Best of 2017

It does me no good.

He simply grabs me by the throat again and applies pressure with his thumbs in warning. It is the smallest exertion for him. Barely any effort at all, and already, I can hardly breathe.

The resistance flees from my body in the presence of dread. I feel like a well-trained dog already. Bowing to his silent commands in such a short amount of time.

I fear for my sanity if this is only day one. Part of me questions whether it might be better if he did kill me now.

When he sets me down onto my feet, and my breath returns, it is the first opportunity that I have to take in the room around me.

It is simple. Barren. And also, horrifying. There is nothing more than a bucket in the corner. And a piano in the center.

A piano.

The thing that used to be my instrument of choice now terrifies me more than anything.

Javi makes a gesture to the shiny black nightmare.

“Play for me,” he demands.

I glance up at him, and my reply is reflexive. Instant. A mumbled no. I wait for another threat. More terror. But it doesn’t come.

“No?” he repeats. “Suit yourself, beauty. I will play you a song instead.”

I don’t understand what he means. Because he leaves the room, sliding the heavy door into place until the locking mechanism clicks behind him.

I swallow and look around me. At the nothingness. At the emptiness. I’m freezing, and there is no comfort to be found in here.

Not anywhere.

I wrap my arms around myself and walk the length of the room to keep warm. I’m hungry and thirsty, and I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten.

The hunger that has been absent since my father’s disappearance is now back with a vengeance. My body is preparing for a fight. An all-out war.

But after a while, my feet are numb, and the walking isn’t helping. My stomach is growling, and my eyes are heavy, and I can think of nothing else to do. So I sit down in a corner and curl into myself.

The floor is hard. Painful. Uncomfortable. But even so, the exhaustion from earlier events lulls me into a deep sleep quickly.

I don’t know how long it lasts for. Only that I am jarred awake by the most horrifying of sounds.

Confusion and shock take me prisoner when I open my eyes and confront the images in front of me.

I never noticed it before. The projector on the wall. The projector that has now become my worst nightmare.

It’s a replay of a well-known celebrity gossip show. And I am the unwitting guest star of their conversation. The topic is old hat.

Specifically, the rumors of me sleeping with one of the judges to win the show. Each host throws in their two cents before they read some of the twitter comments from the aftermath while they laugh.

Fat, talentless cow.

Her face looks like it got ran over and glued back together.

Bitch can’t sing her ABCs. Go home, American Star, you’re drunk.

Another waste of human space. Hope she gets hit by a bus.

THE INSULTS CONTINUE, flinging at me like arrows. It’s a constant loop of interviews and my most caustic critics replayed at a volume I can’t ignore.

I close my eyes and hum to try to block it out. I press my hands to my ears. It doesn’t work.

I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to be weak. And I hate him for this. I have never met anyone so evil. Rage overcomes me.

I pound on the door until my nails break and my fingers swell. When that doesn’t work, I launch my entire body against the frame.

I scream until my throat is raw. I force the ball gag from my mouth in a fit. And just when I think I can’t take another second, everything goes silent again.

I stare up at the ceiling. At the blinking light where he is undoubtedly watching me from. I wait for the torture to begin all over again. But it doesn’t.

Ten minutes pass.

Then twenty.

And thirty.

I curl up on the floor, on edge and exhausted. My eyes fall shut, and I start to drift off again. The moment I do, the projector screams back to life with more of the same.

This time, I do cry.

The tears fall and the words I can’t avoid blister every corner of my mind. I don’t know how long it goes on for. I can’t tell night from day in this room. So I count the drinks instead.

Twice a day, he brings me a jug of water.

It isn’t enough. And I’m never prepared. I never know when he’s going to come.

So far, he’s been six times. But I’m never fast enough to get to him. He opens the door without a sound and sets them inside. Then he leaves before I get a chance to attack.

He has to know. He has to know that I would kill him right now if I could.

I’m going insane. I haven’t slept in three days, and I’m starving, and my mind is so fractured from this unspeakable torture that I could murder him with my bare hands if he let me near him.

I would try. And I wouldn’t feel guilty for it. This is the animal he’s turned me into.

In three short days.

By the fourth, I can take it no longer. The humming doesn’t work. Talking to myself doesn’t work. Blocking it out isn’t an option. And so I do the only thing that I can. I sit down at the piano, and I close my eyes.

And I play.

My fingers are rusty and cold and numb, and it hurts. The pain is almost crippling as they move over the keys. But the sound that floods the room is such a welcome relief that I push through it.

I push through it until my movements are fluid and my voice is humming along with the notes. And just like that, everything else fades away.

My fear is gone, and I am playing again.

I think of the notes. The notes he used to write me. And his words.

Sing me a song, with words only I can hear.

THIS IS what he wanted all along.

When I open my eyes again, he’s there. In the doorway. My fingers pause, and he shakes his head. The room is silent now. The projector turned off. And I’ve lost the will to fight.

This is my chance to kill him. To claw his eyes out. But I can’t move.

I’m so tired. So numb. All I want to do is sleep.

“Keep playing,” he tells me.

I stare at him. It would be so easy to give in. To do what he wants and stop this pain. This torture. But I can’t bring myself to give up.

Not yet.

So, I stop playing.

He leaves the room again. The projector does not come on again. Not that night. Or any after.

Instead, I am entombed in silence. Silence so deafening, it is a different animal altogether. I start to imagine sounds that aren’t real. I start to see shadows that I know aren’t real. I feel like I’m going insane all over again, and I don’t know which is worse.

The room is pitch black now. There is no light to be found in this prison. Twenty-four hours a day, I sit in darkness.

I talk to myself. I pick at my skin. Bugs crawl all over me. I hear him in the room with me, breathing. At some point, I hear a baby crying. When I seek out the source of the noise, it disappears entirely.

He brings me food, but I never know when. I can’t see him. I crawl around the floor like a dog, seeking it out. Always the same thing, over and over again.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I eat them and want for more. My stomach is so empty that it is caving in on me. Sometimes, I catch myself biting my lip just to taste the blood.

I am feral.

Wild.

An animal.

And this is what he wanted.

I cry. I wail. I mutilate myself on the walls, cutting and scratching my skin just to feel something different. I haven’t showered since I’ve been here. I go to the bathroom in the bucket, like a heathen. I get my period and have no choice but to use some of my precious drinking water to clean myself with.

I am disgusting. Ashamed. Cold and lonely and tender in

a way that I never thought was possible.

At some point, my mind fractures completely. I feel it happen.

I am broken.

And I am willing to do anything. Anything at all. Anything he says. Just to stop this madness. So with my last scraps of remaining energy, I crawl to the piano stool and pull myself from the floor. I sit down and will my fingers to move. They are stiff and painful and bloody.

But I play.

I play a song for him. With words only he can hear. I sing him a song I’ve never sung out loud. With lyrics from my journal.The one that the world has never seen or heard before. And soon, the door opens again. This time, there is light.

It hurts my eyes.

It’s so beautiful, I cry because I can’t bear to look at it. To believe it’s real. But he’s there. And I don’t stop playing. I don’t dare.

I play him three more songs before he halts me. He comes to sit beside me on the bench. And he does something that I don’t expect. He pulls me into his arms and pets my cheek reverently. I burrow into his palm. Into his warmth and his touch and his scent, so comforting after so long in isolation. And I hate myself for it.

I want to die for feeling this way. For allowing him to break me. For turning me into this slave to human affection, even at the cost of reaping it from a monster.