“What are you doing?” asked Pablo.

His question lingered in the air like the blade of a guillotine about to fall down and slice my neck. His tone was ice-cold, sharp like steel. He could have asked me if I had any last words, and I would have felt the same. My heart dropped in my chest, my lips wobbled and my throat choked up.

“Escaping,” I answered.

Pablo’s lips curved into a faint smile, but the rest of his face remained stoic. No dimples, no wrinkles, just a crinkle on his chin when he clenched his jaw. His eyes burned with all the anger he repressed. His fingers tightened around the cold drinks he was holding, to the point where his skin turned white.

“Don’t you want your drink first?” he said, chewing on his lip.

I shook my head quietly. Time stood still, as if there was a ticking bomb between us and its countdown had hit zero, yet nothing had happened. Here I was again, standing face to face with Pablo, wondering how many minutes and seconds I had left to live, just like I did on the day we met. He seemed less self-assured and cocky than he was in the basement. He looked more disappointed than enraged, more broken than mad.

“You won’t go very far,” he muttered, eyeing me from head to toe. “Not dressed like that.”

He took one step forward, and I took two steps back. The cold concrete wall hit my bare skin and my already dizzy head, and I felt trapped in a cage of my own making. If I hadn’t had this stupid idea, if I hadn’t tried to escape, I’d be in the pool, sipping on a drink, listening to music, living the life Pablo used to think I deserved. And now what?

I shrugged, and he shrugged back. His relentless gaze still pierced through me with the strength and weight of a thousand pairs of judging eyes, and I was frozen. It felt like a bad dream, where you’re trying to scream but all you can squeeze out of your throat is a raspy peep, and where you’re trying to run but you keep getting tangled in your sheets.

Gordilocks was standing in the woods, face to face with the hungry Daddy bear, and she forgot whether she was supposed to fight back, run away, or just lay down and play dead.

As the seconds ticked by, the frown on his brow deepened, and my heart began to race faster, and faster, and faster. Feelings bubbled at the back of my mouth like a bad bout of heartburn. I have to end this nightmare, I thought.

“I’ll just go back to my bedroom,” I breathed.

I left behind a dumbfounded Pablo, who silently watched me stumble away from him, tripping over my own feet, trying to remember which way I was supposed to bend my knees in order to keep moving. I had to get away as fast as possible, before he changed his mind, or before he found a table to put down the drinks, free his hands and grab his gun.

I was lost in a haze, where everything around me was a mix of colorful blotches. I scampered around the blue stain that once was a pool, and followed the blurry red line of the brick path like I was walking on a tightrope.

Once my feet hit the cold tile floor of the kitchen, I started running. I couldn’t get away fast enough, and I couldn’t lose a single fraction of a second to check if he was following me.

I ran like a madwoman, slipping and sliding on the clean floors, blinded by the daylight reflecting on the shiny marble around me. I grabbed onto everything I could find–plants, pillars, maids or bodyguards, I couldn’t tell the difference anyway. I shoved them out of my way, and launched myself off of them to move faster.

I climbed the grand staircase and the spiral steps on all fours, clawing at everything I could hold onto. My nails rasped against the wrought iron banisters, making them shake and chime like tolling bells.

I barreled my way down what I hoped and prayed was the right corridor, still blinded by the tears and whatever was going on in my brain, leaving in my wake a long trail of wet footprints and broken vases. I bumped into what felt like a wall, until its calloused hands grabbed me back.

“What are you doing?” asked Oso’s thundering, deep voice.

“Let go of me,” I cried, and launched myself into my bedroom.

I shut the door behind me and took a deep breath as my eyes started to focus again. For once my room’s lavender walls seemed familiar and soothing. I was back in the sole, safe company of my little vanity, my small window, and my comfortable bed, and the racing thoughts quieted down. I let my back slide against the smooth wooden surface of the bedroom door.

“Está en su cuarto?" asked Pablo from the corridor.

Is she in her bedroom?

