Miles
Has he lost interest in me?
He barely does anything now. He doesn't touch me or cuddle with me. He gives me access to his fridge, his TV. He bought me a Walkman for Christmas. How many weeks has it been since mother died? I count four but it could be much longer or much shorter. It could have happened 3 days ago or 3 months ago. The passage of time is a privilege I am not afforded. Doc keeps his blinds closed and there aren't any clocks.
My mother's passing was a very private and very strictly controlled affair. A day of crying and bonding with Doc until I fell asleep and when I woke up it wasn't mentioned again. I want to talk to Doc, to ask him what all these squirming feelings are inside my chest. Why it feels like my heart is being stretched with rubber bands. I think he'd just get angry with me. He's being doing that a lot lately, but no more so than I have.
Doc calls it 'puberty'. He went out and borrowed books about it from the local library, but he ripped off the papers so I don't know the library's name. What could I do with the name of the library? Eve if I did know his address, I don't have contact with anyone. I don't think I could talk to anyone other than Doc. Doc never judges me: everyone else used to. Even with Miss Vezza I realised there were things I couldn't tell her. I can divulge my darkest secrets to Doc. I have, and all he did was nod and tell me 'well done'. How can my captor be the only person I've ever met who hasn't taken advantage of me?
This 'puberty' is apparently what's made me so irritated all the time. I've snapped at Doc a few times over trivial things. He's offered to educate me, so teach me what I'd learn in school but I'm not much interested. Every tome he brings it up, and it's often, my temper gets shorter and shorter until the most innocent, passing comment from him sends me into rage. I slapped him once. Just once, and for that Doc retaliated more violently than I've ever seen him. My body hurts. My skin feels rough and sweaty. My hands clammy. Yet he still acts like this puberty thing is the most wonderful development ever.
He buys me whatever CDs I want, so right now I'm lounging on his couch listening to BFMV blaring in my Walkman. My favourite song is Breaking Point. Kinda ironic huh? Anyway, it's only when Doc yanks put my earbuds that I notice he's there at all; he moves so stealthily, silent like a fucking ghost. Ninja reflexes.
"Get up," he stands upright and I spring off the couch, throat tightening at the thought of what befalls me. Are we going to his surgery room? He places his hand on me back and guides me to his front hall. Standing in front of me, he unlocks his door (all four locks) and swings it open, revealing a perfectly normal suburban street.
The sun burns my eyes, highlighting sheets of grass and blooming flowers stretching across my vision from nearly trimmed hedges. Opposite us is a care home for the elderly, the house beside us has a garden with a pink flowers lightly jostled by the wind. It all looks so innocent. A couple of cars drive by while I'm standing at the doorway, but Doc barely finches. I look at him, utterly bewildered, searching his eyes for answers.
He looks tired. So defeated, remorseful even. Like everything in his life is falling apart around him, and nothing is worth his role anymore. Things grow more boring by the day, and he is getting restless with my presence. What does he want? "Doc, what's this?"
"Go, if you want," Doc is fighting to hold himself back, keep himself restrained. Nails bite into the palms of his hands as his fists clench tightly, head a mess with panic and frenetic internal pleading. The demons inside him bellow and scream their protests and vitriol, but he stubbornly keeps a straight face, raising one hands and gesturing to the vast chasm of the outside world. "I'm not stopping you. If you run I won't follow. If you want to go to can go. If you really want to,"
Of course I want to. I can taste the sweet freedom, a decadent meal of the finest cuts of meat and flavourful desserts. It's so close, that wonderful, orgasmic ecstasy of liberty I've dreamed of since being kidnapped. It's like a weight has been lifted generously front my shoulders, and I scrape my sock against the floor, taking the first step forward.
Then I stop, and look at the devastated Doc, that vulnerable and broken soul. I look down at my pathetic, worthless self. And realise anything awaiting me outside that door sends a stabbing pain and trepidation into my stomach. I dread taking another step closer to that threshold, want to slam the door closed right now. Some part of me feels selfish and horrid and so, so stupid for giving up my one chance at a normal life. I almost feel obliged to run.
But I just don't want to. Every part of me, no matter how I try to fight it with logic or conscience, wants to stay here. What is there for me outside that door but misery and gruelling oppression? The death of my mother, the return to school - I'd have to repeat this year, existing as the social pariah and local celebrity with swarming reporters and not a second of peace. The life Doc has given me is a peaceful, if sometimes unpredictable, one. He's nice to me. He's all I have to deal with. Really, it's more convenient to stay here.
That and...
That look on his face. Every iota of enthusiasm and happiness shattered. Doc being so kind and giving me this opportunity, I realise taking it would break his heart. Nobody deserves to be alone, and I know just how alone he is. He hasn't had a single visitor in two months. He barely leaves the house except to his job as a boring GP. I'm all he has. I know. And it would be cruel to take that away from him. Nobody, not even Doc, deserves to be alone.
I step forward again, hearing Doc whimper almost inaudibly to himself. I grasp the door in my hands, feeling them slide across the smooth, dark wood, and slam it closed, locking it and sealing us both inside, where everything feels once again comfortable. I turn to Doc, who's beaming with joy, displaying his blatant Lima syndrome like his heart on his sleeve.
I feel glum again. That could have been my one chance, and I never seized it. My life is doomed to be consistent of this fucking house with its shitty decor, my minimal interaction with an insane psychopath who apparently has a hair-trigger temper after a few gulps of whiskey. Feeling depressed, I can only turn it Doc and ask with a cracked, fake smile. "You didn't think I'd really leave, did you?"
Stuttering incoherently, at a loss for words, the man stalks off and retreats to the 'surgery', and doesn't come out for the rest of the night.
YOU ARE READING
An Apple A Day (Wattys2019)
Horror"Doc?" "Yes?" "Teach me to love you," A young boy, his view of normality shredded to pieces by the bleakness of his life, is kidnapped and kept captive by an insane doctor for experimentation and pleasure. It isn't long before the doomed souls fo...
