Wait, I needed them to notice I was gone. Since I needed them to rescue me.
“Oh Polly, ever the damsel,” I muttered.
* * *
I must’ve dozed off to sleep at some point because the slamming of the door jerked me awake.
I had a moment of panic and confusion at the fact my hands wouldn’t obey me and every one of my muscles screamed. The panic was not because of the burning and immobile arms above my head, or my screaming bladder, or empty stomach. No, it was because I had no memory of why they existed.
I blinked Craig into view and it all came rushing back.
“You’re awake,” he said, rather sheepishly, not holding eye contact.
He looked bad.
His eyes were bloodshot. Shirt was wrinkled and stained with something that looked like coffee. His hair was a mess.
Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“I need to pee,” I said.
Not the first thing that a victim should’ve said to her captor/ex-husband. I should’ve asked why he was here, or why I was here, what he planned on doing with me and if he could please not kill me or do anything else unimaginable and just let me go.
But my bladder was straining to keep under my brain’s control, and I was not going to wet myself on top of everything else.
Craig paused, obviously surprised at my words.
He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth as if he were pondering whether he was going to grant me the right to meet my basic human needs. It was jarring and humiliating to have someone in control of whether you let go of your bladder while chained to a bed or whether you would be allowed to use a toilet.
Something glinted in Craig’s eyes as he ran them over me, something like satisfaction in that control, something ugly and vile that sent ice into the base of my spine.
He paused long enough for me to think he was going to make me wet myself just for his cruel entertainment. Then he walked over, dug his hand into his pocket and retrieved a small pair of keys.
“Don’t try and run,” he warned, eyes dark.
I shivered at what was behind them. Not a threat. A promise. But there was something mingled with that. Not pure malice. There was a panic. A kind of hopelessness. I knew he was a bad person. But what turned a bad person into an evil person was that hopelessness. With nothing left to lose, evil bred.
“I’m not going to try to run because I’m currently trying not to wet myself,” I said truthfully.
It was funny how something as seemingly simple as needing to use the bathroom could surpass needing to know the reason for one’s kidnapping and the fate of one’s life.
He inspected my words and the desperation behind them and nodded once, lifting the keys.
My hands were lead when the metal came off.
They literally thumped onto the mattress, not at all under my control.
I tried to use them to push off the bed, but they wouldn’t hold my weight, they barely twitched in response to my brain’s command. I desperately scooted with the rest of my body protesting at the use of muscles that had long since locked up having been in such an unnatural position for so long. I worried that even now that I was free, I wouldn’t be able to make it from the bed to the bathroom.
My knees buckled when I put weight on them. I half limped, half ran to the bathroom, my arms still hanging uselessly at my sides. I didn’t even have the strength to close the door behind me. Nor could I spare the time.
I had been married to the man in the other room, after all. I’d shared all sorts of things with him. Then he’d hit me, broke me, kidnapped me. So him seeing me pee wasn’t exactly going to be something I was going to dwell on.
I managed to make it to the toilet with great pain.
And the relief itself was so painful I almost cried.
But I reasoned I’d have plenty of reasons to cry as I hobbled back into the bedroom. Craig was sitting on the other twin bed, head in his hands. It popped up as I entered the room.
“I got you food,” he said, nodding to the grease-stained paper bag I hadn’t noticed him carrying.
My stomach growled audibly at the mention of food and spotting the water bottle next to it. I only now realized how painfully dry my mouth and throat were.
I should’ve refused the food and water. That’s what the strong and plucky kidnap victim did, right? Refused to consume anything given, tried to escape at any given moment.
And I was in a given moment right now. I was standing. I wasn’t cuffed. My bladder was no longer in danger of exploding.