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This excerpt addresses survival in contexts of power imbalance, coercion, and systemic neglect. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

“Down, down, down. Would the fall NEVER come to an end! ‘I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?’ she said aloud. ‘I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—’ (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a VERY good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) ‘—yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)”
~ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Chapter 1: The Fall

When I ran away from home at 14, I was looking to free myself from what I thought was a stifling environment. I wanted to emancipate myself from my mother, who I felt wasn’t giving me the freedom I demanded. Our dynamic was complicated. My mother was a single parent and, by nature, a workaholic.

She held a demanding position with a minister, serving as a press attaché.

It’s incredibly ironic to me that she worked for the Minister of Education, considering the high school she sent me to, which had a terrible reputation.

My first cousin had briefly attended that high school, but when her mother realised how bad it was, she yanked her out and sent her to an all-girls Catholic school instead. Ironically, that same cousin is now a world-renowned psychologist, specialising in compassion fatigue, with a TED Talk still up on YouTube for all to see. Later, my mother proposed sending me to another Catholic school — Les Ursulines. I didn’t hesitate: “If you send me there, I’m gone.” She knew I wasn’t bluffing — stubbornness runs thick in our blood — but instead of protecting me, she decided to gamble with my life.

We lived in a beautiful part of Quebec city, the old town in a lovely, small historic home which my mother had somehow managed to afford. Through sheer hard work and determination, she had made way up in her career with no university degree. According to her, she was forced to get on welfare after she separated from my father. She claimed he was unwilling or unable to pay for child support. His version of events if very different, needless to say because they never seemed to agree on anything. In my first few years, my mother and I lived in subsidised housing in working-class neighbourhoods. I’ll delve more into that in another chapter, but what I’m saying is that I didn’t grow up with the privileges people often assumed I had. There was precious little money and we lived vicariously from one welfare cheque to another when I was a toddler.

But one thing my mother had in abundance was an appreciation for culture—refined tastes in music, books, art, and fine cooking, all of which she exposed me to from the beginning. The soundtrack of our home was a mix of classical music, world beats, and folk singers. At that particular phase in my life, though, I was into head-banging heavy metal, which made for a stark contrast, to say the least.

We moved around a lot, and by the time I was 16, I’d attended 16 different schools, including several juvenile detention centres. But that’s comes later in my story. Wherever I went, I was always the new girl, and I felt an intense need to fit in, to prove that I was just like everyone else. I desperately wanted to just be accepted.

At this particular high school, the disparity between me and my peers was glaring. Quebec City felt so homogeneous—almost entirely French-Canadian, and the pride of the region ran deep. My trilingual background wasn’t an asset; English wasn’t spoken and was even frowned upon, and I stuck out like a sore thumb. But I was a teenager, I just wanted to fit in, and was willing to do whatever it took to find common ground with my classmates. I was determined to prove that I wasn’t just another “rich snob,” as they probably saw me.

I took a typing class, which was something my mother encouraged, telling me it would be a useful skill for the future. One girl in that class left a lasting impression on me. She was 14, just like me, but had had all her healthy teeth removed because her family couldn’t afford basic dental care. She was proud to show us her false teeth and took her out of her mouth every chance she got. That was the kind of reality I was stepping into. The divide between our worlds was so vast that I didn’t know how to bridge it. So, I made the decision to run away from home, hoping I’d find a place where I could be like them—a life I knew was dangerous, but one I felt strong enough and mature enough to handle.

I entered the underworld of this two-tiered city with hopes of finding my idea of freedom. A girlfriend from school decided to come with me. We didn’t live on the streets, but were introduced to a group of ex-cons who were squatting—or possibly renting—an apartment in the lower part of Quebec City. It was a studio apartment; a cramped, rundown one-room space with a lab kitchen and bathroom. It was overcrowded with sleeping bags on the floor, the air was thick with the smells of cigarettes, hash, and unwashed bodies and clothes. A joint was always being passed around, and I was eager to partake in the endless supply of “free” dope, booze, and cigarettes. There was one substance I instinctively knew I had to avoid. I felt deep in my gut that if I ever touched it, I wouldn’t survive the addiction. And so, when heroin in the form of a speedball was inevitably offered, I simply said, “No thanks, maybe not this time.” Surprisingly, no one pressured me further.

