“Alright, you guys go home without me!” I called, waving from the dance crowd. They turned around and broke the most sacred girl rule ever: never leave a friend behind. I was drunk, I wasn’t thinking clearly about all the things that could happen to me. All the things that were bound to happen in a room full of men on a dark Friday night. I wasn’t planning on going home with this man, I hope he knew that.

At about 2 A.M. the bar was closing and people were getting ready to go home for the night. I waited for my friends to show up because in my drunken state I had forgotten that they had already left.

“Alright, miss, it’s time to leave,” one of the bouncers told me.

“I’m w-waiting for my friennndds,” I slurred.

“I’m sure they already left, everyone’s gone.”

“Ohhhh. Right.” I nodded and hopped off my stool to go and hail a cab. Usually cabs waited close to bars at this time to catch rides. I was on my way to find one, when I saw a figure staring at me from down the sidewalk. My arms flew up to my shoulders to shield myself from the cold. In my drunken stupor, I thought I’d go check it out.

I squinted my eyes at the figure and stepped forward to get a closer look. “Hello?” I called out. I looked around, and everyone else had gone home. “Who are you?”

The figure said nothing, and it didn’t move. There was something oddly familiar about the posture, but I couldn’t remember. I wasn’t sure I could remember, even sober.

It finally moved and I took a step back in surprise, but when I caught my footing, it had disappeared. I shrugged and turned towards the street. I was sure that at some point a taxi would come pick me up. I stared at the barren street as it remained to be just that. Someone was definitely coming to get me, it’s not like they could leave me out here. Could they?

I heard faint breathing behind me and felt the warmth of their breath. I didn’t want to turn around to confront it. Maybe I had been imagining it. I stared hard at the continuously bare road with no one around. I saw a hand appear behind me from nowhere and started to stagger in an attempt to run away, but I was too drunk to do anything worthwhile. There was someone behind me, and it was too late to get away now. The hand covered my mouth and then another came around from the other side of me pinched my nose. I was out within five seconds.

When I awoke, I was in a cold damp room. I didn’t see anyone around, and by now most of the alcohol had worn off. I was still wearing my party dress, but it hadn’t been touched, so I don’t think I was taken for a sexual reason. At least I hoped so. I pushed myself up and looked around. My head was killing me, and I had no concept of the time. There were no windows, there were no doors. Only this room, and a small light that hung on the ceiling.

“Comfortable?” a voice asked from wherever he was. I was finally able to make out his figure, though faint, in a dark corner. He had the same posture as the figure from last night. It was a vague memory, but I distinctly remembered the posture. I wasn’t chained and I wasn’t tied up, but I felt uncomfortable, so I didn’t respond to his question. He let out a soft menacing chuckle. “Good.” I looked around the room for any other sign of life or previous capture and found nothing. “Don’t bother screaming,” he spoke. “The room’s soundproof.”

I squinted hard at the figure to try and make out who he was. His voice gave me an eerily familiar shiver, like I’d heard it before in different contexts. I started to get up, but my head started pounding and I fell back down to a sitting position.

“Here, your head must be killing you.” He slid a tray over to me, and for a split second I caught his appearance. Then it clicked. I knew who he was.

“Michael?” I coughed out. My throat was dry from the night before, and my headache wasn’t helping matters either.

“Not important,” he spoke as he stood up. He walked toward me, and I could finally see that it was, indeed, Michael Clifford, a boy from my past. My longest and most passionate crush I ever had. I may have dated throughout my adult life, but no one had ever come close to what he meant to me. We may have seen each other in the halls and we may have had one class together, but the feeling inside me he ignited was not a small one, and not one I could ever forget.

“Why?” was all I was able to make out.

“Also not important. Eat your eggs, love, I don’t want them to get cold.” I looked down and he had given me two ibuprofen for the pain and some scrambled eggs with milk. Hangover food. At least he was a thoughtful kidnapper. I took the ibuprofen and started to shovel the eggs in my mouth with the fork he gave me. I looked back up at him.

He smiled and turned away, back up the stairs to where I assumed he lived. I sighed and continued to eat my breakfast. When it was done, I was feeling better - hangover-wise anyway, though  I was cold, since I was in my outfit from last night. I sighed and looked around at my new place. It was dark, and a little cold, but not unbearable. I laid down on the ground and sighed. I guess this was my life now. I closed my eyes and thought back to when I knew Michael in high school.

***

“Did you see the new kid?” one of my friends, Martha, whispered to me.

“Yeah, he’s kinda cute, right?” I smiled back.

“Cute? I mean I guess, if you like that sort of thing. Look at his fringe!”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s so long, like who does he think he is?” Sandra spoje up. “Pete Urie?”

“Okay, first of all, you’ve got to pick one, because Pete Urie isn’t a real person. At least a real famous person. It’s either Pete Wentz or Brendon Urie. Second of all, who cares?”

“Whatever,” They both rolled their eyes. “If you want to hang with us, you seriously better not talk to him.”

“But’s wrong with that?” He had walked by at this point, maybe even heard us talking about him.

