Collared

  “Are you okay?” Mom’s small voice rolls over me.

  I bite my lip, but the honest answer finally wells up from deep inside. “No, I’m not.”

  PAGE ONE OF my new life is ready to be written. I have no idea how to start.

  Fear has a way of crippling me, making it impossible for me to think or put one foot forward.

  I wasn’t scared earlier. When everyone was here helping me get moved in, I didn’t feel fear digging its claws into me the way I feel it now. I didn’t even feel it right after I walked my parents and Sam’s family to the door to say good night.

  They were the ones fighting the fear bug then, lingering at the front door, reminding me to call if I needed anything at any hour, confirming they’d be back over after breakfast to finish unpacking. The look on Mom’s face had convinced me she was going to spend the night camped out on my front stoop, but she left. After Dad practically dragged her away.

  The fear doesn’t hit me until I start turning off the lights, one by one, around my little apartment. The fear doesn’t find me until darkness casts its veil around me and welcomes me into it.

  I focus on my breathing and tell myself I’m safe and there’s nothing to be scared of, but it doesn’t help. The fear only gets worse with every light that switches off.

  The apartment is still in Sammamish, in a gated community. My parents even had a security system installed, and Dad pulled me aside before they left to tell me he’d stationed canisters of pepper spray at my front door, back door, kitchen window, nightstand, and in my purse. He’d also propped one of his old bats in the corner of my bedroom. I know he’s just trying to make me feel safe—they all are—but the security system and pepper spray and gates make the world seem more scary, not less.

  The apartment is about a thousand square feet, but as it gets darker, it shrinks. First down to half its size, then a quarter, until it’s become a small, dark closet I feel trapped inside of.

  My hands tremble as I walk through my new room toward my bed. I’ve set the alarm, double-checked the locks, made sure the stove is off, and turned off the lights. This is what adults do when they go to bed. They don’t break out in a cold sweat and feel like a scream’s crawling up their throat with every dark second that passes.

  This is being an adult. The first day in my new life. I knew it would be hard . . . I can handle it. This night will be the hardest. Tomorrow will be easier, and each one after will follow the same trend until I can flip off the lights, crawl into bed, and fall right asleep. Until one day, the dark won’t hold sway over me.

  My heartbeat is the only thing disturbing the silence.

  When I sit on the edge of the bed, I tell myself to lie down and crawl under the covers. I can’t. The dark isn’t as thick as the kind I’ve known, but the little bit of light cutting through the drawn shades is drawing patterns on my walls, sketching images I’m reading too much into.

  When I close my eyes, the dark’s still there.

  My heart picks up speed, and my breath follows.

  A crashing sound erupts from right outside my room. It’s so loud that when I spin around, I expect to find a smashed piano that has dropped from the sky in front of my rocking chair.

  But my room’s the same. Nothing’s different.

  I hear another crash; this one seems even louder. If it’s not inside my room, it has to be right outside my room. From the sound of it, just outside my window or the back door coming off the miniscule laundry room.

  Someone’s trying to break in. Someone knows I’m here and is coming to take me. For another decade or forever this time. He’s here, and this time, I’m not getting out.

  I grab my phone from my nightstand, fly across the room, and duck into the closet. After throwing the doors closed, I slide back until I find the corner. I can’t tell if the crashing noise I hear is an echoing in my head or real. So I cover my ears and close my eyes, but it’s still there. It can’t be real. I couldn’t hear that sound with my ears covered like this—it would be duller, not so sharp, like it’s clapping right between my ears.

  I tell myself this, over and over again, but it doesn’t chase away the fear. Fear stays fitted around me like a suit of armor, heavy and impenetrable.

  I lift the phone and focus on its light. I want to call my parents. I want to beg them to come get me and keep me safe. I want to ask them to lock me in a cell that no one has the key to. I want to ask them to hide me from the world for the rest of my life so I don’t have to feel like this.

  Right now, I’d exchange uncertain freedom for a safe cage. I wouldn’t think twice about it.

