“The Time We Spend Together”

By: Kailen Skewis

I feel safe in the apartment. It’s tiny and crammed, but I like tiny and crammed. On

Sundays, around eight, she always sits down in front of her television with a cup of tea. Or

maybe it’s coffee. She watches reality television on E! Network. I also watch reality television, I

used to hate it, but I grew to like it as we watched it together. I drag a chair from the kitchen table

to the left of the window. Just out of her line of sight if she were to turn around quickly. It’s

never happened before, but I like to be safe. I brew a cup of herbal tea on the stove while she

does. I can’t see into her kitchen, but I can see when she goes in and out of it. I hope we’re

drinking the same tea. I hope she’s drinking tea. Coffee can stunt your growth. I’m not sure if

she’s growing anymore. I do as much as I can with her, although we’re confined only to our tiny,

separate living rooms.

II

I spend a lot of time on my own in the apartment. I try to find things to do with myself

like picking the mold out between the tiles on the kitchen floor and discovering new ways to

paint my nails with the three colors I’ve collected. It is a lot of time to pass. I have lived in this

apartment for three years as of next Tuesday. I keep a stash of used tea bag wrappers under the

couch. One for every Sunday, 155. One hundred and fifty five cups of tea, roman numeral CLV.

This number should mean nothing to me as I realize there may not be an end to it. What is the

point of keeping track? I’ve been unable to answer this question.

III
Dec 1, 2019

She doesn’t seem to think that I can see her watching me. I’ve considered closing my

curtains, but she’s really not harming anyone, and she’s not exactly intimidating. If she likes to

watch, I’ll let her watch. She only looks about sixteen or seventeen years old, long blond hair,

longer than what it should be. After the first few times I noticed her watching, I turned the TV a

little to right so she could get a better view. I assume her parents are one of the weird breeds that

think TV and other electronics melt the brain. I’ve started to take a different route to work and to

the store, so I go by the entrance of her building. I’m hoping that one of these days we’ll run into

each other as she’s leaving so I can casually introduce myself and hopefully make this whole

thing a little less weird.

- Rachel

IV

I keep the curtains drawn from sunrise to sundown, opening them a crack every couple of

hours to see if she’s home or what she’s doing. The curtains stay open all night long because that

is when it is safest for them to be open. I sleep on the floor in front of the couch with my favorite

pillow and my blanket, so I can watch out the window. Sometimes, I can watch her shadow

dance from her bedroom to her bathroom in the middle of the night if I concentrate on her

hallway long enough and at the right time.

She always wears nightgowns to bed, that is something I have never done, but now that I

see her in them I want one for myself, at least one. The holes in my sweatpants make me feel

apart from her. If she saw them, she would know. She would offer me one of her nightgowns.

Her blue one, because it matches my eyes. She would brew me a cup of tea and we would curl up
on the couch together and laugh at the Kardashian’s trivial issues. I would rest my head on her

shoulder and try to keep my eyes open, but I’m tired. So so tired.

In the morning I have a routine. I wake up. I close the curtains. I take a shower. I

shampoo my hair every two days. It is supposed to be better for your hair if you do this, but it

also conserves soap. It is important to conserve soap because you don’t want to run out before

the next box comes. Every three months.

- 1 bottle of Suave shampoo

- 1 bottle of Suave conditioner

- 2 bars of Ivory Soap

- One tube of Colgate toothpaste

- 1 box of Stash herbal tea (requested)

- 2 loaves of Great Value white bread

- 2 jars of Great Value “Creamy Stripes” Peanut Butter and Jelly

- 10 12oz bags of Great Value frozen vegetables

- 1 box of Pillsbury Toaster Strudels, cream cheese and strawberry (requested)

Tuesday morning I pry it open with my hands and organize the contents. Bathroom stuff

vs dry stuff vs freezer stuff. The conditioner had exploded somehow, probably in the truck, but I

wasn’t going to get too worked up over it. I’ve never finished the entire bottle by the time the

next box comes. But I still wish that he would handle the shipments better.