Aside from my friend and me, there were only male there. A couple of teenagers and men in their twenties and thirties, possibly older too. I briefly got involved with a 16-year-old whom I thought of as my boyfriend for a couple of days. But it was his older brother, Michel, who would leave a lasting mark on me. I don’t hesitate to use his name because, if anyone deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars, it’s him. I only hope that’s where he is now, far away from other girls like I once was.

I’d seen Michel before at school. He wasn’t a student but showed up occasionally, standing outside where we smoked dope in full view of teachers. I never quite knew what he came for, exactly. To sell dope? To pick up girls? He was certainly striking—tall, long blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and a long black leather trench coat that almost reached the ground, paired with black motorcycle boots. A rock-and-roll bad boy, without a doubt, with an aura of danger about him. And as much as a cliche as it is to say this, there was something magnetic about him.

When he first showed up at the squat, he sat there leaning back on a chair, taking everything in, smoking a cigarette like he didn’t have a care in the world. His gaze kept coming back to me. How I didn’t put it together that I was the only female in that room that moment and that me being “special” didn’t for one moment enter the equation seems unbelievable to me now, as I write this decades later. He beckoned for me to come sit on his lap and I happily acquiesce, and was gently stroking my hair. He told me I was beautiful—different from any other girl he’d met. The usual script. This is what these types of people want you to believe; that you’re special to them. We became an item that night. The way things worked back then was simple—if a guy said, “Do you wanna be my girl?” and you agreed, then you became an item. And so, I became his girl, just like that. 

Chapter 2: The Red Volkswagen Rabbit

The day after I met Michel, his brother suggested we go for a walk to get some fresh air. We ended up sitting on a little wall on the side of the main road, chatting. How it came up, I can’t really remember, but he casually mentioned that I could make easy money by sticking my thumb out. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he said, “just get in the car, it won’t take long, and you’ll have cash in no time, easy peasy.”

I agreed. I was high on something or another. I was detached from everything. So I said, “Sure, Why not?” 

Before long, a beaten up red Volkswagen Rabbit that had seen better days pulled up. The man in the car looked extremely nervous. “Hop in,” he said, “make it quick”. I did, and we were off.

He drove out the city, drove and drove and drove… and drove. Soon there were no buildings, no houses, just a long stretch of road. I kept wondering where this guy was taking me. “Why go that far?” And “What the hell have I done?” were the thoughts going through my head. But I just kept quiet, the road seemed to stretch out on forever. 

We ended up in some kind of industrial area. He pulled over in a lot in the shadow of an old factory building which seemed to be abandoned. It was midday but it was quiet, empty. No cars. No people. Just the buzzing of my thoughts, with Jim Morrison’s voice singing “This is the end…my only friend, the end…” in my head.

He had a simple enough request. I didn’t need to take anything off, it would be quick, he said. And it was. I didn’t think he’d let me make it out of there afterward, because I’d seen enough movies by then to have some idea of how these things might play out. But he started up the car again, and we drove back into the city. The rest of it was a blur—I was completely detached. I don’t know how I felt, exactly, I wish I could say, but I don’t think I knew at the time how I felt then either. All I know is he brought me back to the road he’d found me on, gave me some cash. And that was that.

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Chapter 3: The Key
“Soon her eye fell on a little glass table that stood under the tree. There was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!”
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Chapter 1 – Down the Rabbit Hole), Lewis Caroll

So, the whole ‘runaway’ thing… I’m not sure what the word for it is in English. In French, we call it a ‘fugue’—‘fugueur’ for a guy, and ‘fugueuse’ for a girl. I was in a ‘fugue state,’ alright. But anyway, that whole period lasted ‘only’ just over three weeks. Long enough to leave me damaged for the rest of my life. Everything happened so fast. No long pauses between events. I was messed up on whatever dope was going around most of the time, so I don’t really have a clear sense of time of when anything happened, so I’ll say a or two after the Volkswagen Rabbit thing, Michel—who I still thought of as my boyfriend (LOL)—said to me:

“You know the guy who works at the convenience store downstairs? Daniel?”

