Submitting

Escape

The door closed, leaving the loudest echo I have ever heard. This whole situation felt too surreal as I stopped breathing and looked at Liza, waiting for her to say anything because I couldn't possibly even begin to. The anxiety that trembled me, paralyzed me the same, and the millions of swarming thoughts inside my head made it completely impossible to function.

"I'm so sorry if these pancakes taste a little too doughy, haha. I don't know how I messed up this simple recipe. I should have added another egg. Or maybe a little more of that baking powder. My measurements are always off, and you know how I hate reading recipes. And-" I knew Liza. It was sort of  a relief to know that some things about her were still same. All this mindless chatter was nothing but her not too sly way of hiding the far more pressing things she wanted to say.

"I missed the silly mistakes you make when you cook. It always made me smile." And did smile as I looked at her sad eyes that tried to hide under the pearly fake laugh she did as she averted her gaze to the mirror on the other side of the room. She knew about the rooms behind the walls.

I was strictly aware of it too. 

Silence ensued as we ate in the heavy air, fogged with an almost tangible tension. It was infuriating, and I didn't want this to last.  I wanted this to stop. And I made sure it did as I got up and ripped off the bedsheet from the bed and covered the averagely sized mirror to my best ability. A probing thought occurred in my mind as I didn't know if they were able to hear us or not but that reason itself was too feeble now as I turned around to face Liza with a  determined face that wanted nothing but answers.

"Who did this to you?" My voice a couple of octaves too low as I looked at her with an expressionless face. In a way it reminded me of Dimitri and how is habit of doing just that, was slowly and involuntarily clothing me. 

"Rose, okay calm dow-" 

"No! You can not expect me to calm down! I will not calm down! Enough is enough, Liza. Don't you see what they have done to us? What they are doing?" I didn't even let her sentence finish and interrupted her. The way she was headed, to try to make this situation seem easygoing, was just not going to cut for me. I would have gotten relatively more angry than I was right at this moment.

"What do you want me to say? And how is that going to change anything that has already happened? Rose, please. Stop. I am begging you." She wasn't though as she spoke with a tinge of anger in her voice as well. I wanted to find out to whom that anger was directed towards because if it was me then she had been put in a deeper and darker hole than I had anticipated. 

"What have they done to you?" I spoke slowly, words distanced by disbelief as the tears threatened to spill. Dimitri and Ivan took away another thing from my life in a way I thought was never possible. This was not the Liza that I knew. This was someone completely different in the shell of the girl that once used to exist.

"Jesus Rose, stop twisting in the wind for once. Why do you distort things more than what they actually are..." It was a sharp jab. A blade so thick yet with sharp smooth edges that pierced right through my heart and stayed there, making me immobile. Even the slightest breath hurt as I looked at her in disbelief. The words she used, to do so, ringing in my ears again and again like an everlasting echo.

If she felt the slightest bit of shock or guilt, she hid it well.

I cried, after what felt like a lifetime. Living with those two men has made me numb to it all and no matter how much I tried, nothing seemed to have an effect on me. Until now. Until this Liza came up to me and told me something... that perhaps is nothing but the truth.

"I should go now. It's time for my meds." With that, she got up and left without another word to me, denying to meet my eyes.

****

I couldn't move. I didn't want to. If it was possible, then I would have stopped breathing as well because there was absolutely nothing that I wanted to do. Not a single thing. Not even exist. 

It's so cold, but it couldn't be more so than the numbness I felt inside. I couldn't feel anything. Not a single part of my body. Limbs, legs, hands, toes, heart. Nothing at all. Sometimes a strange nauseous feeling would suddenly rush in, but it would dissipate as quickly as it came. The things that swirled in me couldn't find an escape. No tears. I couldn't cry for some awfully strange reason. As if I was submerged, drowned, pushed hard with my head under a deep murky swamp that dissolved my tears even before they could crawl down my cheeks.

Why did she do that?

The cold was unbearable. I stayed there on the hardwood floor. Hair sprawled, hidden face, unmoving. I wanted to puke. I wanted to let everything inside me to get out of me, and yet I just didn't want to move. I couldn't move. I didn't want to exist. Perhaps sleep would have helped but even that release from this painful existence didn't come to me in this cruel life. 

Who could possibly help me? God? Does he even exist?

What do I do? Where do I go?

****

Arms emerged from nowhere. Wrapped around me like a warm glove that made me flinch at first contact. I was not expecting to feel anything at all, any sensation, physical or mental. But things happened quickly as I was lifted up from the floor and placed on the bed and under the covers. Someone slid under the same and again wrapped their arms around me. Tightly, suffocating in a good way. It made me feel good. Or rather different. And I preferred it more than the previous state I was in. 

Their face buried in my neck, my back to their front, touching. Apologetic in a way I couldn't put into words but felt instead as they squeezed themselves against me, asking for something I couldn't ever give.

"I'm sorry Roza."