could sneak back into the house and get properly dressed.
Or I could stay in the house until I figured out what to do.
A rumbling noise made my decision for me. It was pitch dark in the trunk, but I could not mistake the sound of the garage
door opening.
“I’ll lock up.”
I blinked in the darkness. The voice was muffled, but I thought that’s what I heard. They were leaving!
The car shifted with the weight of a driver climbing in. With a single beat, the engine purred to life and my heart nearly
stopped. They were taking the car!
I groped for the trunk release and found it but stopped short of pulling the cord. Popping the trunk now would be the worst
thing I could possibly do. They would see the skinny white girl tugging a two-legged bag from the trunk and then running across
the driveway. Once they got over their shock, they would either gun me down or run me over.
The car was moving. Backing up.
Rock music blared from speakers behind me. I was trapped with Led Zeppelin singing “Stairway to Heaven.”
It took me only a few seconds to conclude that my life was as good as over. I should have sneaked out to the beach and hidden
behind a large rock. I could have hidden in the corner of the garage with a blanket draped over my head. I was a fool not
to dig a hole in the sand and bury myself until they had left.
But now I was speeding away from the house, surely to a field where they would drag me out and kill me, or onto a ship that
would be sent overseas, where stolen cars bring in good money.
Motion sickness overwhelmed me and I had to throw up once, but after I wiped my face on a cuff of my flannel moneybag, I felt
better.
I tried to keep track of how long we were on the road. I wanted a rough idea of how far from Malibu we would end up, but time
drifted and I lost track.
I had left my pills in the house, I realized. Without them, the monsters would return. The blue pill was the one that helped
me deal with the trauma I’d experienced, and the sedative helped keep me calm. Honestly, I don’t know why I took the sedative.
I felt calm enough in the house, but now I wished I had brought both bottles.
My mind imagined a dozen scenarios of what might happen once that trunk opened.
I had lived with men who used violence to get what they wanted, and the memories came back to me in fragments, each one more
sickening than the last. Screams, the crunch of bones, gunshots. They were bundled in a heroin-induced fog from long ago,
but I was surprised by how real they felt as they surfaced.
I started to cry softly as I lay there on that hard trunk floor, and I resigned myself to the fact that once they opened the
trunk, I would be executed. My last threads of self-control fell away when one of Lamont’s favorite songs by Coldplay, “What
If,” played over the speakers.
It was a sad song about not belonging that he would sometimes listen to while drinking a glass of red wine on the balcony.
“I hope you never leave me, Renee,” he would say. “I don’t know what I would do if you left me.”
I would throw my arms around his neck. “I would never leave you, Lamont! Never!”
In the trunk, I began to weep uncontrollably at the memory. Somehow this was all my fault. I was leaving him now, wasn’t I?
Guilt racked my body and I shook with sobs. It wasn’t logical, I see that now, but my anguish was no less real than if I’d
spit in his face to thank him for all he’d done for me. If the music hadn’t been playing so loudly, my sorrow would have alerted
the driver and gotten me killed on the spot.
As the miles rolled by I began to settle, enough to start thinking more about the present than the past.
I concocted absurd little plans. When the trunk opened I would spring out and bite the man on his nose before he had time
to react. When he grabbed at his bloody face, I would snatch my moneybag and fly into the woods.
Or, when they opened the trunk, I would play dead
Or I could stay in the house until I figured out what to do.
A rumbling noise made my decision for me. It was pitch dark in the trunk, but I could not mistake the sound of the garage
door opening.
“I’ll lock up.”
I blinked in the darkness. The voice was muffled, but I thought that’s what I heard. They were leaving!
The car shifted with the weight of a driver climbing in. With a single beat, the engine purred to life and my heart nearly
stopped. They were taking the car!
I groped for the trunk release and found it but stopped short of pulling the cord. Popping the trunk now would be the worst
thing I could possibly do. They would see the skinny white girl tugging a two-legged bag from the trunk and then running across
the driveway. Once they got over their shock, they would either gun me down or run me over.
The car was moving. Backing up.
Rock music blared from speakers behind me. I was trapped with Led Zeppelin singing “Stairway to Heaven.”
It took me only a few seconds to conclude that my life was as good as over. I should have sneaked out to the beach and hidden
behind a large rock. I could have hidden in the corner of the garage with a blanket draped over my head. I was a fool not
to dig a hole in the sand and bury myself until they had left.
But now I was speeding away from the house, surely to a field where they would drag me out and kill me, or onto a ship that
would be sent overseas, where stolen cars bring in good money.
Motion sickness overwhelmed me and I had to throw up once, but after I wiped my face on a cuff of my flannel moneybag, I felt
better.
I tried to keep track of how long we were on the road. I wanted a rough idea of how far from Malibu we would end up, but time
drifted and I lost track.
I had left my pills in the house, I realized. Without them, the monsters would return. The blue pill was the one that helped
me deal with the trauma I’d experienced, and the sedative helped keep me calm. Honestly, I don’t know why I took the sedative.
I felt calm enough in the house, but now I wished I had brought both bottles.
My mind imagined a dozen scenarios of what might happen once that trunk opened.
I had lived with men who used violence to get what they wanted, and the memories came back to me in fragments, each one more
sickening than the last. Screams, the crunch of bones, gunshots. They were bundled in a heroin-induced fog from long ago,
but I was surprised by how real they felt as they surfaced.
I started to cry softly as I lay there on that hard trunk floor, and I resigned myself to the fact that once they opened the
trunk, I would be executed. My last threads of self-control fell away when one of Lamont’s favorite songs by Coldplay, “What
If,” played over the speakers.
It was a sad song about not belonging that he would sometimes listen to while drinking a glass of red wine on the balcony.
“I hope you never leave me, Renee,” he would say. “I don’t know what I would do if you left me.”
I would throw my arms around his neck. “I would never leave you, Lamont! Never!”
In the trunk, I began to weep uncontrollably at the memory. Somehow this was all my fault. I was leaving him now, wasn’t I?
Guilt racked my body and I shook with sobs. It wasn’t logical, I see that now, but my anguish was no less real than if I’d
spit in his face to thank him for all he’d done for me. If the music hadn’t been playing so loudly, my sorrow would have alerted
the driver and gotten me killed on the spot.
As the miles rolled by I began to settle, enough to start thinking more about the present than the past.
I concocted absurd little plans. When the trunk opened I would spring out and bite the man on his nose before he had time
to react. When he grabbed at his bloody face, I would snatch my moneybag and fly into the woods.
Or, when they opened the trunk, I would play dead
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