VI

Dec 7, 2019
 When I left for class this morning, a man was standing at the window looking down into

the street four floors below our apartments. I had seen him before a handful of times. He’s rough

with her. I assume he’s her father, a tallish well dressed man fit for Wall Street. He has large

hands, very large wrinkly hands that can leave marks. I can see the lines in them from my

apartment even with the glare of the sun.

- Rachel

VII

I can’t see her front door from my living room, but I know when she’s not in her

apartment. I assume she goes to school, or maybe she goes to spend time with her friends, or to a

coffee shop somewhere near by to read or write. I used to really like writing. Sometimes I think

about requesting a composition notebook, so I can put my thoughts on a page.What kinds of

problems does she have that she feels the need to scribble all over a piece of paper instead of just

talking to someone? I wish I had someone to talk to. I don’t know exactly what we would talk

about. I haven’t thought that far ahead.

VIII

Dec 11, 2019

Dear Diary,

I spend my days waiting, but for what? Rescue? Nobody cares or knows where I am. I know I

could escape pretty easily. He’s older. One good hit to his knees or the side of his head with the

tea kettle would give me enough time to get past him. Or easier yet, I could just start banging on

the window until she notices. I could yell “help” until she calls the police, but I don’t want to

scare her. I don’t want to be the person to cause her stress. I don’t want to disrupt her lazy

Sunday night. Eventually, I’ll have to do something. Eventually, I’ll have to really escape, but it’s
a warm house with food and no rent, no real world problems. If I go back will anyone notice I

was gone? My boss? My mom? My friends? I don’t think so. And how would I get back? I don’t

know what city I’m in. I’ll be back on the streets. It’s better to stay here. It is better to eat my

peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the comfort of this man’s apartment than to take my

chances on the street in the middle of winter.

- Angel

IX

I want to touch someone. I want to shake hands with a stranger or hug my best friend or

kiss someone at a house party. I’m not myself anymore. I don’t know who I am I’ve analyzed

and reanalyzed all of my memories and thoughts a million times. I stopped feeling this way for a

while. I had come to terms with my situation after the first three or so months. I was just a thing

trapped inside another thing, but today I made my eyes meet with hers, purely by accident. I was

closing the curtains, six am, just like any other day and she was just standing there, in the

window. I looked at her and I froze and for a second she smiled before I pulled the curtains shut.

I’m starting to feel like I could get out of here. I want to get out of here. For the first time

in three years, I don’t feel like staying here in this tiny apartment is my only option. I could meet

her and she will help me. She’ll know what to do. She’ll take me in and feed me something other

than a fucking peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. Her apartment will smell like garlic bread and

spaghetti sauce. We’ll sit at her dining room table and drink red wine and laugh about the times
that we spent together. All I have to do is walk out that door. I just turn the knob and go from

there.

XI

Dec 20, 2019

I want to save her. I want to take her from that awful boring place and show her the

world. I will knock down her door, tear it off its hinges, and pull her into the real world, my

world. He will not be able to stop me. I am too strong and I have a gun. He will shake with fear

with one look at me. He will apologize for doing this to her, for keeping her here all these years.

She will cry. She will cry tears of joy and thank me and kick him in the shin as we walk out the

door and into our new lives.

- Rachel

XII

I hear the front door open while I’m in the shower, so I take my time letting the warm

water soak into my hair and make it darker than it actually is. When I get out I dry off and stare

at myself in the mirror for a while. Today is the day. I know she is thinking about me. I know she

is waiting for me. I open the bathroom door and he’s standing right outside, towering over me,

holding a withered composition notebook.

“What is this?” he demands.

“A notebook.” I reply

“No, what is this. What have you written inside this?” he flips open the notebook revealing

dozens of entries.

“I didn’t write those.”

“You didn’t huh? Then who did?” he squints at the page, “Rachel? You know your name’s not

Rachel.”

“No, I didn’t write them, it’s her.” I say, frustrated, pointing to the curtains.

I try to grab my journal back from him, but he pulls it out of my grasp and slaps me hard

across the face with it.

“You’re fucking crazy.”