Abrielle felt the flash of cameras as she accepted her diploma and shook hands with the principal, smiling wide.
She tossed her cap up with the graduating class of 2009, hugging her friends, Trina and Larielle.
The threesome took pictures together, smiling wide for their parents' cameras, arms around each other.
The girls had been friends since freshman year. They had discovered that all three of them were Latina, spoke Spanish, and liked them some Antonio Banderas. That man knew he was sexy!
The three were inseparable, always spending the nights with each other, up until three in the morning on school nights, giggling. They did everything together: homework, talent shows, prom fashion show, prom.
"Barbecue at Trina's!" Abrielle announced, smiling at her friend.
Trina raised a brow, looking at her friend. "Don't be inviting folks to my cookout, Bri!"
Abrielle giggled, taking her robe off and giving it to her mother. The three families rode out, heading to Trina's parents' house. Theirs was the largest and had the most backyard.
Her father started the grill and her mother started the fish fryer. Trina's older brother, Daryl, started playing music, throwing a flirtatious smile over at Abrielle. She blushed, looking down.
She danced with him when he came over and asked her to dance. "You turn eighteen this summer?" he asked. She nodded.
Daryl was twenty-four. And although she assured him that a relationship was legal, he told her he'd rather she be of age. Well, she was almost there.
"What do you have planned for your birthday?"
"I'm trying to waitress at this high scale café at a hotel a little ways out," she told him. "Then I can move out of my parents' house. I might stay though. My daddy said I can drive his car," she said smiling.
Honestly, the car was a metal piece of shit with an engine. But if it got her where she had to be, she wasn't going to complain about its state and instead make it work.
When there was fish done, no one had to tell Abrielle twice. She was on it!
After the cookout, Abrielle's parents went home, kissing her head and hugging her tightly. "We'll see you in the morning. Have fun."
"I love you."
Her parents simultaneously told her, "I love you, too." Then they were gone.
She went in the house and took her shower behind Trina before putting on her sweatpants and the t-shirt she got for the senior all night party. She put her hair in a ponytail and headed out with her friends, walking to the high school.
"What should we do first?" Larielle wondered as they checked in.
"Eat!" Abrielle said and laughed, as if she hadn't just left a cookout an hour ago.
"Greedy ass," Trina told her, rolling her eyes.
Abrielle laughed, pulling her friends into the caf. They went to get slushies and sat down to play a hand of Tonk with a teacher.
She asked about the girls' future plans, and Trina was accepted into Spelman and her family was driving with her down to Atlanta in July. Larielle was staying closer to home and going to Eastern Michigan University on a full scholarship.
"I'm going to WC3 and trying to work," Abrielle told her.
Abrielle was a stellar student, but she knew that even on a scholarship to any university, she would have living expenses, and staying home was free.
After the girls left the caf, they found a photo booth and took all types of goofy pictures. In one shot, they all had mustaches. In another, Trina was in the middle, giving her girls bunny ears.
They found a classroom hosting a music video maker. "Let's make ours to Pin Up Girl" Larielle suggested, grinning.
Larielle was so in love with the Brandon Hines song, someone would swear he'd written it just for her.
The girls made their video and went swimming. Naturally, this made Abrielle hungry again, and they went to the cafeteria to get subs. The rest of the night was spent with riding tricycles around the halls, eating ice cream, playing Twister, signing year books, and enjoying their last night in high school.
Abrielle was walking out of the school building and parting ways with her friends as she started down a street alone.
"Come over later," Larielle called to her friends as they all started in their own directions, the sun coming up.
The next thing she knew, everything was dark and she felt something like cloth in her mouth, and she began fighting trying to get away. She tried screaming, but she couldn't.
A man stepped in front of her. A handsome man, maybe twenty or twenty-one. He had green eyes, a caramel complexion, and a fade with a perfectly edged hairline. He had a familiar look. But she couldn't place it.
"Now there, calm down, sugar," he said gently while she struggled.
