April 2014

  About three months passed.  It was the longest and most painful three months of my life.  I had barely any contact with anyone I knew or loved.  And for the few times I was able to talk with anyone, Lars was controlling my every word.  My whole world had to revolve around Lars.  If I gave him the attention he wanted, he would be nice to me for the most part.  There were days when Lars seemed to feel bad for his actions and he would attempt to spoil me.  He would take me out for dinner, and spend the whole day with me trying to make me happy.  Nothing he ever did made me happy. It was kind of hard to be happy when he was controlling everything. I knew by the next day it would be back to normal anyway.  That only pissed him off more, and by the next day, he would treat me even worse.

  One morning when I headed downstairs to nab breakfast, I noticed something odd.  There was a pile of mail on the counter, but one letter was for me.  Normally the bills were under my name, as I was the owner of the house, but the envelope wasn’t the same as the ones used for bills.  It was a light pink, which was what caught my eye. Desperate for some sort of human interaction, I grabbed it and opened it.  I gasped when I saw it was a letter from my old high school.  

  Quickly, I scanned it over.  It was an invitation to the annual grad reunion.  It was only a couple days away. Every year our grad year would do this.  We had a facebook group where they organized everything. Normally grad classes did the usual 5 or 10 year reunions, but our grad class was very social and liked to get together annually. It was easier to keep up with people, and most of the time, it was just for the really social people.  Seeing as Diane was social, she almost always dragged me along. It was nice because some teachers who were also part of the group would come along as well. Honestly, it was just nice to keep up with everyone. This time I really wanted to go, but deep down I knew that Lars would never let me.  I just wanted to see people.  People other than Lars. Just as I thought about it, Lars walked in.

  “What do you have?”  He asked curiously.

  “Oh, it’s nothing.”  I laughed nervously.

  “Can I see then?”  He stuck out his hand.  It wasn’t really a question.  It was a demand.  So I handed over the letter.  Lars read it over and frowned.

  “What’s this?” He asked.

  “High school reunion.” I said quietly.

  “Lemme guess.  You always go with Diane.” Lars raised a brow.

  “Well… yea.” I admitted. “Please? Can I go?”

  Lars surprisingly thought about it before nodding. “Why not.”

  My face immediately lit up.  It was the first time feeling a good emotion in a very long time. I finally had an escape! I could finally meet up with Diane, and if I was careful enough, I could hint at things enough that she would intervene. I knew telling her everything right away would’ve been a dumb decision, and was too risky. Lars was sneaky and would find a way to make my life hell if he found out, and I feared he would also hurt Diane. So all I had to do was be careful-

  “But I’m going with you.” He finished his sentence with a fake smile.  My heart sank. All chances for hinting things to Diane were gone. I knew he would glue himself to me and keep a very strict eye on what I said and did. He noticed the look of disappointment on my face and laughed.

  “Did you really think I was going to let you go alone?” He laughed. “With Diane there? Hell no. You’d probably go cry to her about how ‘mean’ I am.”

  I wanted to fight back, but I was lucky enough he was even letting me go. I wasn’t going to argue about it and lose the chance to see my best friend again.  I wasn’t going to win anyway.