Three a.m.
None of the dogs are up now.
I pull my pillow down so it's sideways in bed and crawl out over the covers and down to the bottom. I pull on my shirt and jeans and slip out of the room. Ben snorts in his sleep and turns away as I close the door.
The alarm isn't set because I forgot to put it on. So no disarming beep will sound. Convenient. I pull on my rainboots and sweater and run across the driveway to the Boathouse.
This dog isn't up either.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and wrap my sweater tightly around my ribcage while I watch him sleep. He wants to hurt me. Wants to own me. Wants to pull me away from everything I know and mold me in whatever image he thinks would complement him. Wants me to live in designer dresses and skyscraper shoes, unable to run, too striking and obvious to hide. Wants me to manufacture a new past that excludes everything I've ever loved and every memory that ever gave me comfort in the darkest depths and be his trophy. Hard won. Dirty-fought. Unreal.
That won't happen.
I can love him as much as I can but it still won't happen. Instead I bring to him what I have for him. Me in the uniform of twelve. Jeans and a t-shirt. Paint-caked fingernails on tiny hands. Broken heart and frightened thoughts. He can take some of that but then I'll go back. Back to the daydreams and the cotton candy and the smiles of those who only want what's best instead of what's better.
He wakes up just as I step out of the daydream and he pulls me into his nightmare so easily it's seamless. I can't even see the edges from where the sunshine ends and the thunder rolls in. He has blurred it into my memories. Composited. Photoshopped. Forced perspective. Caustic coercion.
Doll. What time is it?
Three, I tell him. That's the magic number, after all.