  That’s why I know I can’t call them. I can’t let them know I’m so terrified I just want to crawl into Mom’s lap and let her rock away my fears. I can’t let them know I feel so exposed that I want to slip under their blankets and fall asleep between them.

  I can’t let them know I feel the same way they do, because then I’ll never get better. I’ll continue to stagnate on my best days and decay on my worst.

  I can’t get better by giving in to my fear—I can only get better by facing it.

  When I hit the call button, it isn’t the number to my parents. It’s not even the one to Sam’s cell. It’s the number I still have in the number one spot.

  Even though I haven’t called it in two weeks. Even though I should probably delete it. Even though . . . he’s still in the number one spot.

  My hands are still shaking as the phone rings, but they’re not quaking as they had been.

  The phone rings twice, then three times, and when it hits a fourth, I worry he’s not going to answer. I worry he’s never going to answer again because I’ve done enough damage and he’s had enough.

  I’m anticipating his voicemail when he answers. He’s quiet.

  “Torrin?” I let out a long breath, trying to exhale the pent-up fear. “Torrin?”

  He’s quiet for another minute, then I hear his sigh. “I’m here, Jade. What is it?”

  He sounds tired. Since it’s almost eleven, he was probably asleep. It’s not just tired I hear in his voice though; it’s something stronger. Exhaustion? Fatigue? Something not brought on just by lack of or need for sleep.

  “I’m sorry to call you so late . . . after not talking to you for a while—”

  “You’re sorry for ignoring my calls for the past two weeks? Is that what you’re saying?”

  I hear more noises, but these are different than the crashing ones that sent me flying into the closet. These ones sound like they’re right above me, like something’s trying to crawl through the ceiling to get me.

  “I’m sorry for that and everything else.” My voice is breaking from the fear.

  “What’s the matter?” His voice is a note higher, more urgent sounding now. “Jade, what is it?”

  “I just moved into my new place and . . .” I don’t know what to say. I’m scared? I feel alone? I need someone here with me? I don’t know what to say or what I can say. “I know it’s really late . . .”

  “Yeah, you mentioned that already. Can we move past that it’s really late to the reason you called me?” Worry is playing with his voice, breaking it over words like my own.

  “I just . . . it’s probably nothing . . . but I keep hearing these noises . . .” I feel like a child running into her parents’ bedroom during a thunderstorm. I’m about to ask him if he’ll come over when I hear something in his background. Movement.

  “Where are you?” More noise in the background.

  “The Bluff Apartments. I’m unit 2B.”

  “I’m coming.” I hear what sounds like a door slam shut. “I can be there in ten minutes.”

  I try to ignore the noises coming from above me, but I can’t. The more I ignore them, the louder they seem to become. “There’s a gate. The code is . . .”

  I scan my memory for it. Four numbers. Dad wrote them down for me and stuck them to my fridge and tucked them in my purse, but I’d have to leave the closet to get to them. I can’t
move. I feel as trapped in this closet as I did in the one Earl Rae kept me in.

  “The code is . . .”—I try again—“2477 . . . or maybe it’s 2677. One of those. I think.”

  I hear what sounds like the door of his old truck whining open. “I’m coming.”

  The line goes dead, but I keep the phone propped to my ear and replay his voice in my head. I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m coming. I repeat it over and over. It isn’t the first time I’ve repeated these words to myself, picturing Torrin’s face as he says it. I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m coming.

  I don’t stop until I hear a pounding on my door followed by the doorbell.

  I crawl through the closet, shove the doors open, and run for the front door that’s being pounded on. I run like something’s chasing me and whoever’s on the other side of that door is that only one who can save me.

  “Jade?” Torrin hollers, still pounding.

  “Coming.” I know he can’t hear me because even I can’t hear me; that’s how small my voice is.

  Another pounding—this one seems to rattle the hinges. “Are you in there?”

