missing pages
Anya has been in there for a while. You'd say you were starting to get worried, but the truth is that you've been worried since the moment you met her. The way she's been unable to tell you directly what she's been through is concerning, not to mention her living situation—or lack thereof. No specific place to stay, no connections, presumably far from home. Was she kidnapped? Held against her will? Forced into something much scarier than what she bargained for?
As you sit in waiting, your mind wanders. She was awfully avoidant, talking about that last coworker of hers. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to deduce that someone, be it from her job or otherwise, had greatly hurt her. Combine that with an apparent lack of support in her life and you've got one very drastic situation on your hands.
Plenty of people would want the stranger out of their house by now, you'd imagine, but you'd be the exception. You're too invested—and worried about this woman's wellbeing—to give up now. You want to help by any means possible.
Eventually, you stand up and walk over to the bathroom and gently knock on the door. You hear a startled gasp and shuffling from the other end.
“Uh… Anya?” You tentatively ask. “Are you okay?”
Several seconds pass, with intermittent heavy breathing filling the silence, muffled by the wooden door between the two of you. You decide to try again.
“Look, I'm really sorry if anything I asked about hit too close to home, or if I did anything wrong.”
Another stretch of time follows. You're not exactly reassured. One more try.
“Whenever you're ready to come out again, I'll be out here. Take, um… take your time, okay?” Your voice is faint, hoping that your words will reach her in some way. You turn away, ready to walk back down the hall and into the living room when you finally hear Anya speak up.
“You didn't do anything wrong.”
You stop in your tracks, waiting outside the door. “I didn't?”
“No, you… You didn't.” The bathroom door abruptly opens; Anya's hair is touched and the fringe of her hair is particularly spiked, like it'd been soaked from splashing water on her face. She looks disoriented and exhausted. “I should… I– I should be the one to apologize.”
You look at her with unmistakable concern, but you try to keep your tone casual. “It's all right. I'm just worried about you.”
“It's nice of you to be worried,” Anya replies, offering you a meager smile. “I'm sorry I stormed off like that. I haven't been in a good place mentally in a while, but you're being really nice to me, and I… want you to know that I appreciate that.”
“Hey, it's no problem,” you answer, noticing the glistening texture on Anya's cheeks—that of recently shed tears. Poor woman… You offer your own tentative smile and tell her, “We can save the rest of your story for later on, if you want.”
Anya's breath is shaky when she inhales. “Another time…?” She doesn't quite seem to follow what you're telling her.
Even so, you nod to confirm your words. “Yeah, like another day, or whatever.”
Her expression darkens into something that's hard to read, sober as can be. “Y/N, I don't know if I'll be around long enough to tell you the rest.”
Oh, she's in danger—be it of her own creation or someone else's. Maybe that Jimmy she mentioned had something to do with it. Perhaps something to do with him is why she couldn't finish the sentence. You try to rationalize things within yourself so as not to appear too overcome with worry to the point of pity, but you're sure that your concern must be obvious.
“Why don't you think you'll be around?”
Anya hesitates for several seconds before answering. “I… I don't know what future there is for me, but I don't think it's supposed to be here.”
This woman has the tendency to be cryptic as hell. You reach out your hand and offer it to her, and she stares at it with uncertainty—and perhaps fear. She breathes heavily and unevenly, that attempt at smiling long gone from her weary face.
You ask, “Wanna see something?”
“Um… Do I— what?” Anya isn't following, baffled.
“I want to show you something.”
Anya hesitates, but then she raises a hand, placing it gingerly into yours. “Okay…?” Her response is more of a question than an answer.
You take her hand into yours, wrapping your digits protectively around her as you carefully lead her away from the bathroom, down the small hallway in your apartment and into one of the rooms at the end of the hall. You flicker on a light.
“I have this room I go into,” you explain as you delicately let go of Anya's hand. “ I come in here sometimes, when I'm stressed or need something to do.”
Canvases line the walls and the floor, resting against the wall. Some of them are blank or barely started, others are filled with art you've already poured your heart into. There's an easel nearby, but it's not set up. You haven't worked on anything in a while, too busy with your job or other life stressors.
“I have a lot of blank canvases I haven't used, as you can see.” You explain this with a little laugh, feeling a bit exposed.
