28 Ogun Meje

I came to in a luxurious room on a plush bed. I propped myself up, ignoring my pounding head and realized there was a body next to me with it's hands wrapped around my waist. For a second, I calmed down. I was used to sleeping next to someone now. Then I realized the hands around me didn't feel the same, that I didn't have the usual feeling of safety. My stomach dropped and I couldn't get away fast enough. I scrambled off the bed and started pummeling X's sleeping form with everything I could find. He woke with a start and gripped my hands, trying to pull me back as I struggled to keep hitting him.

"Don't fucking touch me!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he dodged the alarm clock flying past his head.

"Where am I?"

"That's none of your concern."

"If my location isn't my concern, then whose is it?"

"Mine, and I know, so you're fine." He finally was able to yank me on top of him. I elbowed his face trying to get up once again.

"Look, I told you already. I don't know what the fuck you think this is, but I am not the fucking one. Don't test me. Get your hands off of me or I swear to god I'll choke you."

"I'd enjoy it." the minute the words left his mouth I punched him in the throat then pressed my forearm into his neck as he sputtered.

"I told you not to test me. Where's Ade?" Before I could blink, he threw me off him and across the room.

"He's dead!"

"Liar!" I screamed and launched a chair at his head. He ducked as it broke to pieces behind him.

"Stop whatever temper tantrum you're having right now. I won't hesitate to spank you." He smirked and I almost threw up.

"You're batshit crazy if you think you'll ever touch me again. Stay the fuck away from me." I screamed and searched for more things to throw at him.

"What about this are you not getting? You. Don't. Have. A. Choice. I can and will do whatever I want to you, and touch you however I want to. I could marry you here. I could make you have my children here. And you'd have no choice. It's just you and I. No one else, no way out, and most of all, no Ade to hep you this time." I blinked and ran towards the balcony doors I noticed at the end of the bedroom. I looked out across the sandy beach that stretched on for what seemed like miles, so white it reflected the sun. I took in the sky, mirroring the sea with no land in sight. Both were bluer than anything I had ever seen. I smelt the air, fragrant with the salty scent of the ocean. The omen had come to pass.

My stomach dropped. Without a moment of hesitation I jumped off the balcony, hoping to meet release once I hit the ground stories below me. Praying to never endure the deep desperation and depression that almost drowned me in my dream. Alas, no such luck. Strong hands gripped my ankles and pulled me back into my very own inescapable hell. I screamed,yelled, cursed, and cried until my throat was raw, trying to claw my way back off balcony until finally I threw myself on the floor and just sobbed. I didn't feel fear like this the first time I was kidnapped. Something told me everything would be alright before, but nothing told me that now. I believed in myself, I knew I could make it through this, but I wondered if living was worth it anymore considering the amount of trauma I was about to endure in addition to the trauma I already had.

"I don't want to do this anymore! I'm tired! Can't you see I'm so fucking tired? I just want it to stop. Please let me make it stop!" I cried. I don't know how long I sat there, screaming and crying about how much I wanted to kill myself. I was a mess, and Ximenes just watched. He's the only person to have ever seen that side of me, and I hope never changes. When I finally couldn't bear to cry or scream anymore and the tears stopped flowing, I realized the sound of crying continued. I lifted my head to see Ximenes staring at me with tears running down his face as well.

"I never thought... Nani you can't...Please just stop. Please. You'd really rather take your life than be with me?"

"Yes, obviously." I flinched anticipating whatever he was going to throw, but no object came. Just sobs.

"Don't you understand that you're killing me right now? I love you. Why do you make this so difficult? Why do you do this to me? Would it really be so difficult to just accept me? You'd really rather hurt yourself?"

"Please cut the victim bullshit! You are not entitled to my love! I don't want you, and if I did I'd need psychiatric help. You kidnapped me. You beat me. You sold human beings into slavery and you expected me to forget about all of that and fall in to your arms because what? Your money means nothing to me and pretty soon you won't have much left. Your looks mean nothing to me because your personality is so ugly. So what exactly do you want me to do? Tell you I want to be with you? Because I don't. And I never will."

"You don't fucking get it! I don't want to love you. You're a bitch. You betrayed me, you're disobedient, you're manipulative, you're insolent, and my parents would turn in their grave if they knew. You aren't flawless to me either! But you were the first person to tell me they loved me. "

"And so?"

"So now, even though I know it was all a lie, I can't come back to a reality where no one loves me after feeling what it was like to be loved. I can't Nani. You have to understand. It couldn't have all been a lie. You couldn't have faked it all. All those times you brought lunch to my office, or kissed me on the cheek when I was stressed? Every time you looked at me like I was the only person in the world? When you carved your initial in my arm? You want me to believe you did all that and didn't love me? Bullshit. I don't believe you. You don't want to admit you love me because of what it says about you!"

