With every sip of my Piña Colada, I sank deeper in the soft cushioned sunbed, and my smile stretched wider. By the time my glass was empty, I felt like a happy little sloth.

Tiny beads of sweat pearled up on my forehead and trickled down my temples, yet somehow I wasn’t bothered by the heat. I felt good, and warm, and comfortable, and like I was softly melting into my seat like a sweet lump of vanilla ice cream.

The garden felt so quiet, despite all the birds singing, the leaves rustling, the giant flamingo float occasionally bumping into the edge of the pool, as well as the sound of me loudly trying to slurp up the last drops at the bottom.

“I get the message, Gordita,” said Pablo. “I’ll go get you another drink. Just give me a minute or five to get out of this chair.”

“Is your arthritis acting up?” I snickered.

A grin drew across his face. His eyes were tightly shut under his gold-framed sunglasses, and his head bobbed from side to side as he shook it no.

“What then,” I asked, bringing the palm of my hand up to shelter my own eyes from the sun. “Are you high or something?”

“I don’t know,” he answered as he turned his rugged face towards me. “Are you?”

“Nah, I’m just chilling,” I shrugged.

I snuggled up in my sunbed, whose cushion seemed to get fluffier with every passing minute. I closed my eyes, stretched my toes and cracked my ankles. Life was good.

Life, in fact, was better than it ever had been. I grinned as I wondered how many days of work I had missed so far. How many lost calls did I have on my phone, and how many of them would I have picked up with a desperate sigh? Had cockroaches colonized my flat yet, and would they eat my landlord alive when he opened the door to ask me why my rent was late?

The few people I used to care for wouldn’t notice I was gone. Those who would, would only remember me because they expected something from me. And now that I sat in my comfy sunbed, chewing on my straw and suckling on the last drops of Piña Colada, I didn’t owe anything to anyone.

I must have dozed off for a few minutes, because when I opened my eyes, Pablo was standing between me and the sun, handing me a cold drink, in a glass decorated with pink sugar and a lime garnish.

“Spicy mango gin,” said Pablo. “Give it a try and tell me what you think.”

“Delicious,” I grinned as I tasted it. “Pablo, you’re spoiling me.”

He smiled back, two big dimples digging into his cheeks.

“I am indeed,” he answered. “Tell me if you need anything. Should I put some music on?”

“Sure.”

With a click on his phone, and a little touch of the magic of modern-day technology, the air around us filled up with a song.

Pablo’s taste in music, just like the rest of him, seemed to have stayed stuck in the seventies, although I didn’t dislike it as much as his fashion sense. It was quite enjoyable, actually, and I quickly found myself effortlessly bobbing my head to the rhythm of the songs, and singing along to their words.

Pablo improvised a lip sync concert from the comfort of his own sunbed, using an empty beer bottle as a microphone. I couldn’t help but smile as he serenaded me.

It felt like we were nothing but two kids, enjoying a blithe summer day by the pool. I hadn’t felt this carefree since I was a child, and never in my entire life had I been allowed to sit and relax in a place so pretty.

“Oh my God, I love this song!” exclaimed Pablo, as the first notes of Rupert Holmes’s “Escape” played on the speakers around the pool bar. He jubilated in his seat and raised his glass.

If you like piña coladas

And gettin’ caught in the rain

If you’re not into yoga

If you have half a brain

If you like makin’ love at midnight

In the dunes on the cape

Then I’m the love that you’ve looked for

Write to me and escape

Pablo and I burst into an off-key, yet spirited duet, belting out the lyrics to the chorus. Drops of spicy mango gin flew all over the place as I waved my arms in the air. Our passion culminated as Pablo executed a cringe-inducing solo on his air guitar, and I exploded into a giggling fit.

How childish, I thought–and it was a compliment. As a kid whose innocence was cut short at too young of an age, I was a true believer that childhood was the highlight of one’s life, and that the key to happiness is in acting as young as dumb as you can, for as long as you may.

“Piña Coladas and getting caught in the rain. Gordita, I think this is our song,” nodded Pablo with a beaming smile.

I rolled my eyes. There were so many words I wanted to answer, but not enough energy to articulate all of them. First of all, there was no “our” anything, because we weren’t a thing. Second, despite its catchy tune, Escape is a song about cheating on your partner and feeling distant from them, so it wasn’t really something any couple should strive to relate to. And last, we had only shared a single Piña Colada, and about as many kisses in the rain, so those two things were hardly defining elements about our relationship.

“No it’s not. It says if you have half a brain," I said. “That disqualifies you.”

“Well then you’re out too. ’Cause you’re into yoga.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I’ve got my intel,” he shrugged.

“Your intel team sucks balls,” I groaned. “I hate yoga.”

“Weren’t you supposed to go to some hippie retreat?”