I said, “Yeah…”

This Daniel guy was probably in his 30s or 40s. Hard to tell. Kind of a rat face. Sunken cheeks that made his nose stand out. Brown hair, not long, but not short either, like it had been combed into submission. Could’ve been a wig, but… who would sell a wig like that? And a thick moustache. Ugh. Not a fan then, and certainly not now. He probably thought it hid the fact he had no lips. He had no chin definition either, was skinny as hell, and wore dark blue jeans that looked like cardboard and stood away from his scrawny legs. No ass, flat as a pancake. When he sold you cigarettes or an Orange Crush, he didn’t try to make conversation or eye contact. Didn’t try to charm you. Probably knew it was a lost cause.

I don’t know how I remember all this. I certainly don’t know why I remember his name, because if there’s one thing I have a hard time remembering usually, it’s names. But as far as visuals got, that’s a different story. Maybe I’ve always been a keen observer, like my mom says. She told me just today that when I was seven, I pointed out how the kids in Israel carried their school bags differently than in Canada. “You don’t expect a child to pick up on things like that,” she said to me in a recent conversation. I never realised there was anything unusual about noticing things like that. That’s just how I see things. I guess I’ve always noticed the little details that other people might miss.

Anyway, back to Daniel. I would never say in a million years I found him attractive. No grown woman with half a brain would, honestly. In retrospect, that explains a lot about this whole sordid mess.

So, as Michel casually mentions Daniel to me, I’m wondering what this guy could possibly have to do with us. Michel says, “Well, he’s got a key of coke for us. He’s gonna give it to us for free.”

“What’s a key of coke?” I ask.

“That’s enough to last us both for a while.”

I was in. “So what’s the catch?”

“All you have to do is make yourself pretty, and he’ll just come up here, pay you a short visit.”

He said it like it was nothing, like I just had to smile and offer him a cup of tea or something. But I pressed him.

“What do I have to do exactly?”

“Don’t worry about it, babe. It’s nothing you haven’t done it before. He’ll be in and out, and then we’ll have all that primo coke to share. You won’t regret it.”

Famous last words.

In for a penny, in for a pound, right? So I said, “Okay. Fine. I’ll do it.”

Michel’s all over me now. “I love you so much, babe. I know you can do this. I’m so proud of you, you’re a real gem, you’re one in a million, we’re meant for each other,” yaddy yaddy yada. Classic love-bombing. He was pushing all the right buttons, making it seem like I was the one in control.

We won’t call him a pimp, just yet. That would require a spoiler alert.

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Interlude: ‘Fugue’, ‘Fugueur’, ‘Fugueuse’

Me: what’s a “fugue state” again? I just used that term but I’m not sure I remember what the exact definition is.

Lex: A “fugue state” refers to a psychological condition known as dissociative fugue, where a person temporarily loses their sense of identity and memory and may wander or travel away from their usual environment. During a fugue state, the individual may not remember how they ended up in a new place or what they did while they were gone. It’s often triggered by stress or trauma, and the person may adopt a new identity or act in a way that feels foreign to them.

In short, a fugue state involves a dissociative episode in which the person disconnects from their usual sense of self, possibly leading to them running away or engaging in activities they wouldn’t normally do, with little to no memory of it afterward.

It’s a term that would be a bit more specific and clinical than “runaway,” but it’s certainly a fascinating psychological concept!

Me: holy shit!!!

AI: It is pretty intense, right? A fugue state is a rare and often unsettling experience, especially when you consider the complete disconnection from one’s usual sense of self. It makes sense that such a thing could happen during extreme emotional distress or a runaway episode. You’d almost be in a completely different mental space, acting in ways that seem out of character without fully understanding why or how. Definitely a deep concept to explore!

