A Promise Kept

I watched her.

I always watched her.

It had become my obsession.

My way to deal with my anger.

She was young, carefree, beautiful. Even thinking the word filled my head with disdain.

I’d gone to see her once before … as I had promised. It took a while with my situation and then I had to find the courage to go, but I did go. I was just about to walk up to her when she was approached by a homeless man. He looked dirty, his back hunching over either from age or because of the strain of his life, and his face showing lines and wrinkles even though he was probably younger than he looked.

I halted in my tracks, waiting for the events to transpire so I could make my way to her. I watched them. I didn’t hear the words he spoke, but he held his hands out as though he’d been asking for some spare change. I didn’t necessarily expect her to hand over money. After all, in this day and age, people rarely carried cash. But what I didn’t expect was the sneer she gave him as well as the outrage written on her face. I couldn’t hear the words she tossed at him, just little bits that floated through the air, but I heard enough to know she’d lashed out at him. She, a woman of means—strong, independent, and everything the poor man wished he was—lashed out at a homeless man most likely just down on his luck.

I saw myself in him. A man down on his luck with no way to climb out of the hole I’d been put in. But my situation was different. I wasn’t just dirty and in need of some help so my world would magically be turned back on its right axis. No, I was damaged goods, never to be whole again.

No amount of help would right me back on my axis.

I watched the homeless man hobble away, and then I took a moment to study her face. She watched him walk away too, wearing the same look of scorn on her scowling face. I turned then. I turned on my heel and walked away from her, from my promise.

She didn’t deserve my words. She didn’t deserve for me to keep my promise. She didn’t deserve to know.

So I left. And I left it at that.

I didn’t think about her for a little while. I didn’t let myself think about her.

But that didn’t last for very long. My mind kept drifting back to her, back to the promise. And it ate at me. It tore a hole in my heart so big, so dark, so black that there was no more light in my heart. My anger consumed me until I could no longer take it.

My feet walked even when my head didn’t tell them to, finding their way to her again. I didn’t even know what I was doing, so I just watched. And then I watched some more. I learned more about her that way. I learned her patterns, her routines, about her friends, about her work, her social life, about her life period.

With each interaction, I felt the black hole in my heart grow bigger and bigger. I felt my anger intensify.

It gave me something to focus on, to live for.

And so I watched her.

I always watched her.

She had become my obsession.

My way to deal with my anger. My way to deal with my anger toward her. Toward the unfairness of it all. Toward the things I couldn’t change, and the things I desperately wanted to.

And then one day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I watched her smiling, watched her laughing like no other life mattered to her but her own. How could she continue to live so freely with the way things had gone? How could she not care about what had happened?

I snapped.

I took what I wanted, no cares in the wind and no righteous justification. My black heart pumped blood into my veins, telling me that she deserved to suffer the way I had. After all, it was all really her fault. Everything was her fault. And she hadn’t suffered. But now…she would.

The first thing I noticed was how heavy my eyes felt. I wanted to open them, and they wanted to stay shut. I tried to remember what I had done the night before. Did I go out? Party and drink too much? No. It wasn’t really my thing. Most girls my age went out and got blitzed regularly, but I didn’t find anything particularly amusing about dry heaving in the toilet and waking up on the bathroom floor feeling like death.

That, along with working full time while going to school—especially in the social circle I grew up in—meant that I had plenty of friends but not many real friends. I was, to put it bluntly, a spoiled rich kid. At least I was until eleventh grade. Money didn’t make people better. In fact, I think more often than not, it made them worse. I’d seen my fair share of things I didn’t like from my friends over the years—picking on the kid in our private school who was there on a scholarship because he was poor, backstabbing and spreading rumors because someone wanted to be crowned queen of some dance, friend’s fathers walking into restaurants wrapped around women clearly not their wives, and watching the friend in question just shrug like it was acceptable. I had been a part of this world even if my parents were nothing like the rest. They looked at each other like they were the only two people in the world. And they looked at me like I was a gift from heaven. I know they had trouble conceiving, and when I was finally born, they said I was their miracle. And they made sure I’d felt that way all my life.

Each day, they told me that I could do and be whatever I wanted; that as long as I looked in the mirror and liked what I saw, they’d be proud of me because they trusted my judgment.

I think it might have helped that my parents hadn’t come from money themselves either. My mom worked for a corporation doing some analytical work while my dad owned a small technology firm. They made do, from what I understand, but right around the time I was two, my dad invented some part for NASA and his business shot through the roof. I was young enough that I don’t remember the simple life we had before that happened. All I remember were private schools and snotty kids.