Whatever you're doing, it seems to be working, at least to a degree—the previously hesitant woman begins to walk into your makeshift studio, eyeing up the paintings, both finished and unfinished alike. She gasps softly as her attention settles on a piece that's particularly detailed.
“You have an amazing style,” she whispers, “It's not like anything I've seen before. The way you use shapes and form, the color…”
Your cheeks heat up a little bit at that. “Y– Yeah? You think so?”
Anya turns to face you, a hand tucked underneath her chin with one arm wrapped around her torso. “I do,” she confirms, sounding surprisingly mystified if not moved. “Art is… such a wonderful thing, no? You truly have a way with it, Y/N.”
Her comments are making you feel so warm on the inside. “You really mean it?”
“Of course,” Anya tells you, biting into her lower lip. “You're so talented and pretty… That's also part of the reason I barely believe this is real.”
Your heart jumps into your chest. “Aw, well, that's… That's really nice of you to say.” It's also surprisingly forward. Gesturing around the room, you say, “Well, yeah. It's real. Do you, uh, like art?”
You could guess so with how she reacted to seeing it, calling art a wonderful thing, but you figure this is a good segue into making some conversation that isn't so loaded or emotionally charged.
Anya nods her head, clenching her fist. “Yes! I do… I, um, had a sketchbook that I used to carry with me all over the place, but I haven't seen it in a long time.”
“Well, I've got tons of sketchbooks if you want to use one,” you offer.
“O– Oh! I wouldn't want to take that from you,” Anya murmurs timidly, breaking eye contact. “It's not that important. I can go without it.”
“Nah, it wouldn't be any issue,” you're quick to reassure. “Actually, if I'm being honest, I kind of have the bad habit of seeing sketchbooks at the art supply store, buying them, and never actually using them…”
Anya furrows her brow, tentatively looking back in your direction. “Really…?”
“Yeah. I keep saying I'm going to use them, but then I don't and I just start on a new painting or draw something digitally or do something entirely different,” you admit with a little laugh. “So, if I got to pawn one off on you, you'd be doing me a favor!”
Anya's eyes widen, and she hesitates for several seconds. “That would be everything to me…” Seeming to realize what she's saying, she clamps her hand over her mouth, reiterating. “Sorry! That probably sounded a little dramatic. I mean to say, um, that it would be nice.”
You chuckle softly. “No, it's okay. If it means everything to you, who am I to judge?”
Anya looks away again, smiling shyly. “Well, thank you, Y/N. Do you think you could show me the sketchbooks you have? Um, the ones you haven't used? N– Not that I'd mind seeing any you have, but…” She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. “Sorry, I'm talking too much.”
“No, no! It's okay. Why would I ever have an issue with you talking?”
You keep your tone light, walking over to a desk that's covered with canvases and papers. Opening up the desk, you look through your sketchbooks, finding one to flip through. Fortunately, it's empty—you'd used it before but tore out the pages you'd used at some point or another, essentially making it brand new… kind of. Brand new, but with fewer pages. You hand it over to Anya with a smile.
“Here! I hope it's okay that this one is a bit shorter. I took some pages out before… But, like, there's more where that came from, if you end up using it all!”
Anya smiles at your words, a bit nervous, but she accepts the blank sketchbook. “No, that’s all right… That just means it has a history—that it's been through things. I'll make good use out of this.”
You grin. “Awesome!”
“Um, I hate to ask for anything more,” Anya softly begins, “but do you happen to have a pencil I could borrow…?”
“Oh, right! Yeah, totally.” You return to the desk, picking up a pencil. “Is mechanical okay?”
She nods. “Yes, that's perfectly fine.” Accepting the implement, she holds both of the gifted items in her hands, glancing around. “Um, what would be a good place to…?”
“Hm?” you raise a brow, waiting for her to finish.
“I mean, where can I sit to draw?”
“Oh! Wherever you want. We can take this back into the living room if you want to, or I could clear up some room at the desk in here and figure out a space for you.”
Anya allows the faintest chuckle to escape her. “Ah, sure. The living room would be perfectly fine.”
“Great!”
Once you lead her back into the living room, you sit down beside her on the couch as Anya flips open the sketchbook, running her fingers over the lightly textured white paper. She seems momentarily transfixed, and you quietly watch as she begins sketching, trying not to stare too much.
