Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Blakely
When something traumatic happens, it’s interesting the memories that stick with you.
It would be impossible to forget those one hundred and seventeen days.
I remembered the hard, concrete floor I laid on every night. I remembered the putrid smells and the cold that permanently lived under my skin and settled in my bones. I remembered the sound of his footsteps on the old wooden stairs. And I remembered the sound of the chain tightening around my ankle when I cowered away.
I remembered being terrified that my friends were in just as much trouble. Or that if they did survive, they’d hate me.
I remembered the fear that constricted me every moment of every minute of every day.
I remembered how it felt to think I would die.
I knew I’d never escape those memories. No matter how many therapy sessions I attended, how well my anti-anxiety medication was working, or how many journal entries I penned, they would always live within me .
But there were other, less conspicuous memories that were often more potent.
I couldn’t forget the knots in my hair and the dry, rough texture of my skin after not showering for months. I remembered the way my skin scraped against the exposed brick behind me and the sensation of the blood trickling down my back before it pooled on the floor.
The memory of peanut butter slathered on dry, stale bread sticking to the roof of my mouth after I finally broke down and ate what little he gave me and washed it down, just barely, with the tepid water that tasted faintly of iron.
And afterward, the sensation of my lips was so chapped and raw that they split and bled. The first shred of kindness I’d been offered in months was by one of the teenagers who found me in that basement. She’d been staring at me intently as we waited for the police. I couldn’t imagine the way I looked, but I only thought about that afterward. At that moment, I was more concerned about getting as far away from that house as possible.
Until she reached into her pocket, pulled out cherry-flavored lip balm, and offered it to me.
The first time I applied it, it burned. But then there was relief. Pure, sweet relief.
Worried my lips would ever turn into that painful mess again, I’d started keeping lip balm and applying it—some would say obsessively. And I used to love peanut butter, but now, just the thought or mention of it made me want to gag.
That’s why I had no remorse when I unceremoniously dropped the peanut butter cookies my new neighbor had dropped off into the trash can.
I straightened up the rest of the kitchen and wiggled the mouse at my computer sitting on the kitchen table. It had been updating for several minutes already, and I let out a frustrated groan. I’d promised a website concept to a client by noon, and I needed my computer functional to do that. And to actually build the website .
Deciding to give it another few minutes before I really started to worry, I peered over at the couch and the potato curled in one corner. Not an actual potato, just my dog, Tato.
He was soaking up the sunlight that peeked through the blinds.
I’d rescued Tato from a kill shelter the day after I moved back to Austin. I’d driven past the open-air shelter when it was almost twenty degrees. The other dogs had been adopted by other good Samaritans, but he’d been left behind.
The lady working the front desk said Tato’s previous owners had surrendered him after he’d gone deaf from an untreated infection. And no one wanted him because he was a deaf Pitbull mix.
I’d paid the adoption fee on the spot and before even meeting him. I didn’t care what type of behavioral or health issues he might have, I was going to take him home and out of the cold.
But there was nothing wrong. Luke was a vet, and I’d wanted to take Tato there but thought better of it. The vet we had seen gave him a clean bill of health and confirmed his deafness.
The people at the shelter hadn’t bothered to name him.
I’d initially been concerned that naming him something he wasn’t used to being called would confuse him. But then I remembered that he was deaf and wouldn’t be able to hear me anyway.
It took me a whole two days to settle on the name Tato, short for Couch Potato, because all he wanted to do was lie around and cuddle. He enjoyed one short, sniffing walk a day, and that was enough for him. I made the mistake of taking him to a dog park once. He stood stock-still in the middle of the yard in protest. The other dogs jumped around him, nipping happily at his feet and hoping he’d play, but he didn’t budge.
As much as I saved him, Tato saved me, too. He was a reason to get out of bed in the morning when it was the last thing I wanted to do. He depended on me for everything, and I couldn’t let him down .
Since Tato was deaf, waking him up wasn’t my favorite thing to do. But he needed to go outside.
