Collared(34)

“Don’t worry, Jade, I’ll take care of arranging some kind of get-together.” Mom glances at my plate. Worry touches her eyebrows. “I was also looking into a way for you to work on your GED so you can start applying to colleges. You could probably even start your freshman year in the fall.”

My head spins, and I numb out the rest. My GED. College. Career. I haven’t seen the inside of a classroom in a decade. What if I can’t pass the GED? What if no college wants me? What if I don’t even want to go to college?

I don’t know. Up until now, I haven’t even considered it possible. Does the person I am now still want to go, or does she want something else?

I don’t know—big goddamn surprise.

Mom’s moved on to talking about old friends—who married who and who’s off at med school—and I suddenly feel like someone’s just come up behind me and wound their fingers around my neck. I can’t breathe. I can’t talk. The invisible fingers tighten, and I jolt out of my chair.

Everyone stops talking and stares at me.

“I’m going to excuse myself.” My voice sounds strained, like those fingers aren’t as invisible as I thought. “Thanks for dinner.”

I don’t wait for them to say anything; I just leave the dining room. I don’t miss the way Sam watches me leave though—like I’m a grenade that’s pin is gradually being pulled. Or the way Connor stops chewing and looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t. Or the way my mom leans her head into her hands and the way my dad looks out the window like he’s at a loss.

They’re as uncomfortable around me as I am around them. I don’t know how long this will last. I don’t know if it will ever pass. All I know is that I can’t sit in that chair, at that table, any longer.

Once I hit the stairs, I lope up them. By the halfway point, I have to slow to taking them one sluggish step at a time. I haven’t climbed stairs in years. The treadmill I used to walk on didn’t have an incline option, so the stair climb feels like sprinting up the Himalayas.

When I reach the second floor, I pause to catch my breath before continuing down the hall. I haven’t been in my bedroom since arriving home—I’m not sure if it’s still “my bedroom”—but it’s the only place I can think to go where I can close a door and have some privacy.

I glance in the room that used to be Sam’s. It’s been turned into a gym. Connor’s room has been turned into a guest room. The door at the end of the hall is closed. My room. I wonder what it’s been turned into. A storage room? An artillery room for Dad’s gun collection? A sewing room?

I twist the handle and push the door open. Cool air washes over me. The room’s dark, so I can’t see much, but I can tell that the curtains are the same. I remember them because Torrin opened a can of soda that exploded all over them, and no matter how many times Mom washed them, the dark stains couldn’t be totally removed.

I search for the overhead light switch and turn it on.

Light floods the room, and I blink a few times to make sure I’m seeing what I think I am.

My room’s the same. Nothing’s changed. It’s almost like a shrine the way the stuffed animals are still arranged on the rocking chair stuffed in the corner of the room and the way the blankets look like they’ve been ironed free of all wrinkles. My dresser’s in the same spot with the little glass swan figurines I kept on it. The pictures of my friends and family are still there, propped on my vanity. The corkboard with all of my random junk—old movie ticket stubs, bandanas from homecoming games, more photos—is still hanging beside my closet.

It’s like a seventeen-year-old girl walked out of this room this morning and was expected back after school. It’s kind of creepy. I should feel at ease in my old room, but I think I’d be more comfortable in Connor’s-old-room-turned-guest-bedroom.

Something’s missing though—or a few somethings. All have to do with a certain person. The pictures of Torrin are missing from my nightstand. The soccer trophies he gave me are gone from the windowsill. The corsages from the dances we went to together have disappeared.

They held on to me—but they let him go.

Except for the stuffed elephant sandwiched into the stuffed animal pile on the chair. Torrin won it for me at the fair that fall I’d been taken, but they didn’t know that.

That’s the first place I wander toward. I pull the elephant free of the other animals and look at it. I’m sure it hasn’t changed—it’s an inanimate object after all—but it doesn’t feel as soft. Its face isn’t as sweet as I remember it being.

When I hug it, it doesn’t make me smile and get ready to fall asleep.

I hear footsteps climbing the stairs. From the lightness of them, I guess they’re my mom’s. She’s probably coming to check on me, but I’m not ready for her. I’m not ready for any of them really. I’m not ready for this.

I close my door before she reaches the hall.





“SHE’S GONE. I can’t find her. No one can find her.”

That’s the first thing I hear as I wake up the next morning—my mom’s frantic voice, her footsteps matching.

“We’ve looked everywhere and nothing. Oh my god, it’s happened again, hasn’t it? Someone’s taken her?” She chokes on her words. “We’re never going to see our baby again.”