April 2004

“Put it down and take a step back.” The redhead gestured with a flick of her wrist, slender fingers wrapped about the rubber grip of a snub-nosed revolver leveled at Rylee. The woman stood in a measured, practiced stance with both hands on the grip, one arm bent to absorb the recoil should it come to gunshots. She was pretty, really pretty; it was one of the first things Rylee noticed apart from the nickel-plated, snub-nosed revolver pointed at her head. They stood in the woman’s living room, or at least Rylee presumed it was her living room. Bathed in the ombre light of an oncoming storm just outside a pair of glass patio doors, the woman’s long red hair alternated between moments of glowing brilliance and dullness, though her facial expression remained stern. Rylee shifted uncomfortably, her eyes darting between the sliding patio door, to the front door just beyond the kitchen. “Don’t even think about it, you’re going nowhere. Drop the bag, sit on the couch, and keep those hands where I can see them.”

Rylee looked down at the olive-green knapsack in her hands, which she currently gripped by the strap. A quick glance back to the woman solidified her position, and finally, she released it, allowing it to thud against the carpet. The woman once again waved the pistol, and Rylee dropped to the couch, keeping her hands visible as ordered. Waves of panic hit her at intervals, and between each one, she did her best to assess her captor. She was a woman about Rylee’s height, flowing red hair, pasty white skin dotted with freckles. Her stance and posture were confident, far more so than Rylee, who was now cowering on the couch, palms upturned and body shaking. The woman hooked the backpack with her left foot and slid it across the floor, dropping into a crouch so that she could grip the zipper. Before giving it a pull, she looked to Rylee, who had now broken into a cold sweat and seemed to be sinking further back, into the couch cushions.
“What am I going to find in here?” the woman asked Rylee, keeping both her gaze and hand level, even as she sat on her haunches. Her emerald green eyes flicked away from Rylee for only a second as she gripped the zipper and then looked back to her. “Rope? Duct tape? Handcuffs? What was your plan?”

Rylee sat there, trembling as she tried to come up with some way to convey that she didn’t have a plan, but it was all she could do not to black out completely as the woman overturned the backpack, spilling the contents onto the floor of the living room. The woman looked at the pile with some confusion as she looked from Rylee’s belongings, back to Rylee.

“What’s this?” she demanded, her green eyes penetrating Rylee’s soul as a scowl began to form on her lips.
“It’s just um…” Rylee began to use a shaky hand to point to the pile. Her water bottle, a half-empty pack of Advil, a five dollar bill, and a few other odds and ends - things that wouldn’t be particularly useful in a home invasion.

“What is all this?” the woman demanded, releasing the grip of her pistol and running a finger over the water bottle, and then the cracked exterior of an old flip phone.
“Just…my stuff,” Rylee said nervously. She sat stiffly, her shoulders hunched and making only occasional eye contact with the woman.
“Your stuff,” the woman repeated slowly, picking up the canvas-sleeved bottle, then a pill bottle, which she held up to the light and shook; a few pills rattled around inside the tube, prompting the woman to look at Rylee suspiciously. “You doing drugs?”

Rylee shook her head.

“What’s this then?”

“It’s um…Premarin,” Rylee mumbled. “I use it for--”

The woman raised her hand, indicating that Rylee should stop talking and then let out a sigh. “What are you doing in my house?”

“I just…I…” Rylee’s voice trembled; her body shook as she searched her mind for an answer that made sense. Her mouth went dry and any remaining confidence she’d had now dissipated in the face of the woman’s emerald green eyes and the periodic flash of metal from her pistol, still leveled at her body. The woman furrowed her brow, studying Rylee, and nearly causing her to have a panic attack on top of the one that she was already having. She set her jaw, drawing in breath after short ragged breath as her hands clenched and she slowly drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and burying her face in her legs.

“Hey,” The woman said, hesitating only a second before setting her pistol on the glass coffee table. She rose from her crouched position and stepped over to Rylee, who was now trying to burrow her way into the cushions. “Hey, come on, what’s your name?” She laid her knee against the cushion, sinking in slightly as she came to a rest beside Rylee, peeking over her knees to catch a glimpse of her face. “My name is Tori, what’s yours?”

Rylee, with her head still buried in her legs, muttered something incomprehensible into the folds of her jeans which forced Tori to suppress a smirk as she gently pushed the girl’s knees aside, revealing a bruised and sun-scorched face framed by a tangled mess of blonde hair that draped about her shoulders. She was young -- really young, perhaps seventeen, maybe eighteen. Definitely not more than eighteen. As Tori managed to expose her face, the girl suddenly made eye contact with her, eyes wide, body trembling as Tori offered a slight smile.
“You okay in there?” she asked jokingly. Rylee offered a quick shrug and immediately lowered her head. Tori placed a gentle hand beneath her chin, raising it to meet her eyes once again. “What’s your name? It’s okay, no one’s going to hurt you.”

