Chapter 34 Monroe
MONROE
Five Months Prior to Present Day,
Spring Break, Junior Year,
Sigma
Mommy, let me out! Mommy, please! Mommy! I’m hungry.
Mommy?
Mommy…
I gasp for air, unable to find oxygen. Cold sweat coats my skin. The pillow under my head is damp and musty.
This is the third night I’ve had the same nightmare. Trapped in a room I can’t quite see, with dolls I can’t quite reach, starved. The room smells like urine and tears and hunger. Sometimes, the dream is so vivid that it feels real. Sometimes, I wonder if it was real.
I don’t remember the first house I lived in with my mom before we moved in with my stepdad Kerry.
I guess my dad lived there too, at some point, before he left.
Now and then, an image of my grandmother standing over a stove in a small kitchen, cooking, will pop into my mind.
I see mint-green tiled countertops and birch-wood cabinets, the same style of cabinets that were in my grandmother’s house in Ohio.
Maybe the image is a figment of my mind.
I’ve never had this nightmare before, and I’m inclined to think it’s my imagination subconsciously responding to my forced captivity.
After Kieren left on Friday afternoon, I crawled out of the cage and across the floor to sit against the bed.
My brain was in shock, I know that now. I sat and stared at the door, in a trance, listening to water drip from the faucet in the bathroom.
When the room became too dark to see my own hand, I started sobbing, silently at first. Tears ran down my face, catching under my chin, pooling around the collar of my sweatshirt.
I found my voice when silver light from the rising moon pierced through the darkness.
With my knees curled into my chest, I drained every tear from my body.
I cried until my eyes were nearly swollen shut, and the muscles in my face ached.
I cried until my bones throbbed with exhaustion. Then came the rage.
I threw my body at the heavy wood door again and again and again. Each time, I ricocheted backward. Each time, I got up and kicked and screamed and pounded at the door.
I screamed until my throat became raw.
I screamed until it was clear that Kieren was right—either no one could hear me, or no one cared.
With no phone to check and no connection to the Internet, I had no idea what time it was at any given moment. My mind had so thoroughly detached from my physical body, that it didn’t even occur to me I could turn on the lights.
Finally, I stumbled into bed and managed to pull the covers over my battered limbs. Small cuts and bruises pulsed with pain, but the discomfort paled in comparison to my fatigue. Despondency set in, and thankfully, deciding I had suffered enough, my mind shut down.
Saturday morning, or afternoon, I had no idea really, I woke with a renewed sense of determination and spent the next forty-eight hours in a productive frenzy.
I rationed all the food Kieren had left, which was a fucking joke, because the only food I found in the grocery bags was loads of trail mix, granola bars, a few handfuls of protein bars, and a box of bland cereal.
Water would have to be sourced from the tap since Kieren conveniently left his mini fridge empty, which was not the end of the world.
To put a positive spin on things, it was like a nightmarish camping trip, unpleasant, but I would survive.
Later the same day, I felt the first trickles of blood, indicating my cycle was starting, which is when a new panic set in around the amount of bathroom supplies I would need over the course of the week.
I had enough tampons to last one, maybe two, days.
In addition to the half-used roll of toilet paper on the holder, I found three more under the sink.
My first inclination was to sit on the toilet all day if worst came to worst, but then I decided Kieren’s t-shirts would make perfectly suitable sanitary napkins.
This discovery sparked an idea, and I wondered why I hadn’t thought to raid his drawers already.
Every inch of his bedroom, closet, and en suite bathroom was scoured with a fine-toothed comb.
Expired medications, old toiletries crusted over with product, random keys that unlocked nothing, multiple pairs of my underwear stashed in different drawers from three years of an on-again, off-again failed relationship, condoms we don’t use, chains, whips, fully charged magic wands, nipple and clit clamps, restraints, gags, handcuffs, butt plugs, Kieren’s abomination of a mask he wears to the Full Moon Ceremonies along with my own…
At least I’ll be able to get myself off while I’m stuck in this prison.
After categorizing and organizing for two days, I had an improved sense of spirit. I had no Internet, but I had textbooks, which gave me purpose.
