Mia Roden Miles

  To this day, I still do not remember the exact moment when I realized what I needed to do. Maybe it was because of the endless hours that I had spent locked away in my bedroom watching television reruns, maybe it was the endless torment and abuse that I received from Matthew and my father. Maybe it was seeing Harry on gossip shows that made me realize that he would not be coming to my rescue.

  And so, I decided that I would have to rescue myself. 

  In my mind I always imaged myself to be a perfect damsel in distress. There was always something attractive to me about having the handsome boy swoop in and save the troubled princess from her miseries. But, after months and months of waiting in my tower for his arrival, I began to realize that I was not in a fairy tale. I needed to help myself from this situation before it got too out of hand.

  Every day was spent in a routine:

  First, Matthew would leave for work. I would wear my robe and give him a peck on the cheek, then watch his car roll out of the driveway as I silently prayed to myself that he would crash on the way to work. 

  Second, I would make myself a cup of tea. Rosita, one of the maids who worked primarily in the kitchen, would strike up a conversation with me. She was a short, slightly heavier woman from Guatemala who had a knack for cooking and always wore her hair back with a brightly colored scrunchie. She was one of the only people in this house that didn't drive me absolutely crazy. I also believed that she could see right through the fake marriage that my father had put in place. One day, she even blurted out to me something that I had never imagined she would.

  "I see what is going on," Rosita said. "I'm not stupid, and the other staff members can see it as well. Would you like me to help you?"

  And thus, the birth of my escape plan. Since Rosita worked in the house, she had a key that could access every room. She also had a key to the monitor room, where there were about fifty cameras watching the house from every angle. Almost right after my husband left for work, Rosita would shut off the cameras and hand me the key that lead to Matthew's office. 

  "I cannot help you any more than this," Rosita sighed on the first day. "This is all I can offer. If I'm caught helping you, I will be fired.

  "I understand," I said appreciatively. "I think I will be able to do this on my own from here, thank you."

  And so, for about an hour each day, I would sit in Matthew's office and collect as much negative information that I could about himself and my family. There were documents upon documents concerning the forced marriage, including the one document that held by far the most importance; the paper that Matthew, my father, and I signed stating that we would not share any information of the forced marriage to anyone. If I were to successfully expose them to the world, this was a key piece of information that I would need.

  Whenever I was finished for the day, I would wipe the computer history that I had used that morning and wipe the memory of the printer. If I had used any excessive amounts of ink that day, I would refill the ink cartridge so Matthew wouldn't be suspicious. One day, I had a smudge of ink on my hands and Matthew noticed when he had returned home. I swiftly told him that I had smudged mascara on my hand. I was prepared for anything.

  Rosita kept all of the files in her work locker. It was the only place that we could think of that would be safe; the lock on the door contained a pass code that only she and I knew. While I searched through Matthew's files, Rosita would mop and clean the hallway right in front of his office, even though she was supposed to be part of the kitchen staff. 

  The plan was bulletproof. After a month or so of sifting through piles of papers, several emails, and hundreds of documents, I had a very solid stack of printed copies that could easily give me the upper hand in fighting against my father and Matthew. There was only one problem- getting all of these documents out to the police and the public. My father had programmed each device in the house- phones, computers, televisions- to send him a message if anything had gotten sent out from each source. So, if I were to send an email and report him and Matthew and attach pictures of the documents that I had found, they would automatically know. 

  There was also the option of mailing the documents to the police office. However, the stack of papers was so large that I would have to send it to the post office and there was no way of me getting there. Rosita got a ride with a coworker every single day, so she couldn't take the documents out, and everyday before the staff was sent home they were checked by security. It was frustrating and impossible. 

  "I'll go crazy if we don't find a way to send them out," I ranted to Rosita one day in early April. "It's been months of this and each time he touches me I think of how badly I want to escape." 

  "Let me make you some tea," Rosita sighed, walking over to our tea brewer. "If only there was a way that you could convince Matthew to let you out of the house. Would he ever do that?" 

  "It's highly unlikely," I groaned. "He barely lets me in the backyard."

  "Poor girl," Rosita shook her head. "We will come up with a solution, I promise you. It would make me sick to let those men keep treating you like this for any longer."

  "Thank you, Rose," I smiled. "For everything. If I didn't have your inside access, there is no way that I would be able to pull this off."

  Rosita smiled warmly. She was the only person that I had been in contact with for the past six months or so that I actually liked. Everyone else was so cold and professional, my husband especially. Everything with him was strictly business or strictly physical. 

  "What if I went to the police in my free time?" She suggested. "I could find a sitter for my kids and take the bus to the police station." She lived in the city of Philadelphia, so she could take buses or walk to many of the places she would need to go. 

  "Without any evidence it would be no use," I bit my lip. "The police would come here and my father would get rid of them before I could even show my evidence. Besides, I'm sure as soon as they knew that the police were going to come they would lock me away."

  "They should not be able to do that," Rosita frowned. "It's so wrong, what they are doing."

  I was silent. Of course I knew that what they were doing was wrong. For months upon months I had suffered from endless abuse and neglect. The only person who really took care of me now was Rosita and myself. Even Harry wasn't there for me anymore, someone who I had imagined that would save me from the evil clutches within the first few days of me being married to Matthew. Now it was six- almost seven- months later. I had spent Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday in this place. It was miserable. 

