I drove home, the box with my stuff in the passenger seat of my beautiful black Prius, jamming to Stay Up Late by Talking Heads. The song ended the minute I got home. I pulled over and exited the car, then got the box from the passenger seat and closed the door. To my surprise, the front door to the beautiful rowhome I shared with James Hook was locked. Not up for digging up the keys, I rang the doorbell. Peeking through the door, I noticed James sneak into the foyer but he calmed down when he realized it was me. He unlocked and opened the door and said, "Sorry about that, love. Erh, there's something going on here in Berlin that will concern you, and I think you'd rather read it than hear it from me."

My lips tightened and I went into the living room. I put the box on the coffee table and sat at the desk that held the computer. Through the corner of my eye, I noticed James try to peek in the box and I shouted as I woke up the computer, "Uh-uh, that's for Abiball and you don't get to see it until it's on me."

James sighed and stood behind my chair. He had translated an online local news article from ten minutes ago that stated, "ENGLISH MAN KILLS 3 AT AIRPORT, ESCAPES WITH MINOR HE IS SUSPECTED TO HAVE BROUGHT WITH HIM." I didn't have to see a collection of pictures from surveillance cameras to know exactly why James brought this to my attention, but when I scrolled down a bit and saw them, I screamed at the top of my lungs. My uncle Rick was in Berlin with my sister Ella whom I hadn't seen or heard from in six years. I faked a suicide before fleeing to Germany. All ninety thousand Euro I took from Uncle Rick got me on my feet. He knew I was alive, and perhaps Ella did too, if she wasn't in denial. And they were out to get me.

When I stopped screaming and started gasping for air, James wrapped his arms around me and calmed me down. I don't remember even blinking, just staring at that blurry and kind of pixilated picture of two family members I left behind as my eyes watered from the irritation the air put on my eyeballs and because I was scared. James whispered some calming things as my breath slowed down and I closed my eyes. I needed to say something. When I was eighteen and met him, I started talking for the first time—well, either singing, hardly even whispering, or speaking in a normal volume in German. I seem to be more comfortable speaking in German, and on the rare occasion I get horribly nervous and too frightened to talk, I speak in German. "Ich kann das nicht glauben," I muttered, my voice shaky.

James understood! He kissed my forehead and breathed, "He will never lay a finger on you, I swear." Holding my hand that gripped the armrest of the chair, he said, "I spoke to the police department. They're on it. They may just catch him tonight. Are you still up for the…whatever it's called?"

"Abiball," I said. I sighed and continued calmly, "Maybe it'd be good to get out of the house, y'know, so he can't find me and stuff. It's at seven, so four hours." I sighed. "I'm gonna take a shower and wash this crap out of my hair, so…excuse me."

I took a long and hot shower, singing anything that came to my head at the top of my lungs. Stay Up Late by Talking Heads, The Lost Children by BlutEngel, Africa by Toto, Had Enough by Breaking Benjamin. What a mix! I was scrubbed down by three fifty and blow-dried my now purple hair straight and not frizzy, singing more songs of different genres from R&B to heavy metal. Then it was four ten and I looked pretty good. I then realized my dress was downstairs and for some reason I didn't want James to look at it, so I put on a robe and ran down to pick it up.

James was lounging on the couch, reading a book I bought for him to brush up on his German because he's not good at it. I took the box and he said before I left, "Where did you snatch that from again?"

"Costume closet," I said. "I'll return it…later. It's pretty so don't worry. Good job studying."

"Thank you," he replied, returning to his reading.

I went upstairs back to the bedroom. I threw the dress on the bed and sat at a vanity I picked up from a thrift store before I moved in with James. Opening a drawer, I dug up my non-punk rock makeup and put on an appropriate amount, humming more various songs. Once I was pretty enough by four twenty, I realized I had three hours left to go and all I had to do was put on the dress. But not yet. What to do to pass the time? Think of Ella.

On my phone I had one picture of Ella that I found saved on my Gmail account. She was ten years old at the time and gorgeous. She wore mostly pink but didn't look like an annoying girly girl. For eight years, she was my everything. The reason I woke up in the morning. I looked at the ring James presented to me when he proposed, which he planned to do the day I was taken away from him, and realized since he slipped it on my finger I hadn't thought about her.

My thoughts distracted me from the growing chunks in my stomach until they crawled up what I think is my esophagus and a little came out of my mouth. "Shit!" I exclaimed, running to the bathroom. I blew chunks to the brim of the toilet bowl and then I was done. I flushed and then stood up to look in the mirror. The lipstick came off a little, or hid behind the throw up on my chin. I washed it off and went back to reapply. "Lawd, being pregnant is hard," I muttered as the lipstick rose from the cylinder. I put it on and I looked good again.

I stared blankly at my pretty self in the mirror but I wasn't thinking about myself. I was still thinking about Ella. She was fifteen now and in Germany. If I saw her, I thought, what would I do? Well, she'd find a home with me whether James liked it or not. On my phone I found the article about her and Uncle Rick and looked at the pictures. I think I saw blue streaks in her hair. She looked taller and more grown up in appearance. In a side shot of her, her stomach looked bigger than normal. Maybe she was standing in front of furniture that was the same color as her dark blue shirt. She had moved around in the pictures and looked the same, however. Something was up, but I couldn't think of what it was. Sighing, I decided to worry about it later and paint my nails red.

Looking back, can you blame me? What else was there to do?