  I slide to a stop in front of the door and just barely manage to remember to disarm the security system before opening the door. It takes me a few tries to enter the right code, and now he’s really pounding on the door. I’d say something to let him know I’m here and okay, but my voice has disappeared. Finally done with the alarm, I twist back to the door and my fingers fight with the deadbolt. When I finally pull the door open, I feel like I’m about to rattle apart from adrenaline and anxiety.

  “I’m here,” I pant, feeling my fear start to shed away just from seeing his face.

  “What took you so long?” Torrin’s forehead creases as he examines my dark apartment.

  “I was in the bedroom.”

  He continues to search around me. “Did you lock yourself in the closet or something? Because I was about to break down the door if it took you five more seconds to get here.”

  “Um, yeah, actually, I did kind of lock myself in the closet.”

  He stops searching the room and looks at me. The hard lines fade from his expression. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”

  “No, it’s okay.” I shake my head. “It’s okay. I just . . . after hearing those noises, being alone in a new place, my first night.” I close my mouth when I realize I’m speaking a run-on list of fragmented thoughts. “I was scared, and all I could think to do was call you.”

  “Because I was the closest one?”

  I step aside and pull the door open wider for him. “Because you know how to chase the fear away.”

  Because you’re my tether. The one who can pull me back from the dark places and lead me forward into the bright places again. Because you keep me connected to the person I used to be but stay at my side as I navigate the world this new person’s landed in. That’s what I really want to say, but like most of what I want to say to Torrin, it never actually gets said.

  He stares at the doorway with his brows drawn together like he’s working out a problem with no obvious solution. When he steps inside finally, the dark shifts, feeling more benign than threatening now that he’s here. My whole body relaxes.

  “Where did you hear the sounds?”

  I point down the hall. “In my bedroom. At first I heard it right outside my window, but then I heard things from above too.”

  After closing the door and locking it back up, I turn around to find him stationed in front of me, his back facing me, still checking the apartment like he’s ready for anything.

  “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Torrin moves down the hall and rounds into my room.

  I stay by the door, listening, waiting. I don’t hear the noises anymore, and I wonder if I did hear them again, would I crawl into a closet like I had or barely notice them now that he’s here? From my room, I hear the shades moving and the closet doors whining. I hear some rustling and sliding, then I hear nothing.

  “Torrin?”

  His figure floats out of my room. As he comes down the hall, he stops to flip on a light. “Why’s it so dark in here?”

  “I was going to bed. I thought I was supposed to turn off all the lights.”

  He flips on a lamp just inside the living room. “You’re not supposed to do anything unless you want to. For someone who doesn’t seem like a big fan of the dark, I wouldn’t expect her apartment to be pitch-black on her first night on her own.” Torrin leans into the kitchen to flip on the lights in there too and stops when he notices me lingering by the door.

  “You’re wearing my old soccer shirt.” His eyes drop to the worn shirt I threw on to sleep in.

  I glance down and stretch it out at the sides. “Well, you scored the winning goal at the state championship that year. Someone ought to wear it proudly.” Then I cross my arms, feeling like this shirt is somehow an extension of my soul and I’m bearing it for him to see.

  “Proudly as in wearing it to bed? Where people snore and drool and wake up with morning breath?”

  I lift a brow and feel relieved he’s acting normal, giving me a hard time and all. “Exactly.”

  He looks away for a second, but his eyes find their way back to me. “I checked around your room and outside your window. There are some big recycle bins behind your room, so someone could have been dumping their bottles or something and made that noise. You’ve also got people living above you, and with the way apartments are built, a person could be tiptoeing up there and it would sound like a hippo had moved in.” Torrin points at the ceiling. “I can’t find anything else, but I can hang around for a while. You know, just in case you hear it again. So you know for sure.”

  Recycle bins. Upstairs neighbors. Everyday noises of apartment life that had practically put me in some kind of PTSD state. I feel embarrassed and silly and immature and a bunch of other things.

  “Thanks for checking.” I shift. “And sorry. I’ll try not to wake you up in the middle of the night the next time my neighbor flushes the toilet.”