“Ugh,” I sighed. “I was only going because Ana begged me to. That place was so overpriced. Honestly–the pool on the brochure looked green. Who knows what’s in that water?”

“Foot fungi,” said Pablo. “Also syphilis. Brain-eating bacteria. And smelly gringos.”

“If smelly gringos give you syphilis, I can’t imagine all the diseases I’d get if I jumped in there,” I chuckled, pointing at the clear, sparkling blue water in front of me.

“You offend me, Gordita. My swimming pool is one-hundred percent STD-free.”

I giggled, and slurped up a good fifth of my cocktail.

“Mind you, I think Hernan Sandoval might have herpes,” he added, as his mouth bent into a grimace.

“Is that the one-and-only man in the country who owns a bigger portrait of himself than you do?”

“Who told you that?” he asked, as his eyebrows raised above the frame of his sunglasses.

“I’ve got my intel,” I smirked.

“Yeah,” he answered. “Hernan is a good ‘frenemy’ of mine. Used to be my boss, but now I’m better than him. He tends to get a little bit salty about that.”

“I take it you don’t hang out too much anymore, then.”

“Oh no, we do. He spends most of his time here. Comes over for dinner, parties, sleeps here sometimes. His kid is even my godson. I mean, I say kid, but he’s around your age now.”

“Damn,” I said. “That’s pretty close for a frenemy.”

“You know what they say,” he shrugged. “Keep your enemies close and your friends closer.”

“It’s the opposite. You keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

“Whatever, Gordita. If you have any complaints about my English, we can continue this conversation in Spanish.”

“Sorry,” I answered, biting my lip. “Your English is pretty good. You barely have an accent.”

“Obviously, I’m in international business. Having good English is important. Most people here speak English, actually. You know, so the staff doesn’t overhear too many important conversations.”

“Oh,” I piped up. “Well, that’s convenient for me.”

“Meh, it’s not like you’ll meet many of them. I’m sorry, my little treasure, but I’ve got to keep you hidden,” sighed Pablo. “I can’t buy everybody’s silence.”

“So I’m condemned to stay the rest of my life in the company of no one else but you?” I moaned.

“Me, and a handful of people I trust,” he shrugged.

“Do you trust Mafer?” I squinted.

“Who’s Mafer?”

“My maid,” I sighed and rolled my eyes.

“Oh wow, look at you,” whistled Pablo. “Calling out your bestie already?”

“I’m not calling her out,” I hissed back. “It’s just that I thought you didn’t know her.”

“I don’t know her. Got a lot of staff here, I don’t know them all. Although, I trust Mafer knows I have a file this thick,” he said, holding his index and his thumb about half an inch apart, “about her and every single member in her family. I trust she knows I know where they live, where they work, and which school her little siblings go to. I trust she knows she won’t find any other job that pays this much and that if it wasn’t for it, she would never get out of whatever crippling debt or poverty she’s probably living in. So yeah, I guess I trust Mafer.”

“Great,” I gulped.

I decided it was best to end the conversation here. Not only was Pablo getting a little heated, it was also quite unsettling to listen to what more or less sounded like death threats towards my friend.

I laid back and tried to relax again, sipping on my drink in silence as the music kept on playing. Although I knew Pablo was far from being the best company, I couldn’t help but think that things could be worse.

If I hadn’t met Pablo, I would be back in Goose Creek by now. I’d be depressed, sunburnt, covered in mosquito bites and exhausted by two weeks of hiking and having to deal with June and Kait.

With a cold cocktail in my hands, the warm sun in my face and a pretty pool at my feet, the idea of being stuck here for the rest of my days didn’t seem nearly as bad as it did two weeks ago.

“You look hot,” said Pablo.

“I know,” I answered, wiping the sweat off of my forehead. “I might jump in the pool.”

“Why is it that we’re never on the same page? This time I actually did mean to tell you that you look pretty.” he groaned. “Should I fetch you that floaty thing?”

“The flamingo? Sure.”

He slowly unbuttoned his shirt and settled his sunglasses on the edge of his sunbed. Pablo didn’t really look like the Greek God he probably saw when he looked at himself in a mirror, but his confidence was both funny and endearing.

Chin up, shoulders straight, he paraded over to the edge of the pool like a bird in courtship. As he began to stretch–either trying to show off whatever muscles he thought he had, or maybe trying to provide me with a bit of comic relief–I slipped out of my dress and stood up.

He threw a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure I was watching, and executed a perfect dive into the pool. If I were a jury, I’d give him a ten, but he still was my kidnapper, so I brought that mark down to a seven.

“Fuck,” he yelled as he emerged, shaking his wet hair. “It’s cold!”

“Are you kidding?” I laughed, dipping my toes in the water. “It’s super warm.”

“Trust me Gordita, my balls are the size of peas right now.”

“Ew,” I winced. “How am I supposed to get that image out of my mind?”