In eleventh grade, I finally looked in the mirror and didn’t like what I saw. I had stood by for far too long as my friends picked on other kids and wreaked havoc on their lives and those around them. It was when one of those so-called friends made fun of one of our teacher’s children for having Down Syndrome and watched everyone around her laugh that I had enough.

Mrs. Wilson was a sweet, mild-tempered teacher, and her boy, whom she often brought to school with the approval of the principal, was even sweeter. Neither of them deserved the wrath of Elisandra and her little minions.

I told her she was a bitch, and anyone who had laughed was as brainless as she was. Needless to say, they didn’t take too kindly to me. It was fine; I didn’t care.

But I vowed I wouldn’t be a spoiled rich kid anymore.

When I told my parents I wanted to help pay my way through college by working, they argued, but I felt the pride behind their arguments. I wanted to work hard and make it on my own just as my parents had. I wasn’t altogether independent, though, and I knew I was lucky to have their backing, so I didn’t ever turn down their offer of assistance.

I lived on campus for the first two years, and I definitely attended my fair share of parties. But as I said, that wasn’t really my thing. I wanted to make something of myself, not just be another person passing my time in college as I waited for my trust fund to kick in. When I told my parents I wanted to look at off-campus housing, I wasn’t too surprised when they called me the next day to tell me they purchased a home just a few blocks from campus.

We want to make sure you’re safe, my dad had told me. And besides, it’s a good investment.

It’s in my name, isn’t it? I asked.

Can you blame me for wanting to invest in your future? You’re my baby girl. I’m proud you want to work hard and not take things for granted, but believe me when I say even I accepted handouts when they were given. You need to learn that it’s okay to receive help. It’s not all about making it from scratch.I love you, Daddy, I told him.

I love you too, kiddo.

And so, yes, I did enjoy some of the perks of being rich, but being in a house by myself, away from campus—and not having parties at said house—and working in my free time, didn’t afford a lot of time for friends. Don’t get me wrong, I had a few, but I probably wasn’t as close to them as I could have been if I was free to hang out as often as they were.

I blinked open my eyes as the thoughts disappeared.

The second thing I noticed was that once my eyes were open, my thoughts weren’t so clear. Like the neurons in my brain weren’t firing on all cylinders.

The third thing I noticed was my surroundings. I didn’t know where the hell I was. Nothing looked familiar. I was lying on a bed with the sheets surrounding me like a cocoon. I realized with a relieved exhale that I was fully clothed. Thank God for small favors. I glanced around the room, taking in the cleanliness and how tidy everything was. The room looked lived in, yet nothing was out of place. No clothes were strewn over the dresser, no shoes on the floor in a messy pile, no clutter or even pictures adorned the room. Just the simple bed I was in, one nightstand, and a lamp, and a dresser to the side. The only thing that made the room more personable was a small frame with a collection of military medals. I didn’t understand them, but I knew enough to know they were given with honor. Something about that seemed to calm my nerves. But then I turned to the side …

And the last thing I noticed was that I wasn’t alone. I opened my mouth to scream, but he had the reflexes of a jungle cat. He was on me, his body covering mine and his hand over my mouth before I could get a sound out.

I wouldn’t do that if I were you, he said quietly but with an authority that had me shivering with true fear for the first time since I’d woken up. Looking up at his mask-covered face, I realized the only things visible were his eyes and mouth through slits. The words from his mouth rendered me paralyzed, but his eyes had my body quaking underneath his. They were full of hatred, pure hatred. And it was directed at me.

He hadn’t outwardly threatened me, he hadn’t even hurt me, per se, but his eyes told me he could, and he would.

Instinct told you to survive, but survival didn’t always mean screaming and running. I had just a few seconds to assess the situation, and it didn’t even take me that long to realize that I would probably be dead with my head snapped in two before I had a chance to make a noise, let alone try to make it to the door … and that was if I could somehow manage to push him off.

He must have read my eyes because he rasped, Good. I see you understand. I’m going to remove my hand. I’m going to get off you and go back to my chair. And you’re going to listen.

He didn’t bother to wait for me to nod. He knew he had me.

Still, the minute his hand came off, my mind illogically tried to scream. He let me and simply shrugged. He still pinned me with his body, so I had nowhere to go.

He moved his face toward my ear, and my scream was suddenly cut off as his breath tickled my neck, causing my fear to spike.

I like my privacy, he told me. Scream all you want, but my windows are soundproof. No one will hear you unless I want them to. I was doing you a favor by shutting you up. You’ll want to save your energy … He left the rest of the sentence hanging in the air, but I didn’t know what it was.

All I knew was that my heart was beating so fast, I thought it would find a way to sprint out of my body. I knew I was scared beyond belief, scared beyond reason, and when he lifted off me moments later, my body was frozen. Shock, I presumed.