“I just don’t want to be associated with someone like that,” Martha sighed, continuing to walk. I stared back at him longingly. I wanted to talk to him. Even be his friend. I guess this was it.

***

I internally cringed at that thought. I can’t believe I let my friends decide who and who not to talk to, like they had any sort of say. If they were really my friends, they wouldn’t have cared. Though that is who I’m living with now, even if we’re only friends out of commonality of location. And now the boy’s a psycho, so like a lot of good that did.

I heard the door open from upstairs again. I hope he was grabbing me a blanket. He approached my room, I’m assuming through the door I didn’t know existed in the first place. He walked up to me, and grabbed my (now empty) tray. He meandered toward me, and helped me up. He lead me out of the room upstairs from where he had gone. “Where are we going?” I asked him. No response. “Are you letting me go?”

“No,” he stated promptly. He stopped walking for a second, and I stopped walking with him. He wasn’t gripping my arm very hard. I could escape if I wanted to. Though I didn’t really want to. He thought for a moment, but then continued walking with me.

“Mm. Well.” He lead me to the rest of his place, which was a house of a sort. It looked like it was once lived in quite happily, but then a tornado of frat boys just totally trashed the place. “This isn’t quite clean, actually.”

“Yeah, it’s not.” We continued walking. We reached a surprisingly neat room, and went inside, about four feet in. “Listen.” He started, looking at me. In his eyes I saw longing, but for what, I couldn’t place. “I’m in like.. Dire need of someone to clean this house.”

“Yeah, that much is obvious.”

“And I know how much women like freedom.”

“That’s a good observation.”

“So, if you cleaned for me, you could earn your freedom.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “Are you telling me you kidnapped me because you wanted me to clean for you?”

“Well,” his hand reached up to scratch the back of his head bashfully, letting mine go. “Not entirely. The kidnapping thing was mostly to scare you.”

“That mostly worked. But why?”

“Not important-”

“A lot of things are not important it seems.” I laughed lightly at that.

“Yeah, well. What can you do. Anyway, you can stay here, or you can go to wherever you live, I don’t really care. Just, make sure you’re here every day.”

“So are you going to help me or something?”

“I don’t really know honestly. Didn’t think I’d get that far.”

“So you’re not going to pay me?” I asked him.

“No.”

“So what’s stopping me from just, never coming back?”

“Your undying love for me?” I opened my mouth to respond, but he continued on, interrupting what I was going to say. “Nothing, actually. You don’t have to earn your freedom. You can leave for all I care.”

“Yeah?”

“Just try not to fall in love with me if you come back again,” he said quietly, laughing to himself. He turned to walk away, but I spoke up before he could leave.

“Too late,” I muttered.he heard me, it seemed, as he stepped dead in his tracks. I looked around for something comfortable to put on, since I was still cold. Seriously, did he not have heat in this place? I found a hoodie lying on the floor and put it on, covering my hands in the sleeves like paws.

“What was that?”

I shrugged and sat down on the bed. “I can’t not fall in love with you, I’ve been in love with you. Since we were like 16.”

“Wait, wh-what the fuck? But you’ve-” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You’ve never given me the time of day! Back then, since then.”

“Yeah, well. I’m nervous around people I find attractive. And my friends didn’t want me to, and I didn’t have a backbone to stand up to them.”

“You,” he took another breath, this one shallow. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know more than you think.” I stood up, and stared back at him. “That sounds creepier than I meant it to be, but it’s true. I’ve always wanted to get to know you.”

“Then,” he took a step closer to me. “This was all for nothing?”

“All for nothing? I thought you said you kidnapped me to scare me.”

“Well, yeah. I said that. But that was mostly because I was regretting it. Originally, I was going to make you fall in love with me.”

“Mmm. Not really helping your case there, bud.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t do that.”

“A good choice.”

“So,” he sighed, somehow nearer to me than he was before. “You’re actually in love with me.”

“Yep. As it was established.”

“So, are we going to do anything about it?”

“Like what?” I was also getting closer to him. We were now only about six inches apart. The only thing around was a bookcase with antique dishware on them.

“Oh you know,” he smiled. I could feel his breath on me, and my heartbeat started to pick up. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, smiling at me. “I like my hoodie on you.”

“Thanks,” I smiled shyly. “It’s comfy.”

“It suits you.” his voice was barely above a whisper as he leaned in for a kiss. I glanced down at his lips, my heart rate skyrocketing, then met him halfway. My hands went up to rest at the nape of his neck, playing with his overdyed hair, while his rested on my cheeks. I deepened the kiss, and he pushed me against the bookcase with more force than he was intending, causing a cup to fall to the ground. We both pulled apart to the sound of glass breaking.

“Fuck,” he gasped, breathless. He bent down to pick up the cup, then stood tall, knowingly close to me. “He fell.”

“He?”

“This whole tea set has a personality. My mom was all about that shit. This teacup is the son of that teapot right there. I can’t remember the cup’s name, but I remember the pot’s name was Mrs. Pots.”

“Chip.”

“Chip?” he looked at me expectantly.

“Like from the movie. You know, Beauty and the Beast?”