Shadow of a Girl

by Shannon Greenland

  That’s all they see.

  Hours later the plane touches down, and his private car picks us up at the airport and drives us back to the fortress I was raised in. As we pull through the gate and down the long driveway, I stare at the woods around us. The same woods I had ripped and clawed my way through in my run for freedom.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Gideon warns, and I force myself to look him directly in the eyes. Reaching forward, he slowly caresses a finger down my cheek, watching me watch him while I fight the overwhelming urge to tear my face away from his disturbing touch. He gives my cheek a little slap, and it’s all I can do not to flinch. “We have so much to catch up on.”

  In that exact second it hits me. Physically he may beat me into the fetal position, but mentally I have control. That control fuels me with something new. Anger. It bubbles up inside of me, and I welcome it. I invite it in. It’s past time I stood up to this man.

  In a stream of conscious movements, I unclench every muscle and showing him the refusal in my core, I hike my chin. It’s the first time I’ve ever presented him anything other than fear.

  “What do you want from me?” I demand.

  He chuckles. “What do I want from you?” He chuckles some more. “Oh, Nesiah, just wait.”

  “I’m different now,” I begin in a very deliberate tone. “You can’t hurt me anymore. I’m through being intimidated and abused by you. I know who I am, and one day I’ll have a life that won’t include you. I’ll look forward to that day every minute I’m with you until I’m gone.”

  He narrows his eyes but doesn’t say anything in response. His driver pulls through our circular driveway and parks the car, and I open up the back door and step out.

  Gideon gets out, too, and slams his door, and the sound of it echoes through the night. “You’re going straight to Hell,” he says.

  I look him right in his eyes, increasingly fueled by a superiority over him. “If anyone’s going to Hell, it’s you. You no longer have control over me. You make me sick.”

  Fury gathers in his eyes. I recognize the insane, twitchy look a second before he rears back and slaps me across the face. The expected impact sends me stumbling backward.

  “You really are stupid.” He laughs, and rage boils through my blood as I step right up and punch him in the cheek. I’ve never punched anybody in my life.

  “You little bitch,” he spits and comes right at me.

  He grabs me around the neck, and I thrust my knee straight up into his groin. In my periphery I see his driver get out of the car, and I spin. I’m ready for anything. I’m not going down without one hell of a fight. I hate his driver just as much as I hate Gideon. His driver knows what goes on with me, and he’s never once stopped it.

  The driver yanks the two of us apart and pushes me toward the house. “Go inside.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Bluma slides in beside me behind the pew. Up on stage Gideon towers in all his glory, singing with the congregation. I stand like I’m supposed to, but my lips aren’t moving to the song.

  One week has gone by since he brought me home, and this is the first day he has allowed me out in public.

  “How are you?” she whispers.

  I breathe in and wince. “Fine.” I shift a little and my entire back throbs.

  “Do you want to try to run again?”

  I shake my head. It will never work. He locks me in my room every night. He nailed my window shut. Plus, I don’t want Bluma involved.

  “You need to stay away from me,” I tell her.

  Slowly, she reaches over and grasps my hand. Her thumb slides under my palm and she transfers something. I don’t look at it and instead curl my fingers up around it. She moves her hand away, and we both go back to staring toward stage.

  She starts mouthing the words to the song, and all my focus goes straight to my hand. I don’t know what she just put in it, but I have a feeling it is my ticket to final freedom.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Way in the distance sirens pierce the air. Then flashing lights. Then suddenly cars are driving up our driveway.

  In our living room, Gideon shoots to his feet. “What’s going on?”

  I don’t respond. I know exactly what is going on, and it’s all perfect timing because tomorrow kicks off the big world tour. A world tour that now definitely will not happen.

  It’s been a month since Bluma slipped me the tiny video camera that I planted in my room. A month of enduring Gideon’s abuse for evidence the whole world needs.

  “What did you do?” he snarls at me.

  A fist bangs on our door. “Dr. Kopeling? Open up!”

  Wildly, he looks around the living room, and his fear fuels me straight to my feet.

  “Open up!” the cop shouts again.

  “They can see us through the windows,” I calmly respond. “They know you’re in here.”

  He goes rigid, and I automatically move toward the fireplace and the poker that is sticking out. Keeping my eyes on him, I lean down and grab it.

  He looks to the poker. To me. To the windows. Then back to me.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  I lift the poker and point it straight at Gideon, ready for whatever I have to do. Determination settles through me as our door flies open and a couple of cops rush in. I watch as Gideon falls to his knees and drops his head and begins praying.

  Praying.

  They slap handcuffs on him and haul him out, and he doesn’t once look my way.

  A cop approaches me, hands up. “It’s okay. Put it down.”

  I don’t and instead tighten my fingers around the wooden handle of the poker. My gaze flicks out the window, and I watch as they drag Gideon across the yard and shove him into a cop car.

  “Nesiah,” comes a familiar voice. I blink and glance over to the door. Bluma stands on the porch, looking in. “It’s okay.” She smiles. “It’s over.”

  A sob stutters from me as the poker clangs to the wood floor, and Bluma rushes over to hug me. “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay.”

