Dear Ana: A Novel

Dear Ana,

I couldn’t sleep.

It was way too hot in my room. I opened the window, but the air flowing through the screen was humid, so I ended up going downstairs after everyone went to sleep. I lounged on the couch for a few hours, flipping through channels on mute, until eventually, I drifted off.

I don’t know how long I was out. All I remember is suddenly jolting awake, facing the inside of the couch with my back to the room. I was going to turn around so I could spend the rest of the night in my bed, but something in my gut stopped me from moving.

And then I felt him.

He was breathing deeply and loudly right behind me. I didn’t need to have eyes behind the back of my head to know it was Mikhail. No one sparked a raging fire of fear in me like he did.

He didn’t speak. He just stood there, watching me. I kept my eyes and lips closed tight, breathing in and out through my nose. I knew he could tell I was awake, but I was hoping he would just leave me alone. After a few minutes that felt like hours, I heard him move and to my horror, he came closer. His hot breath was on the back of my neck, and something fluttered lightly across the side of my body, but I pretended it was a spider and not Mikhail’s fingers––

And then he left.

I waited, frozen in shock and distress. After a few moments, my body slowly started to unlock my joints, one by one. I turned around slowly and, after confirming he was nowhere around, tiptoed back upstairs. I paced around my room, waiting for my body to relax but it wouldn’t. What if he came back into my room? What if he decided to hurt me, knowing I was defenseless in my unconscious slumber? Most importantly though, how many times had he done that? The thought of him coming into my room at night, staring at me with those menacing, and hatred-filled eyes that made my skin crawl in disgust . . . I had to grab my pillow and shove it against my mouth to keep from screaming.

After a few hours, my exhaustion started to creep back, so I slipped into bed and under the covers. I wrapped my blanket around my body tightly, wishing it was a cloak of invisibility instead of a thin piece of cotton held together by a low thread count and incapable of shielding me from anything. I tried to close my eyes and clear my mind but I kept seeing his face. The wall separating our room was gone and I was lying right beside him, in the same bed, under the same covers. His breath was on my neck, and his voice was whispering profanities into my ear, and his spider leg fingers were dancing over my clothes, but then a second passed and I could feel them tickling my skin––

And then I felt it. My skin was suddenly cold, right between my legs. It started from the top and then quickly spread lower, accompanied by sticky dampness. The light fabric of my pajama bottoms started to feel heavier as it soaked up the weight of all the moisture secreting from my body.

Humiliation tainted my face red, Ana. My mind has already failed me; I guess it was only a matter of time before my body did too.

It’s okay, I told myself. It’s nothing, just don’t look under the covers.

The muggy wind blew the sudden rancid air into my face and my eyes started to water.

Don’t look under the covers, Maya, I repeated.

The wetness reached my ankles.

Don’t look under the covers, Maya.

God, it smelled so fucking bad, Ana.

Don’t look under the covers, Maya.

I didn’t need to look to see the urine soaking into a puddle of disgust beneath me––

And then he was gone. Mikhail was gone, and his breath was gone, and his fingers were gone, and the wall that separated us was back in place. It was just me, alone in my room, marinating in my own filth.

That was the last time I willingly fell asleep at night. It wasn’t the last time I wet the bed.