“R-Rylee,” Rylee muttered quickly, almost inaudibly before turning her head away and shrugging out of Tori’s grasp. “C-can I go?”
“Where would you go?” Tori asked gently. “Do you live around here?” The girl, Rylee, shrugged again. “Do you break into a lot of houses?”
“P-please don’t call the police,” Rylee said in a begging tone. “I…”

“Calm down,” Tori said softly as she traced a finger beneath Rylee’s eye, noting the deep, black half circles that seemed to accompany a deep-seated exhaustion evident in the girl’s demeanor and sluggish motion. “I’m not calling the police, I just want you to breathe. Okay?”
Rylee nodded, squeezing her eyes shut and shrinking back even more as Tori studied her, trying to formulate some sort of plan. She touched the collar of Rylee’s too-big shirt, smiling slightly as she realized it had been lifted from her closet. That was part of it, at least; the girl had broken in to take a shower and ‘borrow’ a pair of fresh clothes. It might have even gone unnoticed if Tori hadn’t come home unexpectedly. She parted her lips slightly and exhaled, all the while keeping her eyes locked on Rylee’s face.
“Rylee,” she said finally, in as firm a voice as she could manage. Slowly, Rylee opened her eyes and looked at Tori. “Do you understand that I’m not going to hurt you, and that I won’t be calling the police?”

Rylee nodded slowly.

“Do you understand that you’re safe here?”

Another nod.

“Would you come with me?”

The progress was slow, and Tori felt as if she’d won a minor victory when Rylee finally rose from the couch and accepted Tori’s hand as she led her away from the living room, past the kitchen, and toward the hallway that would lead to her bedroom. As she maneuvered her through the narrow space, she took the opportunity to examine her visually, doing her best to suppress her expressions of disbelief at the girl’s physical state. She was thin, almost absurdly so, and Tori suspected it was far more than the result of a few missed meals. More than that, she could see a bruise running along her left forearm, and there was a visible limp in her gait. What on Earth had happened to this girl? Her concerns were further compounded as she gently lowered the girl’s tiny, shaking form onto her bed and sat beside her, observing a long bruise, black and blue, stretching from the corner of her eye all the way to the tip of her chin. With two gentle fingers, she traced the line of her cheekbone, watching all the while as she lay limp against the pillow.

The girl wasn’t asleep yet; she lay immobile, still trembling against Tori’s pillow, her eyes watching, tracking as Tori gripped the mess of blankets at her feet and pulled them around her body.

“Hey,” Tori said, drawing the girl’s attention. “I’m sorry for putting a gun in your face, okay?”

Rather than responding, the girl stared at Tori, but her eyelids seemed to grow heavier moment by moment as she fought the urge to plummet into sleep -- a battle that she lost within seconds. Her eyes came to a halfway-closed position as her head tilted to the side. Tori watched her for a moment before standing up and returning to the living room.

The girl’s belongings were strewn out across the floor, and Tori quickly took inventory, examining each one before dropping it back into the worn backpack. The canvas-sleeved water bottle, the cell phone, a small purple notebook, the pill bottle labeled ‘Premarin’, with a prescription made out to someone named ‘Hayley’.

“Premarin,” she said aloud, holding the pill bottle up to the light. She frowned and twisted the cap off, dropping the few remaining capsules into her hand. They were just red capsules, nothing really special about them. She shrugged and dropped them back into the bottle. Maybe there was nothing nefarious about it, other than the wrong name on the prescription bottle. She dropped it back into the backpack and then dropped onto the couch, trying to get a handle on what had just occurred.

On the surface it was simple: she’d come home early from work and found the girl in her house, raiding her pantry. She should call the police, but if one were to look past the surface of the situation it was far more complicated. The girl was hurt, she was emaciated, and she was exhausted -- not exactly your typical home invader.

“I should call the police,” Tori said aloud to no one. She closed her lips and turned her head, gazing through the sliding patio door that overlooked the backyard beyond an aging, peeling deck. She muttered it to herself again as she tossed the backpack aside and began to pace the living room, wringing her hands and taking the occasional glance toward the hallway leading back toward her room. Her thoughts wandered to the backpack. Just basic stuff, no ID, and yet nothing to indicate the girl was a threat. She couldn’t help but think of her lying there, tiny, emaciated, bruised. Was she running from something? Was Tori overthinking the entire situation? “I really should call the police.”