  Torrin smiles. It’s a different one than I’m used to. It looks more forced than natural. “It’s okay. And I wasn’t asleep anyway. This was actually a welcome distraction.”

  “A distraction from what?”

  He shrugs. “My thoughts.”

  I don’t know what to do with him here—inside my own place. Do I invite him in for something to drink? Would we have that in the kitchen? The living room? Not that I can move anyway because his eyes are pinning me to the door.

  “I heard about them suspending you.” I swallow. I never made that call my dad recommended. I didn’t because I knew if I did, I couldn’t just say I was sorry like I’m going to try to now. “You don’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”

  “They didn’t do that. I did that to myself. I requested the suspension.” He wanders into the living room, and I follow him. He turns on another lamp.

  “Why?”

  His back stays to me when he stops. “I needed time to think . . . thus, the thoughts keeping me awake tonight.”

  My living room, like the rest of the house, contains a mishmash of furniture. An old sofa from Sam’s place. An overstuffed chair and coffee table from my parents’ basement. A couple of side tables from a yard sale and a houseplant from the nursery in town. It has no theme or cohesion at all, but I like it. Nothing here belongs together, so I guess there’s one characteristic it all shares.

  Torrin’s taking in the room. I think he likes it too.

  “Sorry I interrupted them—your thoughts. Do you want to, you know, talk?” I curl my leg beneath me as I sit on the couch.

  Torrin glances over his shoulder. “Do you?”

  The way he asks, I know he’s not thinking about his summer plans or what day of the week’s his favorite. “Should I?”

  “I don’t know.” He turns around to face me, and in the light, I can see how tired he looks. I was right though, it’s not just tired—it’s exhaustion. Like someone’s wrung him dry and is st
ill holding on. “You’ve definitely been the highlight of my thoughts—a little firsthand knowledge would be helpful.”

  “I don’t know, Torrin . . .” I say, summing up every answer to every unanswered question that hangs between us.

  “Tell you what—you help me with that firsthand knowledge thing, and I’ll help you unpack.” He tips his chin at the stack of boxes stuffed in the corner.

  I check the retro clock stationed on the coffee table. “It’s almost midnight.”

  “Are you actually planning on going to bed tonight?” He looks at me like he knows better.

  He does. Sleep is out of the question after being scared into a closet by some footsteps and recyclables.

  “Because I’ve been trying for two weeks, and I’ve officially lost my knack for it,” he adds.

  I exhale, and his eyes trace the shadows below my eyes. “I’ve lost my knack for it too.”

  “So unpacking it is?” He’s already moving toward the boxes. He heaves the top one from the pile.

  “Thought dissection it is,” I mutter and rise to help him unpack . . . and with the other thing.

  “You got your own place.” Torrin carries the box over to a side table and sets it down. “I like it.”

  I grab the box cutter to rip it open, and Torrin doesn’t jump back when I pop out the blade. “I thought it was time to get my own place and figure out whoever this new Jade is and let go of the one I was clinging to.” I slice through the tape and open the box. It’s a few vases Mom wrapped up for me to use for decoration or for flowers.

  “I get it.” Torrin unwraps the first vase from its pile of newspaper. “Dumping the dead weight, right? Getting rid of the baggage?”

  I feel something else inside the box that isn’t a vase but is wrapped up with the rest. I pull it out and unfold the paper. Then I hold it up for him. “Not all of it.”

  His hands stop working the newspaper free when he sees the picture. It’s one of the photos of the two of us I found stuffed in my parents’ attic. I “unstuffed” them and packed them all to bring here with me.

  In this one, Torrin and I are at Westport Beach. He’s up to his knees in the ocean, and I’m on his shoulders. I’m looking down at him, and he’s staring up at me, and we’re both somewhere between a grin and a laugh. Our hair’s messy from the salt and wind, and our skin’s showing the faintest of pink from a sunscreen-less day at the beach.