Breathless by Emily Snow, Heidi McLaughlin, Aleatha Romig, Tijan, Jessica Wood, Ilsa Madden-Mills, Skyla Madi, J.S. Cooper, Crystal Spears, K.A. Robinson, Kahlen Aymes, Sarah Dosher

moonlight. I’d drawn it all, on that stark white wall.
    Then I had begun to work on the bed. I didn’t draw the posts at the end that I’d been tied to, instead I merely sketched the slope of the edge covered with a beautiful blanket draping over the end. It was covered with huge, swirling flowers that bunched together and laid over one another. I’d seen it once when I was working at the mall, I had been saving up my paycheck to hopefully buy it for myself at the end of summer. But of course, I never got the chance to do that. So I would own it now, it would be nothing more than a black and white drawing on the wall – but it would be mine nonetheless.
    I stepped back to admire my work. Wiping my arm across my damp forehead, I’d felt the black soot stain my skin and liked the way it marred me. Not unclean, but labored purpose. I knew exactly what needed to be drawn next – me. Not me how I was at that very moment, but the me that would be free from my cage.
    I drew the shape of a simple body sitting on the bed. Then looping the black lines I elongated strands of hair well past my shoulders, not stopping where I knew it currently did, finally trailing off in the middle of my back. Long wispy curls that seemed to almost caress the bare skin beneath.
    That’s when I heard your footsteps nearing the door. I dropped the burnt wood and moved quickly back to the bed not removing my eyes from the door the entire time. Slipping under the covers, I pulled them up, tucking them under my chin and holding them as securely as if my life depended on it.
    The door slowly creaked open and I clenched my eyes shut, not wanting to see your face. Not ready to see your face after you struck me. Even though I didn’t want you to know you scared me in that moment – frightened me more than I had been since I woke up with you near.
    Opening my eyes, I saw your gaze trained on my half-completed drawing. A small smile stretched across your face as you turned to me.
    “You don’t have to stop because of me, go ahead keep drawing,” you told me.
    I didn’t speak or move.
    “It’s very good,” you said. “I didn’t know you could draw.”
    “I can’t,” I whispered.
    “You can,” you declared. “I see the proof before my eyes.”
    “Not very well,” I informed you.
    “You can, but you will get even better if you keep after it.”
    You smiled at me, and even though it was the same smile I’d seen on your face from the first instant I saw you, it was different – off and distorted. It wasn’t you though, it was me, the way I saw you had changed. You were no longer the handsome man that I’d wanted to impress; you were the man marred by ugliness that I wanted to escape.
    Your eyebrows curved up. “What are you thinking?”
    I shook my head.
    “C’mon, you were thinking something. Your face turned serious all of the sudden and your eyes glazed deep in thought.”
    “I thought about how much different you look to me now – different from the first time I saw you.” I hadn’t felt the need to hide my thoughts, there was nothing else you could do to break me.
    “And you to me.” You nodded in agreement with what you thought the intention of my statement was, but you thought wrong. “You are much more intelligent with your mind and more sensual with your body than I imagined you would be.”
    I felt my eyes squint and my head shake, not wanting your statements to find their way into my mind and take root.
    “How long have I been here?” I asked softly. “Please just tell me how long I’ve been here.”
    Your head dipped and annoyance furrowed your brow. Your nostrils had flared with the inhale of a heavy breath. “One week, you’ve been home for one week today.”
    My mind frenzied with disbelief, I’d only been here for one week. It had felt like months, how would I survive one year alone with you? I’d already experienced too much, changed too much in just a matter of days. I wondered who I’d be after an