Originally from 2020

“I feel like I’m pullin’ teeth here!” he laughed, one hand in the pocket of his brown bomber jacket, the other outstretched towards me. A keyring hung from his middle finger, a Lada key with a rental tag, a plastic keychain of a red and white die, and a couple miscellaneous keys attached to it. “How about we just go for a ride, huh? Then you can decide. How’s that sound?” 

The loudness of his voice shot up my nose and his enthusiasm was poking my brain like an orbitoclast. Shut the fuck up, was all I could think to say, but I stayed quiet. My anguish and pleas had been for nothing, as Zack had been trying to lure me out of the house for over an hour with no signs of stopping. I had already made a decision. But “no” wasn’t an answer.

“Fine.”

It was the beginning of spring—the part where all the snow gets rained on and it becomes the ugliest gray you’ve ever seen, and it isn’t cold enough to wear your heavy coat, but it’s not warm enough to wear your light jacket. The sun was out and the gravel driveway was wet. I stepped outside in my fuzzy slippers, fleece pajama pants, and long-sleeve shirt with personally-added thumb holes. Tobias, who had been involved in the “Get Lya Out of the House” taskforce, smiled and watched me. Arms folded, I followed Zack to his blue rented Lada Niva and climbed into the passenger seat. I held my legs to my chest and rested my chin on top of my knees. 

My stomach dropped the moment I looked at the outside of the house from behind the windshield as Zack started up the car. Tobias stood at the door, waving to the both of us. I still wasn’t used to leaving the house. Tobias and I had been to the shops a small number of times since John had left for the couple of weeks he had to “visit a friend” in Germany. At first, I didn’t want to leave. Even though John had no way of stopping me, the instinct that sat in the confines of my brain continued to shout, “You can’t leave, remember?!” It was going on year five, now.

“Feels good to get out, doesn’t it?” Zack smiled, backing out of the driveway. His teeth were painfully white and straight. Punchable. 

“No, not really,” I answered. 

“Well, I’m sure it will soon. Hey, check this out.” Before putting the gear in 1st, he reached behind my seat and presented me with a 750mL bottle of Belaya Rus. “This is the one you like, right? At least that’s what Toby told me.”

I didn’t hesitate to crack open the bottle and take it straight to the face. If I was going to be spending my day with Zack in this busted Soviet car, I may as well be drunk. I didn’t mind the taste of vodka. In fact, it tasted like home. “You can be as nice to me as you want, but don’t think you’re going to change my mind, Zack.”

“Really? You’re fine just being held hostage? You do know that everyone’s waiting on you to make a run for it,” he rambled.  

Here we fucking go, I thought. I didn’t say anything back. I just stared out into the seemingly endless plains painted with that ugly gray slush. The road we were on was empty, long, and would stay that way for a while. That house was in the middle of nowhere and for good reason. I took another swig from the bottle.

“Lya,” he started up again. “Why don’t you plug your phone into the aux? I wanna hear what kind of music you like.”

“Huh? Okay.” I put the bottle cap in my teeth and held the bottle in between my legs as I reached over and hooked my phone up to the car’s speaker. I pressed play on an Allj song. Tinny, grumbling sounds made their way through, resembling the song close enough. 

Zack nodded his head along with a smirk on his face. “I like this,” he said. 

“Yeah, I’m sure you do.” Another swig to the face. 

He finally found some comfort in vocal silence. We drove for about ten minutes before he felt the need to speak again. “Everyone feels bad for you, Lya.”

I turned my head to look at him. His face was red. “Fucking what?”

“Everyone in that house feels bad for you. They don’t want to say it to your face, but they said it to mine. Well, if you count a phone conversation as face-to-face. But you get it.” He picked up a little speed. 

“Why the hell would anyone feel bad for me?” I didn’t want an answer, but the question seemed to slip out without forethought. 

“Your clinical case of, umm, what was it called again…Stockton Syndrome?” 

“You mean Stockholm Syndrome?”

“Yeah, that. Whatever.” 

Another swig to the face. A little dizzy now. “You think I have Stockholm Syndrome?”

He nodded. “Like, total textbook definition. Have you ever asked yourself why you’re the only one in that house that doesn’t want to get away from John? Especially after all the things he’s done to you all? Especially you and Toby? Don’t you ever wonder?”

I didn’t say anything. 

“Lya. Toby had a lot to say about you. And I think it’s wor―”

“Oh, so he sent you to do the dirty work? Is that the reason you dragged me out of my house? Just to blabber on about what Tobias is too afraid to say to me himself? Fucking coward. Coward.” I could feel my hands getting clammy as my body began to heat up. “You know what, Zack? I don’t know what those people told you, but you haven’t witnessed a single fucking day in that house for the past five years. So don’t act like you truly know what’s going on. There’s no reason I should listen to you. You’ve been put up to this just so that I’ll magically agree to run with everyone so they don’t feel bad about leaving me behind. I’m not stupid. Why is it that everyone thinks I’m stupid?”