"You are delusional! Wake up! You never knew what it felt like to be loved, you knew what it felt like to think you were loved. There is a difference. I could lie all I want. You could lie all you want. But this will never ever feel like love. If you were a better person I would pray you found someone who looked at you like you put the stars in the sky, but I couldn't wish that on anyone. You put anxiety, desperation, depression, hopelessness, and fear in my heart, but at least I never loved you. I can't imagine loving you, then looking at the scars that you put on my body and in my heart everyday. You don't deserve to be loved. By me, or by anyone. I don't know what you could ever do to make yourself worthy of being loved."

"Me neither, but I'll figure it out, and I'll do it, because I want you to love me the way I love you."

"You can't always get what you want, and you don't love me. You're infatuated with me because you want my body and I wont let you have it as long as I'm breathing. You're a child obsessing over a toy you can't have."

"How the fuck do you presume to know what I love? Do you think you'd still be breathing if I didn't love you? You betrayed me and brought down my empire, yet still, I try so hard to make you want me. You know, I stood there, watching you in the bath for so long, with a gun to your head, and I couldn't pull the trigger. I tried, but I couldn't."

"You couldn't because you were blinded by my tits, not because you love me. You don't know enough about me to love me." I rolled my eyes.

"Maybe I didn't love you enough before, but somehow your betrayal showed me a side of you that I fell in love with. I underestimated you. I know you now. You're like me. You're smart, ruthless, cunning-"

"No, I'm not. You just find my disobedience enticing. Or maybe you want angry sex. Either way, I don't care because it isn't gonna happen. If you didn't love me before, then why kidnap me?"

"Okay I guess we should talk about that. I kidnapped you because of your parents. All their bullshit advocacy against child abuse was starting to cross paths with my business, and they we getting their nose into things I thought were better left alone-"

"Meaning your business of selling kids-"

"Anyways, killing them off would've raised too much suspicion, they were becoming very prominent figures, but a kidnapping can happen to anyone. I looked into it for a while, deciding which of your siblings to take, and what I would do with them. Ultimately I decided on you because it seemed like your removal would cause the most disruption and distraction, which is exactly what I needed. I needed something to distract them from what I was doing. So, considering you took care of all your siblings, seemed to be your parents' golden child, and their firstborn to boot, I took you. At first I was going to kill you rather than kidnap you, but I realized it would raise more suspicion than a disappearance, and it would cause grief, but it wouldn't be a lengthy enough distraction. So I decided to take you. I was planning to just sell you like everyone else, but when I looked into your background I realized you were like me. That's when I realized I wanted to take you for myself, and it all started from there."

"Well let me end it right now because I am in no way like you."

"My parents were step siblings to wealthy parents in Spain. They were both betrothed to other people but they had been in love since they were teenagers, so they continued their affair until my mother became pregnant. Whether my family's wealth was mostly obtained through legal means, I have no idea, but I do know the families my parents were each supposed to marry into were very mafia like, and breaking the arranged marriages wasn't an option. So, they had a choice. They could either abort the baby and pretend nothing happened to save the marriages, or flee. They chose to flee to America. The problem was, they had never experienced what it was like to live without extreme wealth, let alone poverty. Over time, the passion and love they used to have turned into hatred for each other, and me."

"I don't see what this has to do with me aside from making me feel sympathy for a psychopath."

"I'm getting there. The day I met Ade, I was eight, he was three. I was walking around the neighborhood, trying to escape the sounds of screaming in my house. He was running away from his mom, playfully, and you could tell he was up to something mischievous. He was so focused on not tripping over his little legs that he bumped into me, clinging onto my leg to keep from falling, and he never let go. He became my best friend. His mom and dad were always working, so eventually I started babysitting him and his sister. They were everything to me. They gave me an escape from my parents. My parents had always beaten me senseless, since before I could even talk, but oh my god the beating I received from my father the day he found out I was friends with a black boy was something different. I didn't care. I went back out to play the very next day, ignoring my black eye, busted lip, bruises, and limp. I got a beating every time I was caught talking to him, or anytime I pissed my parents off, so there was basically something everyday. Sometimes, it'd be as simple as a push down the stairs, and other times it'd last hours, until I was bloody and black and blue. They broke me. Just like somebody broke you. And that's why I love you. You're broken, just like me."

I blinked the tears out of my eyes and looked up from the spot on the floor I had focused on.

"How did you know." I whispered.