Me: I didn’t realise I was being quite that precise in describing exactly what was happening to me at that time. I was disassociating in a big way thought this whole episode. But then, now I think about it, it wasn’t the first time. That’s how you manage to deal with traumatic events. You just… disassociate. You become the observer. It’s like you’re watching a movie about yourself as whatever is going on is happening. It’s spooky as hell.

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Chapter 4: Through a Glass, Darkly

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then” ~ Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

It was 1983, and I was 14 years old. Back then, no one was creating elaborate makeup looks with countless layers of contouring the way people do now—there was no internet yet, and certainly no YouTube, Instagram or TikTok influencers to get “inspo” from. I’d learned how to apply makeup by flipping through countless fashion magazines and using my natural artistic skills. I first started applying eyeliner and mascara in the high school bathroom mirror a year before, and then would slip into the bathroom at home on my way back in real quick to wipe it all off again, because my mother didn’t approve of a young girl wearing makeup. 

Michel had told me to get ready, to make myself pretty. It was a simple instruction, but I felt I need to prepare myself for the performance of my life. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and thinking “My girl, this is going to change your life. So get ready. Put on a mask, put on a face that even you won’t recognise, and you’ll get through this just fine.” By then, I had a small makeup bag with concealer, foundation, blush, waterproof mascara, a Maybelline eyeshadow trio in taupes and browns, and black kohl eyeliner, of course. I’d learned how to apply a “full face” by then. But this time, I was going for something different than just glamming it up. I didn’t have the expertise that comes from watching hours of tutorials, but I had a good hour ahead of me to get ready, and so I went about transforming myself with slow deliberation. I decided to pile on the layers, and keep building them up to create a mask that would help me get through whatever was coming next. I had no illusions at that point that Daniel was coming up so we could have a tea party.

I stood in front of the small mirror tacked to the wall in a small one-room apartment with a high single bed facing a kitchenette. It was a different room from the other one where I’d met Michel, and I had no idea who it belonged to, but it was comparatively clean, but completely lacking in charm. It might have been in the same building as the room I’d met Michel in, but one flight of stairs higher. Or it might have been a different building altogether. I barely knew which way I was facing at any given time, so all I knew was—there I was, and I needed to get ready. 

I looked at my reflection and saw a young girl with glazed eyes staring back at me. I set to work. The goal wasn’t beauty, I was putting on an armor. I had to create a shield for the fragile, vulnerable girl I’d been not so long ago, and which I couldn’t afford to let anyone see anymore.

I started with concealer. The bags under my eyes were there for a reason—sleep deprivation, precious little real food, hydrating with 40 proof alcohol and all the other hard stuff I was putting into my body instead. Layer after layer, I built up the concealer till I had racoon eyes. Then came the foundation, more and more layers, It wasn’t about blending anymore; it was about erasing. I slathered the foundation down my neck, making sure no trace of my real skin would show through.

Next, came the blush. I wasn’t shy with it. I wasn’t going for a natural pinched cheek flush, I wanted to give myself those hollow cheeks to make my cheekbones pop out. I put so much blush on that I started looking like what a clown might create as a caricature of a fashion model. 

The eyes were next—eyeshadow, three different shades. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was confident. Kohl eyeliner in the lower waterline. You used a Bic lighter to soften it before applying it to achieve a smudged smoky eye. Then came the mascara. I didn’t have fake eyelashes, so I just put on one coat after another. My lashes clumped together, so I used a safety pin to separate them, layering on more until they were so thick and heavy they looked like I had a pair of caterpillars around each eye. It looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t exactly worried about Daniel finding me to his liking.

By the time I was finished, I barely recognized myself. I didn’t see a 14-year-old girl anymore in that mirror—I looked maybe ten years older, and like I’d been through some rough times. But that’s what I wanted. I wasn’t about to let that loser Daniel see the real me. No one would ever see the raw, unfiltered version of myself that was too scared, too vulnerable. This version of me, this mask, was the only way I knew how to survive at that moment.