Sunday night, the nightmares started.
Claustrophobia set in on Monday. When I became convinced the room wasn’t getting enough fresh oxygen and I was going to suffocate, I started stabbing the paint-sealed window frame that borders the fire escape with stray pens I found around the room until the pen would break and I’d have to source another.
Today, Wednesday, I ran out of pens.
I press the side of my face into the cold floor as I lie on my stomach.
At this point, I don’t think the difficulty I feel when breathing, the inability to take in a full breath, is in my head.
The oxygen in this room is dwindling, rapidly, replaced by the carbon dioxide I exhale.
Soon, my consciousness will become impaired.
I’m already dizzy. The nauseous feeling I’ve had since yesterday might be from my lack of real food, but it also might be the beginnings of carbon dioxide poisoning.
The sliver of space between the door’s edge and the floor is the only ingress of fresh air.
It’s not enough. I’m going to die from suffocation.
Maybe I should accept my fate now. I could end it.
I could shatter the mirror, get into the bath…
A painful lump rises in my throat.
You’re going to survive him, Monroe, I tell myself. You’ve already survived so much worse.
I manically inhale and exhale like a dog sniffing at the base of a door. What else can I use to get that window open?
Jesus Christ, Monroe! You have nail polish remover!
I spring to my feet, my will to live restored.
How did I not think of this? When Kieren made me effectively move in, I took more than what I thought I might need.
Even though I hardly paint my nails, I did have a few bottles of red polish and one travel-sized bottle of remover in one of my toiletry bags.
If I can soak the paint and find a new tool to scrape it, maybe I can free the window frame.
As I rummage through my toiletry bag, I find a pair of metal nail clippers with a built-in nail file, the kind with a sharp curve on the end. It’s a stretch, but I’m desperate.
Friday, I shovel the last handful of trail mix into my mouth and chew slowly, meticulously. My food rations are gone.
I think about all the ways I’m going to kill Kieren.
I wonder what he would taste like.
I salivate just thinking about his charred flesh covered with barbeque sauce.
But the window pane has shown signs of progress.
Hunched in position, my left buttock propped on the short ledge of the window, my right foot skimming the floor like a bicycle kickstand, I resume my plight.
The rhythm of my work is hypnotic.
Scrape, scrape, jiggle. Scrape, scrape, jiggle.
The travel-sized amount of nail polish remover wasn’t enough to completely dissolve the paint, but it did soften it enough to scrape. My makeshift tool, the nail clippers, is my lifeline.
“You can imagine my disappointment when I didn’t find a screwdriver,” I say to the empty room.
“Though, not unexpected. Kieren is a prissy, little bitch, after all. Never had to lift a finger in his life. Probably doesn’t even know what a screwdriver is, or a hammer.
The child doesn’t even have scissors. Scissors! Why can’t we have scissors?”
“Because you’re too small to know how to use them,” I answer myself.
“But what if I want to cut my doll’s hair?” I ask.
“Stop cutting your doll’s hair, Monroe. Do you have any idea how much those dolls cost? You should be grateful you have any dolls at all,” I answer.
Blonde hair, blonde hair, blonde hair, blonde hair, I repeat to myself. I love my doll’s blonde hair. It’s so pretty.
“Mommy, I want blonde hair,” I say, my voice high and innocent in pitch.
“Don’t you want beautiful brown hair like mine, Monroe?” I answer in my best pretend-serious, adult voice. “If you dye it, you’ll ruin your hair, and then you’ll have ugly, frizzy hair and no man will ever want you.”
Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle.
Crack.
I pause in disbelief, stunned by the noise. Half of the window frame has come loose.
I scamper from my perch and wrap both hands around the handle. With all my might, I pull up until my vision blurs and my head feels light. Nothing moves.
I pull a second time, stopping only when I feel like I am on the verge of blacking out.
Collecting myself, I take a deep breath of carbon dioxide and pull a third time.
A tiny, barely audible crack.
Keep going, I scream at myself.
I pull a fourth time.
A fifth time.
A tenth time.
A twentieth time.
It’s not until somewhere around twenty-five that I feel my knees buckle right before my head hits the floor.