Charlie
I don’t remember deciding to stay little.
That’s probably not how it works anyway.
It’s not like I stood at some internal crossroads, looked down one path labeled “Terrified Adult Having Very Reasonable Kidnapping Concerns” and another path labeled “Soft Brain No Words Blankie”, and made a choice.
If I had been asked, I think I would have picked the first one on principle, if only because it sounds more dignified and less like something that would make me want to kill myself from how dumb it is.
But I don’t think my brain asks permission before it does things anymore. It just does them. It folds me up and puts me somewhere smaller when the regular-sized version of me can’t hold everything at once.
Maybe that means it’s trauma.
Probably it means it’s trauma.
I know enough about myself to understand that going quiet and floaty after screaming myself half to death in front of armed men is not exactly a healthy coping mechanism.
I know I should be alarmed by the fact that I remain nonverbal for hours, that my thoughts get slower and softer, and that I let Nikolaus hold the straw to my mouth while I drink my smoothie in tiny sips because lifting the cup myself feels like too much work.
I know all that. I just can’t make myself care the way I should.
The smoothie had been good.
That is one of the facts floating around in my head now as I sit in the back of the car with my blankie clutched to my chest and my cheek resting against Nikolaus’s shoulder.
The smoothie had been pastel pink, sweet, and light enough on my tummy. There had been toast too, and a little bowl of fruit, and eggs I only took two bites of before my stomach made it clear it was not interested in being ambitious.
Nikolaus had praised every tiny thing, as if I were accomplishing heroic acts.
“Good boy” for drinking the smoothie.
“Good boy” for trying the eggs.
“Good boy” for pointing to the pear instead of letting myself get overwhelmed.
“Good boy” for taking the pills Constantine and Nikolaus decided were safe for the morning after photographing everything and calling someone who must be a doctor, because Nikolaus’s voice had gone low and serious and all business-like.
The parts of me that still worked properly had been horrified by how quickly everything was moving.
The parts that knew this was all wrong kept pushing at the walls of the little floaty room my brain had locked me inside, trying to get my attention.
You’re being kidnapped.
You’re being taken to New York.
He is grooming you, feeding you, and putting you in a car like a pet he’s adopted.
Do something.
Anything.
But then Nikolaus would stroke his fingers through my hair and tell me I was doing “beautifully, little one,” and the shouting in my head would get muffled under cotton again.
By the time Constantine brought out the clothes they’d taken from my apartment, I was too worn out to be properly embarrassed by the fact that strangers had gone through my closet. He stood near the sofa with a small stack folded over one arm, looking at it with the solemn disgust of a rich person.
“These are the best of the worst,” he had said.
Nikolaus gave him a flat look. “Constantine.”
“What? I’m not saying it to be cruel. I’m saying it because it’s accurate, and I want it to be known that I had little else to choose from.”
I had hidden my face in my blankie, because the thing about having a closet full of clothes is that people assume there must be something good in it, but most of mine were old and stretched out and purchased during different eras of illness, different body sizes, different levels of pretending I was fine.
Clothes that were bought because they were cheap.
Clothes that were kept because replacing them cost money.
Clothes that didn’t fit right, but fit enough if I didn’t look in the mirror too long, which I never did.
Nikolaus hadn’t let me disappear completely into the blanket.
He’d touched the back of my head and said, “It’s all right, baby. We’ll fix that too.”
“We’ll fix that too,” like he’d already made a whole list of things in my life he plans on changing.
I should have said something, but I didn’t. Instead, I stayed quiet and let him dress me.
That part is fuzzy in my head now, and I’m glad, because I know if I think about it too clearly, my whole body will combust with shame.
I remember standing in front of him with my blankie pressed to my mouth while he helped me into soft black joggers that had only one tiny hole near the pocket and a loose gray T-shirt I liked because it was about two sizes too big.
My hoodie went on over everything. Then socks, then a pair of white sneakers I usually avoided wearing because I was too nervous about getting them dirty.
Nikolaus tied the laces himself.
He knelt in front of me, huge hands working with absurd care, and I stood there staring down at the top of his dark head, thinking that I should be humiliated, even if I wasn’t.