Abrielle did not calm down and in fact grew hysterical, asking God why this was happening to her. What had she done?
The men put her in the back of a Suburban with the man who seemed to be their leader. He sat beside her, cooing to her, stroking her hair while she cried. He wiped her tears.
"Don't cry, baby," he said softly. "It won't be bad."
Bullshit it wouldn't be bad. She couldn't think of a nice man gagging her just to ask for a date to the movies. She cried, wondering her fate. If they would rape her and steal her innocence. If she would die.
Abrielle exhausted herself in the seat and sat numbly still. She stared blindly out of the window. Whatever her fate, it didn't seem she could change it.
Shawn looked at the pretty girl beside him. It was her father's fault that he couldn't pay back what he owed and he had a pretty daughter. He didn't pray hard enough that she become ugly. Then, Shawn would have just made the old man do his bidding.
The truck was stopped in front of a large warehouse, and Shawn took Abrielle and led her inside to an elevator while the others followed behind. When the elevator came, it was only Shawn and Abrielle.
He ungagged and untied her, and she stared mutely at him, pressing into the elevator wall when he stepped near her.
"I won't hurt you, Bri," he said softly, his voice a whisper as he reached a hand out to stroke her hair. "Do you speak Spanish?" he asked.
Afraid to speak, she nodded. He played with the lock of hair between his fingers.
"I won't hurt you," he promised her.
"What do you want with me?" she asked in a choked voice.
"Ah, sweetheart. That, we will discuss later. Did you hug Daddy extra tight this morning?"
She felt her heart lurch then. But Shawn took her hand. "Now, calm down sugar. I haven't harmed him. And I won't."
"Why am I here?" she sobbed.
"I said that we'll discuss that. And we will."
The elevator stopped on the top floor. There was a king sized bed near the window, a toilet, a sink, a little kitchenette. Truthfully, it was like someone had set up an apartment on the storage floor of the warehouse.
"This is where you'll be staying until I'm ready to take you home. You got food and cable and shit."
She looked up at him and he put a hand on the small of her back, leading her to a plush beanbag chair.
"You can never see your family again," he told her. She began to sob immediately.
"Why? Are you going to kill me?"
"Now, sweetheart, why would I kill someone as pretty as you?" he asked calmly, his fingers in her curly hair. "I simply collected my debt."
He explained to her what had happened five years previously, and she sobbed even harder. She tensed up when he tried to comfort her.
"I want my daddy!" she sobbed, beginning to rock. "I want my daddy. I want my daddy."
"I'm sorry to hear that, baby. Your daddy should have paid what he owed."
Shawn left the room, and Abrielle sat in that chair crying until she cried herself to sleep in the chair.
When she awakened, it was to Shawn sitting across from her, watching her, drinking a bottle of Coke.
"Get it all out?" he wondered boredly.
"I want my daddy," she croaked.
Shawn sighed and passed her the bottle of Coke, strolling over to the window. "You're not going to get your daddy, sweetheart. Let that go. I can kill him, if you'd like."
She began to sob again, putting her head in her knees. Shawn listened to her crying. He didn't want her to cry, but he'd let her mourn.
"I won't run away if you let me see him," she swore.
"I know you won't. Because you're not going to see him, Abrielle. Believe me, he's alive."
"What if someone took your daughter?"
He came and kneeled in front of her giving her a serious look.
"Guess what, Abrielle. I don't have a daughter. And if I did, she would mean enough to me for me to pay back my debts."
"You're going to pimp me!" she decided, a new round of hysteria coming on.
"I'm not going to pimp you. You're far too good to prostitute, sugar. Why would I be this gracious to a woman I wanted to make my ho? You just relax your little mind."
"I want to go home," she whispered.
"This is home, darling. For now. Get used to it. The next time you see your parents... It won't be alive."
"Mmmaaahh!"
She began crying again into her lap, rocking. Shawn patted her hand. He could tell she wasn't warming up to him very well.
