Three months prior. September 14th. 3:53 p.m.
My backpack was light on my back as I gripped the straps with my sweaty hands. There wasn’t much in there other than a few articles of clothing, my old journal, and the worn photo of me, Tobias, and Mom. Richard’s office was unlocked, and I knew it was only because he’d rushed out the door when the school had called him.
I couldn’t believe how careless I had been with my drawings, and I wasn’t waiting around to see how my uncle would handle the accusations that came with them. I’d heard him telling the principal that I was mentally unstable. That I was making it all up. That everything in that journal was fabricated from my mentally unstable brain.
He was a good liar and an even better manipulator. I knew that now, which was exactly why I was running.
The floorboard beneath my feet creaked as I stepped over the threshold, looking for any indication or clue that caught my eye. I didn’t have much time to snoop, but I didn’t want to leave until I at least tried to find something that told me where he’d sent Tobias. I knew it had to be on his computer. It was the one thing he guarded above all else, and after the last time he’d caught me in here, it never left his side. He protected it more than anything.
I swallowed past my fear and rising anxiety of the clock ticking quietly in the back of my head. A bead of sweat fell over my temple as I sat on his computer chair and clicked the button, silently thanking anyone who would listen that his computer was unlocked. My heart sped through my chest so hard it was painful as I moved through folders, taking in as much information as I could. There had to be something on here. There had to be.
There were a million folders to sort through, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get to them all. I knew my time was running out. Each second that I sat here was another second that he could pull his car into the driveway, and I’d be done for. I’d be chained up in the basement for who knew how long. I didn’t know where we went from here, and I didn’t want to find out. My heart stalled as I clicked through another set of folders. There was one that caught my eye.
The title was a date.
My birthday. Tobias’ birthday.
December 6th.
My finger shook over the keyboard as I squeezed my eyes shut, taking a deep breath before clicking on it and reading as quickly as I could.
It could have been another case file of his, but I’d once heard someone say they didn’t believe in coincidences, so I didn’t either. As soon as the folder popped open, a breath of air got stuck in my throat.
There wasn’t a single case file in the folder. Instead, there were tiny thumbnails of pictures.
Hundreds.
And they were all of me.
I blinked a few times as I clicked through them, tasting the bile rise up in the back of my throat.
There were some of me sleeping peacefully in bed, all within the last year or two. It was as if they were in chronological order. My hair got longer, and my breasts got fuller. My cheeks had lost their chubbiness, and the angles grew sharper. I sucked in another breath when I moved from the ones in my bed to the ones in the basement. The rush of cool blood flushed through my veins as I saw my naked form, cowering on the dirty floor with my wrists wrapped in chains. I had no idea when he’d even taken them, but by the look on my face, I wasn’t conscious.
A lone tear fell over my cheek and landed on the wooden desk below the laptop, and I had the urge to take the sleek piece of technology and slam it onto the floor. I wanted to stomp on it and destroy every last picture he had of me.
I knew why he had them.
I didn’t realize the signs of his obsession until after Auntie left. After Tobias whispered to me in the darkest of nights that what was happening in our home wasn’t normal, I started to look at things differently.
Richard didn’t care for me like he should.
Our entire upbringing was wrong. So incredibly wrong.
The lies that were fed to me, the punishments, the moral codes and rules that were nothing more than a sheer way to control me. To make me his.
The fear that was buried deep within my chest started to brew, and I was seconds from slamming the laptop shut and leaving, but there was a single file in the bottom left-hand corner of the folder that begged to be opened. The curiosity came from the irrational part of me asking for more fear, and I let it override the rational part, the one that was screaming at me to just leave. To flee.
When the folder popped open, I scanned what appeared to be a spreadsheet of some sort with several dates leading into the new year.
The first date was my and Tobias’ birthday with the words: Gemma enters adulthood.
A sickening feeling coiled in my belly as I slowly stood up. The fight-or-flight instinct was going to war inside me as I continued to read the upcoming dates and their purpose.
December 7th: pull from school.
December 9th: meet with Dr. Bink and bring a photo of Emily for reference.
December 15th: first surgery - nose.
My pulse thumped and thumped as I tried to make sense of the spreadsheet. Why would I need surgery on my nose, and why was there was a note to bring a photo of my mother to a surgeon? I didn’t understand. But then, small snippets of memories came crashing in, the ones I had pushed away until I no longer could. The things my uncle would whisper to me when I was being punished. The name he would call me as he ran his finger down my bare spine with a thick, raspy voice and a bulge in his pants. “Emily. You’ll be my Emily. I won’t let you make the decisions your mother made. I won’t let you break the rules like she did. You are mine, and you’ll do better.”
He was turning me into his own messed-up version of my mother. A muffled cry left my lips as I continued to read the rest of his plans. The rest of the surgeries. He had individual notes with each date and appointment. He was even planning to get me colored contacts. Eye doctor: sky-blue contacts. He wanted to take my vibrant green and change them to the shade my mother and Tobias both had.
The flight instinct that was fighting to pull me from the computer and force me out the front door won when I’d read the last date on the spreadsheet with the title: Wedding.
That was when I slammed the computer down. That was when it all came back to me. Everything had made sense at that moment.