And when he looked up and told me, “There. All ready,” my heart gave a small, stupid flutter, like being ready because someone else had made me ready was a nice thing instead of a terrifying one.
After that, time moved strangely.
Constantine talked on the phone while Nikolaus packed things into bags.
Room service trays vanished.
The cartoon stayed on until the last possible second.
Then Nikolaus told me it was time to go.
I remember looking toward the door.
The same door I had opened earlier. The same door where the guards had been waiting. The same door that had turned from a possible rescue into rough, grabbing hands, scary guns, and having my body exposed.
Nikolaus noticed my discomfort and lifted me up in an embrace I was oddly getting used to.
That’s how I left the suite.
Not on my feet. Not with my head up. Not bravely.
Nikolaus carried me against his chest while Constantine went ahead with the bags, and I hid my face in Nikolaus’s neck because the thought of seeing reminders from earlier made me feel sick.
I even barely remember the elevator or the lobby, except for the smell of polished stone and flowers and coffee.
No one stopped us.
No one saved me.
Or maybe, horribly, they saw me tucked in Nikolaus’s arms, freshly bathed, one hand gripping his shirt, blankie trapped between my chest and his, and thought I already looked saved.
Now we’re in the same car as last night, and the sky outside the windows isn’t dark anymore, but it’s not really morning either.
The world is a blue-gray blur of empty streets and early lights, the kind of hour where everything feels paused between one day and the next.
I sit in Nikolaus’s lap because he put me there when we got in, and I didn’t fight because fighting feels very far away.
Also, because the car is strange and the airstrip is coming, and everything keeps moving whether I want it to or not.
Nikolaus has one arm around my back and one hand resting over my blankie, where I clutch it to my chest. His thumb moves back and forth over the worn fabric, not touching my skin, exactly, but close enough that I can feel it.
Constantine sits across from us, phone in hand, watching me sometimes when he thinks I don’t notice.
He and Nikolaus seem pleased.
Not in a smiling, laughing way, because nothing about this morning has been easy enough for smiling. But there is a looseness in their shoulders that wasn’t there earlier. A relief I don’t fully understand until Constantine says, quietly, “At least he’s staying settled.”
Nikolaus’s arm tightens around me, just a little. “Yeah, we really lucked out on timing.”
“It’d be great if he stays like this until we’re back.”
“Even if he doesn’t, it’ll be fine. I doubt we’ll need to use what we talked about.”
They are glad I’m like this.
Small.
Quiet.
Manageable.
The thought should make me angry enough to claw my way back to myself, but it doesn’t.
Instead, I press my cheek into Nikolaus’s shoulder and listen to him murmur, “That’s it, baby.
You’re all right. You’re going to love your new home.
I even have a special room ready just for you, with a nice big crib and toys and board books.
We’ll change anything you don’t love about it, and add anything you want, because I want it to be absolutely perfect for my baby boy. ”
His voice is soft and so nice.
Too nice.
The kind of nice that wraps around my brain and gives it a hug.
And I would be lying if I wasn’t already yearning for my very own playroom.
I know what he’s doing, maybe. I’m not completely gone. Some part of me can still point at this and call it manipulation, can still understand that Nikolaus likes me this way because I am easier to move, easier to comfort, easier to keep. Some part of me knows that every soft word is also a leash.
But the rest of me is pressed against his warm chest in the back of a car, and my head feels too floaty to care.
“Doctor is confirmed for the house,” Constantine says. “He’ll be there when we land.”
Nikolaus’s fingers slip into my hair. “Good.”
No, not good, I want to say. I don’t want to deal with a doctor on top of the whole being kidnapped thing.
My fingers tighten in the worn fabric of my blankie, bunching it up, and Nikolaus’s hand immediately stops moving through my hair.
“Hey,” he murmurs, tilting his head enough that his beard brushes my temple. “What made you make that face, little one? What is it?”
I don’t answer because I can’t. The words are in me somewhere, but they are too heavy to drag up.
I only squeeze my eyes shut and burrow into his shoulder, hoping that if I hide hard enough, maybe the doctor can’t find me.
Maybe New York can’t find me. Maybe the whole world will get distracted and forget to keep happening.
Nikolaus makes a soft, understanding sound that I hate a little because it makes it seem like he understands even without my words.