A few days later there was the “anniversary” of my kidnapping, an occurrence that still now makes me extremely nervous. That day meant a continuous flow of memories, despair, fear and anxiety. It also meant nightmares, very detailed nightmares of those months.
But that day was going to be different, because Tasanee decided that I would spend the entire day with her, also sleeping at her place. I was so nervous, I was afraid to react badly or to scare her away from me. I was afraid to show her my weakness, afraid that she would use it as a weapon against me. But I went to her house anyway.
I arrived at her place at ten in the morning, her greeting me at the door with a warm and tight hug “How are you?” She asked me with a big smile
“I don’t know.. but I feel better after seeing you” I smiled back.
We stayed together all day, watching tv shows, cuddling, her making me feel comfortable, bringing snacks for us and fooling around to make me laugh occasionally.
Night came sooner than I expected. It was almost midnight, Tasanee was sleepy, closing her eyes from time to time, her head falling on my shoulder “Ada.. I'm tired.. Can we go to sleep?” she asked, hugging my arm
“Yes.. let's go” I replied, getting up and nervously going into Tasanee's bedroom.
We both got ready for bed and hoped inside the warm covers, her falling asleep almost immediately and me staring at the ceiling, heart beating fast and breath hitching. I hugged Tasanee to try to comfort myself and I closed my eyes, trying not to think about the nightmares that were waiting for me.
I understood after a couple of minutes that I wasn’t going to fall asleep so easily, so I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t find Tasanee by my side. I simply thought she went to the bathroom and didn’t notice because I was tired.
I sat on the bed, waiting for her to come back, but instead I heard a very loud sound from outside the room, like something big falling on the ground.
I quickly got up and approached the door “Tasanee? Was that you? Are you ok?” I asked, my ear pressed on the door. No one replied, I just heard footsteps approaching the door.
I started to panic and as soon as I tried to lock the door, someone was already trying to open it, pushing it with all their might.
I tried to block the door, putting all my body weight into doing so, but the person slammed it open, revealing themselves: he was Sunan, all burned up, missing some skin in random parts of his body, blood staining his face and clothes, furious as hell, looking at me with rage in his eyes “I FOUND YOU!” he yelled, his voice raspy and broken, his breath heavy, probably due to all the smoke he inhaled in the fire.
I screamed on top of my lungs, tears starting to fall on my cheeks. He approached me, walking slowly, making me back off more and more. I couldn’t even speak, incoherent words escaping my mouth in between the desperate sobs. He eventually reached me, placing his burned and bloody hands on my throat, tightening his grip more and more. I felt the air escaping my lungs, my body giving up, legs numbing and eyes closing.
I remember seeing his twisted smile once again before abruptly waking up, hyperventing, sweating, crying, with Tasanee's hands on my face “Ada! Calm down. It's me, don’t worry. What happened?” she said softly, embracing me
“He.. he was here.. Sunan..” I tried to explain, not realizing it was just a nightmare
“He is not here.. it's just you and me” she assured me, caressing my back gently.
It took me a good amount of time to get back to my senses. She asked me what I dreamt, what I saw, who Sunan was, but I couldn’t tell her, it was too painful.
We just cuddled all night, eventually sleeping peacefully, hugging each other.
After that episode, we continued our relationship like nothing happened, but I could see there was something off with Tasanee. She seemed very thoughtful, and a bit detached from me, like she was pissed about something.
I decided to confront her about a month after that night, to understand what happened to her.
We were in a quiet spot of the park we often went to, laying next to each other, watching the sky
“Tasanee.. can I ask you something..?”
“Yes, go on” she simply said
“Did something happen? After that night you seem pretty cold towards me” I said, a bit scared of her reaction
"Actually yes. Why the fuck you still can't talk to me about what happened to you?! Also, it's been quite a while since we are together and you didn’t even give me a kiss! I'm not asking you to fuck with me right here, but at least a kiss.. or at least tell me what happened to you! I'm starting to get tired of this redundant behavior between us.. please tell me what happened! I'm tired of all of this!” she spat out, every word stinging my heart like little needles
“I.. I can’t..” I simply said, trying not to cry
“See?! Of course you can't! You can never fucking talk about that! How do you think I feel about all of this? I feel like you don't trust me!” she sat up, not even looking at me. At that point I started crying and I couldn’t even speak
“You won't even speak up now, will you? Of course not.. you’re crying, like always” she added, laughing a bit after, sadness evident in her voice
“I think we should take a break” she then added after some seconds of silence, abruptly. That sentence broke me.
She quickly got up, picked her stuff and went back home, leaving me there with that information that completely killed me.
That day when I came back home I was devastated: I wanted to be more open, to be more touchy with her, I loved her and I wanted to love her like she deserves, but I couldn’t do any of these things because I was too weak. I felt guilty, I felt like it was all my fault.
And it was.