Rylee awoke with a start and immediately sat upward, light headed and dizzy, she kicked her legs against the mattress, pushing herself back toward the brief headboard which consequently slammed into the wall behind.

“Rylee!” Tori said loudly, leaning forward and placing her hands on the girl’s shoulders as she struggled for her life against the sheets, now entangling her legs. “Okay, Rylee, stop, stop!”

Tori made a sudden grab for the girl’s wrists, managing to wrap her fingers around one, then the other, pressing them together in front of the girl’s body and pressing them to her chest as she looked intently into her eyes. “Rylee, you’re okay. You’re safe. You’re safe.”
It seemed like an eternity before the girl worked up the nerve to respond. She sat there, arms immobilized, looking back into Tori’s eyes. It was dark outside now, and her face was partially illuminated by the moonlight seeping through the bedroom window. The room around them had taken on an eerie quality; white moonlight had reduced the color of the room to a dull monochrome for those spots that were visible; the sides were still bathed in darkness, and Tori was just barely visible.

“S-safe?” the girl, Rylee, echoed back to Tori, who nodded, keeping her grip on her wrists. “Where am I?”

“You’re in my bedroom,” Tori said, matter of factly.

“How did I get here?”

“You broke into my house, remember?” Tori asked her. “What’s your last name, Rylee?”

“Uh…”

“Okay, forget that,” Tori shook her head. “What’s your date of birth?”

Rylee simply stared at her, as if she had failed to comprehend the question.

“Rylee,” Tori said. “I’m trying to see how alert and oriented you are. You look dehydrated, and you for sure don’t look like you’ve been eating, so I’ll ask you again, what’s your date of birth?”

“Um…” Rylee paused before answering, looking at her wrists, still held in place by Tori, and then around the room as if looking for a way out. “January 18th. Nineteen eighty-six.”

“Where were you born?”

“Um…Jacksonville. Florida.”

“Is that where you’re from?” Tori slowly loosened her iron grip on Rylee’s wrists and allowed her to set her hands in her lap. Rylee shook her head and looked away, resting her head against the wall with a slight thud. “Be careful, don’t hurt yourself!”

“I’m--”

“Okay, okay,” Tori said. “Okay, do you live around here?”

Rylee shook her head.

“Are you from somewhere far away?”

She nodded.

“Your feet are blistered. Badly. You’ve been walking?

Rylee nodded.

“How far?”

She shrugged.

“Rylee, you…oh my god. You can’t just walk around like that. You can’t…didn’t anyone ever tell you how dangerous it is to walk around by yourself? Especially that far? Someone will take advantage of you or hurt you. You’re tiny, Rylee!”

Tiny. Rylee grimaced at the thought. How often had she been called that? In a way it was what she had been going for, but she hated being underestimated.

“I’m fine,” Rylee said simply, her voice nearly catching in her throat as Tori watched her intently.

“You’re not. You have bruises all over your body--”

“Did you look?” Rylee asked suddenly, her eyes wide, a look of fear forming on her face. Tori frowned.

“No,” Tori said. “I can see a bruise on your arm, and your face, it’s probably everywhere else too.” As she spoke, Rylee suddenly breathed a sigh of relief that made Tori frown again.

“I should go.”

“Go where?”

“I…” Rylee tried to respond, paused, and shrank back against the headboard. “I just…should go.”

“I have a friend about my age, she has a daughter. School’s out for the summer and she wants to start a new job. Problem is she needs a babysitter and she can’t find anyone. I think that’s a problem you and I can solve together. You don’t seem to have a problem with wearing my clothes, so--”

“Wait, no,” Rylee said, suddenly panicking. “I can’t stay here, I have to--”

“Rylee, I’ve put a lot of thought into this. I don’t know you that well but I know you’re a kid in trouble and--”

“I’m not a kid!” Rylee said, suddenly defensive. “I’m eighteen!”

“Like I said, a kid. So what happens next? You break into another house? Then another? What happens when someone pulls a gun and kills you for real? Scoot over, I’m tired.”

There was little argument to be had as Tori pulled back the sheets and climbed into the bed beside her. Rylee immediately scrambled to the far side, slamming into the wall as Tori tugged the blanket over them both.

“You okay?” Tori asked Rylee in the darkness as she felt her trembling form against her. Rylee’s increased breathing was the only answer she received. “You understand why I’m doing this, right?” Silence. “Rylee, answer me, please.”

