Page 91 of Quiet
Last week he’d finally gotten the message he’d been hoping to never receive. It had been sent three times in a row just to make sure his father got his attention.
Isaiah,
This has gone on long enough. When you left, we allowed you to go because every person should be allowed to experience the world before devoting themselves to Christ. But you’ve gone too far. I thought we’d beaten the sin out of you, but apparently it ran too deep. You will return now. You know the consequences if you don’t. I assure you everyone you know will be charged as accessories to kidnapping you if you don’t.
If I don’t hear from you within twenty-four hours, I will start the proceedings.
Your father,
Reverend Thomas Manfield
And that was the end of it. The end of everything Isa had built for himself over the past nine months. Gone in the wake of one short email.
When Isa was young, he’d played with dresses and dolls. He loved learning to make food and playing with other girls.
At first, his family had treated it as something harmless. Then his uncle came out and everything changed. Isa had been stripped of everything he owned and put into a course on gender roles, taught at their church by his father. Every failure to learn a lesson was rewarded by a beating and a stint in the closet he currently resided in.
It hadn’t taken long for him to learn how to stay out of the closet. All he’d had to do was take everything he loved and lock it into a tiny box inside his heart. But once during his teen years he’d slipped up. His sister had caught him staring a little too long at a fellow classmate—a handsome young man Isa had been secretly infatuated with.
That was when he got a trip to the asylum. They hadn’t committed him, merely taken him on a tour, giving him an up close and personal look at the facilities and patients. He’d taken one look at the blank-eyed, lifeless residents and vowed to keep his hands, eyes, and thoughts to himself for the rest of his life.
Once the tour was over, his father sat him down with a doctor—a close, personal friend of Thomas’s—and told Isa he would be allowed to leave that day, but, for his own good, he was being put under his father’s stewardship. His father had the right to make medical decisions for him and could send him back at any time. And if he ever tried to leave without permission, he would be brought back by force.
Isa had allowed himself to enjoy the wonderful dream of being with Briar. He’d even hoped he’d get away with leaving his home forever. Rationalizing that, since he was over eighteen now, maybe his father couldn’t control his life anymore. But the email had an attachment to it. A document the doctor made listing Isa’s many fictional mental illnesses and his need to have a caretaker his entire life.
Isa had printed out the email and the attachment for Briar along with his note.
What he hadn’t done was tell Briar he fully planned on returning. If his plan failed, Isa didn’t want to give him false hope.
It was almost time to put his plan into action. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought it had been about ten hours since he’d been stuffed in his closet.
Thecloset, he corrected himself. It wasn’t his. It was never his. What his family had done to him was wrong, and he refused to own any part of it.
They’d taken his shoes and socks, so the thin piece of metal he’d hidden in there was no longer at his disposal. But he still had hope. Baby Isa had a few tricks up his sleeves, and if he was very lucky, Current Isa was about to reap the rewards.
He just had to convince himself to check. He hadn’t yet. He wanted to continue to live in hope that no one had found his stash and that he’d be able to resolve this issue sooner rather than later. If it took weeks rather than days, would Briar be able to forgive him for leaving without a word?
Isa wasn’t sure if he could live without Briar anymore. Being hated by him would be worse than anything his father could do.
He had to check now. It was time for him to adult up and find out exactly what he was in for.
He ran his fingers along the floorboards, trying to find the one with a missing nail. He’d had to be careful when he was younger not to damage the edges of the board so it wouldn’t be obvious he was stashing stuff inside. He had to pry it up using the tiny hole made by the missing nail. It was painful and usually involved a fair amount of bleeding, but Isa had made sure to smear blood on the entire floor so no one would be alerted to what he was doing. A little blood on the floor was nothing surprising considering the state he was usually in when he was put in here.
When he found the hole, his hands began to shake.
Stop it!He ordered himself. Now wasn’t the time to crack up. He had to keep his shit together long enough to do what needed to be done. He took a deep breath, and his shaking lessened enough for him to begin the slow process of prying the floorboard up. When it finally popped free, it came out with a loudcreak,and Isa’s stomach filled with a million tiny ice shards.
He held still for an eternity, listening for any sounds of discovery before allowing himself to continue.
Here it was. The moment of truth. Was luck on his side? He couldn’t pray for help. He no longer believed there was anyone out there to pray to. All he could do was hope.
He rooted around in the hole, too scared to breathe, until his fingers finally came across a small pouch. He fumbled with the zipper and only allowed himself to exhale when he found a slim wire, a card, and a tiny flashlight.
He didn’t allow himself the luxury to relax. He still had to get out of there and find what he needed to find.
He clicked the switch on the flashlight, expecting nothing, but was pleased to see a weak stream of light pouring from one end. He could have jimmied the door open in the dark, but having light helped—especially since it had been a few years since he’d had to do it.
Once again, he’d had to move excruciatingly slow in order to keep silent. If he’d misjudged the time, he would be in serious trouble if someone was awake and caught him. He was pretty sure he could escape the house if he needed to, but only if everyone thought he was sufficiently cowed. But if they put him in a mental asylum? Just the thought made his blood run cold.
