From You

There are things in life I regret; I think it is a perfectly normal thing to say; everyone has regrets, right? Some regrets are felt more than others; for me, there is one decision I regret more than others.

My decision to follow you to America was my biggest mistake. It was not meeting you, I am a firm believer that people come into your life for a reason, and you walked right into mine to make me stronger. You are a powerful man with a lavish life and several bank accounts. You are the greed that this world tries so hard to conceal so that people like me fall for your faux antics, only to realize just how selfish you are in the end.

So I am on the run; our child is safe and sound. With someone you never met, someone you will never meet, and someone you could never find. No matter how much money you have, some secrets are priceless, and Ezekiel will never know his father’s true monster.

Hatred and fear consume my soul. I speed down the road, knowing that the weather is awful and that I should slow down. But every time I see the speedometer fall under seventy, I feel panicked. My mind makes me question if the headlights behind me are yours, and anxiety muddles my brain, and the dense fog makes it hard to see. If it weren’t for you and your refusal to drive. I would have no idea how to leave, but your laziness forced me to harness a skill I did not know I had. I have a decent sense of direction, and my memory is well off enough that I was able to navigate through this city of yours.

You really fooled me, convinced me that I am wrong to feel betrayed, left behind, and forgotten. Angry tears threaten to roll down my face, but I wipe them before they can fall. A man like you deserves no tears, and a man like you would never cry for a woman like me.

The fog is thick, and the bridge next to the lake makes my stomach turn. My hands tighten around the steering wheel, and I try to calm down my thundering heart.

My mother knew that you were trouble from the moment you swept me off my feet. Of course, she knew, but you played your part so well, you persuaded me into thinking my mother was out to get us. No, she was after you, and she had every right to be.

You are a monster.

The villain to our story, you are nothing but a demoralizing crock of-, my train of thought is interrupted as I feel the car start to slide across the ice. I never slowed down, and when I tried to take that sharp curve, the car went the opposite direction of the bridge, toward the ominous lake below. I am barreling towards the barriers; the tires skid even as I stupidly jam my foot on the break.

But it is too late; there is nothing I can do but sit back. I can feel the car propelling into the air, smashing through the barricade as if it were a simple sheet of candy glass. My seat belt tightens against my body, making me feel nearly suffocated; a delayed airbag deploys and smacks me against the head.

The world spins as I fly through the air; it feels like an hour goes by before the car bellyflops into the lake. My mouth opens up to scream, but nothing comes out. My voice has retracted into my body, but thankfully my brain is fast enough to process that I have to get out of this car.

I roll the window down as fast as I can, and I try to push myself through the window. My seatbelt yanks me back, and with a frustrated cry, I unbuckle myself. The car is sinking, the water is rising, and rolling down the window to escape only escalated the rising water. I am trying to hold onto my breath, but it is hard to keep myself from panicking. The water is freezing, and my skin is bare because my jacket is in the backseat, along with the rest of my entire life.

This time, tears stream down my face, as I imagine all of the baby pictures I will lose, the only ones I will ever have. I hate you so much; if I could drag you to hell with me, I would. By just to know that you would rot in hell is enough for me to call dibs on the cell next to yours.

The window is big enough to make it through, but the water is dark, and I am extremely far from the shore of the lake. Since the bridge is built over the middle of the lake, I know that I am at least seven miles away from safety. My chest burns from trying to conserve oxygen; I sliced my leg on some metal, as I swam out of the window. I don’t have to push too far to reach the surface; I can almost smile as my head breaks through water.

But the cold air pricks my face, the icy water bites at my skin, and the dark world is so black, I scream.

How am I going to make it back?

My head turns to where my car should be, but there is nothing to see. The water is too opaque; even the headlights are invisible. If I didn’t know that my car was down there, no one else would have been able to tell.

Goosebumps bite at my skin, my wet, cold, and heavy hair is falling out of the bun on the top of my head. My clothes feel like they are a thousand pounds; I am glad that the three-thousand dollar coat you bought me is rotting away at the bottom of the lake. It probably would have just weighed me down anyways.

I begin to swim even though I am afraid at any moment something or someone could grab my leg and drag me back into the frightening abyss of the lake. I shiver, and my teeth chatter.

If the lake was frozen, would the car still have sunk into the water? I lived in a place where it never snowed until I met you. Snow tires were unheard of, and I did not own any kind of jacket other than the occasional hoodie.

I am so cold that I know I will not make it to the other side. My body will cramp up with hypothermia before I can cross these miles. Swimming across might be more achievable on foot, but either way seemed miserable. However, I would love to switch. My clothes wouldn’t be soaking and clinging to my body; my shoes wouldn’t be wet and soggy.

Tears bitterly fell, here I am trying to escape you, and the world punishes me for it. What kind of nightmare am I living?

I am sobbing now, and it is making my body even more exhausted, and I am not much more further across than I was before when I stopped moving. Something swims by me in the water, and I jerk back in action. Too afraid to give up, too scared to stay still, and too cold to stop moving.

Ezekiel’s face pops into the empty blackboard of my mind, and all I can do is focus on him. His cute straight nose and his warm round brown eyes melt my heart. The tears are flowing like a sprinkler.

My legs are burning, I feel like I am exhaling fire, and my tired body is giving up. I feel so hopeless, so breathless.

I could take a nap, the thought echos, and I know that it won’t just be a nap that I take. It will be a permanent slumber; Ezekiel would never see me again.

The thought does not hurt me like I thought it would, and I lean back, staring at the starless sky. My son is better off without us because his father will always track me down.

Without me, his father did not know and could not know who he was. After all, the boy is only eight months old. He is bound to change, and a man as negligent as you probably didn’t know Ezekiel’s face by memory anyways.

I knew that they would take care of him. That he would never know that he was not theirs, and thank god, Michael never met them. I gave them money to move away. To leave the country if they wanted made them promise that they would leave the state that evening. Then I handed over his social security card, birth certificate, vaccination records, and passport I had made so that Ezekiel could meet my parents.

They had every part of him that made the boy mine; I peacefully thought to myself as I kicked my legs; I was barely moving now. My heart erratically beat, slamming against the wall of my chest. My fingers and toes are numb with frostbite; if I were to survive, I wonder how many body parts I would lose.

And if some unfortunate soul did find my body, would my husband identify me? Would he look for our missing son?

Something wraps around my ankle; it’s squidgy and feels like suction cups are attaching to my skin. I scream, but whatever is holding onto me, let’s go. I kick forward with as much energy possible, and I try to keep swimming until I can’t anymore.

My son’s eyes are all I can see; the moonless night is horrible, the fog is still incredibly thick. I have no idea how far I have made it from the original spot because the fog makes it immeasurable.

This predicament is my fault and yours. I feel like if I die in this freezing water, I will be okay. This is because I have managed to keep Ezekiel hidden from you. The only warmth that spreads through my body stems from the fondness that I harbor for my son. Because he is not your son, he is mine.

He is mine.

That is the last thought I have as I close my eyes and rest my head in the water. My body is numb, so cold that I can only feel that I am out. There is nothing else to think about, and my eyes shut as they search the empty sky.

I slip away from the lake, away from Ezekiel, and away from you. It is wonderful to know that he is safe from you. I love you, Ezekiel.