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“I don’t like it when you raise your voice. It’s not pretty on you. Leon should have told you that,” he said as he sat on the couch in front of me. The sound of an old, slow-turning fan filled our silence but I couldn’t care less to locate it. All I cared about was my child.
“Gerald, what have you done with my child? She was with me.”
“Yes, yes, she was. I would never bring harm to a baby. She is safe, trust me.”
“How can I trust you? You have me tied up in this living room.” I responded in a loud voice while looking around the fully furnished living room.
“This?” he asked, pointing at the ropes around me. “It’s just precaution, not to harm you. My other option was to heavily sedate you, but I like my women awake and coherent.”
“Why are you doing this? What do you hope to gain from abducting a mother and her child?”
“Abducting? Is that what you think this is? An abduction? That makes me sound like some lousy criminal.”
“Yes, you abducted me and my child. I’m tied up, for goodness’ sake,” I said, moving my whole body to shake the chair I was tied to.
“I’m going to need you to stop doing that. You’re only going to exhaust yourself.”
I remained quiet, staring at him. He did have a point. If I exhausted myself, it would be difficult for me to plot an escape.
“What do you want? Money? How much?”
He stood up in anger. “Don’t insult me like that! I don’t need money.” Realizing that he was losing his temper, I watched him go through the process of calming himself down and slowly returning to his position on the couch.
“This isn’t about money. This is the kind of attitude that got us here. You and this belief that you’re better than everyone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You never gave us a chance. Vivian told you about me multiple times, but you ignored her every single time. You thought you could do better than me.”
“That did not happen. I wasn’t interested in relationships at all. It wasn’t about you.”
“What about Leon? One day, you were not interested, then the next, you were both going on dates and spending the night at each other’s houses.”
“It’s… it’s complicated, Gerald.”
“We could have been simple. Things between us could have gone way better and there would have been no complications. I loved you, and I paid attention to you. I attended your exhibitions and called to check up. I was there for you.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. The evening, at my exhibition, that I thought I saw him, came to my mind. So, I wasn’t seeing things. He was really there.
“Gerald, how did you pay attention to me?” I asked, trying to know more about what he was saying.
“There were days I would spend outside your window watching over you. I’d call to hear your voice. Sometimes, I gave Ava’s babysitter a lift to the house. I was an integral part of your family, but you ignored me.”
The calls where no one would say anything over the phone started to make sense. He was standing by my window! How creepy was this man? What sort of mess had I gotten myself into?
“I even took to sending Leon messages, hoping he’d get the message and leave you alone. He didn’t.”
“How did you get his number?”
“Hacking your phone is easier than you think. That was how I got his number too. It was how I got to find out a lot about you.”
My skin crawled at the information he had just given me. All this time, he had access to my phone and details. I suddenly felt like throwing up.
“Why Leon? What was it he had that I didn’t? And don’t say money because I have enough to take care of us but you never cared to find out.”
“He is Ava’s father.”
“That’s not an excuse to sleep with him!” his voice thundered.
