"Let it all out girl, let it all out." Her warm hand rubbed my back in circular motions, it was soothing to feel actual human compassion in this whole shit storm I was currently going through.
My stomach lurched and gurgled, making me fully aquatinted with the toilet bowl, again.
My head felt swollen, like the brain inside was trying to break through the capacity of my skull, dehydration cracked my lips open and the waves of nausea only added to my misery.
"I've never been so sick in my entire life." I grumbled. "I'm going to die here."
Alyssa handed me a tumbler of cool water and I sipped it cautiously knowing I would be unable to hold it down for anything longer than five minutes.
"Trauma does funny things to a person." She washed her hands in the sink and I sat back, letting the cold bathroom tile bring down the heat of my body. "I was the same the first few months. Then I just became numb to it all."
I wiped my mouth on a tissue and tried to breathe through the nausea but I caught her looking at me through the mirror.
Alyssa was probably once a very pretty girl with the brightest future ahead of her but now she was just a melancholy shell of her former self.
Her scalp was bald in most places, with small scabs where blood was once drawn from her incessant hair pulling. She was incredibly skinny, skin stretched thin over her skeleton like she had stopped caring about herself. The worry aged her, dark circles lining her eyes and bags making them heavy.
She was the picture of my future self.
"Do you regret it?" She asked sheepishly and then turned to face me once again, "staying, I mean; you had a choice."
"No." I answered sincerely. "My daughter is safe, it doesn't matter what he does to me. I would pick Everly's safety over absolutely anything."
"But if you waited for her dads people then you both could've been safe."
"Perhaps but Rivers way would've took too long. I had no idea what Hendrix was doing to her during that time. I wasn't willing to risk precious minutes waiting around for Rivers people. I knew where she was, I knew I had to bargain myself for her. She's at home now, safe, tucked up in bed with Mr Fluffy the cat pillow. I have no regrets."
"I wish I loved someone that much. I think loving like that is important, it will keep you going in here because it will give you something to hold onto." She knelt down beside me and wiped the tears away from beneath my eyes.
"What keeps you going?" I asked.
"Hope." I nodded, understanding that to my core.
"He'll succeed one day you know?" She tucked hair behind my ears and gave me a reassuring smile. I smiled back, although I didn't believe her. "One day he'll ride on in here like some knight in shining armour and put us both on the back of that horse."
"I'm counting on it." I agreed.
In the two weeks I had spent here, he had already made many attempts at rescuing me and failed at every single one. If part of the deal wasn't Rivers safety then Hendrix would've long killed him by now. It helped though, keeping the dream of him possibly succeeding alive.
Alyssa being here also helped.
Two weeks felt like a lifetime for me, I couldn't imagine how she was coping with four years behind her belt.
Her story was even more heartbreaking than my own, sold to Hendrix at the young age of sixteen. Her life was only worth prime real estate to her disgusting excuse of a father.
