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All I know is, at the moment, I don’t care.
Every ounce of my caring is gone. It’s been taken.
The longer I take these drugs, the more I will feel empty. I know that from experience.
The walls start to close in on me, and my skin starts to itch, and the ceiling seems to fall. I focus harder on the wall in front of me. If I don’t, I will lose my mind, and he can’t have that. He can take my feelings, but he can’t have my mind.
My thoughts are my own.
I breathe in and out, I focus hard, harder, harder.
I picture Zuzu and Mila. I know I love them. I know I do. Love is a fact. It isn’t always a feeling. I don’t need to feel it at the moment to know it’s true.
I picture Zu’s blonde curls and bright eyes, her bright smile and her tiny fingers. She holds my hand at every opportunity. I imagine walking across the garden with her, playing hide and seek, which Mila watches. Mila’s eyes are clear too, and her smile is like the sun. She watches us, and the love she feels is in her eyes, and she reaches for me, and my stomach clenches.
They’re going to kill me, and that will kill Mila. It will kill her.
I don’t care for myself, but I care what it will do to her.
She’s been through so much already. She shouldn’t have to go through this, too.
I stand up, and because I know they are watching me through the small camera in the corner, I take the remaining boxes and throw them as hard as I can against the wall. I stomp on them. Then I flip off the camera.
The tiny red light blinks and I know they see.
I stare at them without blinking.
“Fuck you,” I tell them.
The light blinks.
They see me.
I smile.
* * *
Mila
Pax rages against captivity.
His muscles bulge as he throws the boxes of drugs against the wall and then stomps them into oblivion. When they are tattered and torn and flat, he flips off the camera, and they must be watching him through it. I smile because this is my husband. This is the man I married.
He won’t take it lying down.
I’m terrified about what they will do to our daughter, but I know that they will do what they’re going to do regardless. It was never contingent upon what Pax does. I know that.
The door bursts open and two men dressed in black storm in. They fight with Pax, and the movement seems to be slightly delayed. Every few seconds, it catches up, and it seems like it skipped a frame.
One is kicking him now, over and over in his gut. My husband’s body jerks and lifts with each blow. I call out and scream, but they don’t stop. I can feel each blow as if they are doing it to me. That is how closely my husband and I are connected.
When he is limp, I’m limp.
My brow is sweaty, my hands are shaking.
He is no longer conscious, and they heft him onto the bed, restraining him there. His hands and feet are bound and he is bound to the bed itself. He isn’t going anywhere. His face bleeds, his nose looks broken.
His head lolls to the side and they leave him there, alone and broken.
