Chapter Thirty-Five
Brooklyn
Since the passing of my mother, I’ve not been a person who prays.
Before mom got sick, we attended church every Sunday morning and Wednesday nights, memorizing scripture and able to recite memory verses without issue.
Mom was a devout Christian, and she was raising me to be the same, never finding a reason to question whether God actually existed or not.
But once Mom became sick, everything that I thought I knew changed.
I prayed, night and day, all day, every day that God would heal my Mom, allowing her to stay with me until she was old and gray.
But God was too busy listening to and answering the prayers of people he deemed more important.
*That had to be the reason why he would have allowed her to be sick without healing her, right?*
*Why would he allow her to get worse with each passing day?*
*Why would God take away my mother, who wasn’t even halfway into her thirties?*
“Why would he take away the only person who truly cared about and loved me?*
But, as I sit in this room, I find myself turning to him once more, begging, bargaining even, that God will somehow help me out of this situation without losing my baby.
“Please, God,” I beg. “This can’t be the end of my story. I’m just now starting to turn my life around, with this new life growing inside of me; this can’t be it. I will do whatever it takes. I will go to church every day that the church is open. I will spread your word to anyone who will listen, and even those who won’t. Just please…”
But even as I beg and plead with a God that I no longer believe in, a deity to many, I know deep down that I’m alone in this fight.
That no one is coming to find me, save me.
Not even a God that I once lived my life by.
I know deep down inside of me that if I want to get out of this, I’ll have to do it on my own.
With that thought in mind, I wipe the moisture from my face, tears that I hadn’t even realized I’d begun to cry, and climb from the bed.
The room is barely furnished, if you can even call it that, since there is only a bed within these four walls.
The window is bare of blinds or curtains, but as I stare at it, I don’t see any sort of locking mechanism, and I begin to wonder if my escape could really be that easy.
Placing my hands against the painted wooden base, I try to lift it.
At first, it doesn’t budge, but it makes this weird sound as if it wants to.
So, I try again.
This time, bits of paint begin to fall from around the window, making me realize that it’s been painted shut, but that opening it could be possible.
I keep working at it, lifting at the base, trying to pry the window open, only stopping occasionally to listen to ensure my captor isn’t returning.
When all sounds clear, I continue, lifting and pushing, peeling the paint from around the window.
Sweat is coating my forehead as droplets drip into my eyes, making them burn. It feels like I’ve been at this forever, but in reality, it couldn’t have been any longer than fifteen or twenty minutes.
Just when I’m on the verge of giving up, the window lifts.
Not a lot, only about two inches or so, but it gives me hope.
Cool air seeps into the room from the opening, and it’s a welcome reprieve from the stifling warmth of the enclosed room.
Slipping my hand into the opening, I place my palm against the wood at the bottom and begin trying to shove the window up, desperation and a sense of freedom being right around the corner filling me.
I try not to bear down, keeping the pregnancy in mind as I get into a squat and slowly work the window open more and more until there’s a space large enough for me to slip through.
“Yes!” I whisper yell. Then, with a glance up, I murmur, “Thank you,” before turning to check that he’s not coming through the door before I brace my hands against the wooden base, slide my get through the opening until I’m straddling it, and then climb the rest of the way through.
My bare feet hit the cold ground with a crunch, causing my stomach to tense and me to immediately crouch down, afraid of being caught.
When I don’t hear anything, though, I reach for the base of the window once more and push it closed, trying to conceal my escape.
Since I don’t have my shoes or a jacket, I wrap my arms around my torso, trying to hold as much heat in as possible as wisps of snow float about in the air.
I shiver as the sweat freezes on my forehead and upper lip, but try to ignore the trembling of my body as I glance around, noting how nothing is familiar, and begin searching for a trail or even a light, anything that can point me in the direction I need to go.
But even with being lost, freedom never felt so good.
As quickly and quietly as I can manage, I make my way through the bare trees, swirls of snow, and my foggy breath filling the air directly in front of me.
The quietness all around me gives the woods an eerie feel, and I hasten my steps, the fear that of being found creeping up on me the longer I run.
Nearly frozen to death and unable to take a step more, I find a burrowed-out tree large enough at the base for me to be able to crouch inside.
Grateful that I’m still in Jackson’s shirt, I stretch it over my frozen and numb legs before pulling my arms inside. Just before sleep takes me, I tuck my face inside the neck hole, shivers racking my entire body as I pray that someone finds and saves me before my captor manages to.
I don’t know how long I doze in and out of sleep for, but the cracking of a branch in the distance startles me awake instantly, pulling my attention in the direction of the sound.
My pulse pounds in my temples and my heart beats wildly in my chest, as fear that I’ve been found by my captor becomes overwhelming in the dim early morning light.
I glance around, trying to see through the fog, but it’s making it nearly impossible. I don’t think that I see anyone or anything that would have made such a sound, but without being able to see clearly, I can’t be certain.
I want to chalk it up to a deer or elk, or hell, even a bear, but even with as dangerous as an elk or bear would be, I think I’d rather take either one of them over having been found by the man who took me in the first place.
Without moving a muscle, I do my best to control my breathing as I continue to try to scan the forest around me, searching for any trace of movement.
After a minute or so, I see it.
Or rather, I see what I think is a person emerging from behind a tree not too far from where I am.
*Shit!*
*Shit! Shit! Shit!*
Pulling my head back inside the hollowed part of the tree trunk, I try my best to curl into as small a ball as possible, hoping that whoever it is didn’t see me before I saw them and that they don’t spot me as they pass by.
I strain my ears to listen to their approaching footsteps as they make their way through the underbrush covering the forest floor, my entire body trembling with a combination of nerves and fear as I pray, *Please, don’t let me be caught.*
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