Had Oso truly been there to protect me, he would have told him no. But Pablo was the one paying Oso’s salary, not me, and so my so-called bodyguard ratted me out. The handle shook by the side of my head, and the weight of my body leaning against the door was now the only thing keeping Pablo out. The bedroom door could only lock from the outside.

I dug my heels into the floor and spread my arms out wide, desperately trying to push back Pablo’s entrance and my untimely death.

“Gordita,” he said, with an unsettling calm in his voice. “Open the door.”

The bathroom, I thought. The bathroom door has a lock on the inside. It was just a couple of feet away. Maybe I could make it.

Pablo gave the door another push, and managed to open it just a bit. I slammed it shut with a shove of the shoulders, and, using the short second he took to step back and gain momentum, I rolled into the nearby bathroom. He crashed through the door the very moment I moved away from it, and his fingers grazed my ankle as he threw himself forward to catch me.

With a kick, a jerk, and a gravity-defying somersault, I got away, landing on the avocado-green tiles. I pushed onto the door with all the strength I had left, and Pablo’s fingers snuck in right as I slammed it shut.

“Motherf–” he yelled. He pulled his hand away and began to groan in pain. I turned the lock shut and crawled away from the door.

“Le ayudo con algo, Patrón?” asked Oso.

Should I help you with anything, Boss?

“Dejala. No quiero que se asuste,” answered Pablo.

Leave her. I don’t want her to get scared.

“Ya parece asustada.”

She already seems scared.

“Pues si,” sighed Pablo. “A saber qué le pasó.”

Well yeah. Who knows what got into her.

“Gordita,” he said. “Open the door, I just want to talk.”

I covered my mouth to muffle my heaving, whimpering breaths. There was no point in doing so, since Pablo already knew I was in here–yet I did it, nonetheless.

“Come on. Let’s talk,” he pleaded softly. “I’m not angry. Just open the door, please.”

“I don’t believe you,” I answered.

“I’m serious, Gordita. I’m not mad at you,” he sighed. “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”

“You need to calm down first,” I told him, eyes still riveted on the door’s twitching handle.

“I’m calm,” he lied. ”You need to calm down. You’re the one acting crazy.”

After a moment of silence and a build-up of frustration, he threw himself against the door. The wood bent, and cracked in some places, and the whole room shook with it. I gasped, and took shelter in the bathtub.

The lines in the tiles oscillated, twisted and distorted. I squinted as I stared at them. I wasn’t in a normal state and it wasn’t the Piña Coladas. Maybe it was a sunstroke–I hoped–although it was unlikely.

“Did you drug me again?” I asked, my voice breaking apart in my throat.

“What do you mean, again?” he mumbled.

“Pablo, did you drug me, yes or no?” I cried.

He sighed loudly, and let go of the handle.

“Listen,” he said. “Just– just open the door.”

“Why would you give me drugs?” I shrieked. “What are you trying to do? Kill me? Rape me?”

“It’s what I take as a painkiller, Gordita. It’s really not a big deal.”

“What is ‘it’, Pablo?” I screamed. “What did you give me?”

“Ketamine,” he muttered. “Horse tranquilizers.”

“Oh my god,” I whispered. “Oh my god.”

I repeated it, over and over again. Oh my God, I’m stuck in a bathtub, high on horse tranquilizers, separated from a raging psychopath by nothing more than a flimsy wooden door. He’s going to break it down. He’s going to kill me, or maybe I’ll die before he does. Oh my God. Oh my God.

“Pablo, do I seem fucking tranquil to you right now?” I seethed.

“No, and that’s exactly my point,” he shouted back, trying again at the handle. “I don’t know what is wrong with you. Let me in, now.”

“What is wrong with me? I was kidnapped by a madman who’s trying to murder me! That’s what’s fucking wrong with me!”

“Stop fooling around and just open the fucking door,” he yelled. “You’re going to end up doing something stupid.”

His fist slammed down on the thin door, and its loud thump echoed over and over in my head. He was about to break the damn thing apart, and then he’d get his hands on me and do god-knows-what to my drugged-up body.

