The Choice

myself. He leads me, naked and wet, down a hall and into an office
with a desk, a chair. Water runs from my body onto the cold Ęoor. He
leans against the desk and looks me over, taking his time. I am too
terriĕed to think, but little currents of impulse move through my body
like reĘexes. Kick him. A high kick to the face. Drop to the Ęoor in a
little ball and hold myself tight. I hope that whatever he plans to do to
me will be over quickly.
“Come closer,” he says.
I face him as I inch forward, but I don’t see him. I focus only on the
living part of me, the yes I can, yes I can. I feel his body as I near him.
A menthol smell. e taste of tin can on my tongue. As long as I’m
shaking, I know I’m alive. His ĕngers work over his buttons. Yes I can,
yes I can. I think of my mama and her long, long hair. e way she’d
wind it up on top of her head and let it down like a curtain at night.
I’m naked with her murderer, but he can’t ever take her away. Just as I
am close enough for him to touch me, with ĕngers that I determine
not to feel, a phone rings in another room. He Ęinches. He rebuttons
his coat.
“Don’t move,” he orders as he opens the door.
I hear him pick up the phone in the next room, his voice neutral
and curt. I don’t make a decision. I run. e next thing I know I’m
sitting beside my sister as we devour the daily ladle of soup, the little
pieces of potato skin in the weak broth bobbing up at us like scabs. The
fear that he will ĕnd me again and punish me, that he will ĕnish what
he started, that he will select me for death never leaves me. It never
goes away. I don’t know what will happen next. But in the meantime I
can keep myself alive inside. I survived today, I chant in my head. I
survived today. Tomorrow I will be free.