Captive - FourTris

Three

AUGUST 15
11 MONTHS, 16 DAYS

I've made a mistake. A huge, monumental mistake.

I forgot Tobias's truck broke down. I forgot he was going to be waiting for me when I walked out of Subway. I've only been back on the job for two weeks, and it's already putting a strain on my relationship with Tobias.

And now he's seen me. He's seen me laugh and push Uriah, the new guy.

And I know what he's thinking, and I know where his mind is going, and I know without asking that he's steaming, waiting for me. I know the fear he has of losing me overpowers everything else, even his common sense. I know deep inside he trusts me, but I know his raging insecurities will always prevail.

He's so afraid of losing me that he can't see I'd never leave him.
And I know he had to have seen the way Uriah hugged me with one arm, just a loose sideways hug, but still a hug. He won't believe me when I say Uriah means nothing. He'll just replay that hug over and over in his mind and he'll spin a story that's so far from the truth.

I've been so careful for so long. It was bound to happen eventually. I was bound to slip and do something like this. Why do I even wonder why I have no friends anymore? Why do I even wonder why no one talks to me? It's my own doing. It's my own fears that something will happen and I'll say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and they'll interfere somehow. And this is what will happen.

Even Christina knows it. It's why she stays away without me telling her to. It's why she smiles that sad smile when she sees me.

It's why she's stopped trying to be my friend. She was the last to give up. The last to surrender me to Tobias.

I hate this. I hate it so much, this waiting as we walk toward my car, Uriah having no idea what's about to happen and me knowing it too well.

I'm afraid. I hate that I'm actually afraid of him right now. I hate that I know what this silence means, and all I can do is wait for it to explode.

I feel claustrophobic and I'm not even in the car yet. I consider running. Away from him, away from everything. I could go five, ten miles before I had to stop. I'd be halfway to Aberdeen by then. Our tiny ocean town of Westport, Washington, is a town of nothing. I'd be gone in ten minutes.

But that won't solve it, and maybe this time he'll talk to me. He's been getting a little better, now that he's away from his dad so much. He's been cooling. Adjusting. Maybe this time he'll understand, and he'll see that Uriah is just some random guy who means nothing at all, and we can use this to grow from.

I know that's going to happen, if I stick with him long enough. He just needs some guidance, some love, some understanding. He wants so badly to become that person.
But of course that's not the case. When he clicks his door shut, and before I start the car, he grabs my wrist and squeezes, too hard. It's always too much, too intense, too everything.

"Forget the store. Take me to the apartment. Now."

And for some reason, the whole ride there, the whole deathly silent ride, I keep hoping that my car will break down too and I'll have to get out, that we'll never make it to his apartment.

But we do. I pull up at his fourplex, parking so carefully, perfectly between the white lines. I stare at the other three doors, hoping no one is home in those apartments. It's a tiny building, two apartments downstairs, two up. Tobias's is on the upper left, with a big crooked number four nailed to the door.

I follow him up the old wooden stairs, my heart pounding. I can hardly feel the thin railing as it slides underneath my hand, guiding me toward the front door with the peeling red paint.