four
Massachusetts
The whole world knows the story. The story of the kidnapped girl who survived in captivity for sixteen years and was eventually rescued and returned to her family. But I need to tell it again.
To tell it now. To tell it to myself.
I have never stopped thinking about this, about our story, but I have never gone back, fully, to immerse myself in the memories. I wasn’t strong enough, and I’m definitely not strong enough now. If anything, I am weaker than ever. I am more broken than I have ever been.
My heart feels so fragile that a feather could knock it over. But I don’t have the luxury of waiting a second longer. I need to go back.
I need to start the story from the beginning, and stay with it until the end. I need to remember everything and I need to add the truth woven in: a truth I never knew, nor would have imagined in a million years.
I need to dive back into the icy, murderous waters of the past.
Into the pool filled with poison.
I have avoided going into these memories for years; I have run from them like the plague.
And now I dive in, head first, letting the ocean plunge me into this story that ended my old self, the old Isaiah, and will probably completely kill what’s left of me this time around. But so be it. If it finishes me, it finishes me. I’m done being a coward.
The story begins.