I had opened up a cut on my cheek.
It was from Craig’s wedding ring.
I hadn’t noticed he was still wearing it until it tore at my skin when he was beating the crap out of me.
I wondered why he’d worn it for so long. It can’t have been out of love. Because even deluded and ugly love didn’t let a person do what he’d done to me.
I wasn’t thinking about that.
It wasn’t going to help me.
It wasn’t going to help anything.
I was careful to keep my mind very blank as the journey continued. I took in the large area I was being jostled around in. Not too much, mind you, because I was shackled to something on the edge of the truck. It was considerate. Chaining me up to the side of the truck. So I wouldn’t go flying all the way across the truck. Without my hands to break my fall I could break my neck.
That might be nice.
Quick.
But I couldn’t wish for death.
That was so utterly selfish.
Heath’s words haunted me.
“You drive like you bowl through life. Full of almost hitting things, near misses, almost disasters. You’ve been lucky, so far, Polly. But no one is lucky forever. The world doesn’t give almosts forever. One day, you’re gonna fuckin’ crash.”
I wondered how much satisfaction Heath would get knowing he had predicted the future. I didn’t crash, literally, of course. But my body and soul was shattered into a thousand different pieces and that was pretty much the same thing.
The words bounced around the empty expanse surrounding me, hitting me now and again. It hurt. Which was surprising. I’d thought I’d stopped feeling pain.
I was in a large truck. Like a big long haul one. It was designed for large amounts of cargo. It had a strong smell of off milk. Maybe yogurt?
But it wasn’t refrigerated.
Maybe that’s why it went off.
Maybe that’s why it was used for transporting humans.
Or just one lone human.
I couldn’t go off, could I? But my insides felt like that’s what was happening. They were rotting, decaying, turning into something rancid and not at all pleasant.
It was off-putting.
But there was not much I could do about it, was there? It had happened, and I was here. Most likely there was worse in store for me. Or at the very least more of the same.
The thought provoked that lust for a quick death I had brushed away because of the people it would hurt.
My family.
I wondered how they were. I wondered how long they’d look for me until they gave up.
Never.
I knew that Lucy would never give up.
Neither would Rosie.
Them and their respective husbands would tear apart the earth for me. Because that’s what they did. They might find me, rotting in a shallow grave. I hoped not.
I smiled thinking about their babies. They’d have them in sorrow, of course. And I hated that I would involuntarily have a part in that. I wanted so much joy and love for them. Because they deserved so much of that. I wanted to meet my niece or nephew. Wanted to cradle the new warmth of life in my arms, and feel my heart grow with love for such a tiny being. I wanted to babysit when Lucy and Keltan were sleep deprived and going crazy. I wanted to save Luke from Rosie murdering him when he didn’t let her go back to work immediately.
I could’ve been that cool aunt. Because I’d never be a mother, even…if everything didn’t happen.
But everything did happen. I was wearing the evidence, body and soul. I should’ve been in pain. A lot of it.
And I was, somewhere amongst the layers. But I’d sunk down to someplace inside of me that was rather quiet and vacant and at peace with all the horrors that I’d gone through. Or maybe in denial. I knew it was a temporary place. One I’d likely get wrenched out of the second the truck stopped and my life—as I knew it at least—stopped too.
And my death might start.
Craig had sold me.
Sold. Me.
Like I was a commodity. Something that he had the right to throw at men, half-conscious and sullied and talk about being ‘even.’ As if my life, my soul was something that weighed just the right amount to even whatever scales he’d disrupted in the first place.
I couldn’t muster up the appropriate disgust for this right now. Because underneath the layers my emotions were muted. My panic. My sorrow. My fear. All still here, but manageable. They were quietly eating away at my insides, but it wasn’t as unpleasant as before.
Yes, before had been unpleasant if there was ever a word for it.
The truck stopped.
My breath might’ve too.
But no, I was still awake and alive when the truck doors opened, so I was breathing.
A pity.
I waited for them to climb in. Unchain me. Maybe hurt me. They hadn’t done that yet. It’d just been Craig so far. But the way they’d handled me was not giving promises to gentle treatment. It was a precursor to abuse.