“…I don’t know.” Rylee’s small, timid and shaking voice wafted over the sheets after what seemed like an eternity of silence.
“You’re eighteen, but you have a December birthday, and December wasn’t all that long ago. Did you leave home when you were eighteen?”
Silence. “Rylee.”

“No.”

“When?”

“…2002,” Rylee finally answered after another stretch of silence.

“And what, you’ve been wandering around since then?

“…yeah…I…yeah.”

“Did anyone hurt you?” Tori asked what she knew to be a loaded question and waited for a response. The only reply she received was Rylee’s short, shallow breaths which came in rapid succession, punctuated by the sound of the house’s central air kicking in. Finally, Tori spoke again, softer this time. “Rylee, I’m going to make you answer me every time.”

“…yes.”

“If you go out there by yourself, it’ll happen again. Maybe not today, but it will happen. Someone will hurt you and if you’re lucky, that’s all they’ll do. Go to sleep, Rylee. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

Rylee’s apprehension lifted and her body surrendered to the exhaustion of the past few days, and as she sank further and further into that abyss, she became hyper-aware of the acute throbbing in her feet.

At the apex of a dreamless sleep, her eyes shot open and she was momentarily confused, finding herself in the darkness of Tori’s room, accented only by the rectangular ray of moonlight projected on the bedroom floor, shaped by the window and stretched to the closet on the other side of the room. Panic rose and fell in her chest as she gradually remembered where she was, memories of a long road, sprawling fields, and the unrelenting elements fading into the past. She carefully slid herself toward the end of the bed, maneuvering past Tori’s legs, tangled in the white sheets. Her feet touched the carpet and she padded away from the bed, stopping at the intersection between the bedroom door and the door to the attached bathroom. The urge to simply flee the house was still there in the back of her mind, but fading with every passing moment.

Why should I leave? Rylee wondered to herself, directing the question to the side of her that simply wanted to bolt through the door and tear off down the street, taking a turn toward the nearest patch of forest and disappearing from the face of the earth. She’s right. You’re just going to get hurt.

She’ll want you to get hurt, when she figures out what you are, Rylee responded to herself, causing her body to stiffen. No one wants you, you’re disgusting.

“She wants me,” Rylee whispered to herself, her voice almost completely inaudible over the beating of her heart. “I guess, I mean--”
Rylee froze, glancing back to the bed to see if Tori had heard her or seen her talking to herself. She studied the long, outstretched form of the redheaded woman she’d met only hours before, trying to discern a face in the lump of sheets and comforter, but darkness shrouded her, the only remaining clues being the even rise and fall of her chest. Rylee relaxed a little, then turned defiantly to the attached bathroom. Inside, she quietly closed the door and flicked the light switch, flinching as her eyes were assaulted with blinding white light from three CFL bulbs affixed to the bathroom mirror. She stepped forward, studying herself in the mirror, an expression of apprehension and fear validated as she immediately identified the male features emblazoned on her face by some kind of twisted birthright.

“She won’t want you, when she figures out what you are,” her reflection said, taking on more and more male characteristics as she stood there. Her face, framed by long blonde locks, was easily identified as male upon close inspection. “You’re stupid if you think she can’t tell.”
“She can’t,” Rylee muttered. “And even if she can, she still wants me here.”

“Who even is she?” Rylee’s increasingly masculine reflection sneered. “You just met her how long ago? She held a gun to your head.”

“She was scared.”

“You should be too.”

“I just want someone to love me.” Rylee’s voice was a whisper; the reflection was unrelenting.

“And you think she loves you?” The reflection seemed to be stifling a laugh. “Run before she figures you out.”

“She won’t.”

“They always do. Eventually.”

They always do.

Those three words hung in the air, haunting Rylee’s steps as she left the bathroom, flicking the light switch and stepping back into the bedroom. Once again she found herself at the intersection between the bathroom and bedroom door, her toes barely out of the rectangular patch of moonlight.

No one loves you. No one loves us.

“Shut up,” Rylee muttered, almost inaudibly. She took a step forward, then another, then another until she stood at the foot of the bed, shuffling her way into it and working her way upward, until finally she lay beside Tori. Her breath was nearly stolen from her body as she saw Tori’s eyes, open and watching her in the darkness. They both lay there, Rylee’s ragged breath returning to normal as Tori simply watched her for a moment, and then reached her thin, yet firm hand through a tangle of sheets to find Rylee’s. Their fingers intertwined, and she pulled Rylee’s hand upward, resting it against the center of her chest. Silence hung between them as they drifted off to sleep, with that ever-present voice haunting Rylee’s thoughts; an underlying current of negativity that would never dissipate.

No one loves you.