Someone Else's Fairytale

Fifteen: Ten Years Ago

I'd never been a sociable kid. Just like now, I had only ever had a few close friends, and during recess in elementary school, I'd played by myself. That day I was playing right by the fence. There was a clump of dandelions there and I'd been trying to weave them into daisy chains, only I didn't really know how to weave a daisy chain.

Witnesses would later say that Chris's truck drove past three times, but I was oblivious. I was sitting on the grass, surrounded by decapitated dandelions. Their flowers kept popping off their stems when I flexed them too hard. One minute I was tying two stems together, the next a hand was clapped over my mouth and I was hoisted into the air.

I watched the dandelions fall out of my hands and scatter onto the pavement while I was jostled so hard I thought I'd throw up. The ground pitched and sprang away, beneath me. Looking back, I can figure out that Chris had thrown me over his shoulder and jumped the fence, but at the time I was just aware of being gripped so tight that it hurt, people shouting in the background, and feeling seasick.  

Chris vaulted into his truck with me still over his shoulder. My head hit the doorframe, hard. Dark spots swam in my vision. He threw me down into the passenger footwell and I landed on a pile of garbage. Potato chip wrappers, an old t-shirt, some broken CD cases. Before I could get my feet under me, he'd slammed his door and hit the gas. I was thrown against the base of the passenger side seat. A siren started up behind us, but it seemed like a small and distant beacon of safety that faded fast. Chris drove like a maniac, and swore an unending stream of epithets.

He said he'd kill me, that I had to be quiet, that he'd bash my head in.

He was a steroid user, and this was one of his rages.

I was being kidnapped, just like they warned us about in assembly. And none of the safety advice they gave us applied. I could scream, but no one would hear, and Chris would probably kick me in the head. It was too late to run. It was too late to do anything.

We were going so fast and he was jerking the steering wheel so hard that I kept getting thrown against the car door, the dashboard, the seat, the gear shift. I tried to brace myself, and I started to cry.

“Shut up!” he shouted. “You shut up!”

But I didn't shut up, so he cracked me across the head so hard that I blacked out for a moment. I don't know what he hit me with, but it made my head throb like a sub-woofer. I could even hear the thrum of blood through my ears, like the sound of bass tones reverberating through a car body. I put my arms over my head and curled up tight.

The floor of his truck was filthy. It reeked of stale cigarette smoke and red and black wires dangled down from beneath the dashboard. I heard more sirens in the distance. Come get me! I thought.

I don't know how long we drove. The problem with being so little was that I just couldn't know that much. Things were happening to me and I had no control. We left the paved road and were now jouncing over a dirt road. Or maybe it wasn't even a road. Maybe it was a field. He didn't slow down, though, so I just stayed curled up tight, bouncing like a lotto ball.

“Chris?” I whimpered.

“You know my name?”

Well, of course I knew his name. I'd seen his picture at Dr. Winters's dental office. I'd even seen Chris, himself, a few times there.

“You know my name? Answer me!”

“No,” I lied.

He brought his fist down on my side, a glancing blow that startled me, but didn't hurt. I pulled in tighter into my fetal position, though, hoping that if I bluffed like it hurt, he wouldn't hit me again.