Day 1.

Thank God I felt so numb. Large bruises spread across my ribs, my stomach, and the top of my thighs. They stained my skin with a hundred shades of violet, mulberry and scarlet, like a cloudy sky just after sunset. They looked painful, but they only hurt whenever I poked at them with the tip of my finger.

I stared at them for a few hours, for lack of a better thing to do. I swore I could see them pulsate every time my guts rumbled with hunger.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror like you’d look at paintings in a museum. I tried to interpret the shapes and colors, trying to remember which hit had caused which wound, and whether the bruise on my hip looked more like an elephant or an airplane.

There were three small bruises in my forearm, right where Pablo’s fingers had grabbed it. Three dots, like an ellipsis etched into my skin, a constant reminder that I had no idea what would happen next.

The house was eerily quiet, as if it was devoid of life. I didn’t dare scream for help, too afraid that whoever would answer my call would bring me no other comfort than a quick death. Even if I did want to shout, I couldn’t, since after all the yelling of the past two days, I had no voice left.

I tip-toed back to my bed, carefully avoiding the carpet of broken glass that spread across the floor where either Pablo or I had broken the vase. I spent the remainder of the day curled up under my satin sheets, eyes riveted to my bedroom door. I was too tired to move, and too afraid to sleep.

Day 2.

Pablo still hadn’t come to visit. Or maybe he did, and I hadn’t noticed. No sign of Mafer, either, or even Oso. That meant no food, and no company. It meant painful gargles that ripped through my stomach every time I thought of a nice warm meal, and it meant scorching tears rolling down my cheeks whenever I thought of anybody.

I spent most of the day laying by the door, with my head twisted so I could peek through the tiny gap beneath it, hoping that maybe I’d see the shadow of a foot.

And yet still, there seemed to be no signs of life in the entire house. No footsteps, no music, no voices nor laughs. Nothing but my ceaseless sniffing and the loud rumbles in my gut.

Sometimes, I felt like I was dying. Sometimes, I just felt like dying. I spent a few hours looking for the little cyanide pill, but I couldn’t find it. I stopped searching for it when I remembered I needed to survive this, even if only to spite Pablo.

To spend time, I rearranged my crayons by color, but couldn’t agree with myself on the right order. I couldn’t decide whether the pink crayon went before the red one or after the purple.

I noticed the box said the crayons were non-toxic. This meant that they were technically edible. The shade of the pink crayon was named “cotton candy”, and the mere sight of those words made my mouth water.

They probably weren’t very nutritious, but if I ate the pink crayon, I’d kill two birds with one stone: first of all, I’d fill up my stomach, even just a little, and second, I wouldn’t have to lose my mind about where the color pink belonged in a rainbow.

I nibbled the tip of the crayon. It wasn’t a very good idea. As it turned out, crayons tasted horrible. Like a mix of wax and utter desperation.

Two days into captivity and here I was, already eating crayons. Clearly, I wasn’t going to last very long.

Day 3? Maybe 4? I felt like I slept too much.

I tried to rebuild the vase. Not because I cared for it, but because it seemed like a 3D puzzle would be a fun way to pass time. It wasn’t. It kept falling apart, and I kept cutting my fingers on the broken glass.

I found the pill while I was sifting through the shattered pieces of the vase. I tried to throw it out the window, but couldn’t get it to open. The handle seemed a little loose, as if it had been purposely broken. I assumed that was a safety measure to stop me from sticking my head out and screaming for help.

I grabbed the pill and spun around with my eyes closed. I threw it somewhere random, hoping that ‘out of sight, out of mind’ would be enough to keep me safe from temptation.

A few hours and not a single meal later, I was back on all fours, crawling around as I searched every corner of the room for the damn pill.

Instead, I found a bottle of rum. At least, what was left of it– merely two or three shots’ worth of booze. It must have rolled under the bed during one of those girls’ nights I spent with Mafer, drinking, gossiping and playing Tic-Tac-Toe. I settled it on the vanity, and decided I’d keep it for an emergency.

I spent the whole night staring at the bottle. The remnants of rum at the bottom seemed to shine like liquid gold. My eyes sparkled at the sight, with tears rather than wonder. My stomach ached, and I craved the taste of something else than the tip of a pink crayon or tap water. I licked my lips so often that I chapped them, and the taste of blood on my tongue did little to help my yearning for a sip of rum.

This was an emergency.

I downed all that was left of the bottle in a single, greedy gulp. Its flavor was like a mix of sweet honey and crude oil. Not that I’d ever tried drinking crude oil, but I figured it would have burned my throat all the same.

