I don’t know how long it lasts for. Only that I am jarred awake by the most horrifying of sounds.
Confusion and shock take me prisoner when I open my eyes and confront the images in front of me.
I never noticed it before. The projector on the wall. The projector that has now become my worst nightmare.
It’s a replay of a well-known celebrity gossip show. And I am the unwitting guest star of their conversation. The topic is old hat.
Specifically, the rumors of me sleeping with one of the judges to win the show. Each host throws in their two cents before they read some of the twitter comments from the aftermath while they laugh.
Fat, talentless cow.
Her face looks like it got ran over and glued back together.
Bitch can’t sing her ABCs. Go home, American Star, you’re drunk.
Another waste of human space. Hope she gets hit by a bus.
The insults continue, flinging at me like arrows. It’s a constant loop of interviews and my most caustic critics replayed at a volume I can’t ignore.
I close my eyes and hum to try to block it out. I press my hands to my ears. It doesn’t work.
I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to be weak. And I hate him for this. I have never met anyone so evil. Rage overcomes me.
I pound on the door until my nails break and my fingers swell. When that doesn’t work, I launch my entire body against the frame.
I scream until my throat is raw. I force the ball gag from my mouth in a fit. And just when I think I can’t take another second, everything goes silent again.
I stare up at the ceiling. At the blinking light where he is undoubtedly watching me from. I wait for the torture to begin all over again. But it doesn’t.
Ten minutes pass.
Then twenty.
And thirty.
I curl up on the floor, on edge and exhausted. My eyes fall shut, and I start to drift off again. The moment I do, the projector screams back to life with more of the same.
This time, I do cry.
The tears fall and the words I can’t avoid blister every corner of my mind. I don’t know how long it goes on for. I can’t tell night from day in this room. So I count the drinks instead.
Twice a day, he brings me a jug of water.
It isn’t enough. And I’m never prepared. I never know when he’s going to come.
So far, he’s been six times. But I’m never fast enough to get to him. He opens the door without a sound and sets them inside. Then he leaves before I get a chance to attack.
He has to know. He has to know that I would kill him right now if I could.
I’m going insane. I haven’t slept in three days, and I’m starving, and my mind is so fractured from this unspeakable torture that I could murder him with my bare hands if he let me near him.
I would try. And I wouldn’t feel guilty for it. This is the animal he’s turned me into.
In three short days.
By the fourth, I can take it no longer. The humming doesn’t work. Talking to myself doesn’t work. Blocking it out isn’t an option. And so I do the only thing that I can. I sit down at the piano, and I close my eyes.
And I play.