megan

my captor

i feel like i am being held upside down by my ankle from
the highest branch of a tree. and no matter how i move, i
cannot rescue myself. if i struggle and fight my captor, i
will be dropped. but if i struggle too much, the branch
will break, and i will take my captor down with me as i
fall to the ground. and as much as i would like to take my
captor with me, i will not reduce myself to that status.
so i wait, dangling, for someone to see my plight and save
me. for maybe my captor to help me onto the branch and
carry me down, or perhaps for the ground to rise up so that
i will not fall so far. a bird passes and offers to carry
me away, but my weight is too much for it. so i wait. i
wonder if my captor will ever tire of holding me here.
tempting me with release and torturing me with pain. the
longer my captor waits to release me, the higher the tree
grows. i want to give up. to cry. but i cannot. i am
not sure why. it dawns on me that no one can save me but
myself. herein lies the problem. i feel that i cannot
save myself until i know why i ended up here. i know how
it happened, but not why. weeks pass before i realize that
i will never know why. i learn to cry. i ask my captor to
let me fall. when asked why, i reply that i am ready to be
free, whatever the cost. i am released. i fall. the
further i fall, the faster gravity pulls me to the ground.
i wait, falling faster still. seconds tick, then minutes.
the ground is rising steadily upward. i am thankful that
after being held captive for so long, i am free. despite
the fear of gravity, despite the wait, despite the blood
rushing to my legs so fast i am dizzy, despite the fact
that the freedom only lasts until i hit the ground, i
smile. and then, i fly.

i am really not sure what i wrote in my last entry. it has
been too long and i do not want to lose myself in reading
about the past. i need to just write, without stopping
myself because i wrote part of it before. so i write it
all here, now, at two-thirty in the morning on september 9,
2003.

i was going to take a year off of school to tour with the
drama company i’ve been involved with since seventh grade.
i hadn’t toured with them since december when i left for
school, and i missed it. i couldn’t wait to go. we were
starting in october. this summer they were doing summer
camps. i couldn’t afford to take that much time off of
work to do it every time, but i told them that if they
needed a fill-in, i would do it. i went to one of their
rehearsals for the camps. we talked a little about
touring, but mostly they were concerned with the camps. i
again told them to call me if they needed a fill-in. i
couldn’t promise i would be available, but i’d try to be.
they said okay. i told them to call me when the next
rehearsal was.

i never heard anything. i talked to jamie at work about
what was going on. she was a little...distant...when i
asked. she said they were only doing the summer camp stuff
right now, and they’d call me. i figured it was just stuff
that was going on with her that she was being distant.
cosper called me to invite me to a party at his house. i
wanted to go, but i was out of town for a friend’s
wedding. i told him to call me about rehearsals for
touring and let me know if they needed my for any last-
minute stuff. he too seemed distant when he said okay. i
wrote it off as him being distracted by the party in the
background. days, weeks passed, and i didn’t hear anything
about rehearsals. i asked jamie a couple of times about
it, but she said they were still just concerned with summer
stuff. i thought for a fleeting moment that it was a
little odd, but didn’t give it a second thought. cosper
came into work with tyler. we all talked about just stuff
that was going on with us. ty and i hadn’t seen each other
for a long time. and we hadn’t talked since i got home
from school, since i hadn’t been online. so it was cool.
i brought up the subject of touring and told them i was
really excited and couldn’t wait until fall. they neither
one said anything, but i didn’t hear silence. i just heard
them listening to me. i told him to let me know when
rehearsals were starting for it. again, he didn’t say
anything and again i didn’t hear silence. my phone was
silent to their calls. it never rang. i kept mentioning
it to jamie, telling her to let me know. she seemed to get
more and more distant, but i never made the connection.
toward the end of july, when i hadn’t heard anything, i got
worried. i talked to jamie and told her that i hadn’t
heard from anyone about rehearsals. she acted kind of
surprised. and now that i look back on it, the look of
surprise might have been a look of hiding something and
fear of it being found out. she said that someone would
give me a call that night. no one did. i told jamie
that. she said that rehearsals really hadn’t started yet.
but that she’d tell me when they figured it out. i told
her my concerns that they didn’t want me in it. she didn’t
say anything. and again, i didn’t hear silence. she
finally said that they’d let me know what was going on.

i had to work at one a few days after that. it started out
as a rough day. brandon and i had an argument that
morning. and it hadn’t been sorted out before i went to
work. we’re pretty good at getting things talked about and
sorted out right away. but we didn’t have time before i
went to work. i was at work for two hours when i found out
that my car had gotten broken into. all of my cds were
taken. maybe it was my fault for having them all in
there. i don’t know. i had three of my over eighty cds
left. one in the cd player in my car, one in the stereo in
the bedroom of the apartment, and one in the alarm
clock/radio/cd player by tiffany’s bed. i left work at
four. i just couldn’t handle it. brandon met me at work
before i left. we went over to my parents’ house. we both
went in. i told them what had happened. they yelled at me
for having them all in there. there was no concern about
the car, me, insurance reimbursement, nothing. just raised
voices. i couldn’t speak. i was stressed out and upset.
i just walked out of my house to my car, leaving brandon in
the doorway. he walked over. i rolled down the window.
he asked me to come with him to jamie’s sister’s birthday
party. he said it would be good for me because it would
get my mind off of things.

