36

I write novels at a consistent pace, keeping to my routines, but I don’t bother trying to keep up a uniform mood or level of excitement. Frankly, I can’t do that. Some parts just flow, and I can ride their wave while writing, and some I can’t. Then there are some parts where I just have to stop writing for a moment, the kind of stuff that I honestly don’t want to write. My writing style has evolved to where I force myself to keep pace to a destructive degree, but there are still some times where I just can’t do that. It’s at those moments where I am forced to realize that I am not part of a computer system, and I am not a robot, but rather a human…

In the interest of honesty, right after writing that 36 up there, my pen stopped… okay, to be precise my keystrokes stopped, for ten days. My period of stagnation exceeded that of my imprisonment by U a decade ago, and if I had kept things up like normal, I could have just finished this novel. Because I did finish a novel. From the time I stopped writing 35 and started writing this part 36, I wrote a novel. That’s how long ten days is for me. Granted, this isn’t a novel, but a documentary of my past trauma, but perhaps that’s why I hit this very rare spell of not wanting to write something. I can only imagine what the past aspiring author would have said about this… he probably would have lectured his unknown self, saying something like, “If you already came this far and don’t want to write, then this isn’t much of a story.” He would’ve gone on about lacking experience or something and told me to go back to the drawing board. But this is reality, not a story, so I can’t just scratch it all. I can’t change the past, what happened is set in stone, and I can’t get rid of it or avoid it.

I have to write about it. I have to face it.

However, after getting out of the bath, I did nothing to face U, let alone myself. I just went back and shut myself in the closet. I finally felt a little better, but I had to put on the same old clothes after the bath, so I wasn’t feeling all that revitalized post-bath (and the whole smell issue probably wasn’t even solved). I couldn’t ask for U to lend me clothes, either. Sure, her father’s clothes were probably in the house, but I wasn’t about to wear the clothes of a man who would do what he did to U’s body.

“Have a good night.”

U came by as usual that evening, and I almost wanted to pat myself on the back for being able to return her good night. As pathetic as that is.

Sunday night passed just like that, and the next morning, a weekday finally arrived in the form of Monday. U would be going to school, leaving me free for that time.

“Good morning to you,” she announced just like usual, and I replied in kind.

Just like Saturday and Sunday, our shared breakfast was prefaced with a, “Thank you for this meal.”

Then, she announced, “I am leaving now,” putting on her backpack and heading out the front door as I saw her off… through a tiny crack in the closet door.

I waited until about 9 AM to derail the closet door (I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t come back in for something she forgot), since that would be after classes started.

Any previous plans I wanted to follow had fallen apart. Finding out about the parents, waiting for U to come home, and sharing a proper goodbye before leaving… it just wasn’t possible at that point. I couldn’t just leave without any hard feelings any more.

It was the sixth day of my imprisonment, and sure, there was a mental fatigue aspect at play, but even if I were in top physical and mental condition, I would have come to the same conclusion.

Basically, I chose to sneak out of the house while U was at school… like a pet deciding to snap its chain and run away. I didn’t know what kind of impact it would have on U, but I didn’t have the time to worry about that. It was time to think about myself. Actually, I didn’t even have the time for that.

Feel free to call me a pathetic excuse of a man for running away from a beaten and bruised child. It was so far beyond me to get invested in that house, no, that family, and try to step into their domestic disputes. I was just a college student. I might someday regret selfishly running away from the girl blanketed in wounds, but I would rather regret it the rest of my life than spend one more day in that house.

Those were my genuine feelings.

It wasn’t like I planned to call the police or child welfare once I secured my own safety. I wasn’t thinking about the future at all. I just wanted to get back to my normal life and escape my imprisonment as soon as possible. That was all that my self-interested thoughts would allow.

They say that a person’s true nature comes out when they’re backed into a corner, so I guess that’s my true nature. I can go on about being introverted, not liking people, being a hermit, or anything else, but who I am at my core is nothing more than a despicable coward. A person that would abandon the weak and the suffering to ensure his own safety. It’s not like anyone else is any different. Well, the world being filled with similar people wouldn’t make what I was going to do any better.

But I wonder what would have really happened.

If I had been able to fully escape to safety, would I have called the police or child services? I don’t like thinking I’m an irredeemable scoundrel, but when I get down to brass tacks about who I really am, I wonder if I really would just turn a blind eye to the U family and toss them out of my mind.

Not that I’ll ever know.

There’s no way to know what I would have done after running away… because in the end, I couldn’t even be a coward right.

I still decided to try and discover who U‘s parents were after leaving the closet. I made a whole deal out of giving up on saying goodbye, then went on and did what I had originally planned. If I really just wanted to get away, then I should have done that.

The best explanation I can offer for my actions is that it was a terrible estimation of sunk cost. I’d already stayed behind the whole Saturday and Sunday to find out who her parents were, resulting in discovering the secret of U‘s abuse. If I left that unfinished, my whole investment of the weekend would have been upside-down… Maybe finding out how the U family made its money was a way to recoup some losses.

No, that doesn’t make sense. I guess my general guilt over U is making me look back at the whole process in a very self-deprecating way. Maybe all I was looking for at the time was something I could do for U. Even the smallest kindness.

It was nothing special, just cleaning the living room and doing some laundry… But I needed to do something just to feel satisfied with my contribution. And I needed the investigation as my front to find that satisfaction.

Not that it made me feel satisfied in any way.

Anyway, I stepped out of the closet and stretched. My body had been compacted about as much as it could take, so I really needed a wide space to completely let myself stretch out. But my heart refused to stretch out, crumpled as it was by all the terror and fear I’d experienced.