  I don’t know how much time goes by as people invade our home, searching, gathering, walking around, looking. Eventually, Bluma and I go out to the yard, and I glance over to the cop car where Gideon still sits. Through the glass I see him crying, staring down at his lap.

  “May I speak to him?” I ask a man in uniform.

  He nods and leads me across the yard. They open the back door, and Gideon lifts his tear-streaked face to meet my gaze. In his handcuffs, he looks so pathetic, so helpless that I can’t help but smirk.

  Good. Let him feel half the pain I went through.

  I straighten my spine. “You’ve never been any type of father. Know from this moment on, you are nothing to me.”

  He opens his mouth to speak, and I take the door and quietly click it closed.

  With the soft click an enormous weight drifts off of me. I never have to see this man again.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  “My name’s Nesiah Kopeling. My father is Gideon Kopeling, religious advisor to the President, founder of the largest international ministry to date, known humanitarian, and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

  “As far back as I can remember he has taken his anger out on me and used me for ritualistic cleansing of his own sins. He has caned, flogged, whipped, switched, and beaten me. He has withheld food and locked me away for days on end.

  “I ran from home and changed my name because I couldn’t see any other way out. Many of the people on his personal staff knew of what went on and kept things quiet, and though I was scared for this to come to light, I knew it had to. Without my father’s knowledge, I planted a camera in my room to document the torture he put me through. I only ask that you respect my privacy and give me the space I need to deal with the fall out.”

  This is my official statement to the press, and over the next week things happen in a blur.

  The video file goes viral, as I knew it would. Kopeling Ministries is shut down. All ass
ets are frozen. Investigators take over the fortress, the international offices, and all the subsidiaries. Files are requisitioned and gone through.

  I talk to so many official people, I can’t even keep track.

  By the end of the week, the focus is on me. The numerous videos of my humiliating beatings are everywhere. I receive an outpouring of support. It’s overwhelming, and I’m at the point where I don’t watch TV. or get on the computer or look at anything in print. I’m everywhere.

  “I’m going for a walk,” I tell Bluma on a Sunday afternoon.

  Bluma nods. “Want me to go with you?”

  “No. I need time to myself.”

  “Okay,” she tells me.

  I turn from her concerned gaze and head out of their house.

  I wander their property for a while, and though I don’t want them to, images from my childhood reel through my mind. I imagine grabbing them, ripping them to shreds, and tossing them into a giant fire. The visual helps to clear my mind.

  It’s been a long week, and I’m tired of thinking. I just want some peace.

  I find a spot by the creek that cuts through their land and lie down on a patch of leaves. I close my eyes, soak the winter sun in, and breathe. Just breathe. I don’t know how much time passes. I don’t care. All I know is that I’m free. I’m finally, finally free.

  Gideon no longer has control over me. I am no longer just a shadow of a girl.

  “Bluma told me you went in this direction,” comes a voice from behind me.

  My eyes snap open, and I roll my head back. “West?”

  He sighs and I swear he’s about to cry.

  I roll to my knees. “What are you doing here?”

  He kneels down beside me and gives in to the tears. “Are you okay?”

  My soul softens. “I will be.”

  “I tried to get to you, but he wouldn’t let me.”

  West tried to get to me… I didn’t know.

  “I’m so sorry,” he breathes out.

  Like the rest of the world, he’s seen the videos. He now has a visual of the horrifying truth. I take his hand. “It’s okay.”

  I truthfully haven’t had a whole lot of time to think about him and me since I saw him last.

  He sniffs. “No, it’s not.”

  I sigh. “There was a time when I thought you’d be better off without me. That I’d ruined your life. I felt ashamed, guilty, inadequate. Now as I sit here looking at you, I’m more exhausted than anything.”

  His expression tells me he hadn’t expected me to be so truthful. That both hurts me and brings me a sense of peace. Hurt because I’ve done nothing but lie to him since I met him, and yet peace because I’m finally past that.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” he softly admits.

  As I hold his gaze my old instincts naturally want to kick in. Run. Lie. Don’t deal. Pretend. But just as quickly as those kick in, so does my new instinct to talk, to face my fears, and with that comes a sense of calmness that I welcome.

  “You’ve seen the video. You know what happened to me. But it’s important that you hear it from me.” I take a deep breath and because I need a little space, I let go of his hand and slowly begin, “I don’t ever remember a time where I was safe. Sure I was fed, had expensive clothes, and a huge house, but every night I’d go to sleep wondering if he’d visit my room.”

  “Sometimes I would fall asleep, thinking I was okay for the night, and then wake up and he’d be there. Just watching me.” I shake my head and let out a chuckle that has no humor to it. “Sometimes the lash of a belt would rip me from sleep. So I got good at not sleeping. I didn’t want to be taken off guard.”

  West swallows his emotion, but he doesn’t touch me, doesn’t say anything, just keeps listening.

  “I never knew what I did wrong. At first it was the dust in the house. Or milk in the refrigerator I put in the wrong place. Or me not paying attention during one of his many televised sermons.” Another harsh laugh comes out of me. “Then it became about him having sinful thoughts. Or not receiving some award. It didn’t matter. It was always my fault.”