At first, it was fun. I felt light as a feather and as blithe as a child. I danced around my room, laughed a little, cradled the bottle like a sleeping baby. I loved the feeling of losing control, letting go of all my dreadful thoughts and replacing those with a drunken void.

But soon after, my head began to spin, dragging me in a downward spiral. I laid on the floor, arms splayed out and eyes on the ceiling, but drinking on an empty stomach turned my jail cell into a furious Gravitron.

I closed my eyes for a while. I didn’t know whether I had blinked, passed out, died or fallen asleep. When I opened them, a harsh light burned my pupils. I crawled to the light switch, and climbed up the wall to reach it.

No matter how many times I slammed it with the palms of my hands, the light wouldn’t fade. Instead, it got brighter, and brighter. It took an embarrassing amount of time for me to realize that my eyes were stinging from the daylight. It was already morning.

So, day 5, I guess.

“Fuck you too, Sun,” I drawled.

I tried to shush myself, pressing my index finger on my lips, and accidentally poking my eye in the process. I didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention, especially in this state.

I slumped against the bedroom wall, and pondered as to how I’d managed to stick my finger in my eye when I meant to touch my mouth. Either I had very long fingers, or an insanely small face. I stared at my hands. My skin was dry and pale, tightly stretched over my bony knuckles and wrists.

“Wow, Sarah,” I whispered. “You’re so skinny.”

“Well thank you,” I answered. “It’s my new, three-step diet. Step one, get kidnapped by a fucking psycho. Step two, make him very, very angry. Step three, you fucking die."

I clasped my hand on my mouth, and not just because I’d screamed out those last words. There was a hiccup, a burp, and an awful taste of bile that tinged the back of my throat.

A bright yellow stain grew down the front of my pajamas, dribbling from my half-open mouth and spilling on the wooden floor. It smelled foul, and tasted even worse. It burned my tongue, my lips, my skin, my eyes. I stared at the growing pool of vomit with resignation. It was just one more thing to deal with, another line to add to the long list of messes I’d made.

I tried to wipe it up with what little toilet paper I had left. That was a dumb idea. I ran out, and decided to use my bed cover to sponge up the rest. That was an even dumber idea.

“I’m too drunk for this shit,” I muttered, throwing my hands up in despair, and I gave up. Going back to bed was the only smart thing I’d said, thought, or done in the past week.

Time dripped by painfully slowly, like big pebbles in an hourglass. I laid in bed late, shivering from the cold morning air and the lack of sheets on my bed.

I tried to make scenarios in my head to keep myself busy, but the stories I came up with always turned into some kind of fever dream, where conversations made no sense, faces would distort like Picasso paintings, and for some reason, I kept getting a recurring image of steaming meatballs.

Funnily enough, I figured that if I died here –probably of hunger– the last thing I would have ever eaten would have been a chunk of Gustavo’s ankle. Had I known that back then, I would have chewed it a little better.

I took a shower. I ran out of soap. The small, mushy piece I had left slipped from my fingers and into the drain. I watched it fall and slowly slide down the bottom of the bathtub, and I didn’t do anything to stop it. It sucked. I cried.

I thought that things would get easier over time. I thought I would get used to the loneliness, the starvation, the boredom and the fear. It didn’t. It felt like I’d hit rock bottom, and somehow managed to keep digging myself a deeper hole.

My cuts were closing, my limp wasn’t so bad. My bruises were fading, and left behind a strange yellow tinge on my skin. Yet, much like my wounds, I was wasting away. Thoughts barely crossed my mind, and I wandered around my room on autopilot. Entire days went by, and I didn’t even notice.

At night, I squished my face against the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of life, the sight of a silhouette or the sound of a laugh. I longed for a breath of the outside, a whiff of fresh air that didn’t smell like a pile of bile that had been fermenting under a blanket for three days.

It was there, as I pressed my numb cheeks onto the cold glass, that I realized I had yet to plan any kind of escape. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to escape. There was nothing I wanted more than to get out of this place and run as far as I could. I just didn’t know how.

It was like facing a wall. A smooth wall, that stretched up further than even my eyes could reach, painted the most mind-numbing shade of lavender.

To climb that wall, all I needed was a small crack I could grip to, a loose brick I could step on, just a single imperfection I could hang onto.

This wall was flawless, just like the rest of Pablo’s plans. Polished to perfection, to the point where all my attempts to climb my way out would end in a painful and soul-crushing fall back to the ground.

All I could do was wait long enough for that wall to start to crumble, and hope I survived until it did.

Surviving was the only thing I did, for a few days after that. I did anything that made life just a little less unbearable, and nothing more than that.

