Thirty days.
It's been thirty days since I was found, barely alive, in the Underground House. Thirty days back in my old life. Thirty days of nearly everybody thinking that things can go back to how they used to be. As if thirty days back is equivalent to 1,087 days of being locked in hell.
Lissa is the only one who understands that things will never be the same again. She understands because she was there the night I was taken. Lissa blamed herself and believed that if she never would have left me alone at the table with him, if she had never followed Christian to the bar to get drinks, then I would have never been taken.
She blamed herself because she was the one who insisted on going to a bar during our trip to New York City. She insisted on having fake IDs during our senior year of high school. I used to think that things would be different if we had gone to any other bar that night. But I know now that nothing would have saved me. He still would have found me. He was the predator, and I was his prey.
Being back 'home' after so long is both a relief and frightening. There are so many things that I know and so many things that I don't. I couldn't stand the thought of being in my old home. It was too big, too empty. Lissa stayed with me in our new apartment, one provided by my father's rental company.
The nightmares are the worst. I rarely sleep. I'm always being woken up, mere hours after falling asleep, by nightmares that leave me screaming for help, help that never comes. Except when it does come, I realize that it was only a dream. But then I remember why I had the nightmare in the first place.
My only saving grace, the only thing pushing me through, is Katerina. I thank God for every day that I get to hold her in my arms, for every day that I get to spend with her. Without her, I'd be lost in a sea of emotion, and I would never find my way back. She was my life raft, my buoy holding me up while he was the anchor dragging me down.
Never again, I promised myself. Never again will I allow myself to be taken.