Captive - FourTris

Forty-Two

OCTOBER 9
1 MONTH, 9 DAYS

Tobias and I are at a park, a few blocks from the ocean, acting like kids. It's a beautiful sunny day, with a slight salty breeze that cools our skin. He pushes me on the swings, and I laugh and stare at the sky and wonder what it would be like to just let go and fly into the air, and land in a heap in the gravel.

I wonder if it would hurt.

I bet it would, but I bet for those moments I would be free as a bird, and it would be glorious.

Tobias sits on a swing next to me and pumps his legs, picking up speed and height, and before I know it we're paralleling each other, my hair wild around my face.

It's weird. Whenever we get to the top, there's this moment that seems to freeze, and all I can see is his face, and the sky, and nothing else. But then it is broken and we're swinging downwards again, only to repeat it on the other side, dozens of frozen moments strung together. Eventually I get dizzy and drag my feet, and he does the same, and we stop. I twist my swing a few times, absently turning around and then back again, my legs
sticking straight out in front of me.

Whenever he's around, everything feels charged. I'm filled with energy, and I want to go wild with it and scream and dance and kiss.

But all I have to do is stare into his intense blue eyes, and it calms me, and I just want to be close to him.

I look at his hand where it grips the chain of the swing. Scars. They cover his knuckles, white lines that crisscross all over his fist.

He sees me looking, and he drops his hand and looks at it, too. "I have a temper problem," he says. "Sometimes I have to hit something. But I'm not like my dad. I just hit things, not people. I got these when I punched out a window in the garage."

"Oh." I don't know what to say. His dad hits people? And does that mean that Tobias has been one of them? The thought makes me a little bit sick. I'm not sure I understand an anger like that, an anger so fierce you could hurt someone.

"I know it sounds bad. I haven't done anything like that in a long time, though. These were when I was thirteen. Things were just so rough back then."

"Oh," I say again. I sound so stupid. I have no idea what I'm supposed to say, what the appropriate response is in a conversation like this. The things he's talking about are so different than the things I'm used to.

He grabs the chain on my swing and I look at him and meet his intense stare. "I swear to you, I would never hurt you. Never."

I nod my head. I see the conviction in his face. I hear it in his voice. I know he would never hurt me.
I know his word is good. And I trust him.

And I know he trusts me, because he's telling me his secrets. He's telling me his hurt. And I know I can do the same. I know I could tell him anything. And because of what he's been through, because of what he's lived, he won't judge me for it.

Even though Christina is my best friend, she lives this amazing charmed life and I've never wanted to tell her the bad parts of mine. I've never wanted to tell her how sometimes I lie awake at night and the house is big and empty and I can hear my mum crying herself to sleep, and it scares me and I want to go hug her but I know she doesn't want me to know she does it. And so I lie in the dark and listen to the sounds, and each one tears at me until sometimes it makes me cry, too.

And yet I don't say anything to my mum and she goes on doing what she does, and I go on pretending I don't know.

It feels wrong, though. I think I should tell her I know, and I should be there for her, but I need her as much as she needs me, and so we just stay this way forever, a stalemate of tears. And Christina has no idea.

But now I have Tobias. And I know he'll understand me.

And I'm ready to tell him everything.