Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 77841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
I shouldn’t care to know why he was hurt. It shouldn’t make me wonder who hurt him. Those marks on the back of his neck, the circular scars, that could either be bullet wounds or burn marks.
They make me scared of him even more. But they also make me a little sad. The pain he must have gone through. Did he deserve it at the time? I dig deep, wondering if he would deserve them now. If I could stomach someone coming in here now and marring fresh skin in retaliation for what he’s done to me.
The thought of witnessing that makes my stomach turn. And that’s terrifying on its own.
Shouldn’t I want him to hurt?
Shouldn’t I want him to feel terror?
Shouldn’t I want him to be scared of me?
A fresh round of tears burns the back of my eyes because now I’m making excuses for him behaving this way.
Someone hurt him badly, and that’s why he is the way he is. I just can’t wrap my head around him being this way because he was born this way. Something created him. Someone made him into the person he is today.
The other half of me, the part I honestly do not want to acknowledge, makes me wonder if he can be turned into that if he can also be turned away from that.
Can you de-create a monster?
What would that even take?
Why am I even thinking of that?
It’s not like I want to save him. I don’t want to help him. He’s holding me captive and I can’t ever forgive that. But making him into something that he’s not, trying to convince myself that he’s behaving this way because he can’t help himself, as if him taking me hostage and holding me here against my will, as if making me get myself off in front of him is the only viable outcome. As if it’s always meant to happen that way.
That can’t be possible. He can’t be the type of person who hurts others in retaliation for being hurt himself. How sick does that make someone that they channel that energy and that pain and do horrible things to good people because horrible things had been done to them?
I don’t open my mouth to say these things. He wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t come around to my way of thinking. A light bulb would not go off in his head and him think, you’re right. I should only hurt bad people because bad people hurt me.
I press a hand to my chest, saddened even more to think that it might have been done by someone who was supposed to love him. That’s the ultimate betrayal. My life isn’t fun but my life has never consisted of pain, physical pain.
I shake my head, the argument inside making me want to close down completely. I’ve never been one to look for the good in people. Words stopped meaning anything early in life. Promises get broken, people get manipulated, and lies are told. All to further an agenda. All to get a vote. All to get a donation with the hope that those promises will be forgotten when it comes time to pay up.
“When will you let me go?” I ask, my words weak, my voice low.
“Never,” he says without hesitation. He doesn’t even look in my direction when he destroys my world.
I nod because deep down, I think I always knew that would be the outcome. Hoping for things has never been one of my strong suits either. I’m terrified once again at the thought of staying here until he decides differently.
Never doesn’t mean he isn’t going to hurt me and end things. Never could mean a lot of things. Never could mean he’s going to get tired of me and kill me, and I’ll never see the light of day again. Never could mean the rest of my life and it could still be a long life.
My mind wanders back to everything that’s happened, choosing to focus on the fact that he hasn’t really hurt me, other than leaving me here in the room alone last night and having to sleep on that uncomfortable couch. It honestly hasn’t been that bad. I know people have had worse.
He’s not making me sleep on the floor. He’s not making me crawl around on hands and knees and beg for food. I’ve gotten to shower. I’ve gotten to eat.
I have to laugh, no humor in the sound, but he still ignores me. Is it possible for Stockholm syndrome to hit this quickly or is my life outside of this captivity just so bad that this doesn’t seem as terrible?
“Do you love me?” I ask, feeling stupid the second the words fall out of my mouth.
This gets his attention. He slowly rolls his head on his shoulders to look in my direction. “Do you want me to love you?” There’s a sinisterness in his words, as if the type of love that he could give wouldn’t be anything a sane person would wish for.