Thank you for making me feel so much more confident in my femininity, sexuality, and my overall attractiveness. At the same time, thank you for implanting insecurity, a sense of shame and a heartbreak that I probably will never heal from. It feels weird to thank you for these contradictory elements you brought out of me, but it’s the truth. It’s my truth. That is how I feel to this day. You made me feel like a failure in love but you also made me realize that because of you, I’ll never give up hope that I can find someone who loves me the way I love them.

Someone who actually takes the time to understand me and wants to be a part of my life. My experience with you just serves as a reminder that I can easily get swept up by a man and go into the whole situation undervaluing myself. Now I understand my worth, so I will never allow another man to make me feel so high and so low at the same damn time ever again.

Now you should feel especially flattered. There have been other dudes that I have liked immensely, but at the first, second and third signs of them being someone like you I cut them out of my life immediately. So thank you yet again, this time for my discernment. Thank you for dating all those girls that look nothing like me, but never taking me out. Thanks for being the best booty call I’ve ever had. Thanks for the memories. And most importantly, thank you for staying away after I told you to never reach out to me again.

It’s been hard for me, but I know this shit doesn’t matter to you. Normally, two people are hurting when something ends, but in this case it’s only one person - me. But I’m still thankful for the hurt. I’m still thankful for you.

The 6th Street office in Downtown Los Angeles was buzzing with activity - like it was every Monday morning. Martin aggressively sending out emails. Betty submitting sales reports and quotas before Robert even gets a chance to ask her. Jane is on a conference call with some of the overseas distributing partners. Even I found myself working especially hard. It wasn’t just another day in the hive. Business as usual…or was it? From the outside looking in, nothing seems out of the ordinary. However, something else is lingering in the air. Impending doom. Every employee is hoping for a normal day. Each one shares an internal fear that if they slow down for one second, their situation might change.

The President of the United States and the Governor of California already issued their own separate warnings for what is to come. I wasn’t expecting for everyone to show up today, but everyone did. Are we delusional for being hopeful? Is it crazy to want to work while your world is facing extinction within the next twenty-four hours. We can choose not to believe. Maybe I’ll drive up to my parent’s house and Santa Barbara. Let the waves take me. Hug both of them until the house crashes down on us.

Why the hell I still doing here? Why am I at work? I should be with them. I should be sobbing profusely in the arms of my my mother. I should be listening to my father’s prayers, but I’m here at the office. So is everyone else? Why?! I know we are optimistic but not that optimistic.

That’s it. I’m leaving! People watch me as I gather my things.

“Goodbye, everyone. I hope I can see you all tomorrow.” The whole room starts to clap. They stand and continue with their applause. The cheers ring out. Even my boss, Robert, the world’s biggest tight-ass is applauding with full force.

I take my overloaded satchel and walk out the door.

When I walk through that door, I step right back into the office I left.

No applause. Everyone is back working. Undisturbed. I check my phone. The impending doom still hasn’t happened, yet. I attempt to exit the office again, but I enter right back into the office lobby.

I’m terrified. Is this it? Did I die already? Did I even get a chance to speak to my parent’s for the last time. I’ll never get married. Never have children.

What did I do to deserve this?

“Tonight will be our last sunset. You will never see me again.” Brandy whispered as she closed the door to the bedroom of the RV . She’s certain he did not hear her as he wrestled with Missy in front of the loud 50inch TV hanging from the trailer’s rafters. For a second, she wished everything could have been different, but it’s been ten years since they had first met - nothing has ever changed in a positive way. The situation only got worse. Now here she is, laying in a stranger’s bed, staring at the ceiling of a stranger’s RV trying to tally up the number of grooves in the stranger’s RV’s ceiling. Missy starts to bark in the living room, interrupting her mid-count.

“I’ve got to stop doing this - it’s time to leave him,” Brandy says to herself. How can she continue like this? On the run with a man who up until a few months ago only interacted with her for casual sex and pillow talk. Now they have been on the run together for nearly seven long months.

