Somehow, Henry had found Ruse’s number, because as soon as they’d left the con, her phone started blowing up with dozens upon dozens of hateful and frightening text messages from phone numbers with South Dakota area codes, no doubt from him… She had deleted all that she could until panic set in and she had to set the device to do-not-disturb mode.

Now, it wasn’t ideal for Ruse, but she felt the safest option would be to stay with Kevin in a hotel for the night, at his suggestion, rather than risk going home. She couldn’t hide the fact that she would rather be anywhere else, though. She spent the entire drive to the hotel bitterly cringing herself into a small frilly pink wad in the back right passenger seat—the front shotgun seat was for Kevin’s banjo—with only her twisty hair visible through the window to the others on the road. Being the pristine and cute girl she was, she felt super embarrassed and degraded to be in Kevin’s old beat up car with its stupid Hatsune Miku decal on the side and vanity license plate reading “MILADY”.

She just had to keep telling herself at least this is better than the back of a police cruiser…

Then the silence hit her.

She supposed there was one good thing about Kevin’s car in that case: she had the option to ask him to keep the radio off. She very much disliked listening to music, as a result of Henry’s abuse… She would have to tell Kevin about it at some point, but it could wait. Or he could just ask…

The hotel she and Kevin chose was small and dingy, with no wi-fi and not even a television in the single-bed room the two agreed to split the bill for. This was the kind of place that the scum of Japantown came to for their fix of sinful activities, and it was perfect! It was exactly the way Ruse wanted it; she felt the smaller and less fancy the place, the less likely anyone would think to find her there.

Once they closed and locked the room door behind them, the two both chose to turn off their phones so to not be located by the ping. And at least with Ruse’s phone off now, the morbid curiosity to read the disgusting names Henry was calling her and his pathetic begging and bargaining was put somewhat at bay.

As soon as she could, Ruse ran for the bath, desperately needing to wash the disgusting feeling of being watched off of her body. Her skin had been crawling with unease since the moment she read Henry’s message to Kevin, and she hated it. She hated how easy it was for a single dumb Facebook message to force a reaction from her like this.

A flood of memories of her sour relationship with Henry invaded her mind as she slipped into the warm bath water.

Back before she understood her lack of attraction to men, Ruse spent—nay, wasted all of her late high school and early university years in a relationship with Henry.

Because she had always been a creative, right-brained type, Ruse took art and music classes at the University of South Dakota, while left-brained Henry was more focused on his courses in science, math, and politics. And although Ruse was quite the opposite of him, she assumed—clearly incorrectly—that the old adage of ‘opposites attract’ negated their differences. She held so strongly to this belief that it ended up blinding her to all the abuse he would later come to commit upon her.

Over the course of their few shared university semesters, Henry had a terrible habit of nagging and picking on Ruse about how ‘useless’ her studies were, how she would never get anywhere by ‘drawing dresses’ or trying to be an ‘idol’ - or a popular singer within Asian culture. And those constant insults and discouraging remarks ultimately led Ruse to lose all her interest in singing. She hadn’t sang in years, and her voice had gone from silky to shrill in that time frame.

How she wished she could get back into the hang of singing, and how she wished she could get back into that fun, bouncy anime music… Alas, any music that played near her now made her irrationally upset.

And on top of his ridiculing her interest in music, Henry even bagged on Ruse for her interest in sewing. A literal important life skill! He regularly told her how it would ruin her hands and make them less soft and feminine. Because he needed her to be as soft and malleable as possible in order to keep her.

She never stopped sewing though. She kept up this hobby in private. She had to; he was taking away every single other defining feature she had...

Sadly, even after all of Henry’s bashing of her interests, Ruse couldn’t really pinpoint anything particularly wrong with their relationship during that time. Girls were supposed to be into these smart, popular, charismatic, muscular men, right? Henry ticked every box there. He was just being commanding, as a good man should be. Or at least that’s what he always told her. He was even the one who sought her out; she didn’t have to do a thing to win his affections. Ruse had assumed she was doing pretty well for herself. It didn’t matter how little she had in common with him or how bad he made her feel all the time; what mattered was that their relationship fit all the socially acceptable parameters when viewed from the outside. They were like a power couple in that sense. Or at least that was the excuse she was making on his behalf back then. She sure used to make a lot of excuses for his vile, shitty behavior...