In the following days I tried to contact Tasanee, but she wouldn’t reply to me.
In that short period of time I started developping suicidal thoughts for the first time in my life: I remember I was playing with Vegas in his room and then I went to the bathroom. After I finished my business, I saw a razor on the sink, probably owned by Gun. A flashing thought ran through my mind. “Do it” it said, “Take the blade and do it, you have nothing to lose anymore” it said again. So I quickly and almost automatically obliged.
I took the blade out of the object and brought it to my left wrist. I remember looking intensely at my arm, before finally deciding to cut it.
“At the count of three” I thought
“One..” I aligned the blade
“Two..” I started applying pressure
“Three..” I was going to slide the blade vertically on my arm, making a big gash in it, but a knock on the door stopped me and also startled me a bit.
“Ada! Come on! Have you finished? It's been ages! Get out of the bathroom already! I want to play!” Vegas' voice said from the other side of the door, begging me to come back and play with him. He brought me back to reality and I immediately dropped the blade into the sink, the ticking sound it made when it made contact with the cold porcelain echoed through the whole bathroom, hot tears ran down my face
“Ada! Are you ok?” he asked, clearly worried about me
“Yes.. give me five more minutes and I'll be back to you!” I replied, trying to seem as calm as possible
“Ok! I'm waiting right outside this door then!” he laughed a bit.
At that moment I realized I needed to bring myself up again. I needed to be there for my family and I needed to find the guts to talk to Tasanee and let her know that I trusted her.
I needed to fix my life and all the things I fucked up with the girl I loved.
So I texted her.
As we agreed, the next day I went to her place.
At 6 pm I was outside Tasanee's door and I knocked, my hand shaking a bit. She simply opened it and let me in, briefly looking at me, not saying a word.
We sat on the sofa and stayed silent for a bit. I looked at her from time to time, trying to understand what she was thinking, then I finally decided to speak
“Tasanee.. first of all, I wanted to say sorry to you.. for everything.. and I think it's time for me to tell you what happened to me that day..” I said, sure that I wouldn't be able to tell her the whole truth, but just the main parts
“Whenever you're ready” she lightly smiled at me, taking my hands in hers to comfort me. God I missed the feeling of her hands on mine, it felt so relaxing and reassuring. I took a deep breath, and started speaking
“A bit more than a year ago.. my ex boyfriend, Sunan, took me on vacation.. he always treated me like a princess.. but that time.. I don’t know what happened.. he took me with him into a..” I stopped, I couldn’t say that, I burned that place, she couldn’t find out what I did. So I just kept talking, sobs breaking my words and tears blurring my vision
“He raped me.. he beated me.. he abused me.. and also other.. other men.. I was.. tortured.. for six months..” and I couldn’t say more, I was a crying mess, all trembling, my heart aching, memories overwhelming me. I said everything confusedly, messily, stopping for quite a while in between the words.
She didn’t say anything, but I heard a quiet sob from her. I quickly looked at her and I saw her crying too, trying to be as quiet as possible
“I'm.. so sorry..” she cried out, hugging me very tightly, crying with me
“I couldn’t even imagine what you went through.. and I even yelled at you.. I..” she cried, hugging me more
“It's ok.. I forgive you” I said almost whispering, my head buried in her chest.
“Can I do something?” she asked, drying her tears with her sleeve
“Yes..” I answered, trying to look at her through my teary eyes. She took my face in her hands and turned it to the side, so that my right cheek was facing her, and she kissed me, near my cheekbone, a sweet and loving kiss, wet due to my tears still falling.
I smiled immediately after, laughing a bit through the sobs, caressing her hands afterwards.
We embraced each other for quite a while, enjoying our smell, our touch, our warmth, all the stuff we missed about each other.
I wanted to kiss her so bad, but I wasn’t ready, my mind stopped me once again.
That day I told her as much as I could, explaining why I was grossed out by kisses and terrified of being intimate.
When I came back home that night Korn was waiting for me outside the door, smiling as soon as he saw me.
I told him what happened with Tasanee and that I was going to tell her what happened and he was ok with that.
He wanted to know too, but understood my choice of not telling him, not yet.
“Ada! You seem happy.. Did it go as planned?” he asked, opening his arms, waiting for me to go hug him
“Yes.. we came back to normal” I smiled too, hugging him tightly, his arms closing and embracing me
“I'm happy to hear that.. do you feel better after talking to her about.. you know” he asked, caressing my hair
“Yes.. even if I didn’t say everything that happened it was hard.. and painful” I honestly answered
“I'm sorry for not telling you.. I just can't right now..” I added, apologizing. It felt like I was putting him and my family a bit apart from Tasanee
“Don’t worry baby, I don’t need to know everything. As soon as you're ok I will be ok and I will always be there for you” he reassured me, tightening the hug
“Thank you dad..”.
And with that I went to sleep, not knowing what the future was going to be for me.