Page 24 of Until You Found Me

‘It’s too dark, momma. You need to wake up.’

‘What?’

‘You’re in the dark, don’t you see?’

She blinks and transports herself from the vibrant greens of the park to the ink-black darkness of a cave.

She jostles, bouncing over potholes, unable to see until a green light catches her attention. She tries to focus through her panic, inching closer and wincing at the pain in her head until she can make out three words.

Pull to open.

The jerking stops. Her breath holds tight in her chest as her fingers brush the bright handle. Before she can tug on it, moonlightshines through the space, backlighting the outline of a faceless man.

‘Goddamit, I thought you were dead! Why won’t you just fucking die?’

The flash of a shovel flickers in front of her face and then nothing but darkness again until…

Tessa wakes alone in her bed yelling for help.

Logan’s name escapes her before she can put any thought into it. Her first instinct is to seek safety with him, but he’s far across the field. She’s become too dependent on him. Already she wants to pick up the radio and hear his voice to soothe her nerves, but she forces herself to leave it alone. The clock reads eight am. He’ll regret giving her this thing if she abuses it, so she calms herself with a cup of coffee by the fire, watching large trees that frame an ocean view creak and shiver in the wind.

She can handle this alone. She has to. She spends the whole day trying to picture her daughter’s face or remember her name but comes up blank every time. When the afternoon arrives, she’s only succeeded in working herself up even further. Pacing the dome back and forth while searching her muddled brain for answers it won’t give.

Logan’s knock at the door is conflicting. She wants him here, but their plans feel soured in the wake of her nightmare.

“What’s wrong?” Is the first thing he says when she welcomes him in.

“Way to tell me I look like shit,” she teases.

“You look upset, that’s all.”

“I had another dream,” she admits, leaning her hip against the kitchen counter. “I have a daughter. I saw her.”

“You remember her? We need to call the cops and let them know. It could help them figure out whoyou are.”

“Not her name, or her face, or anything useful about her. I saw her laughing at the park. She was wearing a yellow sundress, and she spun around until she got dizzy. It felt like it was something we would do in secret, going there.”

His face falls when she clarifies that she has nothing important to tell Carl. He schools it quickly, and she tries not to let it bother her. He’s right to be disappointed. She already is in herself.

“In secret?” He sits on the bar stool in front of a tiny kitchen island.

“I remember that I wasn’t allowed to leave the house at all unless it was for groceries. She didn’t go to school either. He made me teach her at home so no one would see…so they wouldn’t know what he was doing to us.”

Logan’s face twitches with a hint of anger, but he stays silent.

“Only the grocery store and even then, I didn’t have enough money to buy what we needed. He kept most of it for himself. He’d have me bake him cookies and leave them out on a tray on the table. I couldn’t eat them, it was forbidden. Fuck, I was so scared to take one.” She pauses, wincing at her own words, hating how they sound. “I stole one to give to her, whatever her name is. She was hungry and so I stole a cookie for her and then I figured fuck it and ate one myself and…”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to—”

“I need to.”

He only nods, and she knows she’s putting too much on him. Laying these burdens at his feet as if he’s her therapist when he’s not, but she’s already begun and now she can’t stop. The words burn in her throat, begging to be set free and all she can do is obey. Keeping them inside herself is like harboringa bomb.

“He would count them. He knew exactly when they went missing and he grabbed me by the hair and swung me into the wall. My nose was bleeding all over the carpet. It wouldn’t stop. She was crying in the hallway. She knew better than to cry. She was always so quiet, but she saw me bleeding and she wailed and that’s when he smacked her across the face, too. I yelled at him for that. I shouldn’t have, but I did, and he tossed me in the basement. I can’t remember what happened after. I know I wasn’t alone for long. I know he was down there with me but I can’t…I can’t see it…. I can’t feel it…it’s only a shimmer of a memory, it’s not whole. Maybe it’s better that I can’t see it anymore.”

She doesn’t notice that she’s crying until the tears land on the counter in front of her. Until she focuses on Logan’s face and his sympathy for her furrows the space between his eyes in a clue that she’s said too much.

“It doesn’t mean anything. It never means anything.” She sniffles.

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