  Knots form all through me. “And I believed him. It was my fault. But no matter how hard I tried to be good, to be better, to help him, nothing ever worked.”

  I shake my head. “I became a master of hiding my feelings. Always polite. Always smiling at the appropriate times. Anybody who saw me never knew. Not even Bluma. I never told her. I was too ashamed. After he beat me, he’d tenderly apply ointment to my broken skin. The strange thing is, I cherished that. It was the only time he was ever gentle with me.”

  West clinches his hands into fists.

  “Finally, I came clean to Bluma about everything, and we devised a plan for me to escape.” I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and slowly exhale. “And here I now am.”

  Several quiet moments pass, and when I open my eyes back up, West’s jaw is clenched and he’s staring down at the creek.

  I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them. “That’s why I lied. Why I’ve lived in fear. Gideon told me he would find me and kill me if I ever ran, and I knew he was capable of it. I knew he had the resources to locate me.”

  West scrubs his hands over his face and turns to look at me. “None of this is your fault. You know that, right?”

  I look away from the earnestness in his gaze. “Yes, but I still should’ve been truthful with you.”

  West scoots over until he’s in my line of sight. “I don’t want to lose you,” he repeats.

  “And I don’t want to lose you. But there’s a lot going on in my life right now. A lot I need to work through.”

  He nods, digesting that and takes both my hands to place a kiss to each wrist. I look into his dark eyes, wanting to hug him, to rock him, to tell him everything is fine. But it’s not. We’re not the same. I’m not the same.

  “So what now?” he eventually asks. “You’re going to live with Bluma?”

  I nod. “But I don’t want to impose. The whole situation’s overwhelming. I don’t want to cause any problems.”

  West scoffs. “You’re unbelievable. You’ve had nothing but shit for a life, and you’re worried about imposing? I’m sure they love you just as much as I—” He stops in his verbal tracks, and my heart nearly kicks right out from under my ribs. Silence fills the air around us, and West takes on this sort of confused, scared look.

  “Ah, hell, Eve. Ever since the first day I met you, I knew something was different. You had this barrier that intrigued me. I wanted to break through it and know you, really know you.” West touches his fingers to my chest. “I wanted to know your heart,” he reaches up and touches my forehead, “and your mind, and the stronger our friendship became, the deeper I fell for you.”

  He gazes at me with all the tenderness in his soul. “Sometimes I feel I can’t go another minute until I see you, or hear you, or touch you. I never thought I’d get such joy out of a simple thing like your smile.” He takes both my hands in his. “I admire and honor you. The things you went through humble me. Inside and out, you are the strongest, bravest person I’ve ever known.”

  The beauty of his words bring me such strength, such power. Way down deep, something breaks free that I didn’t even know was there, and with it my emotions swirl with light that brightens hidden dark corners.

  Suddenly, I recall the very last time we saw each other in the hotel room. “I should’ve never yelled at you.”

  He gives me a perplexed look. “What are you talking about?”

  “When you showed me the press release. You didn’t deserve my temper. You were just as much a victim as I was.”

  West lifts my hand and nuzzles his cheek into my palm. “There are no apologies necessary. The important thing is that Gideon is in jail and you are safe.”

  I absorb the enormity of that last statement. Gideon is in jail and you are safe.

  “I understand you’ve got a lot to deal with. You have my number, my email, my everything. I don’t want back
what we had. I want more. And if you can’t give me more, I at least want to be friends.” He places a gentle kiss on my cheek, and I close my eyes and lean into it.

  “Good-bye, Eve,” he whispers.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Over the next couple of months I don’t go anywhere. I don’t do anything. I lie low. I watch very little TV, and I definitely don’t get on the internet. Eventually the story dies down, the reporters stop hounding me, and something else in the world takes its place.

  I start seeing a therapist and…healing. After a lifetime of emotions full of emptiness and darkness, I actually visualize the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s a wonderful thing to visualize.

  I don’t go to Gideon’s trial, but I do meet privately with the judge in his chambers and truthfully answer all his probing questions. No more hiding. Several people on Gideon’s personal staff are brought up on charges, too.

  Bluma and her family have been solid for me, supporting, not pushing, letting me go through everything at my own pace. Bluma’s dad was on Gideon’s advisory board, so he’s just as confused as everyone else. He’d devoted years to Gideon’s ministry.

  Eventually though, they begin going to a different church and seem happy. I don’t go with them. One day I suspect I’ll go back to God and prayer, but it’ll be on my terms. Her family respects that.

  Spring rolls around, and I turn seventeen. I keep my hair pixie short, but I put it back to blond and legally change my name to Eve. I study for and pass my GED. The courts emancipate me, and I move across the country to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I move in with Anne where we both enroll in a sound engineering program at Middle Tennessee State University.

  Then one morning I wake up and realize I’m actually happy, content, and working solidly toward complete and whole.

  “Hey, girl.” Anne plops down beside me on the couch in our college apartment. She slides her iPad onto my lap. “I really think you need to see this.”