Mutually Numb

“Daddy… I’m really worried about Mommy.” I heard my daughter say as she looked out the window of my apartment building. “Look, her car is still there. And she was acting really weird two days ago… I’m worried about her.”

“I am too, Aimie. She is under a lot of stress, you know? It’s hard being a mother and doing everything that she does. She really has a lot on her plate, but she handles it all very well. Mommy takes very good care of you. And of me as well.” I guess it took saying it out loud for me to actually realize what she does for us. Sure, Claire might be absolutely insane, overreact to everything and cry over the easiest things, but she still fulfilled her motherly duties, and remained a very good companion to me over the years. She really is one of the best of friends that I could have asked for. Claire is always very easy to repy on, she is right there when you need her, and is always willing to cheer you up. I guess I had taken all of her kindness and stretched it out until only the fibers of crazy and paranoia were left over. Everything that happened was solely my fault, but I still refused to take responsibility for it. I relied on her more than she relied on me, but nobody knows that.

“Do you think that she went out on another vacation like last time, Daddy?”

Ash found her way into the living room and sat down next to Aimie. “I’m sure she’ll be fine, Aimie.” Ash said in that nice soothing voice of hers. “She should be back very soon. Everybody needs a vacation every now and again, right?”

“I guess…” Aimie said

I gulped, having a bad feeling about everything. But what did I know; my gut was wrong more than half of the time. Look at where it has me now. “Well,” I started, looking over to Aimie, “What do you say we stop by Mommy’s house and see if she walked home? She might not be feeling well and could be resting at home.”

“Okay!” My daughter exclaimed as she jumped up from the couch to go get her shoes.

“That’s actually a pretty good idea, Ruki. I wouldn’t have thought of that.” Ash looked over to me and gave a small smile. “I really hope that everything with Claire is okay… I didn’t mean for her to see me so suddenly… I feel horrible. She looked so shocked to see me. I’m sure she still cares about you, and I know it must have hurt for her to see me here...” She trailed off as her eyes slowly shut.

I exhaled deeply. “I’m sure everything will work out fine.” Don’t get me wrong, I like Ash, but I don’t want to deal with two moody girls right now. Claire was already plenty to keep me busy.

Within a matter of seconds, Aimie was already waiting for us at the front door. She had her shoes on and her doll Mable in her arms.

~~~

The best part of the day was when I was stuck in the cellar alone. Taro only came in a few times a day; but rarely ever gave me food. I’ve had one piece of bread the entire time I was down here. The majority of his visits weren’t for food or caring for me, they were for his own pleasure.

There were deep burn marks where the ropes were tied around my arms and legs. It hurt to even move them slightly. My body was stretched so that my feet and hands touched each other behind my back. The pain was excruciating when any part of me was budged. My tongue was dry and fuzzy because of the cloth that was jammed in my mouth. My throat burned and screamed for liquid. The remainder of my garments had been strewn across the room somewhere else, Taro had cut them off. My hair was matted with blood, dirt, and who knows what else is on this floor. The majority of my body was numb, sometimes I got off into a daze and I was totally unsure of who I was, or where the tangible parts of me were.

I heard the door upstairs close, which only meant one thing: Taro had finally gone. I was safe for this remainder of time. I never had any idea what time of day it was, or how long I had been down here. It feels like it’s been forever inside this dark and musty room.

Most of my time alone was spent either crying or sleeping. There wasn’t anything else left to do. My life was now reliant on fear. Every action that I chose to do was dependent on whether he was coming back down to see me or not. It seemed like nobody was ever going to save me from this. Every day, I braced myself for what was going to happen, and tried to get as acquainted to it as possible. If the rest of my life was going to be like this, I might as well get used to it, right?

~~~

As soon as the metallic key went into the lock, my daughter burst into Claire’s apartment. She was yelling and shouting, wondering where she was. The first place she ran to Claire’s bedroom. Ash and I followed shortly behind.

I let out a deep sigh. “We’ve gone here three days in a row Ash.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “I know that she isn’t here. None of the guys have seen her either… I have no idea where she could have gone.”

We both sat down on the couch as Aimie continued to run around into various rooms. “At least your daughter doesn’t seem to be taking it too hard. She still seems to be pretty light-hearted about the entire situation. I mean, I’m only trying to make the best of a bad situation, but Aimie could be crying and completely devastated that she hasn’t seen her mom for almost a week. At least she thinks that Claire will be back here every time we come.”

“That still isn’t the point!” I snapped back

She quickly retracted her hand and laid back onto the couch

I let out a deep sigh and ran my hands over my forehead and through my hair. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, I’m just really worried about Claire. Out of all the stunts she’s pulled, this is by far the most ridiculous and tiring of them all.” I paused for a second before lifting my head up from my hands, “I just want to know where she is.” My eyes lightly watered up. I guess her disappearance bothered me more than I ever thought it might. I feel absolutely horrible for bringing Ash into this mess now. It made things one hundred times worse. I remember Claire saying she came by to fix things between us. What if Ash wasn’t here? Could things really have been fixed between us? I bit my lip out of frustration. Everything that happened was my fault. Claire wouldn’t be missing if it wasn’t for me.

The doorknob jiggled, and everyone’s heads darted towards that direction. To our dismay, it was only Kai. I guess he had come by to check up on the Claire situation too.

He sat down by us and gave me a small hug. “Still no signs whatsoever?”

Ash sat up from her previously slumped position. “No… nothing at all. You’re positive that you or the rest of the guys haven’t heard anything?”

He shook his head. “Yeah, nobody has heard a peep. We have all tried calling her house and cell phone various times. I’m really starting to worry about Claire. She recently has just gone off the deep end. She was prescribed anti-depressants a week or two back, but I know that she only took them as a joke. When I’d come over to see how she was, I’d go in her bathroom and see if she was taking them. She only took two. Claire really had no idea how deep in she was… She didn’t know what she had gotten herself into, and she was only adding more variables to her life. They all caved in on her at once, and she went nuts. I have no idea where she went, for all we know she could have gone off and killed herself.” He stopped for a moment, re-collecting his thoughts. “I know that sounds very cynical right now, but honestly, anything could have happened to her. It’s obvious that she isn’t coming back. Claire has been missing for six days.”

I rubbed under my eyes, making sure that no tears accidentally leaked out. “Yeah, so what? What do you want us to do about it?” I retorted

“Ruki, nobody has filed a missing person’s report yet. Nobody has even contacted the police. It’s been over 48 hours, so she counts as a missing person. I really think that somebody needs to go down and do something about this. If we just sit here, nothing is going to happen.”

I nodded my head reluctantly. I guess he was right. This was too big of a situation to take into our own hands. I just really wish that the last conversation we had wasn’t a fight. I wish I hadn’t have been such a dick to her the entire time.