I brought my trembling hands up to my face and squeezed them around my skull to try and force myself to think. I needed a way out. I couldn’t let him have me. My eyes desperately scoured the bathroom. There were no vents or drains big enough for me to slip through. There was no window I could jump out of, or hiding place I could sneak into. I was trapped, caught, backed into a corner, royally fucked and as good as dead.

Trigger Warning: The following content may be disturbing for some viewers. Please skip this part if you’re uncomfortable reading mentions of suicide and self-harm.

I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take a second more. I was panting, sweating, sobbing alone in my bathtub, and I was at a complete loss. I didn’t want to go back to Goose Creek, but I didn’t want to have to live in fear either. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my days tip-toeing around him and his mad temper, I didn’t want to check every plate and every drink for hidden drugs. I couldn’t let him control me, manipulate me, torment me. I was tired, exhausted, drained down to my very last drop of willpower. I didn’t want to live like this. I didn’t want to live anymore.

My chest heaved with labored breaths. My throat was scorched by fiery tears. I had blood under my nails and I didn’t know where it was coming from. My head was spinning, pulsating, screaming for everything to stop.

On top of the powder-pink sink, glimmered my very last hope. It winked at me with a metallic gaze, my brand-new, stainless steel, razor-sharp blade.

I let out a sigh of relief–or a whimper, maybe. Pablo’s clumsy gift of a razor would be my way out. My open door to an unknown place, where I would be free from Pablo and everything else I hated. I wiped my wet eyes with the back of my hand, and bent forward to grab it. It scraped across the ceramic sink with a peculiar rasp, and on the other side of the door, Pablo asked:

“What are you doing?”

Why do you care, answered the silent voice at the back of my mind. Why does anyone care what I’m doing? I concentrated on unscrewing the handle of the razor to get a hold of its precious little blade.

I grabbed it between my finger and my thumb and smiled. I turned around my left arm, staring at its green veins and its zebra-like pattern of old white scars. I’d done it all before, a number of years ago, when I was stuck living with my mother and I was–yet again–desperate for a way out. I grinned at the small shiny piece of metal just like you’d smile at an old friend.

“Are you okay?” enquired Pablo from the other side of the door.

“Better now,” I answered softly.

Better now I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Better now I could focus on something else than the drumming of Pablo’s fists against the bathroom door. Better now I had my way out.

I placed the blade against my vein, and let out a shaky exhale as I felt the kiss of cold steel on my bare skin.

And then I felt her with me. I could smell her stale tobacco breath, feel the touch of her cold, skinny hand at the back of my head. I was back in her bathroom, stuck between the sticky shower curtain and the moldy yellow tiles, holding a rusty blade.

“You’re only doing it for attention, Sarah,” she hissed through her rotting teeth, “If you meant to die you’d cut along the veins, not across.”

Her face was right there, by my side. I lifted up my heavy eyes, swallowed back a few tears and stared into her empty blue eyes.

“Thanks for the advice, Mom,” I whispered.

“You don’t get an easy way out,” she groaned, ripping the blade out of my hands. “And I won’t bury you, you selfish bitch.”

I gulped, swallowing down the bitter taste in my mouth. I felt my face turn red as tears backed up in my throat and made it hard for me to breathe.

“Open the door, Gordita,” shouted Pablo. His voice cracked as he began to beg. “Please.”

I was still in the avocado-green bathroom, with a sharp blade still against my arm. Following my dear Mother’s advice, I twisted the blade a little, and took a deep breath.

“Oso, ayúdame,” shouted Pablo.

Oso, help me.

I grazed the blade against my skin, and drew a deep red line down my arm. It was barely painful. Just a light burn and a tickle, right where the blood drops would fall and trickle. The nightmare was almost over. The loud beats of my heart drowned out the sound of the wooden door bending and cracking under Oso’s weight.

“¡Por Dios, Oso, abre esta puta puerta!” he yelled.

God, Oso, open the fucking door!

As Pablo’s panic grew, mine faded. I grinned as I made a second cut, a little deeper this time, and watched as the blood bubbled up to the surface. It began to spill, covering my chest with ruby-colored rivers which ironically matched my swimsuit. was about to dig in for a third time when Ana’s voice, like a distant whisper, begged me.

