Confined

by Barbi Barnard

  He had to go. I was the glue that held the three of us JoJo, Josie and I together. Doctor Leprechaun was always trying to get JoJo to remember what happened, to talk about what I did to those three assholes. It was too huge of a risk; I couldn’t have her remember, not yet. Hell, not ever.

  Then this chucklehead comes along and he starts to break through JoJo’s shell so I had to chase him away, I had to make her fear him, I had to make her find a way to block him out, send him away so he couldn’t bother her anymore either,

  “Paul,” Duggar called, interrupting my reverie.

  I snapped my eyes in his direction and glared at him. “You need to go away,” I told him. “Neither of them need to remember, they’re both completely happy trapped in their own little worlds, JoJo is happy, with Emma and Steve, and Josie, well, she’s happy pretending to be oblivious.”

  “And you,” Duggar questioned, “What about you?”

  I shrugged as best I could, shackled to the bed. “I’m fine. It’s my job to protect them. I’ll do that at any cost.”

  “Like the cost of three lives lost?”

  “Cost?” I snorted. “Please. The three of them deserved to be killed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they raped JoBeth. And because they would have gotten away with it. They had to be punished and I made sure it was taken care of. I told you. I’m here to protect them.”

  “So it’s just you, Josie and JoBeth?

  “For the most part. Steve and Emma Grace are here too, but it’s just us three.”

  “So, you’re what exactly? The gatekeeper?”

  “Gatekeeper, peace keeper, secret keeper. Just the keeper in general.”

  “So, it would be bad to tell the others about you?”

  I shrugged. “You could try, but look at what happened when you tried to get to JoJo. She figured out a way to block you. She blocked you for the better part of the year didn’t she?”

  Curtis nodded, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “How did you get her to do that?”

  “I pretended like I wanted to hurt her. After you started to get through in the first place, I found a way to twist it, make it darker. She met me, in a bookstore – or so she thinks – and we discussed The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud-“

  “When was this?”

  “Right after I got rid of the other shrink.”

  “You know you didn’t get rid of him right? His wife fell ill and he cut back his hours to spend time with her.”

  I shrugged. “Either way. JoJo saw him as her husband who divorced her and practically forced her to move back to her childhood home with her daughter.”

  “How old is her daughter?”

  “She’s seventeen now, Somehow, you managed to get through to her. She fantasized that her daughter was raped by her date to the homecoming dance. The night she found her, she woke up here, to you.”

  “Where is she now?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. She’s the most child-like. In a way, the most fragile. Is it weird that I know the others exist? They don’t really know about me. JoJo thinks I’m some guy she met in a bookstore. Josie, well, you know her, She denies just about everything unless it’s something she’s made up for herself.”

  “What about you? What made you come out?”

  “The rape. I think I was always in the back of JoJo’s mind, that tough part of her that didn’t take any bullshit. I mean, she’s tough, but she kind of let people walk on her a bit. Then Rodger raped her at the dance, and here I am, trapped in the back of her mind as him and the other two assholes defiled her and something snapped. After that, I guess it was enough for me to break free, the rest, well I guess, is history.”

  “Tell me about the rape,” Curtis stated.

  “It was homecoming. Rodger and JoJo had only been dating for a few weeks, a month at most. She loved the idea of him; Greg didn’t like him, he said the kid was too polite. That night at the dance, they left the gym to, and I quote, “Walk under the stars so that they could marvel at her, JoJo’s, Beauty.

  She fell for that - bullshit hook, line and sinker. So they headed out to the now empty football field and walked. He had her sit down on the fifty-yard line with him. They looked up at the stars and he pointed out different constellations while she secretly wished they’d get to second base that night. She secretly considered going all the way with him.

  Well, they started making out, he was rough, and it scared her. She asked him to stop, but he didn’t. She pushed him off of her and managed to get halfway back to school, screaming for help. From the side door of the gym, out walk Tyler and Arnold, Rodger’s friends. They grab her and pretty much dragged her to him. They threw her to the ground and Rodger ripped her panties off and raped her.”

  I paused, remembering with stunning clarity the anger that coursed through me as he came inside JoJo. I saw red and one word, only one word flashed through my mind: kill.

  “After he finished, he left her lying there in the dirt and went off to do god only knows what. I made JoJo get herself home, she walked the entire way, and when she got home, she sat in the tub for hours just crying, that night when she fell asleep, I woke up. I knew Greg kept guns in the house and when he left for work I got one, found the bullets for it, and waited for nightfall.”

  “Then what?” Curtis asked, frantically scribbling in his notebook.

  “I found out where they hung out and I killed them one at a time.”

  “Where did they hang out?” he asked.

  “There is this strip of old abandoned warehouses along the harbor front, they used to hang out in one of the warehouses, they had a little set up where they’d go and get drunk, get high and occasionally screw some skank from school. I found them there and picked them off one at a time.”