while we were there, i overheard a conversation jamie was
having with her grandparents. they were talking about
touring. they asked her who was doing it with her. she
said and pointed to mary. then she said that their drama
director was of course going, but that they were still
looking for two more people. brandon heard it too. i
caught his eye. neither one of us said anything. we
didn’t know what to say. i left the party and went over to
cosper’s and asked him straight out if they wanted me with
them. he said no. and evidently this had been decided for
a month and a half at least. none of them had said
anything to me. supposedly because they didn’t know how to
say it. it had become a problem, almost a game with them:
who would tell megan and how? so none of them did. ever.
i had to go to them. i asked if it had anything to do with
my acting ability. he said definitely not. i asked if it
was my personality. again he said definitely not.

so what was it?

they didn’t think my heart was in it.

forget the fact that i had put myself in this drama group
longer than jamie or mary. forget that i had put myself
completely into it. forget i never bailed last minute.
forget that if i was going to be late or miss a rehearsal,
which was very rare, i called. forget that i filled in
whenever i could, almost every time i was called. forget
that i kept asking about rehearsals for touring and telling
them to let me know what was going on.

and what makes it worse is that they never asked me if my
heart was in it. they decided it wasn’t. and that was it.

i’m not mad. i never was. i was upset. i’m not anymore.
but i’m hurt. before, i was too hurt to cry. i finally
learned how to. the hurt hasn’t healed. i talked to both
cosper and mary about it. they both said it was the wrong
thing to do. i couldn’t talk to jamie about it. i still
can’t. she of the three of them hurt me the most. she was
the one i pestered the most about rehearsals. she was the
one i worked with, that i saw and talked to all the time.
she was the one that had lied to me the most. none of them
have ever apologized. mary and jamie write online about
the major things that go on in their life, and last i
checked in their diaries there was nothing written about
it. i’m even more hurt that they didn’t write about it.
if they’d written, i wouldn’t have been hurt. because i
would have been able to see what they were going through
with it. and it seems like it didn’t dwell on their
minds. that they didn’t go through anything with it, that
once the decision was made they didn’t lose any sleep over
it or over telling me.

i hurt.

i wish i would have just been mad. when i get mad, i’m
mad, and then i get over it. i seclude myself for ten
minutes and then i’m fine. but i was upset. it takes
about ten days to get over that. and i am hurt. i’m
guessing ten weeks and i’ll be okay. i don’t know really.
i mean, there are some things you just never get over. but
ten weeks from when this happened, they’ll have already
left to tour.

and not only could they not tell me the truth, but they
can’t tell it to anyone else. the reason i’m not going is
because i don’t want to is what others are told. because i
have other plans. let me set the record straight. i don’t
have other plans. i’m trying to develop them now because
my original ones were thrown away. and not by me, but by
someone else.

i thought friendship involved respect, openness, and
honesty. which means that you go to each other when
something’s wrong. you tell the other person, even if it
might hurt them. because you know that you all are strong
enough to make it. if you’re strong enough to say it,
you’re strong enough to make it.

i wanted to hurt them back as much as they hurt me.
sometimes i still do. but i could never do that. i’m not
that kind of person. right after i found out that they
didn’t want me, i told them to call me if they ever needed
a fill-in. that i’d still be here. i let them know that
even if they turned their backs on me, left me in the dark,
betrayed me, lied to me, abandoned me, forgot about me,
hurt me, whatever, i’d never do it back. and when i’m
around them, i act like I’m okay. brandon said there’s no
way that it could be because of my acting ability. if they
had a trace of doubt about my acting ability before, there
would be none now because of how well i am acting like i’m
okay.

i’m not okay.

i feel like the world is too big for me. like i don’t
belong here, or anywhere. like i’m lost. like i’m
vulnerable and everyone knows it. like i’m not safe and i
will never be completely safe, no matter how many fleeting
times of safety i find. like everyone is looking at me and
veering away. like i don't matter.

i feel little.

i wonder when i would have found out that they didn't want
me if i hadn't gone to them. cosper said they would have
told me. he didn't say when. i guess i would have found
out the day after they left. when everyone at work knew
that jamie had gone touring and they asked me when she'd be
back. because i of anyone would know, right? since i was
her friend.

i wish you all could see me cry. i wish you would have to
sit there and not be allowed to say a word as my silent
tears came rolling down my cheeks uncontrollably. then
maybe you'd understand what i felt like. maybe you could
see my pain. the you all i used to know wouldn't be able
to stand it. but then again, that's the you all i used to
know.

final thought: now i'm empty.