Romantic Love

I wake slowly, awareness dawning so gradually that by the time I realize I'm staring at a lamp, I don't know if it's been twenty seconds or two hours. My head feels clear at last, but I am overwhelmingly tired. I have vague memories of waking here before and feeling sick.

But where is here ? I don't know this place. Dread begins to creep into my body, making me dizzy with fear and scaring away tiredness for a moment. I mentally pull myself together and take stock of the situation, something I know I've had to do before to survive. My eyes dart around the room, taking in as much information as they can. I seem to be in a cabin. I am lying in a warm bed nestled between the silkiest sheets I've ever touched. A window to my left reveals that darkness has enveloped the cabin. Did I see light from this window before? Snow is stuck to the glass panes, peering in at me. A snowy evergreen branch slaps the window, the sight of it sparking something in me.

The memory of running suddenly hits and sends me curling up into myself with a familiar terror. They are chasing me. I am being hunted. They won't stop until I'm dead too.

My body is shivering in fear when I remember the new plan to keep me safe. I'm moving to Alaska. A plane took me from Seattle to Fairbanks, I slept in a motel room just down the road from the airport, and I remember the helicopter we took the next morning. But I can't remember anything after the helicopter. The memory of running resurges, but I tamp it down. I dream about running in terror most nights. That was just another dream.

I look at the cabin around me. I must be in the safehouse Johnston was taking me to. The memory of Johnston, my handler, smiling kindly at me while reassuring me that he'd protect me at all costs makes me feel just a little bit calmer. I seize that thought like a drowning girl. I just need to convince myself that I'm safe, that Johnston is on the other side of the door in the corner with that light coming under it - with that shadow in the middle - it must be Johnston, coming to check on me. Everything is fine.

My carefully crafted reality shatters when the door opens and the man who walks in is not Johnston. Terror comes flooding back when the man and I make eye contact. He freezes and takes a step back. He's wearing a plaid, long-sleeved shirt and a black ski mask over his face. This is almost cartoonish. I survived so long, knowing the faces of the men who almost murdered me, only now to be killed by a man in a ski mask. Are they trying to play with me before they kill me? I clutch at the sheets in front of me, my only defense.

"So you're awake, then." His voice is gruff, raspy, and sounds strained. He coughs. Even if I try to respond, the terror constricting my throat won't allow any sound to pass through. He must notice my fear, because he quickly adds, "I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe. No one can find you here."

I feel my brow furrowing. I don't understand. Nice, safe people don't wear ski masks when they come to talk to you. But his voice doesn't sound like either of the two that haunt my dreams.

My survival technique kicks in again. I create my own version of reality and convince myself it's true. Everything is fine. This is normal. He works with Johnston. This man is here to help you. Everything is fine.

Clinging to my last threads of security, I timidly ask, "Where's Johnston?"

He pauses. "Who?"

I pull the blankets closer as my facade crumbles. Where am I? Who is this man? Where is Johnston? Why would he tell me that no one can find me here? Is that a threat?

Waking up in a strange place with gaps in my memory is disturbing enough without a masked man making vaguely threatening statements. The fact that he somehow knows I'm hiding from someone is even more suspicious.

The spiraling terror of a panic attack threatens. I can't let it take control of me now. I have to stay here, present. I have to get answers. I have to be OK. Everything is fine, everything is fine.

"How do you know someone is looking for me?" I ask, my voice little more than a squeak.

"You talked while you were delirious."

"Delirious?"

"You've been very sick. I didn't think you'd make it."

"How did I get here?"

"I found you in the woods, half-frozen to death. You had a gash on your temple. I think you may have hit your head pretty hard."

He found me in the woods? My last memory is of riding in the helicopter. How did I come to be in the woods? I want to ask, but I doubt he knows.

"Do you remember how you got there?" he asks.

I shake my head and continue to eye him. He has turned to face me, but his right side is angled away. I can only see his left eye. I can't tell if the ski mask is blocking the other eye or if something else is covering it. He holds a makeshift wooden tray that looks more like a spare plank than a real tray. On the tray is a glass of water and a bowl. I notice he is holding the tray oddly, only with his left hand. His right is tucked up against his midsection, the hand encased in a glove. The knuckles on his left hand gripping the tray are turning white. With his facial expressions hidden from me, his death grip is the first indication I've seen that he is nervous too. That strikes me as odd. Why would he be nervous around me? I pose no threat to him. He looks away from me and coughs again, the items on the tray rattling dangerously. He looks down, then back to me.

"Are you hungry? I have broth."

I nod, realizing that I am famished. My stomach growls immediately. He walks forward and I frown slightly. He has a noticeable limp. His right leg seems much weaker than his left. He sets the tray on the bed next to me and pauses, looking away quickly when he sees my expression.

"Do you need help? With the broth, I mean."

I release the sheets I've been clinging to and sit up, reaching for the bowl. I freeze when I see the sleeve of the shirt I'm wearing. I am not wearing my own clothes. This is a man's shirt.

"These aren't my clothes."

I look up at him in horror. He gives no indication that he's heard me.

"Did - did you change my clothes?" I ask breathlessly.