Always a Time: Jenny’s Tale
By Kristie Kretsinger
I remember the day my life began. It wasn’t at birth, or when I first noticed my toes. Not when my imaginary parents got all excited over when I was able to walk for the first time. Not even when I had my first glance at sunshine when I was a ripe old age of nine. My life began the day I met the person that would pull me out of the torturous hole I was born into, and more importantly became my only friend. The only one I ever had and the only one I will ever need.
My name is Jenny, and this is the beginning of my story.
It would be best to start before I was able to become part of the world and live. It’s hard to paint a pretty picture of my childhood, and I’m hard pressed to even try. From the information that was made available to me, I lived on a Mountainous farm in northern Georgia of about 400 acres, mostly for horses. With four brothers, there could’ve been more. However, that information was never given to me. The room I grew up in was an 8’ by 8’ room with its own bathroom and no windows. The door to my room had a slot for food and other items to be slid through to me.
It was less than a room; it was a prison, of what crime I had committed I did not know at the time. In my later years I have found the reason was being born of my mother from a man that was not the one she was married too. I’ve often wondered why he would have allowed her to go through with the birth knowing I did not belong to him. However, I, not being a cold manipulative monster, cannot speak for him.
In addition to imprisoning me I also became his outlet for frustration. The physical abuse was nightly and included torture with homemade instruments. Just to see how much pain they could cause. The favorite of which was a bat-like device with long ridges carved down the sides in wavy patterns. This was an instrument of pain that has haunted me to this very day. Hitting someone with your bare hands gets tiring at times and is a working man’s game, that’s why he needed a weapon. He didn’t want to get those baby soft hands of his dirty.
I wasn’t one who didn’t fight back mind you, I fought as hard as I could to get out of that hell. The time I came the closest on my own I had managed to get the hinges off the door using a butter knife from lunch. In my mind, the fear of death from escape and the elements was better than whatever life I was currently living. I had no idea what was out in the world waiting for me, but I had to try, I just couldn’t give up…
My mistake was not waiting until night after everyone had gone to bed before bolting for it. I knew if I waited until after he visited, I wouldn’t have the strength to run. I could feel the crisp cold fall air on my face for just a brief second before I was yanked back into the manor and slung across the floor. This would be the last time I was going to get hit, I thought to myself, either he kills me, or I get out!
It didn’t take much to get that fight out of me, I had received a few exceptionally hard swings to the head and lapsed into a coma. Somehow and for what reason is a mystery, I was taken to a nearby hospital. When I awoke from the coma, it had been a few weeks or months because there was snow outside the window. My body was healed, and I felt very woozy from not moving around at all. This time around I waited until night when the nurses were few and far between. I managed to slip out of the hospital without being seen and made my way to a small quiet neighborhood a small walk down the road.
The walk was long and hard because I was so weak, and I believe I passed out several times but had to keep going. I found some clothes on a clothesline that fit well enough to pass. I didn’t know where I was going but I headed north until I got to the next town. It was small, but would do for recuperating. I was afforded books and tools to learn to read while in captivity, so I did have that going for me. I was able to talk a small café manager into letting me work for him and get paid just in tips. Amazingly, with having socialized so very little in my life, it turned out to be really easy to schmooze with the clientele. A little smile and a feigned interest in whatever they had to say, and I was rolling in tips every night.
Through one of my regular customers, I was able to pay a little every week for a small room over their barn. I was still too close to my old prison to ever be at ease, always looking over my shoulder for my captor. I just knew he was on the hunt for me, and I had to get out of there as soon as I had the cash. But until I had enough, I had to keep up the act as the charming but down on her luck kid who just needed some time to get things together. Which wasn’t that far off from the truth, luck, what a jerk.
On a not too exciting day, I met Cameron, a tall, scrawny man who never spoke to anyone. But at this café, it wasn’t required if all you wanted to do was cook and bus tables. The manager liked taking in hard-luck cases it seemed. One of those types who just wants to help people…as long as it doesn’t hurt their bottom line. The manager introduced us, possibly because I had been there a while and never spoken to any other person outside of customers. It’s part of a socializing that I will never care for or understand, why talk to someone just to do it?
I decided I had to keep up my act and get to know Cameron better, but a few hours passed, and he never even glanced my way. I couldn’t corner him to save my life because he was so fast gliding around the place. Honestly if I was in a place where I could have a fun cat and mouse game this would have been it, but I wasn’t there yet. He knew what he was doing, and it was only irritating me more and more every time he ducked around a corner and disappeared. I lingered around one of my tables after the customers left. He breezed in and magically cleaned the table like Houdini on uppers. I stood directly behind him just watching the oddest show of cleaning a table I’ll ever see in my life.
When he turned around, we locked eyes and I was shocked at how crazy beautiful his were, I became lost for words and mumbled through, “uhhh…Hi,” did an awkward wave that got a smile out of him, then I walked off. I could feel him watching me walk away, I think I felt what most would describe as embarrassment but couldn’t place it at the time. After that I started to notice things that I hadn’t before. When I worked, the tables were always clean and ready almost immediately after the customers left. But when any of the other girls worked, even though he was there, they had to clean the tables themselves. When I asked them about it, that was apparently what had been happening all along, but I just never noticed.
A few days later I found a small violet flower in my cubby in the break room, it was stunning, and I was reminded of his eyes though they were not even close to same color. When I would be in the serving area it seemed as though I was being watched but I never saw anyone when I scanned the room, I knew it was Cameron. It was time to take action and introduce myself. I’d hoped I didn’t freeze up again, but that was a risk I was willing to take. I waited until virtually alone in the café and went back to where he seemed to be the most, the grill area. I watched him fiddle around with different cooking utensils for several minutes before he turned to me.
