Scott is worried about my crying, I know because he calls a group of medically trained people into the room. If he only knew that for twenty five months I pushed down every emption I ever felt, he would have joined in. A cathartic group cry.
I feel joy, I feel relief, I feel freedom. I am also worried about the next step. How do I get as far away as possible from this place?
I tell Scott everything I can remember about my walk in the dark. I am only able to give a few details, but the curves in the road that I avoided so that I don’t fall, were actually unique. So unique, that he is able to track the road down. He even found the café from my walks.
In a matter of days, I am on a flight back home. Scott finds Domino and Jessie still asleep from the sleeping pills. I think I put in more than the recommended amount. Better safe than sorry.
By the time he made it up the hill the next day, and he arrested them both. I tell him One and Two were victims like most of the villagers, but Scott says he can’t rule out that they lied to me. He assures me that he will confirm they aren’t loyal to Domino, and if they indeed are not, then will let them go, unharmed.
I don’t know what happened to them after that, but I hope they are able to find some peace.
I am taken to a facility to give a briefing on my time as Domino’s companion. They offer me a new identity as well as one for my family in exchange for helping them take that monster down. I gladly took the offer. Being abused by him and enslaved, they built a strong legal case against him.
I finally meet Joey, my baby who was not an exactly baby anymore. My husband did not remarry. Joey did not have a horrible step mom. He did not forget me.
Life was not held on pause which sucks, but it did not continue just fine without me either, which does not suck. Life will never again be the same for I am not the same person I once was. I no longer waste my time on things that do not serve me. I believe in being selfish if it means I can be happy in my life.
I am learning how to adapt to life after Domino. It isn’t as hard as everyone says, but it does take a lot of effort and consistency, and it is a daily ongoing process.
As I look back on how I was, and how I am now, I am grateful to the person I used to be, Madeline. I am also grateful for Evergreen. Evergreen was the person who adapted, she persevered, she survived and then, she escaped.
If everyone can find their inner Evergreen, we may come out of life’s long and grueling challenges as different but better people. I was victimized by Domino, but I was also victimized by so many other things before him.
Domino escaped, in case you were wondering. He never made it to the prison he should have gone to, which is why I told Scott to shoot him dead the moment he finds him. Jessie was found with a single bullet in her head at the scene of his escape. Domino left me a note, can you believe it? I have a new name, a new life away from him, but he left a note for me when he escaped the holding center.
He wrote that he will always wonder what my pivotal point was so that he knows how to avoid it in the future.
It’s funny how things work, how the little details drive us crazy.
I guess, he will never know.
Would you like to know? I don’t mind telling you. I have already shared more about my ordeal than I have ever told anyone else, even my therapist.
The moment that clicked in my mind, my pivotal moment was my very first walk to the café. Enjoying the scenes of nature as I did before I was taken captive, the exact same sky, the same sun. The only difference was me.
I can control me. I can save me. The same Madeline that walked to school looking at fluffy clouds was the same Evergreen walking in the dirt looking at fluffy clouds. That moment was when things started to shift, when I subconsciously realized that Domino made his first mistake with me, choosing a clever companion. His first mistake was choosing me.
These pivotal moment come and go so silently and so subtly that more often than not, we hardly notice them. The lucky few that do are too afraid to accept them. These moments are the ones that matter.
Take them in, then put in the work and who knows, maybe escaping is never as hard as we think it is.