“No, please!”

I’d heard those words before, I’d heard the pain and the horror in her tone. I remembered it like it was yesterday, I could see the scene as if I were there. I’d walked up to her house, my hair and skin still soaking wet from the shower, my sweater sticking to my arms as blood seeped through its sleeves.

At first, she turned pale, and she held me tight in her arms. I had laid my heavy head on her shoulder, and then the rest of my body. We collapsed together on the moldy wood of her house’s front porch, and Ana broke apart. She wailed, and screamed, and woke up the whole neighborhood. She begged for help, called out for her Mom, for her Dad, and for me to wake up.

“You can’t do this to me, please!” she screamed, and I heard her voice echo in my head.

I looked up and into her big, dark, tormented eyes. When the numbness faded, then came the guilt. I had hurt Ana more than I had hurt myself. I’d forced my friend between anger and anguish, I’d put her through a tragedy she didn’t deserve. I’d regretted trying to kill myself, not because of what it meant for me, but for what it had done to those who cared.

***

The angelic shadow of Ana was leaning right above me. With the last bits of strength I had left, I lifted my arms up and wrapped them around her slender shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” I wept.

But unlike in my memories, she didn’t sob with her face buried by the nape of my neck. She kept pleading, begging, screaming, as her desperate voice faded away in the distance.

“You’re okay,” whispered Pablo. “It’s all going to be okay.”

Behind him, the broken bathroom door hung by a single hinge. Wooden shards were strewn across the bathroom, and Oso stood by the sink, rubbing his sore shoulder.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” gasped Pablo as he grasped at my limp arms.

He tore off his shirt and wrapped it tightly around my arm. He pressed down on the wound with one hand, and softly stroked my forehead with the other. His breaths faltered, his lips quivered, the veins at the side of his head pulsated frantically.

Although you’d think it was quite hard to mistake Pablo for Ana, when I looked straight into his eyes, I was met with a familiar look: the harrowing anguish of those who’d narrowly escaped grief.

“Stay with me, Sarah,” he breathed.

Pablo did care for me, in his own fucked-up way. He didn’t care for my freedom, he didn’t care for my friends, but somehow, for reasons that still felt unknown, he cared for me. Anyone could argue that a psychotic, narcissistic criminal like him couldn’t care for anyone, let alone one of his hostages, but his worried gaze and racing heartbeat told a whole other story.

“Que putas estas haciendo, Oso?” he turned around and yelled. “No seas tan inutil. Llama a un doctor o algo, mierda!”

What the fuck are you doing, Oso? Don’t be so useless. Go call a doctor or something, fuck!

Oso ran out, and I was left alone with a worried Pablo hunched over the edge of the bathtub. I tried to sit up into a more comfortable position, but my arms and legs slipped and trashed against the tub’s wet enamel.

“Easy, easy,” he fretted. “Just sit still. Oso’s coming with a doctor. You’re gonna be okay.”

“Okay,” I whimpered.

“You’ll be fine, alright?” he said with a faint smile. “I’m here with you. And, silver lining–you get to see me shirtless.”

I softly smirked at him, but didn’t say anything. I wasn’t in any position to judge those who used dark humor as a coping mechanism.

“Before you say something snarky, remember I’m the only thing standing between you and Death right now,” he joked.

“You have been for a while, Pablo,” I answered with a grin, “But that’s never stopped me.”

His thumb rubbed softly against my cheek, and I closed my eyes for a second. Pablo pinched me and gently shook me awake.

“Hey Gordita, open your eyes. I just want to make sure you’re still here with me.”

I nodded quietly, and he pressed his tear-drenched nose against my cheek.

“Stay with me, okay?” he pleaded. “Just for a minute more. Until the doctor arrives.”

“Alright,” I whispered, but my eyes kept closing.

“Please Gordita, you need to hold on,” he begged, squeezing my hand. “Just promise me you’ll stay with me.”

“I promise.”

Kerning

Overdose

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