Collared(18)

This is my family. How can I feel this uncomfortable around them? How can they feel so uncomfortable around me that they can barely stand to look at me?

I reach for my cup of water. It’s empty. I grab the pitcher. It’s empty too.

The longer the silence stretches on, the more I wish I’d taken Dr. Argent’s advice and waited on the family reunion thing. I don’t know what I was picturing, but this isn’t it.

“So . . . how have you guys been?” I ask.

Mom sniffs and keeps moving closer. “Let’s not talk about how we’ve been. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do now that you’re back. Now that you’re home.”

When she notices Dad, Sam, and Connor still huddled close to the door, she waves them over. Connor moves first, then Dad. Sam last.

“We’ve missed you, sweetie. So, so much.” Mom chokes on a sob.

Dad comes up behind her and rubs her back. I know now why Dad angled himself away from me at first. His eyes are red-rimmed, and his face is puffy. He’s been crying. Maybe he still is. I’ve never seen my dad cry. Never. Not even when he found out one of his men had been killed in action. Not even when he spoke at the funeral. I didn’t think it was possible.

Looking at my family hovering at the foot of my bed, I realize I’m not the only one who’s suffered. They’ve been broken too. They might not have been held by a chain for ten years, but they’ve clearly been tied to other chains that have held them back.

Guilt floods my stomach then, spreading to my legs and arms. This is my fault. My mom looking like she’s twice her age, my dad’s iron wall crumbling, my brother and sister barely able to look at me—it’s my fault.

“I’m sorry,” I choke out, biting my cheek so I won’t start crying again. There are already enough tears in this room. “I’m so sorry.”

Mom rushes to my side first, whipping her head from side to side and reaching for me. “No, Jade. Don’t apologize. No, baby,” she coos, leaning over me and winding her tiny arms around me like she’s trying to hold me the way a new mother might cradle her infant. Kind of awkward at first but carefully. “You’re back. That’s all that matters. You’re back.” Mom’s arms tighten around me as her head lowers beside mime.

It’s too much. Her arms and the hold and her head next to mine and the perfume I smell on her and the fabric softener I smell on her blouse. The words she keeps repeating right beside my ear are no more than a whisper, but it feels like she’s screaming. It’s too much.

I wiggle beneath her, my arms feeling stuck at my sides. That’s when the rest of them move in. Dad leans over me on the other side, and while Mom’s tiny arms feel like they’re strangling the life out of me, when Dad wraps his giant arms around me and holds me close, I feel like my body’s snapping into a hundred tiny pieces. I feel my bones smashing into powder. My organs liquefying. My skin being rubbed raw.

“Stop,” I choke out, squirming.

Sam and Connor stay back, but Connor takes a seat on the edge of my bed and pats my leg a few times. It feels like he just stuck a hot brand into my calf.

I cry out.

They don’t hear. Or if they do, they take my cries to be the same as theirs—the happy ones from the reunion.

“Stop. Please.” My voice is so tight it’s not even a whisper.

Still, they keep holding me, smashing me, confining me, screaming in my ear, assaulting my every sense until I feel like I’m burning from the inside out.

“Let go.” This time I’m not even sure if I verbalized the words. I can’t tell.

I feel something bubble up from my stomach. I’m not sure what it is, but it feels molten hot and explosive. I harness whatever it is and force it to the surface. It feels like all the survival instinct I have left.

“Stop,” I plead with a whisper.

No one hears. They just keep suffocating me. Whatever survival instinct I have left, it isn’t enough. That’s dead too.

My body does the only other thing it can to save itself—it shuts down.





I’D BEEN HAVING a nightmare. I wake up to a nightmare too.

Asleep, awake, it doesn’t seem to matter. I’m haunted by things in both worlds.

The shades are open when I wake up, but it’s all the way dark outside now. The clock across from me reads two. Five hours have gone by since I passed out. I’ve experienced the feeling enough to know what happened. I passed out most days after I was first taken by Earl Rae. I think it’s my body’s way of dealing with extreme fear. Or maybe it’s my brain’s way of shutting down so it can reboot and try harder next time. I don’t know. I just know I don’t usually pass out for such long stretches.

The drugs still pumping through my IV probably have something to do with that though.

My family’s gone, which I feel guilty for being relieved by. I hadn’t realized how hard it would be. If I can’t even handle four members of my family, how will I deal with the rest of the world? If I can’t handle a simple embrace from my dad and mom, how can I get back to my old life? My life had been filled with people and activities and places and . . . I’m not sure how I can handle it all if the city lights of downtown Seattle glowing through my window are overstimulating.

My mouth’s dry again, but my pitcher is still empty.