I threw the pile of puke-covered sheets in the bathtub, and drenched them in boiling water to drown out the stench that had seeped into every corner of my small bedroom. While the smell never fully faded, it was at least contained to the bathroom now, and if I shut the door, I could hardly notice it.

To keep me warm at night, I knit myself a blanket by tying my clothes together. At first, I thought of tying them into a thick, long rope, and using it to either rappel or bungee jump out of the window. After a day or two of calculations, approximate measurements and testing the strength of various knots and fabrics, I figured it wouldn’t work. My shoulders were too wide and no matter how skinny I was, I would never fit through the window frame.

I spent my days humming upbeat tunes, usually Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees or some other stupidly ironic song. I didn’t sing too loud, so as to save my breath, and I didn’t dance too much, so I could keep my energy.

I took care of myself, as best as I could. I got plenty of sleep, drank lots of water. I unmatted my hair, strand by strand, and showered as long as I could stand breathing in the putrid atmosphere of the bathroom. I also tried to stretch every day, practicing what little yoga I knew.

If in a moment of weakness, a tear rolled down my cheek, I’d wipe it off and suck my finger. With no food nor savior in sight, I couldn’t afford to waste a single drop of precious minerals and nutrients.

Days passed, uneventful, and aside from the height of the Sun in the sky, nothing ever seemed to change. That is, until something finally happened.

All it took was an overzealous disco move, and I stubbed my pinky toe against my bed’s metal frame. Amidst the yelps, the streams of curses, and the hopping around on one foot, and all the hisses of pain, I swore I heard someone calling my name.

I stopped in my tracks, and my blood froze in my veins. I had had a lot of hallucinations during the time I’d been stuck in my room. Faint whispers, the feeling of a ghostly hand on my shoulder. But this voice wasn’t in my head. It was right on the other side of the door.

“Gordita?” the voice repeated, in a tone that sounded halfway between hope and surprise.

All I could see was the shadow of his feet, cast upon the light that bled through the gap under the door. Yet I could picture him so clearly, with his muddy cowboy boots, wearing a half-open shirt with a hypnotic, colorful print, a faint smile hiding under his mustache, his sparkly eyes, his tousled hair.

“Hey,” I breathed.

“So, you’re still alive?” he murmured, his voice slightly muffled by the door.

“I guess if you can hear me, then it means I’m not dead yet,” I answered.

It felt almost unreal to be talking to someone after so long. I caught myself pinching the dry skin on my arm to check if I was awake, or if I was just dreaming.

“Then why does it smell like Death in here?” Pablo snickered.

I stared at the faint stain by the door, where my stomach acid had lightly bleached the wooden floors, and I blinked.

“It’s puke,” I muttered. “I was sick.”

“Why?” he asked. He almost sounded worried. Almost.

“Don’t know. Maybe something in the water.”

I lied, because I just didn’t want to admit that I’d gotten pissed drunk on only three shots of rum. It was probably useless to hold on to the last pieces of dignity when I knew that I’d most likely die here, alone, disheveled and hungry.

I walked over to the door and pressed my hand on the handle. It seemed less cold than usual. I wondered if Pablo was also holding the handle, if he was going to open the door. I wondered if I’d ever feel the touch of a human again. I sniffed back a tear.

“Are you okay?” he asked, still on the other side of the door.

A humorless laugh escaped my throat, so sharp and dry that it turned into a cough.

“Obviously not,” he mumbled, taking the words right out of my mouth.

“Why are you here, Pablo?”

“Just checking on you,” he said, ever so casually. It was as if it had never crossed his mind that he could have stumbled upon my dead body. Like he had just popped over for a quick chat, and not to check whether my corpse had started to rot before it began to leak bodily fluids into his nice hardwood floors.

“Did you bring any food?” I asked, rubbing my hand across my almost-protruding ribs. “I’m starving. Like, the scientific definition of starving. I don’t even think you can call me Gordita at this point.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll always be my Gordita,” he answered, and I could almost hear his taunting smile. “Besides, I’m not going to throw you some crumbs under the door. That would be insulting.”

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing you’ve done to me,” I sneered. “Or you could, I don’t know, just open the door.”

“No,” he scoffed. “I don’t trust you.”

“Why not?” I frowned. “What do you think I’m going to do?”

“I don’t want to give you any ideas.”

That statement alone gave me a thousand ideas. Well, more like a thousand questions. How could I get Pablo to open that door? Could I somehow lure him into the room? Make him trust me again? Forgive me? Fall in love with me? If he did open that door, what would I do next? Kill him? Knock him out? Convince him to let me out? Should I call him Daddy to make horny, and when he walked in and leaned over to kiss my neck, try to gouge his eyes out?