"I'll tell you what, Abrielle. You be a good girl, I'll let you call him once."
"Can I see him?"
"Don't push it," he warned. "I said I'll let you call. And he can explain why you're here. Because you are mine now," he told her.
Shawn left the loft. And when he came back, his face was grim. "Your parents and both of your brothers is dead."
She looked horrified. "You killed them!"
"I didn't do nothing to no one. House caught fire."
"They're really dead?" she asked, her stomach dropping, her chest tightening.
"No. But that's what you gon put in your mind. Because you're not getting them back. Write a li'l farewell note. Here."
He passed her stationery and a cell phone. "Hello?" her mother asked.
"M-m-ma-ma," she sobbed into the phone.
"Bri?"
"I c-ca-can ne-ver see you again," she said unevenly. "Wh-where's Daddy?"
"Honey—"
Rafael was on the phone. "I'm so sorry, Bri. I didn't expect things to go this way. I was just trying—"
"You sold. Me!" she sobbed harder, her eyes puffy. "Daddy, I want to come home!"
"I'm so sorry, Bri. I love you so much. I'm so sorry."
"Get me back!"
"They'll kill us both if I try. I'm so sorry..."
Abrielle hung up the phone and sobbed even more.
"Really, Abrielle. It won't be bad at all," Shawn promised. "How old are your parents? Sixty? They'd kick the bucket soon anyway, sweetheart. This is no different than that. Detach yourself."
"You're a monster."
"I will own that. Gon head and write ya li'l farewell letter."
"Once?" she asked softly, looking up.
Shawn narrowed his eyes. "I'll think about it. Write the letter."
Shawn left the room. And without thinking of it, she drank from the Cola bottle, thirsty from all her crying.
She exhausted herself and wrote her letter, her heart breaking inside.
Shawn stood on the stairs to watch her. He had only resorted to kidnapping the girl because her father wouldn't give her up. So, here she was more confused than she would have been.
He looked at the young puffy-eyed girl. He could let her see her family one final time. As long as she understood that one final time meant one final time.
"Abrielle, come here," he called.
She jumped. She hadn't realized he was still there, sitting on the steps leading to the upstairs.
Abrielle finished her letter, got up, and went to stand in front of her captor. He tried taking her hands, and she backed up.
"I'll let you see your parents one last time. It won't be today. And I promise you, if you try to leave me, I will kill them. Both. So when I let you see your family, I suggest you behave."
She nodded, a lump in her throat. She didn't understand why she couldn't ever see them again. She didn't know what he wanted with her. She didn't even know who he was.
"Do you know my name, Abrielle?"
She shook her head no, and he got up, making her cower back a step. This man had had her bound and gagged. Why would she believe he wouldn't hurt her?
"I'll let you call me Shawn. This loft is what you'll be staying in for the time being. If I let you see your father, you have to marry me," he said simply.
Her eyes widened at his ultimatum. Marrying him would mean that he had the legal right to take her away. But she wanted to see her daddy. And he'd said already that if she tried to run away he'd kill both her parents.
"Why?" she asked softly. "Why would you want to marry me? I'm only seventeen. I-I can't do anything for you. I'm still a virgin."
"You don't have to marry me. But that then subjects you to next seeing your father in a coffin. If you don't marry me, I'll have to keep you tucked away. You wanna see daylight, don't you?"
She thought she had used all her tears, but here they came. This man was insane! She didn't understand why he would want her to be his wife. But she agreed as long as she could see her parents and no one get killed.
"Good girl. Why don't you try to eat something?" he suggested, going up the stairs.
Abrielle went and sat in the beanbag, not eating. Thinking. She was looking for a way to get away and stay away from that lunatic.
For the rest of the night, she didn't see Shawn. And she didn't complain. She sat in that beanbag, alone, wondering how she could cope with the metaphorical death of her parents. She knew that man was insane and he admitted to being a monster. He would find her and really kill her parents.
She sat there with her knees in her chest until dawn, just staring numbly ahead. What was going on in life?