  "So," Rosita paused. "What will you do when you finally leave this place?"

  "To be honest, I'm not very sure," I feebly admitted. "I've spent so much time working on how to bust out that I haven't given much thought to actually being out in the world."

  "Will you see him?" Rosita blushed when she realized what she had just said. "Harry, I mean. I've read many articles about the two of you, especially when you were still with him. It was all the staff ever gossiped about."

  I blushed, too. Thinking about Harry nowadays only caused me grief. The last memory that I had of him was him telling me that he had been in love with me before the blowout that we had on the yacht. I also had no clue what he had been up to as of recently, and so maybe having him and I meeting up just wasn't in the cards. If he hadn't been pursuing me all this time, it must have meant that he needed his space and didn't want to see me. A lump in my throat rose every time I thought of him and Cat.

  "I'm sorry," I laughed, wiping tears from my eyes. "Thinking about him makes me emotional."

  "Don't be sad, hija," Rosita rubbed my back. "I can see you truly care for him."

  "I do," I nodded. "I am so in love with him it's crazy. Even talking about him brings me to tears. But I'm married to another man, and the situation is so messy. How can it possibly work out between us?"

  "Don't get too ahead of yourself," Rosita advised. "First, just focus on securing yourself once you leave. Do you have any money that you can take with you?"

  "Yes," I nodded. "I've been taking money out of my account slowly and putting it on a separate card that I've had. I just hope that once I'm out in the world Harry won't have forgotten about me." Here came the waterworks again.

  "Sweetheart, he won't have forgotten you. I can see, just by how you speak of him and the photos  of the two of you that I have seen, he has a valid explanation for why he hasn't showed up. You two need to sit down and catch up with each other, and then Cupid can do the rest." Rosita giggled. Sometimes the things she said were so corny, but they also lifted my spirits. 

  "I wish I knew what he's been up to," I smiled. "I wonder how his life has been going. He must be making music again with his band, I wonder if he'll write a song or two about me." 

  "We can always check to see what he is doing," Rosita suggested. She walked over to the laptop that was in the kitchen primarily for looking up recipes and sat in on the counter top. Once in the Google search engine, she typed in the name 'Harry Styles'- a name that I had not said out loud for a very long time. 

  "Here he is." Rosita said. On the screen in front of her was a picture of Harry, eating outside a restaurant, wearing a flowing printed shirt and sunglasses to cover his eyes. My heart swelled just by looking at the picture of him.

  "His hair has gotten so long," I swooned in admiration. "He always wanted to keep growing it out."

  "It says here that he might not have it long anymore," Rosita said. "The article says that he has to trim it for an upcoming movie production?" She pointed at the screen and I excitedly read over the words. Sure enough, the article described Harry to be starring in an upcoming World War II movie. 

  "My movie star," I laughed. "He's going to be a movie star."

  "Oh look! One Direction has announced that they will be slowly going off hiatus and have started getting in the studio to work on their sixth album." Rosita read. 

  "I can't wait to hear it," I said. "It's been so long since I've heard his voice."

  Rosita cleared our search history and then searched a recipe for cookies and left it on the desktop. We were both beginning to become very good at being stealthy. It seemed like my whole life was now a big secret mission. 

  "I miss just having lazy days with him," I smiled. "Some days we would lay in bed with our cat and talk to each other for hours. Everything was so simple then."

  "That's when you know you've got it." Rosita said.

  Suddenly, the kitchen door swung open. Matthew walked in wearing his business suit, briefcase still in hand. Once he saw he he grinned and greeted both Rosita and I. With her back turned to him, Rosita rolled her eyes. If there was anyone in the world who hated my husband more than I did, it was her. 

  "Have a nice day, ladies?" Matthew asked. 

  "We did," I smiled. "We had a nice lunch and now we're sitting down for some tea."

  "I wish my days were that relaxed," Matthew chuckled. "But someone has to make the money." 

  His comments always angered me. Even when he was trying to joke around, it didn't work with him. With Harry, he could effortlessly tell cheesy jokes that would always get me laughing. Everything with Matthew was just so fake and our entire marriage was based on him telling me things and me having to pretend like I cared and I wasn't secretly planning on busting out of here every single day while he was at work. 

  "Wanna head up to our room?" Matthew hinted. I glanced at Rosita, hoping that she would help me. 

  "Mia asked to help prepare dinner tonight and we still have to get started, Mr. Miles," Rosita explained. "We should probably get started with the cooking about now, shouldn't we, Mia?"

  "Probably." I tried to play it off casually, mouthing a "thank you" to Rosita for saving me. The least time I spent around Matthew, the least chance of him hurting me or coming too close for my liking. Frustrated, Matthew picked up his briefcase and began to walk out of the kitchen. Before he could walk through the doors, he paused and turned back toward us. 

  "There is a gala next week," He began. "Since we haven't received much media exposure since initially getting married, both our parents think it will be a good idea for us to make an appearance. The word has already gotten out that we will be in attendance, so you will need a dress. I will have one of the maids get you something." 

  My heart thudded in my chest. After months upon months, I would finally be able to leave this house.

  This was my chance. 

a/n: yeah mia, you go girl!!

-delilah