I crossed the room, stuck my hand in front of his dusty pink nose, and lightly blew on his snout. Before his eyes opened, his nose started twitching. He gave me one long sniff, and his eyes flew open. His brown tail began wagging, and his tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth as he stretched and sat up.
I scratched his favorite place behind his ears, where the white on his nose blended into the brown on the rest of him and kissed the side of his head. Tato had been through more than a dog ever should—there were scars all over his body that told a story I’d never know. But he still found it in himself to love me and trust me. He was still happy to be alive.
Tapping my leg and pointing to the door, I grabbed his leash from the hook next to it and held it up for him to see. If a dog could frown, he did it.
“Seriously, dude. I know it’s cold, but the sun’s out at least. And you haven’t been to the bathroom since like four this morning.”
He couldn’t hear me, but that didn’t keep me from talking to him all the time.
He sighed and lazily crawled off the couch. Slowly, he walked over to me and sat at my feet, looking up expectantly and with the same lack of enthusiasm.
“We’ll make it quick, I swear,” I said, hooking his leash on his collar and opening the front door. I grabbed a few doggy bags and walked outside. Tato begrudgingly followed me.
There was a large grassy area in front of our row of townhomes, and we slowly meandered across it.
“Blakely!” a voice shouted behind me. I held up my hand to block the sun and squinted in the direction where I believed the voice had emanated.
My neighbor, Maureen, waved. I raised my hand in return. “Did you like the cookies? They’re my son’s favorite!” she yelled .
I didn’t want to yell, but she wasn’t going to hear me unless I did. “Yeah, they were great!” I hollered back, and she gave me two very enthusiastic thumbs up.
Before she could say anything else, I turned back to Tato, who was staring at the woman like she had lost her fucking mind.
“I know, dude. She seems nice, just a little overbearing. And just be glad you can’t hear her.” He huffed like he agreed with me and started back toward our house. “I’ve gotta figure out how to tell people I don’t like peanut butter now.” He looked up at me. “I know, I know,” I said. “I should just start telling people I’m allergic, but that feels dishonest.”
We walked back into the house, and Tato was back nestled into his spot on the couch before I put the leash away.
I glanced over at the kitchen table and was happy to see that the update percentage had gone up since we’d been outside. But I needed something else to fill my time.
My eyes lingered over the journal that was sitting on the small bar that bisected the living room and the kitchen. The sight of it frustrated me.
I’d been writing in a journal—not that particular one, but a journal of some sort—for the better part of a year. It was cathartic and one of the easier parts of my ongoing therapy. Or it was . I hadn’t been able to write in it since I’d left Amanda’s house a few weeks before.
Frustrated, I swept the journal off the counter and grabbed the pen next to it just before it hit the floor. I plopped down on the couch on the opposite end from Tato, who still looked at me out of the corner of his eye like I’d disturbed him.
My fingers ran over the soft black cover of the journal and the silver embossed flowers that trailed down around to the inside and down the spine. Flipping it open, it took me a while to find an empty page. I pressed down on the center to flatten the pages and uncapped my pen. It sat poised above the blank paper, and I stared down at the page, but I couldn’t write anything. Not even a single word .
I tried pressing the pen to the paper a few times before I ultimately closed it altogether and set it next to me. I reclined back on the soft, green couch and ran my fingers through my unruly, wavy hair.
I took a few deep breaths, inhaling for five seconds and exhaling for five seconds. The exercise wasn’t working, though. My mind was still spinning a mile a minute when my phone vibrated across the coffee table.
I stretched forward and retrieved it from the table.
Unknown: Blakely, it’s Shelly (Devon’s mom). Would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow night?
Emotions flooded my chest, and anxiety overshadowed my excitement. I wanted to say yes. My relationship with Shelly was one of the most important in my life, but I’d changed so much over the past two years.
It was something I’d considered about all my friends—that they may not like the person I’d become. Because as much as there were parts of me that mirrored my old self, there were so many new parts, too.
My phone buzzed again.
Shelly: I’m not taking no for an answer. Unless you really have plans that can’t be changed.
I saved her number and typed out a response before I could think too much more into it.