“If only I had got out of his car sooner,” she thought. A tear starts to form in the low of her eye. Brandy rolls her eyeballs up to prevent it from falling down. She swore that she would never shed another tear over this situation. It was her fault. She agreed to help him, like she had done plenty of times before. Did he ever care to return the favor? No. Did he ever reach out as a friend to offer a shoulder to cry on, or a helping hand? No. He doesn’t even know her birthday. So why did she agree to come with him in the first place?

What did she think would change about their situation? What does Brian even know about her - the real Brandy? Well, by now Brian has probably picked up on her stubbornness. She’s a straight-to-the-point kind of girl, so she never played any mental games with him (so she thought). He went as far as to describe her as “abrasive” earlier that morning as they ate cold pop tarts over their dining trays. It made her shift a little on her seat cushion - that word being used to describe her - but she wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about that word. She did not want to feel offended. She did not want to show that any opinion he had of her effected her, but her gut told her it wasn’t a good thing.

Once breakfast was over, she grabbed her phone to find the exact definition:

“a•bra•sive: 2. (of a person or manner) showing little concern for the feelings of others; harsh.”

Harsh. The other synonyms did not help. It cut her deep. It crushed a bit of her spirit. How could a man who she obsessively tried to be considerate of characterize her in that way. Brian knew every inch of her body, but unlike her, he did not know her heart. It just made her think about all the times they have met together. She kept the secret. She listened to all his lies and the truths without judgement. All the while, he interpreted her truth as emptiness. Cold. Unemotional. He saw her as an inhumane. A personal blow-up doll. It was in that moment she realized that the physical intimacy meant nothing. It was all for nothing. She was nothing to him, while she risked everything to help him. While she held back her emotions because she did not think it was fair to unload all her feelings onto him. He didn’t ask for it so why would she tell him how much she cared? She’s always cared, she just never exposed her feelings in that way because it made her uncomfortable to give someone that much power over her. Still she was there…should she have to even say? Maybe it doesn’t even matter because he built an image of her that suited his narrative. He never was made to feel bad because she never made him feel bad about himself. He obviously did not concern himself with what made her feel bad. That’s when she finally realized it was time to let him go off on his own.

“Shhhh!” Brandy can hear Brian feed Missy some snacks. Brandy continues to stare at the ceiling until she dozes off - she never got to finish the count.

The next morning, Brandy wakes up before the Sun. She gathers her travel-sized toiletries and a few garments and stuffs them into her duffel bag. There was nearly no sound as she opened up the door to peek out into the RV living room. There he was - still asleep on the couch. Missy was snoring obnoxiously in her pen. Brandy was going to miss that damn dog.

In her rush to pack her things, she almost forgot the most important cargo. Brandy goes back to the bed and reaches under the mattress. She pulls out a Glock and stuffs it in her duffel. Brandy nearly walks out again when -

“Oh! That’s right”

Brandy turns back inside the bedroom. Inside the RV bedroom is a skinny door. Brandy slowly opens the door and cuts on the lights. A 26 year old, blindfolded woman is resting on the toilet. Her hair is disheveled. Both of her hands are tied behind her back. Her mouth has a gag in it.

“Hey! Hey - wake up, “ Brandy whispers to her. She gives the sleeping beauty a quick shake.

“It’s time to move. Now be very quiet or else-“

The woman in bondage nods feverishly. Brandy gently guided her out of the tiny bathroom and out of the bedroom. Both women slip out of the front door undetected.

Brandy guides the woman towards her dark gray Honda Accord. She pops the trunk.

The blind-folded woman starts to say something but the gag makes her damn near impossible to understand.

“What?! What is it?”

Brandy pulls the gag out of her mouth.

The captured woman starts to move her mouth around. As Brandy prods her, she takes deep breath and screams.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

Brandy punches the girl in her mouth knocking her out cold. After surveying the area to make sure no one was approaching, she hoists the 115lb girl into the trunk and shuts it. It took a lot out of her.