You keep thinking back to how she called you pretty. Even through all of the pain she's going through, the horrors she experienced largely unknown to you, she thinks you're pretty. That's saying something, with how uniquely gorgeous she is. Your gaze lingers on her hands, which are a bit large, and then you catch yourself staring and look away.
“If you have any questions about… anything, feel free to ask,” you tell her, glancing at your television screen across the room. It's powered off and the reflection of the two of you vaguely shines back at you. Even through the dim distortion of the screen, you can see how immersed Anya is in sketching.
“Okay,” Anya softly says. There's a long stretch of silence between the two of you after that, not necessarily uncomfortable but hardly comfortable. Eventually, she says, “So, what country are we in?”
Oh, that's an easy one. “The United States.”
“I thought the name of the town sounded… American,” Anya says, her accent thicker as she avoids looking up at you. She continues working away at the paper, absorbed in what she's doing. Occasionally, she stops to erase something that she sketched. “Are you from this town originally, Y/N?”
“Actually, I'm not,” you say. You tell her where your hometown is and she listens intently.
Then, Anya says, “I see. Sorry, I hope I didn't sound rude a moment ago… I actually lived in America before the last haul. My parents moved here when I was kind of young.”
“Oh, really?” you ask.
“Yeah,” Anya softly answers, her lips pursed into a small pout. “Why did you move here?”
You explain the reason why to her, giving a brief summary of the main cause of your move to this town, before summing up with, “...I was also just looking for a fresh start, I guess.”
Anya hesitates to answer. You haven't looked at what she was sketching—last time you peaked, it looked kind of like a circle. You try not to focus too much or make her feel like she's being ogled.
Eventually, she says, “Did something happen that made you want to start over…?”
“I guess so,” you say. “New beginnings can be, like, monumental sometimes, right? Sometimes you just need a reset.”
“A reset,” Anya softly repeats, nodding her head in your peripheral vision. She breathes softly, her pencil lightly scratching against the surface of the sketchbook you gave her. “Did it… Did it work?”
“I think so,” you say, scratching the back of your head. “I mean, I'm obviously not a world class famous artist or anything, but I'm working on getting somewhere. I'm making something for myself.”
“Do you have anyone important in your life, Y/N?”
“Some friends and some family,” you answer, “but not really anyone locally. I haven't really made a lot of close connections since moving here.”
Anya frowns, not entirely appearing convinced that it’s the case. “Truly?”
You nod your head in confirmation. “Yeah. You sound kind of surprised to hear that.”
“Well, I just…” Anya trails off, her brows furrowed as she looks away from the paper. “You’re treating me like I’m your friend, in spite of having just met me. If I have to be honest, I’m really not used to that.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. It’s easy for the people I work– uhm, worked with to just…” Trailing off, Anya makes a vague gesture with one hand. “I don’t know. You’re nicer than they were.”
“Oh,” you softly breathe out in response. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? Being nice?” Anya asks, her wistful tone matching the sad smile on her face.
“N– Not that. I mean, I’m sorry they didn’t give you the respect you deserve. That couldn’t have been easy.”
Anya inhales sharply, her hands balling into fists, one wrapped tightly around her pencil. “It wasn’t.” Her words are heavy with emotion that seems to threaten to spill over. “I– I hated it there. It was the worst place I’ve ever been. The way they talked to me, the way I was ignored, the way he put his—”
You feel a sinking feeling deep within you, startling with a jump when Anya drops the pencil onto the sketchbook. Her frantic gaze meets yours and she winces.
“I’m– I’m sorry, Y/N. That was…” Anya wipes her nose, sniffling audibly and continuing in a wobbly tone. “That was uncalled for. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s… okay. You didn't do anything wrong,” you reassure her in a careful tone. “Did someone on that ship hurt you, Anya?”
Anya averts her gaze, her lips closed tightly in a miserable grimace. She nods her head, failing to elaborate any further. Not that you’d push her; you’re only further getting the impression that this is a subject to tread very lightly around.
There are nauseating, disturbing implications here. You don’t want to imagine how much trauma a woman could go through when being locked in close quarters with four men, but it’s impossible not to consider the possibility that some kind of serious harassment—if not outright abuse—could have happened there.
What could she have been through?