Entangled
For Mum, for everything.
Elspeth Margaret Clarke
1947–2010
day 3
I met Ethan the night I was planning to kill myself. Pretty inconvenient, when you think about it.
The same questions whirl round and round in my head:
What does he want from me?
How could I have let this happen?
AM I GOING TO DIE? (That one’s my particular favourite.)
This isn’t quite how I planned it. And I do like things to go to plan.
First things first: let’s just start writing and see where that takes me. I presume that’s what all the paper is here for. And the pens. Seems to me there are enough pens to last a long time. This is very, very bad. Maybe I’ll just lie down for a second.
Don’t know how long I was out for. Don’t have my watch. Or my clothes. The thought of him undressing me when I was unconscious is beyond embarrassing. And this gown thing is not exactly the height of fashion. I feel like I’m waiting to be operated on. God, I really hope that’s not the case. I’m sort of attached to my internal organs. I must be losing it – cracking jokes at a time like this. But humour at inappropriate times always has been a speciality of mine.
I have to figure out a way to get out of here. Maybe I can reason with him. I just need to find out what he wants. But part of me doesn’t want to know the answer.
Shit … I think he’s coming.
Well, that was short and sweet. He just came in with my food on a tray, saw me sitting at the table, pen in hand, and nodded. He seemed pleased. I sat there like an idiot, gawping at him. He didn’t try to read what I’ve written – just looked at me in that way that makes me sure he knows exactly what I’m thinking. And then he was gone. Door bolted behind him, of course.
The food was delicious. That’s just one of the many, many weird things about this. The food is great. And how many kidnapping cases have you heard about where the victim has her own en-suite bathroom? And possibly the comfiest bed in the entire world. I just wish everything wasn’t so white. It makes my head hurt. Sometimes I have to close my eyes to remind myself that there are other colours in the universe. At least these pens aren’t white. That would have been pretty annoying, to say the least. Because writing is definitely helping. Just the mechanics of it: forming the letters which make up the words which magically join up to make sentences. It’s sort of soothing. But what does he want me to write? And why does he want me to write? Weird weird weird. Still, maybe this is my big chance to be the writer I’ve always wanted to be. My last chance, probably.
Anyway, you’re supposed to write about what you know, aren’t you? So let’s start with Ethan. Maybe someone will be able to find him one day (probably years after my skeleton is found at this bloody table with a biro still clutched in my bony fingers). I reckon he’s about six feet tall. I’m basing this guesstimate on Nat, who maintains he’s six foot but is clearly no taller than five foot ten. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
But back to Ethan. He is beautiful. I mean properly beautiful. He has black hair. It’s somewhere between long and short, and there’s this bit that’s always falling in front of his eyes. His eyes … well, they’re grey. Gunmetal grey? Slate grey? Sky-before-a-spectacular-summer-thunderstorm grey? Maybe just plain old grey grey. His face is perfect. Honestly, it’s like he just fell out of a painting or something. Cheekbones, eyebrows, nose, jaw. He’s got them all and they’re all just right. And that mouth … he has the lushest lips I’ve ever seen. I liked kissing them.
So what else, what else? He’s pale, really pale. Like never-seen-the-daylight-cos-I’m-actually-a-vampire pale. For a brief moment of madness yesterday (after an entirely sleepless night), I did entertain the thought that maybe he is a vampire. Until I remembered that my life isn’t actually Twilight. Ethan’s skin is amazing. I would kill for skin that clear. I can’t quite work out how old he is. At first I thought he was maybe around twenty, but it’s really hard to tell. Sometimes he looks older, and other times he looks like a lost little boy.
He has a scar from the bottom of