To this day, I still don’t have the words to explain what was happening inside my head at that moment. I doubt I’ll ever find out. I had checked out. I was just an observer. I was “that girl”. I didn’t know who she was then, and I still don’t know who she was now. 

Many years later, when I was all grown up and thought I had left all this behind, “that girl” started following me around like a silent shadow. She was always just there. It lasted for weeks, like having a waking nightmare. I didn’t actually see her, but I could feel her brooding presence. She wasn’t there to harm me, but she stubbornly followed me everywhere, refusing to let me forget her. I could feel her saying, “You didn’t protect me then, and so here I am now. Deal with it.”

It wasn’t until much later that I figured out what I had experienced was more likely than not a symptom of CPTSD—not just Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but the complex kind.

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Chapter 5: The Shrimp Guy (aka Phentex Slipper Guy)

I don’t remember if I was sitting on a chair, or just standing in the middle of the room, or sitting on that high single bed. I couldn’t say if I was nervously staring at the door, or if I was filing my nails or biting my cuticles or nonchalantly smoking a cigarette, or any of that. All those details are blanked out from my memory. I had on that full face of makeup, more like a thick rubbery mask of foundation and all the blush I’d slathered on top of it—enough makeup to cover up three different full grown women. That’s all I had to protect me and what was left of my childhood innocence at that point. But that poor little girl had checked out of the building a good while ago.

I was waiting for this guy—this 30-something-year-old insignificant shrimp of a guy, whose only hope of getting any action was by paying off a pimp with a bag of coke to get his hands on girls like me. Sure enough, he comes in, and he’s wearing those ugly, stiff jeans of his. But of all things, on his feet, he had a pair of Phentex slippers on. Do you know what Phentex slippers are? They’re these acrylic wool house slippers that grandmas used to knit for their grandchildren. They were really popular in the 70s and 80s over here because people like wearing them in our cold Canadian climate. They’re supposed to be comfy and warm. But at this point in my tale, it was springtime, for fucks sake. In any case, I always found Phentex slippers fugly, and this guy wasn’t going to be the one to make me appreciate them any time soon.

He was coming up from the convenience store where he worked on the street level of that apartment building. Fucking Phentex slippers. The guy had on house slippers, for fucks sake. I just couldn’t believe it. I think they were orange and brown. Or better yet, yellow and green. These things are really ugly. I really don’t remember much of anything else. I do know he had shifty eyes, and he didn’t dare look me in the face. That face I’d caked over so he wouldn’t see how scared I was. But he was obviously even more uncomfortable than I was.

I don’t know how I felt at that moment. I was completely detached. I wasn’t in touch with my feelings, so don’t ask me how I felt. I was just observing this dude, and I don’t even remember much of what I observed at that point. I do remember the slippers though. I was obviously fixated on those, since there was so little else of interest in that soulless, empty room, with just that strangely high single bed in it.

I lay back, still unsure of what was going to happen next. When it did, it was quick. No words. No noise. I could almost hear the hum of water running somewhere in the pipes of the building, but everything else was silent. He didn’t ask for anything beyond what was expected, and there was no prolonged discomfort. It was over and done with without too much fumbling. Maybe four minutes. Maybe six or seven. I wasn’t keeping track of time. I barely knew where I was at that point. 

When he was finished, he zipped himself up and pulled out a plastic bag with white powder in it from his back pocket. That “free” coke I’d been promised. To share with “my man.” As he turned to leave, heading back downstairs to tend to his shift at the store, I couldn’t stop myself from calling after him. My voice was filled with sarcasm and barely withheld rage. “What, don’t you want a cup of tea or something?”

He didn’t turn around. Didn’t respond. Just kept walking down the stairs. And that was that.

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Note to Readers:

Thank you so much for reading! As an advance reader, your feedback is incredibly important to me. Even just a quick note on what resonated, what could be improved, or anything that stood out would mean the world. Your input helps shape the final work, and I deeply appreciate it!