He grinned from ear to ear, and waded back towards me, pushing the pink bird in front of him.

“Here’s your yacht, miss,” he smiled. “Need any help to get on board?”

“Just hold it tight and I’ll try not to make a fool of myself,” I chuckled as I swung a leg around the float.

I held onto his shoulder for stability, and his hand grazed along my thigh. His touch on my skin felt like a warm tingle, and the way his sparkling eyes looked up to me awoke the thousand butterflies in my stomach.

My legs wrapped around the pink bird’s delicate neck, and I laid back, letting the cool water caress the top of my head.

“Oh the things I’d do to be that flamingo,” crooned Pablo.

“Please stop talking,” I sighed.

“Got it.”

“And top up my drink,” I ordered.

He smirked, hoisted himself out of the pool and grabbed my glass. I took a cigarette from a pack he’d left lying by the side of the pool and lit it. The smoke filled up my lungs with tar and a burning sense of happiness.

“You look like you’re enjoying this,” said Pablo, as he handed me another large glass of spicy mango gin.

“What? The pool? Who doesn’t?” I answered, grabbing the ice-cold drink.

“Not just the pool–the life. The drinks, the sun, the whole ‘spending your life sitting on a flamingo float’ thing, and, you know... me.”

“I’m not ‘spending my life sitting on a flamingo float’. I’ve only been here for half a minute.”

“And? Wasn’t it the best half a minute of your life?”

I let out a chuckle. “That’s what he said.”

“Very funny, Gordita,” he smiled, as he sat on the edge of the pool. “But, seriously though. Are you happy?”

I stared at him from above my sunglasses and hummed for a moment while I thought. Being a hostage against my will, imprisoned by a mad predator a couple of decades older than I was, who didn’t let me out of the house, let alone work or meet other people–it all went against everything I used to stand for. I shouldn’t really be happy.

Yet, there was something truly soothing about not having to worry about money, about cleaning, cooking, working, or waking up on time in the morning. I sighed. It was hard to admit that the man who had taken everything from me was the reason I felt happy–but it was even harder to ignore it. I didn’t want to go home to my dirty flat, my three shitty jobs, my nonexistent friends, and my brain-dead mom. I was fine where I was, and could handle the old weirdo as long as I could keep the flamingo float and the spicy mango gin.

He nodded at me as if he was still waiting for an answer. I grabbed his fingers with my free hand, and pushed myself hard enough to send the float twirling around the pool.

“I guess I was to life what Camilla Cabello was to Fifth Harmony,” I sighed, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “And I’ve just gone solo.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he shrugged.

“You uncultured swine.”

I floated around the pool in zero gravity. It was a strange experience, where all my senses felt heightened and yet I still couldn’t feel anything. When I closed my eyes, I could see the music. I could smell the colors of the flowers planted around the pool. I could feel how the spicy mango gin sloshed around in my stomach, but not how it dribbled down my chin when I tried to drink it and it missed my lips.

Maybe the drink was hitting me a little harder than I expected. Or maybe it was the cigarette. Although it wasn’t like I hadn’t had one in a while, I’d spent the past week chain smoking at my bedroom window. Maybe Pablo’s cigarettes were different.

I tried to take another puff, but my arm was limp and immobile, and I realized my cigarette was now underwater.

“I’m literally melting,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, it’s kind of hot,” said a laid-back Pablo. “Get off your floatie and in the water, if you want.”

“I don’t think I can do that.”

“Why not? Pools are made for swimming.”

“I think I’d drown,” I answered. “I can barely move.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “That’s how you know the Special K is hitting.”

“Special K? The cereal?” I asked.

“No, Gordita, not the cereal. Nevermind, forget about it,” he said, flicking the thought away with a swift wave of the hand.

“Alright,” I whispered, and laid back down.

The sky above me looked like it was dancing, swirling, painted with the palest blue and crossed by lonely clouds the color of cotton candy. Drops of sweat curled up on my skin, where they fizzled, sizzled, and evaporated before they could even drip.

And I was feeling good. Better than ever, better even than I did just an hour ago, when I already thought I had reached that threshold of the greatest happiness I’d ever felt.

I felt so good, it was overwhelming. As if I was crushed by the unbearable weight of pure enjoyment. Lifting my hands to my face to take another sip of my drink became too hard a task, almost like a chore, unworthy of ruining my perfect moment.

Both of my hands floated just under the water’s surface, and the bottom third of my spicy mango gin had spilled into the crystalline water.

“Hey Pablo, my glass is empty,” I drawled.

I turned my gaze away from the cotton-candy sky, and down towards Pablo. His eyes were still riveted on me, and since I had gotten on the float, he hadn’t stopped staring at me for any longer than it took him to blink. He cocked an eyebrow.

“The way I see it, your glass is full.”