Now, Lila. He didn’t just say my name; he spat it out like a curse word, making me wince. You are a smart girl. I don’t need to spell out what’s happening here, he mocked, his voice harsh. I also don’t need to explain exactly all the ways I could torture you, hurt you piece by piece before I could kill you with my bare hands. I’ve seen the understanding dawn on your face. I saw you stare at my medals. And yes, those are mine. So you know the kind of training I’ve had.

Why are you doing this? I asked, finding my voice. You’re a hero! I yelled. How could you do this?

"Make no mistake, I am a hero, he said as he leaned in closer. He was far away, but it felt like his face was right in mine. But I’m not your hero. No, I’m far from it. I’m your monster. He emphasized the word, and I believed him. You can run, you can hide, but I will find you, and I’ll bring you back here, kicking and screaming if I have to."

Why? I cried out.

Because you deserve to suffer. I felt the tears rise at his words. Was this for all the times I stood by while I watched my friends do their worst to those who didn’t deserve it? Was this my karma? But I hadn’t partaken. I hadn’t approved, and I had left that life. I didn’t deserve this man’s wrath.

I was crying now, my body shaking with the force of my tears as I clung to the sheets around me like a life saver. He just listened and watched me cry without a care.

Enough, he roared after a few minutes. Enough with the tears. It’s time for you to make a choice.

Choice? I asked with a hoarse whisper.

I can and will harm you. I will take your body against your will. I will make it mine. I will mold you into what pleases me as you bleed, as you cry, as you beg. And I will find great pleasure in it. I will find great pleasure in your suffering.

No, I told him. No, I screamed louder as I shook my head, my body finally finding a reason to flee as I tried to untangle myself from the sheets.

Or I will not touch you. I stopped struggling with his words. I won’t touch you until you ask me to, but you will marry me. You will be mine in every sense of the word, on paper, in the eyes of the world, but we won’t consummate our marriage until you want to.

I … I don’t understand.

There are many ways to make someone suffer, he said with simplicity. You can break their body, you can break their spirit, or you can break their heart. I’ve had all three broken, yet here I am being generous and giving you the choice to pick one.

Why? Why would you want me to marry you? I asked, truly puzzled, not understanding a single thing.

Because you will tie your life to mine, a monster. You will forgo any notions of love and family and big dreams to become my wife. That, in and of itself, is a form of suffering, and as I said, I will take pleasure in your suffering.

I’ll run the minute I can. I’ll go to the police. I’ll tell them you forced me to marry you, and your plan would have failed, I told him with my chin suddenly up, my backbone finding a bit of steel. He couldn’t and wouldn’t get away with this.

Go ahead. I’m an upstanding member of society, he said as he pointed toward the medals. "I’m a hero. He used my words against me. No one will believe you."

My parents will.

Yes, he said with a sinister smirk. About that. If I so much as think you’re going to run, I’ll kill them. And believe me when I say I will get to them before you get to the police. Yes, I’ll be in jail, but they’ll be dead.

I felt the truth of his words, the hopelessness of it all. He was right. I could run, but even then, I most likely wouldn’t make it far. I could try, but he’d get to my parents before anyone would get to him.

What good would my freedom be then?

I sobbed again as I pulled my legs up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them and burying my face in my knees. This time, he let me cry until I no longer had any more tears to shed. And when I finally looked up, he just stared at me, radiating that hatred toward me still.

He’d given me a choice, but it was no choice at all. He was well and truly breaking me, making me suffer as he’d said. My choice was how. But was that really a choice? How many people would give up their body? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t one of them.

Your choice? he asked.

I wouldn’t give my body to the monster. So I gave him my life. I’ll marry you.

Being a military man, some might say I was a gambler, but I didn’t buy that. It was a profession, a lifestyle even, that came with risks. I’d say it was more hoping that the risks didn’t outweigh the rewards than gambling. Other than that, I’d never been a gambling man until that moment something inside me broke. One minute I was tailing Lila, and the next, she was in my arms as I placed her on my bed.

It hadn’t even been difficult to knock her out. A couple of well-placed Xanax in her evening hot chocolate, and I just waited until she closed her eyes. She didn’t even know I’d been in and out of her place.

It was once I had her in my bed that I realized what I’d done. I’d kidnapped her. I’d been a wreck for some time, my hate rightfully placed with the woman in my bed, but although I looked like a monster, I had never thought of myself as one before.

I didn’t know what the hell I was thinking or what the hell I was doing. All I knew was that I wanted her to suffer, to feel the depth of pain I’d felt. When she opened her eyes, my mouth knew what to do before my mind did.

And that was when I suddenly became a gambling man. I hated