  “When you say picked off, what do you mean?”

  “I shot each of them. I shot Tyler twice in the chest. Arnold took a bullet to the head.”

  “And Rodger?”

  “I shot his dick off, and then I shot him in the chest and tossed his body in the river.”

  Curtis nodded, his pen scratching the page rapidly. “How’d you get caught?”

  “At the time Josie was stronger than me. She woke up and freaked out; she saw Tyler and Arnold and wanted to cut their dicks off. When she saw all the blood on our hands and the gun she lost it. I guess someone heard the gunshots and called the cops. They found her there and arrested her. The next time I woke up, we were here.”

  “They sent Jobeth here because she had the murder weapon, the victim’s blood on her skin and cloths, but had no recollection of how she got to Seattle or what happened.”

  “I know,” I said. “Trust me. I know. She’s angry, so she lashes out at you guys. JoJo’s scared so she creates this perfect world where no one can touch her and me…”

  “Yes, what about you?”

  “I’m here holding it all together.”

  “It’s not healthy,” Curtis said. “Eventually the façade is going to crumble and all of you are going to have to face the truth.”

  “Maybe,” I shrugged. “Or maybe not. But until then, I’m going to protect then. I’m going to let them have their fantasies.”

  “The truth always comes out,” Curtis said. “Sooner or later it always comes out.”

  Chapter Twenty

  A year ago, JoBeth Reeves, known to her friends as Josie, daughter of the chief of police, snapped. Raped by her boyfriend, she turned to violence and sought refuge from her pain within the confines of her own mind.

  JoBeth created two new personalities first was Paul, her protector, the actual killer in JoBeth's mind. Then there is JoJo, a shy woman who fled to San Francisco after the rape when she found out she was pregnant with Rodger’s child. Marrying another man, whom she subsequently divorced, and was forced to move back to her hometown of Mora.

  Once back in Mora, JoJo fell in love with Steve, the chief of police. In her mind, she was happy, her life – while traumatizing – wa
s good. She was relatively happy and in love.

  It has been six months since I’ve heard from JoJo. Paul says that she has found a way to block me out. He believes, that she believes I was sent back to jail, as that is the way she blocked me the first time.

  Josie remains in an angry, teenage state of mind. She is still hostile and violent; she still refuses to talk about what happened the night of the dance.

  Paul remains ever vigilant. Most of my sessions these last few months have been with him. He says that it is easier for everyone if he remains in control at all times. Admittedly, sometimes he slips and Josie will wake up screaming at the top of her lungs for us to free her from the shackles that confine her. However, for our safety as well as hers, I have advised the nurses and orderlies not to free her. It is a risk that is too great.

  Chief Reeves, consumed with grief and guilt, has since retired from the force in Mora and relocated to Seattle to be closer to JoBeth. The only time we have allowed him to visit his daughter is when she is heavily medicated, and therefore unresponsive. It saddens me that the only way this man can see his child is when she is heavily sedated; however, it is for his own safety.

  When he visited a week ago, he told me that the state of Washington found JoBeth guilty of the murders, and sentenced her to a life in a state run mental health facility. She will be seventy years old when her sentence is served.

  For the rest of her life, Josie will float through various stages; teenager, middle-aged mom, angry, violent man. She will run the gamut of these personalities until her mind snaps or one of them dies. No one wanted to see it come to that, all of her doctors wanted to see her accept help and travel down the path of healing.

  Whether or not she chooses to get better is ultimately JoBeth’s decision.

  She will have to decide. Light or dark, life or death, it is a choice that no one but she can make.

  Dedication

  For Lori Birkett,

  For the last couple of years my life has been richer for having met you. Your profound way of living in "the happy" touches all you meet and interact with.

  The things you do to brighten up the lives of family and friends mean so much to all around you. Each day you wake up with a positive outlook and live life to the fullest, you share that with us each time you speak.

  You have taught me to be a stronger person and to rely on myself, and my own way of thinking. You have shown me that different isn’t bad or good, it’s just different; I strive to be me, a different me than others, but me nonetheless.

  You have brought me hundreds of hours of enjoyment, happiness, and most of all a friendship in its purest form.

  I truly hope I can give a few to you.

  P.S. And I got Cloud. Lol

  Forever,

  Barbi

  Barbi Barnard

  Barbi Barnard is a native of North Louisiana, having lived in the same general area since the age of five. She is married to Dub and has loved him for the last twenty years. Together they have 7 children and numerous grandchildren from age two to almost forty. Life is never dull in the Barnard house.

  Writing became a way to express herself at a young age and then a hobby she enjoyed. She wrote short stories for her children to read when the rain kept them inside.

  Her first published book came out in the summer of 2015. You can find all her published works on Amazon. She has a Facebook and a Twitter page with links below. Send an email, tweet, or a message on chat and connect to let her know your thoughts.

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  Book Links

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