Close Your Eyes: Book Four

Chapter Nineteen

My footsteps took me upstairs, even though my mind was somewhere else. I took a shower and stood there until the water was cold, in some type of trance.

I feel the same way I did when I first got out of the house. The first time I felt the grass. The first time I touched the ocean.

Back then I was just frightened, but I never fully felt what had happened.

I mean, I was kidnapped and held hostage for six years, all for five hundred extra bucks on a social security check.

And yes, Damien was mentally ill so it wasn't entire his fault, but that still doesn't erase what happened to me.

I stand in the mirror with a towel wrapped around my body and my blonde hair dripping on the bathroom floor, and I reach out to pull some of my hair to the side and I see the scar where I got stitches all those years ago from that beating Damien gave me.

And the weight of it all is just too much.

He was going to leave me in there for a long time. Maybe he would have moved in a blanket and a pillow for me. I could have been forced to spend the next year there.

And when I turned eighteen I have no doubt in my mind that he would have killed me.

And yes, Damien and Sabrina are dead, but they still live on inside of me, as the evil people who destroyed an eleven year old girl who loved flowers and ocean, who just wanted to go home to her family and to see her best friends again.

Numb, I make my way into the bedroom to pull on some underwear, sweatpants, and a t-shirt, and then I find myself in the basement, digging through the storage room full of Christmas decorations and boxes that I haven't had the heart to open in years.

I find the small rectangular one labeled Noel family photos and grab it off the shelf, sitting down on the bare concrete and ripping the tape back.

The first photograph on top is of Noah around Theo's age wearing a little league t-shirt and playing with Lego's.

The next picture is of me and my Aunt Olivia, my Dad's sister who died when I was nine. She's sitting on the rocking horse and I'm standing on the back of it with one hand on the couch to steady myself.

My bright blue eyes were shining and in this picture...I'm the definition of innocence.

I find a picture of my Grandma on my Mom's side hugging my Uncle. I find one of my cousin sleeping on the couch, one of Noah's baptism, some of people I don't know. I find one of me in fifth grade in the driveway in this hideous pink dress standing in front of my father, who has both hands on my shoulders. He's wearing a tuxedo.

I remember that day. It was the Daddy daughter dance and my Mom was fretting over me and my Dad because my Dad had paint on his hands. He had been working on his art and he got some paint on the shoulder of my dress. I find another picture of my brother holding up a toy airplane, and one of me and my Dad in the kitchen. I'm standing on a stool with flour on my cheeks and we're both looking over our shoulders at the camera. He's holding the mixing spoon and I have both hands on the bowl to keep it still.

I'm grinning in the photograph.

I press my hand against my mouth as my eyes well with tears, sniffling.

This isn't fair.

I pick up the photograph and set it aside, and the next picture that I see makes my throat tighten.

My Mom is hugging me from behind, her cheek pressed against mine, and we're both grinning like crazy. The picture is blurry and I just imagine that whoever took the photo, probably my Dad, was laughing.