“I’m Jenny. Can we talk? I mean…should we…or like…do you want to talk?” My voice trailed off and I felt that flush faced feeling again, so I turned back to look out at the front. He still didn’t say anything, just let out a smirk quietly and went back to fiddling. In that moment, from that small sound, I suddenly felt at ease with him. With this stranger whom I knew nothing about, we’d never spoken a word and somehow, he just shook me and I felt calm for the first time in my life. I realized in those moments that I was exhausting myself pretending to be someone else all the time, but I didn’t have a choice.
“Thanks for that.” I looked over at him and smiled then went back to the front.
That was it…that was the day my life actually began, with a conversation between two people where nothing was spoken at all. After that, he started allowing me to see him watching, but I think he was trying to figure me out just as much as I was him. For the next couple of weeks we sort of floated around each other having entire conversations without saying a word. If I could’ve been happy, it would’ve been at that time. With Cameron I could forget anything that happened in the past…with him I could smile and mean it.
One rainy night I was in my loft counting my tips from an unusually slow day when I heard a noise unlike the normal cow noises I was getting used to. I had purchased a butterfly knife that I was becoming extremely fast with flipping around and had it ready. It was dark but I could see an outline of a man. The person stiffened as I spotted him but didn’t lunge at me or run. As I got closer, I could see it was Cameron.
“Cam? Don’t stand out in the rain, you can come up, I have an extra blanket if you want. You must be freezing.”
I flipped the blade closed and slid it in my back pocket, then climbed back up to the loft. It took him a bit, but he finally did climb up and sat in a chair opposite of the small bed I was on. I instinctively grabbed the extra blanket and wrapped it around him. I went to walk away but he stopped me and pulled me closer. His eyes were swimmable; I’d never seen such color, unique just like that flower.
I cupped his face in mine and kissed him, I couldn’t help myself. And he kissed back. He pulled me down into the chair with him where we stayed the rest of the night, just embraced together under the blanket. No other physical activities. Just two people held together by the silence of non-verbal connection. I’d not slept much since I got away, but somehow for the first time it was a full peaceful night’s rest.
Once the sun started peeking through the skylight, we headed out to work. The day went by like normal until mid-afternoon when a Sheriffs vehicle pulled up outside. Before I could make my way to the back exit, I felt my arms being squeezed together and I was lifted off the ground. I caught one last glance of Cameron before they dragged me away, I could see the panic in his eyes. I wish I could say he wasn’t alone in that feeling but I felt it too. After all, I was being carted off to my death most definitely. Once in the car I started screaming, it only took one blow to the head with a nightstick to shut me up.
I woke up in my old bed, I screamed, but the echoes were all I got back in return. After a few days of no contact, the dead bolt on the door popped and my mother strolled in with a cart of food. I didn’t say anything at first, I just watched her put the plates on the side table next to the bed. She turned to leave, and I said lowly, “I’m going to kill you, you know that right? I might not get to him, but you, you’re dead.”
One night about a month in, as I was waiting for my ritual beating, I started hearing odd noises coming from inside the house. Sounds of scuffling and yelling, I put my ear to the door trying to figure out what was going on. It got quiet, then I heard my captor grunting in what sounded like pain. “I’ll kill you, you son of a…” He exclaimed, shortly after there was the sound of a shotgun going off, and a hard thump on the floor.
My heart was beating a mile a minute, I prayed with all my might that it was my captor who got shot. My solace didn’t last very long when I heard the sound of him laughing in jubilation. He had shot somebody, and he was very happy about it. The laughing stopped suddenly, and a brawl began between the captor and this unknown person, it lasted no longer than a couple of minutes and ended with another shotgun blast. I strained my ear again and heard nothing but complete silence. After a short time, I realized that there was someone alive on the other side of the door, and they were standing flush against it like me, I could almost feel the warmth from their body through the door. Whoever it was, they knew I was in the room.
I pulled away from the door, at least my captor was most likely dead, I didn’t care what happened to me as long as he was dead. That’s all that mattered. I dropped to the floor quietly and scooted back to a dark corner and waited. They began pounding their body up against the door trying once, twice then on the third try it flew open and slammed against the wall so hard the doorknob stuck in the wall taking part of the frame off with it.
I couldn’t believe it. It was Cameron. I was shocked; he had come to rescue me. The look on his face was that of pain, “Are you hurt?” I said while looking for any visible wounds, because he was drenched in blood. He shook his head ‘yes.’ “Where are you hurt? I don’t see any wounds, just blood.” Then he reached for my hand and placed it over his heart. I couldn’t form any words after that, I just wrapped my arms around him and started crying as he held me.
Once I regained my composure, we started through the house, and I saw all of the carnage. My captor’s neck was slit; it looked like his head was barely attached; I’d longed for it for so long but felt nothing. It was very anticlimactic. We got downstairs and I could hear a low whimper from the living room. We both looked at each other and he handed me my butterfly knife. I got closer and it was my mother, she was injured from getting shot and was trying to crawl away. I grabbed her hair, pulled her head back and slit her throat with the knife. That time I felt something, I felt…satisfied.
The house went silent; I let out a long breath and closed my eyes. It was over. When Cameron and I left that place, we never looked back. We learned to live and love with the help of each other. We didn’t go on a killing spree, though we did kill again. Eventually Cameron even started speaking.
…But that is another story.