Me: Dinner would be great. Send me the address. And tell me what to bring.
There was less than a second delay until her response came through. It was a long string of emojis followed by a threat that if I brought anything, she’d never forgive me .
I took a long, shaky breath, and the pressure on my chest lightened slightly. Shelly had reached out; it was a good sign. Amanda had also texted me a few times. She’d mentioned the possibility of lunch or something soon, but nothing had been set in stone.
Being patient was not one of my strongest traits. I knew it would take time for them to come back around—if they ever did—but I just wanted what we had before. I wanted the family that I’d found, that I’d chosen, and that had chosen me.
It felt like I’d been paralyzed for the past year. Like time had ceased to really exist for me. It was merely a way to gauge the day. Nothing more than that. But back in Texas, time had finally begun moving forward again.
I slid my phone back on the coffee table and glanced over at Tato, who had passed out again. I pulled the journal back into my lap and opened it to a blank, mocking page. But when I uncapped my pen, the words flowed easily.
Dr. Jeffery Mann’s office was plain. The waiting room furniture was brown leather and decorated with faux plants. Real plants would not have survived with such little light filtering through the two frosted windows.
His actual office, just beyond the door to my right, was a more welcoming version of the waiting room—still mostly brown, but he had knickknacks on bookshelves and photos. And a comfortable couch that was required of every therapist.
Quiet classical music played through speakers mounted on the ceiling while I flipped through a magazine, but I could still faintly hear the pop music emanating from Megan’s desk. She was Dr. Mann’s assistant and somehow the opposite of the brown-haired, quiet-spoken man.
The door to my right opened, and I tossed the magazine onto the table next to me. Dr. Mann, wearing his usual dark-colored sweater and khaki pants, waved me inside while he shot Megan an exasperated look.
I slipped past him and took a seat where I always did—at the end of the brown leather couch closest to the door. I reached behind me and grabbed the pillow propped in the corner, placing it on my lap and settling in as much as I could.
Dr. Mann sat across from me in a matching leather chair. He crossed one leg over the other and readjusted his thick, black glasses.
“It’s good to see you, Blakely,” he said with an easy smile. “How have you been? Tell me what’s new.”
Dr. Mann was a good therapist. I’d only been seeing him for a few weeks, so we’d finally passed the awkward stages of rehashing my entire past. We were now on to the nitty-gritty details of getting my life back on track.
“I’m actually having dinner with Shelly tonight.”
He raised his eyebrows and nodded. “That must be exciting. Did you initiate this or did she?”
Dr. Mann never wrote any notes during our twice-weekly sessions, but he did have a notebook and a pen next to him. That and a bowl of trail mix he said he liked to snack on between sessions.
I thought it was odd, but we all had our quirks. Even therapists.
“She did,” I said, which earned me another nod. “But I’m really excited about it.”
“She’s one of your friend’s mom’s, correct?”
“Yes,” I said, pulling at a loose string at the corner of the pillow in my lap. “Before…everything?—”
“Before you were kidnapped,” he corrected, and I took a deep breath. Everyone had told me that that part was important. That stating what happened to me for what it was wouldn’t allow it to have as much power over me.
It made sense to an extent, but I still hated it. It made me feel like a victim when I wanted to feel like anything but .
“Before I was kidnapped,” I struggled to say, “we were really close. It’s one of the friendships I was most eager to rekindle.”
“And I’m guessing you also believe this might be an opportunity to get back into the group? Has anything else happened with Amanda?”
Dr. Mann’s surmise of my intentions was almost creepy. But that also made him really good at his job.
“Yes, I had that thought, but that wasn’t the main purpose.”
“I understand,” he said, and I looked back down at the pillow.
“I am nervous, though.”
He was silent for so long I eventually had to raise my head to make sure he was still sitting across from me. Which was exactly what he was waiting for.
“Nervous about what? Not being accepted?” he said with a soft smile.
I gave a shallow nod, not wanting to really admit it out loud.
“Although I understand preparing for the possibility of rejection, you will never know unless you try.”