“Lya, everyone thinks you’re stupid because you follow John around like a puppy, doing everything and anything he tells you to do under the guise that he’ll love you. That’s why.” His tone changed completely and he picked up more speed. 

“Why do you think you can talk to me like that? I barely know you, I sure as hell don’t like you, and you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. Why are you talking to me like this? Is this what Tobias was too afraid to say?!”

Zack sighed. “Maybe. But it’s what I want to say, too. Lya, I know what John did to you. Toby told me.”

I swallowed my own, hand sanitizer flavored spit and looked down at the rubber floor mat. “Take me home.”

“What?”

“Take me home right now, Zack. I mean it,” I demanded. 

“You really call that place home?” he scoffed. 

Possession took over my body with a gust of wind and I reached over and wrapped my hands around Zack’s neck, dropping the open bottle of vodka onto the floor on the way. I watched the color red fill his face as I tried my best to wring his fat neck like a towel. “Take me home RIGHT FUCKING NOW! I MEAN IT!” I screamed. “You don’t get to talk to me LIKE THAT! Don’t talk to me LIKE THAT!” 

I could hear him gurgling through my grasp as he struggled to keep a consistent speed and focus. I let him freak out for a couple more seconds just because. “I’m going to let go. And when I do, you need to turn this car around. Got it?” 

He tried to nod as best as he could and I slowly pulled my hands back. I looked down at the spilled vodka before picking up the nearly empty bottle and taking a final swig of what was left in there. The vodka pooled in the rubber floor mat and began to splash like waves as Zack made a harsh U-turn in the middle of the empty highway. “Toby is gonna be so pissed at me.”

“Let him be mad, then. It’s not my fault that he and the rest of those clowns don’t want to do what they’ve been wanting to do for five years. And it’s not yours, either. You should tell them to leave me behind and then fly your ass back home.” 

Another car finally appeared on the road, coming in the opposite direction. 

“I came here to help you all get out of that house. And you want me to go home knowing that I’ve left you, delusional and sick, all alone with John after convincing everyone else to just abandon you? That’s crazy.”

“Then you’ll have to be crazy.”

Delusional and sick, huh? I looked ahead through the windshield, trying to stop myself from choking him again. He could say whatever he wanted. I didn’t believe it was true for a second. The things he said to me were merely things to manipulate me out of leaving John all by himself. 

I imagined him coming back home from Germany, expecting to see a house full of people that he loved, but only seeing me. Sitting at the kitchen table, a pot of stew for two on the stove, hot and waiting for him. Proving that I was the only loyal one. Proving that I was the only one who cared about him. Proving that I was his only real friend. That’s all that mattered. 

No one else understood John the way I did. Something was very wrong with him and everyone demonized him. They refused to understand that he acted the way he did because of the things that happened to him as a kid. They hid from him, left him alone, were reluctant to do what he said, and made him sad. That would never be me. The past five years locked in the house were the most peace I had ever felt. Everything was certain: we had assigned chores and meals to cook, we didn’t have to go out and work―only work around the house, we all had each other and didn’t have to worry about anyone else. We knew what would happen if we messed up, and that motivated us. Even if it left scars. We learned. And it made us get up in the morning. 

All John wanted was to have friends. That was our only job. 

“You want to be in a house all alone with John―John the alcoholic, who will have had everyone up and leave when he trusted they would stay? John, who will have no one? All of his ‘friends’ gone? You guys have all been in that house for five years. That’s the only thing keeping him from flying off the rails and you know that. You really want to be there when it finally happens?” Zack interrogated me. “He has hurt people. He has hurt you. Don’t you think he’ll do it again? There won’t be anyone to take out the anger on but you. Are you willing to become a punching bag?”

“I am.”

“You are?”

“I am.”

Zack sighed. “You’re 19 years old and you’re choosing to spend the rest of your life like this? Locked up in the middle of nowhere, playing house with your insane brother? You’re an adult now. It’s time that you do something with your life. Become independent. Tobias was thinking that you have potential to be a really good artist. Why not travel the world and sell your art?”

“Would you shut up? Seriously. Just―Just don’t talk to me until we get back home.”

“I wish you’d stop calling it ‘home,” he said. 

And then it was quiet until the sound of the tires rolling up the gravel driveway filled the air. 

Immediately I opened the door and slid out of the car. I grabbed the floor mat and dumped the spilled vodka onto the driveway. “Will you give up now? Will you tell everyone in that house to give up, too?”

“I can tell them that, sure. But I know that they won’t.”

Zack walked me to the door. Tobias opened it with a hopeful smile on his face. “You’re back!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah. And I am staying,” I declared.