The Association

ELEVEN: Trapped

I waited a moment for the pile to gain balance, and then I tried standing. Cautiously, I reached up to hit the ceiling with the tips of my fingers, before feeling for the edges of the vent cover.

It was welded shut.

Terror surged in me again, as the only plan I had crumbled at the fact that I couldn't even get inside the vents. I closed my eyes, breathing hard.

Think, Janet. Think.

Maybe - just maybe - if I shouted into the vents and made a noise, someone would hear it. Noise traveled through the vents all the time. Why not now?

"Help! Someone, please help!"

I slammed at the metal grate, the noise echoing into the ventilation. The panic that had seized me when I discovered that the vents were closed had given me new energy. I shouted and hit the cover again, and again, and again...

No one came. No one was coming. No one could hear me.

Fuck.

My arms grew tired and my voice grew hoarse. My legs trembled from keeping balance. My head ached. I was cold and aching all over, and I was hungry. No, starving.

I gave one last wail of anger and fear and frustration, and then I collapsed against the tires.

What was I doing? What had I been thinking four years ago, when I decided to live five states away from my family and friends, as alone as I could ever be? What did I hope from this?

I'm not really a crier, not unless I'm having a panic attack. I don't cry, not during sad movies, or during goodbyes, or even when James...when James did what he did.

I was better at being numb.

But now, I cried. I felt the first tear, and then the first sob, and then it all poured out of me like a flood. I cried at being hurt and tired, I cried at being trapped, I cried at my anger and fear. I cried at my aloneness. I cried because the last few days had shown me truly that I wouldn't belong, that I would never belong. All of my hurt pride and insecurity came out of me in those tears. I could handle being trapped in a closet. I just couldn't handle the fact that it was because Jacqueline had thought I wasn't good enough for someone like Thomas, that I wasn't good enough for her to treat with respect.

No one could see me. I cried because of that too.

The tears subsided, and I leaned back, drained. I was exhausted from everything.

My eyes fluttered, and then shut. I sank into sleep.

○ ○ ○  

My mother, dying. My mother, a plastic tube stuck down her throat. Hospital lights, fluorescent and cold.

Days spent sorting through the papers, looking for any signs of the man who had been drunk enough to ram his car into a woman crossing the street. Days spent listening to my father yelling on the phone, angry, frustrated, pleading - bills, bills, bills. Days spent patting my brother to sleep, days and days and days...

And then the impossible offer that came in the form of a Rolls Royce.

Green, red, purple, black - and always, the same electric blue.

James.

Amongst the stacks of books, he sits with his legs folded and his eyes closed. Peaceful, serene. "Come on," I laugh. "Get up."

The bookstore door bell jingles. I chime automatically, "Welcome! Can I help you?"

Faces. Shadowy, shifting. Leering.

I feel hands around my throat, and I turn around to see electric blue eyes, and then it's James, pushing me to the ground.

Someone grabs my shoulders. I scream, choked garbles that make their way through as I see James's face morph into Thomas.

The eyes are always the same.

And now someone's shaking me, my name is ringing in my ears.

"Janet! JANET!"

My eyes fluttered open to see Thomas looming over me, his eyes wide and frantic. He yelled my name one more time, and I groaned as the noise and the light simultaneously hit me and my throbbing head.

"Thomas?"

My voice sounded thin and weak. Thomas stopped shaking me and his eyes searched my face. There was relief there, yet also concern.

"Janey? Are you okay?"

At the name, I closed my eyes and wordlessly nodded. He breathed out, and then suddenly, I was pressed up against his chest in a fierce hug.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, sorry."

It's then that I realized I had been shaking, whether it was from the cold or just sheer relief. Someone found me. Someone came.

Thomas came.

I sank deeper into the hug, feeling safer and less alone than I had in a very long time.