Finding Me (17 page)

Testifying against the dude in court.
(© AP Images/Tony Dejak)

One of my good friends, Pastor Angel Arroyo, Jr.
(Courtesy of Luis Gonzalez, Sr.)

With one of my heroes, Dr. Phil.
(Courtesy of Dr. Phil Show/Jared Manders)

With my lawyer Peggy and my friend Tricia
.
(Courtesy of Deborah Feingold)

At my first Broadway show,
Kinky Boots,
with actor Billy Porter, who played Lola
.
(Courtesy of Lacy Lalene Lynch)

Here I am at culinary school.
(Courtesy of Linda Fazio)

I’m so happy to be starting my brand new life.
(Courtesy of Lacy Lalene Lynch)

14
______________

The Second Girl

“Y
ESTERDAY
ON
APRIL
21, sixteen-year-old Amanda Berry was reported missing.” When I heard a TV news reporter say those words, I got up and leaned over to the TV to turn up the volume a little bit. “The girl was last seen leaving her job at Burger King on Lorain Avenue and West 110th Street in Cleveland.”

That’s close to here
, I thought. A picture of a blonde girl flashed up on the screen. I recognized her picture!
That’s the girl who used to be in my art class!
I realized. She was a lot younger than me, but I was so far behind in school that we ended up in some of the same classes.

Right away I had a sick feeling in my gut that the dude had snatched Amanda. He was always saying, “As soon as I get two more girls, I will let you go.”

Amanda seemed like the type of girl he claimed to like: young and blonde. He was always talking about how much he wanted to have sex with blondes like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Plus, I knew exactly where that Burger King was; it wasn’t far from his house, and he was always going to fast food restaurants. Putting together all the clues, I was sure he did it. A couple of days after I saw the report on TV, I started listening closely for new noises in the house. But I didn’t hear anything, and I started thinking that maybe I was wrong.

But then three or four weeks later something happened. The dude started blasting music all the time, more than he usually did. And it sounded like it was coming from the basement, not from his room.
He must have Amanda locked in the basement—the same way he did me,
I thought. I figured he didn’t want me to hear her screaming her head off. Whatever was happening, I knew it couldn’t be good.

One afternoon the dude came up to my room and sat on the mattress. “I want to introduce you to someone I brung into the house,” he said.

I was quiet for a while before I said anything. I was so furious at him for taking another girl. He couldn’t be satisfied with ruining only my life—he had to ruin another person’s too? I was so angry, I decided to confront him with it, no matter how mad he got.

“You don’t have to tell me her name—I already know it’s Amanda.” He stared at me like he was surprised.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“I saw her on TV. I used to go to school with her. I’m not retarded. I know what you did.”

He got real quiet. “It’s not Amanda,” he finally said. Then he got up and left.

The next day he moved me from the blue room back to the pink room. The windows were still boarded up from the day he made me help him close the place down. He had attached chains to the bed and walls in there too, which he used to tie me down. There was trash all over the place—half-eaten pizzas still in the boxes, spoiled sandwiches, Chinese food dried up in the bottom of white take-out containers. It looked like he’d been eating up there every day and throwing his leftovers on the floor. It was a stinky mess.

After I was locked in, he took away my TV. “I’m going to give this to Amanda,” he said.
Is he going down to the basement with it—or is he bringing Amanda upstairs to a room?
I had no clue. But I did hear him making a lot of noise in the connecting white room.
Maybe he put the TV there
, I thought.

Later on that same day he came back to my room with another TV, an old, tiny black-and-white one with bunny ears. “You’re gonna use this TV from now on,” he told me. He put it next to my bed. When I tried to turn up the volume, even all the way, I could barely hear anything. “This doesn’t work,” I said. He shrugged and left the room.

The next day he took me out of the chains and then left the room again. A minute later he came back in the room with Amanda. I recognized her from art class and TV. As soon as I saw her, I quickly pulled the little sheet over the middle of my naked body.

“She got the same thing you got!” he said when he saw me trying to cover up. “This is my brother’s girlfriend,” he said. I couldn’t believe he’d try to tell me such a stupid lie. I just stared at him.

Amanda was not the smiling girl I remembered from art class. She didn’t speak or act like she recognized me. We just stared at each other. Understandably, she looked frightened and kind of out of it. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing gray pajamas that were too big for her. I could tell the PJs were men’s because there was an opening in the front of the pants. She looked all around the room at the ankle-deep garbage, the boarded-up windows. I imagined that she was in shock at what a disaster the house was and by the fact that she was now a prisoner here. Then he left with her. The whole meeting lasted for less than a minute.

The next day the dude came in and unchained me. “Let’s go,” he said. He led me over to the white room. Amanda was sitting there on the mattress. She barely looked up at either one of us when we came in.
I guess this is where he’s going to keep her,
I thought. I felt so sorry for this young girl and what she was going to have to go through. I just hoped her ordeal wouldn’t be as bad as mine had been.

At first I thought Amanda didn’t have chains, but then she moved her leg, and I saw a chain around her ankle. She had clothes on—sweats and a T-shirt, as I recall.
I wonder why she gets to wear clothes?
I thought. The color TV he’d taken out of my room was on a dresser near her bed. When I first saw her that afternoon, again I tried to cover my naked body with my arms and hands. I was so embarrassed, but there was nothing I could do about it. The dude walked back to the other room, and I could hear him searching for something in the closet.

“I know who you are from school,” I said to her. “You were in my art class.” She looked right into my face. “I went to John Marshall High,” she finally said in a quiet voice.

I nodded. “So did I.” I still wasn’t sure if she remembered me; I figured she probably didn’t because I always sat at the back of the class. I tried to think of something I could say that would make her feel less scared.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“I’m twenty-two.” Just a few weeks before, a radio DJ had said that it was April 23—my birthday.

Amanda raised her eyebrows. “You look like you’re thirteen. When did—”

Right then the dude came back in. He handed me a white, extra-long men’s T-shirt. I quickly slipped it over my head.

I didn’t know it then, but I wouldn’t have the chance to talk to Amanda again for a long time—for
months
. On some days I could hear him unchain her and take her down to his room on the main floor; it broke my heart to think about what he was probably doing to her down there. On days while the dude was at work I could hear Amanda’s TV. If I happened to see something about her kidnapping on my TV, I would turn up the volume as loud as it would go. Even though the volume was pretty much broken, I hoped she would hear it and realize she should turn on her TV and watch. She must have been miserable, so I wanted her to know that people were still looking for her. I might have felt alone and forgotten, but I didn’t want someone else to go through that too.

A few times after Amanda got to the house, the dude brought us both down to the kitchen. I have no clue why. We didn’t really have a chance to talk to each other; we just said “hi” and gave each other a very quick hug. If he stepped out of the room for a second, I would quietly tell her, “Everything is going to be okay. One day we’ll get home.” Her eyes were red like she had been crying.