned for the kinetic attraction.  Without thinking she yanked her arm but in the wrong direction which only increased the burn of T’s grip.  Aha!  Now she remembered her self defense training and looked at the thumb and forefinger join and, grasping her right fist with left hand, she yanked hard in the direction of the weak link.  Success!  T was shocked and Kelly took that surprise instant to step back and prepare for the next move.  She’d stand her ground in more ways than one this time.

“I’m taking the box.  It’s not yours, and it’s not staying here.  And neither am I.  This is it, T.  Good-bye.”

At least, those are the words that reverberated through her brain, looking for some way out.  But her mouth was not volunteering.  She felt adrenaline pressing against the inside surface of her skin, but it found no release either.  Damn it!  Why was everything so hard with T.  Everything, that is, except giving in…

She clutched the box tightly to her chest, which was heaving with each labored breath she took.

“I…I’m sorry, T.  I have to go – I can’t do this right now.”  Or ever, she thought.  “I’m going to take this with me, please don’t try to stop me, I just need to think for a while.”  Damn it, this wasn’t coming out the way she wanted it to.  She was showing too much weakness.  She stepped forward and looked T right in the eye.  “Don’t follow me and don’t call me.  When I’m ready I’ll let you know.”  That was better.

“You’ll let me know.  Yeah.”  T made an unusually derisive sound and spun, heading off in the opposite direction with that particular walk.

That walk.  Not quite a swagger, definitely not a slouch – a slight but distinctive twisting shrug of the shoulders.  It usually meant someone was in for something they wouldn’t like.  A wave of panic slapped her, sending her backward a few steps.  Stupid, she said to herself, and heard echoes of her mother’s voice.

“Stop!”.  “Don’t go there!”.  “Gotta stay focused” she said to herself and looked down at the box, amazed that she’d managed to keep it in her possession.  She looked at the empty space where T had just been.  The neighborhood seventeen year old zipped by on his skateboard and her thoughts snapped back to the present.  Ah yes.  I was just packing.  She opened her creaky passenger door, shoved the box inside amidst the piles of possessions and forced the creaky hinge to slam shut with a decided thump.

That gave her another good chance to look over the yellow, pink, and neon orange design spray painted across the passenger side of her car.  This time it didn’t hit her with a wave of shock the way it had all week.  “Good,” she thought.  “Something is changing.”  Even if she wasn’t sure what.  The fear factor had worn off some – that sense of violation.  And even the embarrassment had begun to fade.  Those were improvements, but they came with an unpleasant side effect.  As she looked over the loops and visual explosions drawn with a certain madness and framing the words at the center, she realized that somehow they – whoever they were, the ones who had done this – somehow they knew her.  Somehow they had got her just right.

That thought shot her I’m-feeling-exposed meter to a new level and she turned sharply back toward the house.  “I’ve just got to get out of here,” she told herself.  “Just focus and get it done.”  With a rush she realized that she could do it – leaving was possible.  She’d been putting one foot in front of the other and lo and behold, it was true:  soon she’d be walking out the door.

Walking around the car to the driver’s side, she took one more look around the neighborhood.  She hadn’t made many friends here, no one to really miss when she was gone.  That was the way things were with T – no room for anyone or anything else, really.  That was the main thing giving her this push, the impetus needed to change everything.  She was going to have to make room in her life now, like never before.  She was going to have to really grow up, once and for all.  Welcome to the real world, Kelly.  She got in the car and turned the key, revving the engine for good measure.

The familiar roar of an engine made her catch her breath.   Her rearview mirror told her that it was indeed the 1963 red Stingray, with T’s sister at the wheel.  Damn.  T was bad enough, but his sister…  Kelly knew if she stayed even to say hi, guess what, I’m leaving, she’d be lost.  She closed her eyes briefly, imagining a steel rod at her core, imagining a protective egg around her that reflected everything back out.  She opened her eyes, checked her blind spot, and pulled away from the curb just as J pulled into the driveway.  Sending out a “grocery store” vibe as best she could, with that box right beside her on the seat, she waved cheerily and sped away.  The words painted on the car door settled into the rhythm and melody of Queen’s “We will rock you” in her head.  The perversely perfect anthem for her day.

The further down the street she got, a warming sense of freedom crept into the cool tightness of her chest.  “The trees really are vibrant and the sky is blue and maybe, just maybe, I can get myself free”, she thought to herself as she hummed along.  Suddenly she was struck with an overwhelming desire for a malted milk.