7. GORDITA

                                    

                                          

One thing I learned while stuck in my small room, was that the color purple gave me migraines. And unfortunately, I was trapped in between four headache-inducing, lavender-colored walls. I tried everything I could to escape them. Staring at the ground, at the ceiling - all it gave me was a dull pain in the neck. Staring at the now-broken clock, that seemed to taunt me with its little still hands, as if it was reminding me that from now on, time wouldn't tick by. It would stand frozen at about twenty minutes after Sarah Kennedy's estimated time of death, at 11:38 AM on November 9th, 2021. 
I figured out if I pushed the vanity just two feet to the right, I could sit on top of it and have a good view out of my small window. I figured I'd rather sit on the little wooden table and watch the treetops outside sway in the breeze, than lay on the bed contemplating my little prison cell. I figured green was a nicer color than purple. Green was the color of hope. And of the bathrooms of people whose taste in interior design was still stuck in the seventies.
Ugly bathrooms aside, it was indeed hope that I felt when I glanced at the seemingly endless forest, right at the bottom of my window. Thick foliage, filled with birds and climbing vines, a maze of trees that I could run into and disappear in the blink of an eye. It was almost as if I knew it; as if I had seen it a thousand times in a daydream before. As if I knew every tree, every path, every turn. As if I had already carefully thought out my escape plan. 
I wouldn't run in a straight line. I'd take a few turns, just to make my trail harder to follow for whoever could be chasing me. I'd get lost, but I'd get far, and eventually, I'd reach a road. Once I get there, I'd wait until a crowded bus drove by, or sneak along the side of the road all the way to a nearby town. I couldn't just jump out in front of the first car, because odds are the person driving it might also be looking for me. Or, at least, that's how what had happened the last time I had planned out my escape in a daydream.
People could make fun of me talking to myself all they want, but the daydreaming was finally turning out to be quite useful. By replaying the same scenario in my mind over and over, I could prepare myself for all kinds of obstacles, and cook up a well-calculated, strategized, flawless escape plan. I'd have tons of time stuck in here to think it out, and no one to interrupt my train of thought. 
No one, except Pablo, who had just barged back into the room, startling me enough for me to slip off the vanity. He stared at me with his eyebrows raised and a mocking grin. 
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Yes, Mr. Juarez," I answered politely, "I just wasn't expecting you."
He pretended to gag and smiled at me.
"Ugh, please, just call me Pablo."
I nodded quickly and tried to hide my trembling fingers behind my back. Knowing his name didn't make him feel any more human. He still seemed like a wild animal to me - unpredictable, dangerous, ready to pounce on me at the first sign of weakness. He leaned towards me, eagerly waiting for me to answer, or move, or do anything; while I cowered in a corner, trying my best to hide in the folds of my satin robe.
He dropped a greasy paper bag on top of the vanity, close enough that I could smell the freshly cooked fried chicken inside of it, before he went to sit on my bed. I spun around on my heels, so as to keep facing him.
"I brought you some food," he said, pointing at the bag.
I glanced over at it. Just a few minutes ago, I was so hungry, I could have eaten a rock. But suddenly, and for some reason, I didn't feel like eating at all. A gut feeling, I guess. What if he'd poisoned the food and just wanted to watch me die? Or what if he had some weird fetish about watching chicks eat greasy food with their fingers?