It wasn’t yet a crack in the metaphorical wall, but it was a spot where the paint had begun to scale. If I scratched that spot for long enough, and dug a little deeper, maybe I could uncover something useful, a weakness in the wall.

“Anyways,” he sighed. “Goodbyes are hard, Gordita. Just take the damn pill.”

“Alright,” I whispered, still stuck deep in my thoughts.

The echo of his footsteps hadn’t yet disappeared down the hallway, but I was already making up a plan. Maybe I should have stopped coming up with plans, given how badly most of them had turned out so far. But I was pretty certain that this one would work.

I was going to play dead. I was going to stay as quiet as I could, walk on the tip of my toes if I needed to go to the bathroom, and most of all, I wouldn’t answer whenever Pablo came back and knocked on the door.

When he would finally walk in and check on me, maybe to say a last goodbye to my dead body, before he’d drag it downstairs and throw it in a shallow grave – that’s when I would strike.

I made a mental checklist of all the objects in the room I could use against him. Maybe I could pick up the bits of broken vase I’d swept into a corner of the room, and throw a handful of glass shards in Pablo’s face, although aside from blinding him for a few seconds, that wouldn’t be much of a help.

I could bash his head in with a chair, but Andrea had already tried and failed that, and so maybe he’d expect it, and I needed to catch him by surprise. Anyway, I doubted I had the strength to lift that chair, let alone hit him hard enough.

I could strangle him with the shower curtain. I could jump at his face and force him to swallow the cyanide pill, if I ever managed to find it amidst the warzone my room had turned into. Again, as weak and starved as I was, I wasn’t strong enough to fight him. He’d overpower me in a matter of seconds.

My best shot would be the empty bottle of rum. Pun not intended. It was light enough that I could easily wield it, thick enough that if I hit him just right at the back of the head, I could knock him unconscious, and if it broke, I could still use it to stab him. It would be a gruesome affair, but it was my last chance at surviving.

Two more days passed, and I grew impatient of spending my time sitting still on my bed. I was tired of staring at the door until my eyes crossed and my head hurt. Bored of only moving around once or twice per night, whenever the music in the garden played at its loudest.

I waited, and waited, and waited for Pablo to take the bait. I didn’t know if he was too busy, or if he knew what I was up to, or if he had just forgotten I existed. But I was fed up of straining my ears to try and hear him coming, because it started to seem like he’d never come.

Huffing like a small child throwing a tantrum to satiate their hunger for attention, I stomped over to the bathroom. I opened the faucets at full pressure, and slammed the plug shut with an unnecessarily violent punch.

I made the most of having the water running to take one last shower, because if I was about to escape and wander off in a forest again, I’d rather do it while feeling clean. As clean as I could get, given that I didn’t have any soap or shampoo left.

By the time I was done, the water was only just higher than my ankles. I gave my hair a quick dry with a damp towel, and slipped into some warm, comfy clothes. I sat on the edge of the bathtub as I watched the water slowly rise, and eventually spill over onto the tiled floor.

I backed up out of the bathroom, keeping a close watch on the puddle as it grew. Like a monster, it crept out of the bathroom, and into the bedroom, where it started to seep through the wooden slats.

Now, it was just a matter of time before someone would notice a leak in the ceiling. If Pablo was right about knowing everything that went on inside of his house, then he would quickly find out. He’d assume that I was lying in the bathtub, having either passed out or passed away. He would have no other choice than walk into the room to stop the flooding from further damaging his pretty house.

I waited for long, long minutes in the corner of the room, as the water kept spreading across the floor. I stood by the door, with my fingers wrapped tight around the neck of my bottle. Although my arms and hands were shaking uncontrollably, I managed to bring it to my lips, and suck out the last three drops of rum that had managed to stay stuck at the bottom. Don’t blame me. I needed all the courage I could get.

Finally, I could hear someone walk down the corridor. My heartbeat grew faster as the sound of their rushed steps drew closer. Then, there was a knock on the door.

“Gordita?” he called out.

I felt I was about to faint, either from relief or sheer terror. I shut my eyes, held my breath, bit my lip and stood as still as a statue.

“Gordita, are you alright?” he repeated.

As soon as I heard the lock turn, I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. The door swung open, and I finally saw him.

He looked different. His beard was longer. His face was somber, and his hands unsteady. His reddened eyes were filled with dread. He turned to me and they widened, just a split second before I smashed the bottle on the back of his head.

Insanity

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