As she catches a her breathe, Brandy starts to test herself on the information she knows about her hostage. Samantha Pearson. DOB: June 15th, 1996. San Jose, CA. Height: 5’2”. Weight: 115Lbs. Bullshit.

Just as Brandy is ready to move, she hears a commotion coming from the RV. Missy is barking. That damn dog. Brandy hops in the driver’s seat and starts the car. She pulls off into the night. In her rear view mirror she sees the lights in the RV cut on before she turns out of the sparse RV park onto the main road.

Good Morning. Goodnight. Goodbye, Brian.

It was a Monday morning about as mundane as they come. My alarm woke me up to tell me it’s time to start another day. As I scanned my dorm room, I noticed that my roommate’s side of the room appeared undisturbed. This is the third night in a row she hasn’t slept in her own bed. She was probably shacking up with her latest male exploit. Tiffany normally goes for the frat boys who don’t look like they belong in a fraternity, but reveal their “bro” nature exactly two weeks after the novelty of her personality wears off. It’s like clockwork. She’ll come back here by Wednesday - all dejected and pessimistic. By the time Friday rolls around, she will be at it again. Looking for her next suspect.

There was a lot of commotion going on in the hall this morning. It is the week after finals so everyone is ready to party all their anxieties away. Still, all of the grumblings before 9am is especially annoying. I get dressed for class anticipating all the useless conversations I’m about to have. I thought going to a university, I would be surrounded by like-minded individuals. High school was a nightmare. I felt invisible. Surely, I would make my mark here. Maybe even get a boyfriend. Turns out I was completely false. As sophomore year was drawing to a close, I considered the fact that maybe everyone else wasn’t the problem - maybe the problem is me?

As head out the door for my exams, the volume of voices I hear explodes - but barely anyone is actually moving there mouths. Samantha in the dorm next me thinks she’s pregnant. David is nervous that his Statistics Professor will discover that he had sex with the Teacher’s Assistant in exchange for the answers to the final. Sadness. Depression. Ego. Anger. Anxiety. All these thoughts with all of these feelings associated were too much for me to handle.

I wondered if I was imagining this whole thing. Am I going crazy? Has my loneliness and isolation subconsciously unlocked this sad defense mechanism? All the emotions and the thoughts were too much for me to handle sitting in my first class - funny enough it was Psychology. Even though the professor was the only one talking, I could still hear the voices. They nearly drowned out the lecture.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

I don’t know how I ended up standing with nearly 80 other students staring back at me. I don’t even remember how I got my voice to yell that out loud. The professor gave me a concerned look after her initial shock wore off. The voices start to pour in, one over the other.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I was scared and I had no clue what this affliction meant. Naturally, I fled to my dorm room - adamant that I would never show my face in that class again. I submerge my whole body with my blanket and take cover. That’s when I hear another voice. Unlike the voices I’ve heard all day, this voice was weak…course. It’s sounded near death.

“Help me…”

I walked around in circles to find out where this ragged voice was coming from. Is it coming from the wall we share with Samantha or is it coming from the opposite side?

I go out into the hallway. Instantly, that voice goes silent amongst the others. When I step back inside my dorm room, the voice prevails. I ask myself what does it mean?

I open all the cabinets on my side of the dorm room but I don’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Just when I think the voice is fading away, I hear that decrepit tone whisper, “Find me. Help me. As I follow the voice, I am guided to the closet. It’s cracked open. I try to push it closed but it won’t budge. I add a little more force. All of a sudden a body falls out of the closet and onto the carpet.

I am at a loss for words. I attempt to give the unidentified man CPR, but he doesn’t respond. The young man is dead. Just as I start thinking about my next course of action, my roommate barrels into our room.

She sees the man’s lifeless body laying face down.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” Tiffany exclaims.