Now, though…now she knew that he had sought her out for a reason unrelated to romance. He recognized something in her back then: that she could be easily manipulated. That he could control her. Own her. And he succeeded in doing so for a scarily long time.

Near the end of her second year of university, Ruse found herself bored in her dormitory room, lurking through Henry’s Facebook profile. He had a fairly long list of friends online, even though he prevented her from having more than a handful, because he considered such behavior to be a form of cheating. This was fine to her at the time though, as he had successfully convinced her he was all she needed in life.

She huffed in the hotel tub just thinking about how hypocritical this was, kicking herself over how she had never realized it back then. And it was bad. Henry’s secluding her from other people over the years had made it terribly hard for her to make friends, which left her in the present with Kevin as her sole relationship with another human being. And it wasn’t like she had anything against Kevin, she just longed for more companionship. Female companionship. But the lasting fear Henry instilled, the fear that she would be in a world of trouble if she sought it out…it crippled her.

As her negative feelings bounced around inside, she dunked herself just deep enough in the bath water that her hair twists stayed above the drink. The water’s warmth was soothing, but the next memory soothed her even further.

While she scrolled through the faces on Henry’s list of Facebook friends, a pair of bright honey-colored eyes and voluminous curly blonde hair caught her attention. The name above the picture read: Breanna Van Dyke. The girl in the picture was just gorgeous, absolutely stunning.

A strange new feeling came over Ruse in that moment; it was warm and fuzzy and right. She felt it in every part of her body, and it was good. The room around her began fading away and she felt herself being absorbed into her laptop screen. She clicked on the girl’s profile, which immediately caused her temperature to rise and her cheeks to fill with hot blush.

It seemed miss Breanna was a stripper, and most of her pictures were quite revealing. But Ruse couldn’t look away. She was entranced by this woman’s dangerous curves, enchanting smile, and warm, inviting eyes. This was more than fascination or admiration…she had never felt this attracted to Henry.

Before she got too carried away, she forced herself to pause and lean back from her laptop.

Was she…gay?

She perished the thought; her mother had raised a good southern baptist girl, a girl with God and anime on her side. And she had a good boyfriend, one that just wanted what was best for her!

But the thought didn’t stay perished. She clicked through to Breanna’s general information to find out how Henry knew her. Even though she sometimes didn’t like how Henry treated her, she knew she wouldn’t be able to just shrug it off if it turned out he was being unfaithful.

Fortunately, the relationships and family section of Breanna’s profile listed her as Henry’s cousin. Thank goodness. Ruse sighed in relief.

Over the next few minutes, Ruse went perusing through Breanna’s collection of selfies and other photos. She laughed nervously to herself as she took in the sights. Maybe I’m just seeing some of Henry’s features in his family member’s pictures, she tried to tell herself. But Henry did not have such luscious lips, thick thighs or an enormous pair of succulent squeezable flouncy breasts…

Ruse closed the laptop, allowing the world around her to phase back in. Holographic laptop decal stickers of hearts and stars reflected the above light fixture. Ruse’s ears were burning and her brain was buzzing with an abundance of serotonin. That wave of the happy chemical had carried her quite a ways…

When her temperature began to settle, she started panicking. She needed to tell Henry about this.

And she did. Over text, she informed Henry she would meet up with him at the university cafe the next day, with the intention to inform him about this very important new self-discovery. He would surely understand.

No, he wouldn’t! In the tub, present-day-Ruse squirmed in frustration at her past-self’s choice to tell him. He was such a nosy, controlling prick that he had forced her to believe that even her random feelings and thoughts all needed to be reported to him. That her thoughts weren’t even hers.

…then again, if she hadn’t told him, she would never have gotten the opportunity to escape…