Mess Us Up – Jaxson Kidman Page 0,3

me on my favorite pink towel and kept saying my name over and over.

He kept saying soothing things to me.

I couldn’t stop looking at the ocean and panicking.

My father finally made me look at him.

He said we were going to play a game.

He wanted me to take a deep breath in for four and out for four.

I did that over and over and the feeling went away.

In a few minutes I was calm.

A few minutes after that calmness, I was laughing again.

That’s what I do now.

I breathe in… then out… then in… then out…

It’s not working though.

Nothing is working.

I’m trapped here!

I’m stuck here!

Help!

H-E-L-P!

“Help! Help! Help!”

A hand touches my face.

I jump…

And the dream ends again.

I grab the sheets on the bed and open my eyes.

I gasp for a breath.

“It’s okay… I’m right here… it was just a dream, Jolie. Just another bad dream.”

I take another breath and hurry to sit up.

Mama Dae is right there to comfort me.

She hugs me.

And I start to feel better.

Okay, fine, I’m more or less hiding at the moment.

It’s not technically a kidnapping, but that’s what everyone else needs to think.

Why?

I’m not sure yet.

Soon enough though, I’ll know everything.

That’s what Mama Dae keeps telling me.

I stand at the bathroom sink and splash water on my face.

That stupid nightmare keeps happening.

All because of the word kidnapping.

From the second I was told I had to be fake kidnapped, that dream conjured itself up in my mind. It was so quick and instant. And I know it’s just a dream. I know it’s nothing close to reality at all.

Yet I keep having it over and over.

Somewhere inside me I keep thinking it’s really going to happen.

Someone is going to show up and take me away.

The man who was in my apartment? Is he the one?

I shake my head.

“No, Jolie, no,” I whisper.

The guy that had scared me in my apartment… he had something to do with my father.

I’m fake kidnapped or hiding for my own good.

My own safety.

I’m not sure I believe that but it’s all I have to grasp at.

I reach for a towel and dry my face.

When I turn, the doorway’s empty.

Mama Dae is back downstairs.

I feel bad that she has to come up the stairs to calm me down when I’m having that nightmare. I must yell for help so loud…

I swallow hard and want to cry.

But I don’t.

I know how to control it now.

There’s no reason to cry.

It’s not going to solve anything.

I look to the bathroom window.

It’s dark out.

Duh.

I wonder what’s actually happening out there.

What are my parents thinking? Do they know anything yet? Are they freaking out? Are they scared? What does my father feel right now? Does he blame himself?

I shuffle my feet across the bathroom floor and go out into the hallway.

I go to the steps.

I want to tell Mama Dae I’m sorry.

She won’t accept it though.

She doesn’t want me to be sorry or feel sorry.

I start to turn when I hear a voice.

It’s not Mama Dae’s voice…

Don’t worry… it’s just the person from the police department who is supposed to find me.

Find me.

I sit on the top step and roll my eyes.

I will say, I do feel a little bit captive though.

The line between hiding and kidnapped seems more and more blurred right now.

It’s so weird to just want to go outside and walk somewhere.

Where?

No idea.

I just want to walk somewhere.

I want to…

I want to text Violet.

I want to talk to her.

My cellphone was tossed into the ocean to throw everyone off my trail.

I have another phone now.

But it’s cheap.

It’s a burner cell.

Burner cell.

I can’t believe I know what that is.

Or the fact that I have one and use it.

Oh, or maybe the fact that Mama Dae has a basket full of them.

You know how some people have a basket full of knitting stuff? Maybe you do or don’t… but it’s a box that’s meant to have sewing stuff in it. Needles, thread, that kind of stuff.

Not Mama Dae.

She has a basket full of guns.

And a basket full of phones.

And if a phone gets compromised, it’s quickly destroyed.

This is my life now.

I have Violet’s number memorized.

I know I can’t call her. But I can’t stand the idea of her worrying about me either.

“You think she’s going to be okay?”

“She’s fine,” Mama Dae says. “She’s got a tough soul. Maybe it doesn’t show on the exterior…”

“You think?”

I hear the sound of a slap.

I cringe.

“Sorry about that, Mama,” Declan says.

Yeah, that’s right, Declan is the cop who is supposed to be looking