His voice sounded like a distant echo, yet his face was just a couple feet away from mine. I let the remnants of my soggy cigarette sink to the bottom of the pool, and slowly reached my free hand out to grab one of his ankles under the water.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, pulling my glass out of the pool. “It kind of smells like chlorine now.”

“Should I get you another one?” he smirked, wiping my brow with his thumb.

I nodded, and with a gentle push of the foot, he sent me and my flamingo dancing across the surface of the tranquil water.

“Fuck, there’s no more ice,” I heard him shout from the pool bar, although he still sounded miles away. “I’ll go get some inside.”

I answered by humming the tune to a waltz I didn’t remember the name of, still twirling around with my giant pink bird. The wind picked up, and so did our speed. We spun faster and faster, hurling towards the edge of the pool.

Either the pool had grown while I was swimming in it, or my sense of time was somehow distorted, but it took us ages to reach the edge. We bumped into a corner, and my hand was briefly trapped between the tiles and the float.

“Ouch,” I cried out, to a pain I couldn’t even feel.

My head jerked up, and my eyes briefly scoured the garden in search of Pablo. I was alone. It was just me, the flamingo, and the grove that flashed in the corner of my eye.

That small grove, the one with the fairy lights and the palm trees. The same grove that I could see from my bedroom window. The one where I’d seen a dreamy couple dancing one night, a while ago. The one I’d promised myself to reach one day, so I could make it the starting point of my great escape.

“Pst,” whispered a small tree. “Come here.”

“Fuck you,” I answered. “I’m fine where I am.”

But the grove kept talking, bustling with the judgemental whispers of its own vegetation. I sank my ears into the soft, warm plastic of my float, hoping to drown out the sound of their voices, but it wouldn’t stop.

“Look at her. Does she have no self-worth? She’d rather stay with her kidnapper than fight for her freedom. What a weak, pathetic excuse of a woman,” hissed a big fern.

“You know what I think? I think she’s glad to be stuck here. She’s a lazy, useless, materialistic bitch,” answered a palm tree.

“That’s not very nice,” I muttered back through my immobile lips.

Since when were the trees so god-damn mean? And who taught them how to talk anyway?

I threw my head back, and chose to ignore them, but the breeze pushed me around until the grove was back into my line of vision. The upside-down bushes stared at me with their eyeless gazes.

“Sarah Kennedy would be so disappointed,” whispered their fronds as they rustled in the wind.

I closed my eyes tight to try and shut them out, but I could strain my face all I wanted, it didn’t stop them from being right. Wherever Sarah’s soul was forever trapped, whether it was in the lavender room or the musty basement, she was mad at me. She was livid. All this time she’d spent devising plans, all the years it took to plan the perfect escape, all of it was for nothing.

And she screamed, and she shouted, and soon her voice joined in with the trees as they chanted:

“Escape! Escape! Escape! Escape!”

The wind bent their branches like arms pointing towards the way out. It seemed too good of an occasion, too easy not to attempt it.

I sighed, and paddled my way to the edge of the pool. I jumped off the flamingo, shushing the water as it splashed around me. I hoisted myself onto the sun-cooked tiles, and bid the float goodbye with a gentle pat on the beak.

I tried to run, but my legs felt like they were going to give in, and so I walked, shuffled, and maybe even crawled as I darted for the trees.

The forest was thick, and the air there quite colder. The sun only descended in thin beams through the few holes in the foliage, and burned holes into the neatly mowed grass.

I kept going, holding onto and wrapping around the tree trunks as I passed them by. Hunched over like a wild beast lurking around the jungle, I made my way out, to safety, to freedom.

Am I going in a straight line or have I been running around in circles?

I stopped to look around. Everything around me was warping, morphing, distorting into bumps and waves.

“What the fuck is happening?” I breathed, before I kept on barreling towards the darker side of the forest, as far away as possible from Pablo and the daylight.

I was running now, deeper and deeper into the trees, stumbling and tumbling as I tripped on their roots, rolling forwards, pushed by my own momentum.

And then I met a wall. A literal wall, made of concrete and freshly painted beige. A tall wall, standing at least twice my height, topped with three big coils of shining barbed wire.

Of course there’s a wall, I thought, and began to giggle hysterically. Obviously, it couldn’t be that easy. I smacked myself on the temple. How could I be so dumb? How could I underestimate Pablo this much? How could I fall for this again?

I stared at the security camera, whose angle pointed slightly away from me. If there still was a chance, then it was probably my last one.

I placed my palms on the wall, and then a foot, and then another. I slipped down across its smooth surface, and landed on my butt in the muddy ground.

Stop. Think. I stood up and dusted my hands. What am I doing? The question echoed in my head, spiraling deep into my thoughts. I stared at the wall, and repeated the question, over and over. What am I doing? What the fuck am I doing?

“What are you doing?” asked Pablo, too.

Kerning

Escape

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