Counterfeit Love

"What?"

"I was hoping to find your diary."

"I don't keep a diary."

"Right. Too frilly. A journal then," he decided.

I did keep one of those. But it was digital and anonymous so no one could ever use it against me. It was a place to purge, a place where no judgements existed, where no one could know all the ugly, hateful things that existed in my head, all the pain that was buried underneath them.

"Nope. Sorry. Nothing like that."

"A woman of many mysteries," he said, dropping back on the bed, rolling around on my pillows. Testing out my mattress, I guess.

I found myself fascinated with his utter lack of social norms, the way he felt completely comfortable being invasive in someone's personal space.

He had no boundaries.

My world was a maze of them.

"Now, what is this?" he asked, sounding pleased with himself.

I was wrapped up in my musings for five seconds too long. Five precious seconds. Where I could have reacted, jumped off the chair, flown across the room, snatched it away before he got his hands on it.

But I didn't have those seconds.

And when my gaze snapped to his hands, I saw it.

He had it.

My biggest secret.

The thing my mom didn't know about.

The thing my therapist didn't know about.

The file I had been working on for eight years now.

I kept it wedged between my mattress and boxspring. Only I ever touched it.

When I was in a bad spell, I pulled it out every day. Twice a day. Fifty times a day. I'd pore over every page. I would berate myself for not being able to come up with more.

There was a hand around my throat, tightening every second as Finch's hands opened the front cover.

A strange, gurgling noise escaped me, loud enough for Finch to hear, to get curious, to look over at me.

I didn't know what he saw on my face. But I knew what I felt. Panic. Shock. Shame. Fear. Maybe he saw all that. It would explain the look of confusion on his face.

"What is this, doll?" he asked, voice a little rough.

The air felt too thick.

It was getting harder and harder to breathe, to pull air into my lungs, to bring oxygen into my suffocating system.

My lips parted, closed, parted again, a fish out of water, unable to get anything out.

His gaze slipped down again to the file.

I knew what he was looking through.

Page One was a list.

Names, if I had them. Basic descriptions--height, weight, tattoos, birth marks, eye and hair color, anything that I remembered.

The next page was sketches.

I was no artist, but I couldn't trust anyone with this information. At least not yet. The plan was always to bring it to Ferryn one day. But not yet. Not until I gathered all the information I needed.

After that, there were words. Words I wondered if he could interpret, infer their meaning.

Hitting, choking, punching, spanking, gagging, humiliation, bodily function, sadistic.

Then after that, the basic profiles of the men whose identity I had figured out.

Lastly, a page of small boxes. Some with pictures, some blank until I figured out who they were. The first five were crossed out. The rest, not.

Yet.

It felt like Finch looked at that page forever.

It felt like time stood still.

Seasons and years passed.

But then his gaze finally lifted, eyes intense, face unreadable

"Angel, what the fuck did these men do to you?"

The words echoed somewhere deep inside, rousing a part of me that still felt trapped in that basement, still lived in fear of footsteps, of being picked up and tossed over a shoulder, of being dragged up stairs, thrown on a bed.

The panic overtook every inch of me.

Before I even truly understood my intention, I was flying out of the chair, out of the room, down the halls.

Escape.

All I could think of was escape.

I had to get away.

From my past.

From the part of myself still stuck in it.

From Finch's discovery of it.

I just had to get away.

There were several long seconds before I could hear footsteps behind me.

Footsteps.

Footsteps on stairs.

Footsteps coming to get me.

Run.

I had to run.

Faster than I ever had before.

I couldn't let it all catch up to me.

I couldn't let him catch up to me.

"Chris!" Finch's voice called after me.

Faster.

He was much faster.

But I knew the area better.

I took corners, burst through doorways and closed doors, made my way toward the front exit, racing through, feet pounding across the front yard, eyes on the gate.

"Open it. Open it, damnit," I begged, gasping for air as the guards looked at me, looked beyond me, then back. "Open the fucking gate!" I snapped, making one of them jolt backward, not used to that language from me, or the tone used.

The other guard reached for the keypad, plugging in the code.

Even as footsteps came up behind me.

"Chris, wait," Finch demanded.

But it was too late.

The gate was open.