Where I Lay My Head

------------------RACHELS POV----------------------

If this was fiction , I would have wallowed in misery for an appropriate amount of time before stumbling upon a well of self-confidence and going after her at the very last minute. I would have stopped her from leaving Toms River entirely, if this was a movie. But it was most definitely reality so I let her walk out of my arms, out of that apartment and out of that town without one step of defiance.
My pallet of emotions for the next week was entirely negative, consisting of self-loathing for letting Addie leave, hate towards the guys for pushing her away, and a general distaste for life knowing that I would never find a girl like her again. Sebastian was out of town for that week visiting family, something that couldn't have happened more conveniently. This meant no rehearsal, and this meant no explosive fights triggered by the boiling resentment I felt towards all of them.
The worst aspect of this situation was knowing what was in store for Addie all while not knowing a damn thing. I knew she would eventually find her way home and that her parents had plans for her to elope once she did so, but what I didn't know is if this was something that would really work out or if I would ever see her again. It all seemed too awful to contemplate but I couldn't help it anyways. It weighed on me at all hours of every day until I just couldn't take it anymore. Pushing aside all of the anger I felt towards Cecil, I let myself into his house the following Sunday to investigate.
I found him reading a book at his kitchen counter, something that he did as much as possible to 'excercise his thinker', as he put it. My entrance broke the silence that was his apartment and he jolted upwards to look at me with a stoic expression.
"Hey man. Whats up?" he spoke blandly.
"Have you heard anything from Addie?" I inquired forcefully, in no mood for small talk or anything of the sort.
He narrowed his eyes poisonously at me with the first mention of her name.
"No, and this is the last time I'll ever talk about her again. If you've got a problem with that then you can get the fuck out of my house."
I was far from understanding exactly why he said this but it extracted from my deepest confines a huge wave of anger. "Fuck you! It's not my fault she left. It's yours, motherfucker!"
My excessive use of profanity and thunderous screaming did little to alarm him but he had a sturdy defense.
"I know it is, you son of a bitch." and with this, he stood up to tower over me by half a foot. It would have been very intimidating if I wouldn't have known him better. An angry Cecil is still an incredibly good guy in general. "Addie was the only family I had left and I chased her away. The only thing that could mean anything to me! If you came over to tell me this then just get the fuck out because I'm well aware of it. I haven't stopped thinking about it since the minute she left."
"Well, then... let's go get her." I retorted hastily.
He shook his head with a terrifyingly hopeless expression melting his features. "You just don't get it. It's too late. She's back in Mullica now, and she's gone...entirely. She doesn't even exist anymore. No more Addie, do you get it?"
As he spoke further I heard his voice falter more and more to approaching hysterics. "She's a slave to that fucked up religion now and she's a slave to that fucked up old man that she's gonna marry. Nothing else. And you can't understand this, but I do...so much more than I'd like to. I know everything that she's going through right now and it's terrible. It's why I left that shithole and it's why I will hate myself forever for pushing her back there. Addie isn't meant to be an Amish wife and that's why they're going to do everything in their power to take the Addie out of her so she'll be the perfect slave. All they will want her to do is cook for him and clean his house and be his whore and let him fuck her and hit her whenever he wants. All while covering it up with some bullshit faith."
By the time that god-awful speech was done, Cecil was in tears and I was nearly sick. As if I wasn't in enough agony without knowing the disturbing infrastructure of the Amish marriage.
He buried his tear-laden face in his hands and turned away from me. “I turned the most important thing to me into a... a fucking… prisoner. And I know you hate me for it right now, but please just try to understand and try to be a friend, and just… forget about it. That’s all we can do because she’s fucking gone.”
Understanding all of that was probably the hardest thing to do. It made me feel physically sick, imagining Addie, the purest, kindest soul I would ever meet, as some sort of drudge to this pedophile Jon Truck and this cult called a religion. How ironic it is that I had gone to Cecil’s house that day to make myself feel better. This being said, I was at least glad that I hadn’t been the one to cause her to leave Toms River and felt sympathy for Cecil now. I also trusted him when he said all that was left to do was forget about her, but alas this was impossible so it just stuck with me, day in and day out until time eventually eroded the pain.