Drop Off Location

The summer after my graduating year, I moved in with my boyfriend of two years. I wanted to stay in the same state as our college, but he insisted we lived closer to the ocean. He said I would love Miami.

We met my sophomore year in an extra credit photography class, he had been partnered up with me to work on a project. We had been instructed to photograph a beautiful thing, in an unflattering light. My first thought was a rose dying but he one upped me with taking the flowering just setting it on fire.

The reckless passion was what drove me to Caleb. You never knew what he was going to do next, but you know he was going to dive in head first.

Looking back now, that turned out to be his downfall. When I fell in love with him I fell fast, and man did I fall hard. I was never the type to get swept up and lost in romance, but what we had wasn’t romantic, it was explosive.

At first, I thought it was like fireworks and champagne bottles. Everything was a goddamn celebration. Our first anniversary was spent in an old cabin in the woods tens of miles off campus. Caleb wanted it to be a surprise, so he blindfolded me right before arriving. I was so pissed off when I saw it. Why the hell would I want to spend a night in a rundown shake in the middle of nowhere? He must’ve known I was going to hate it. After the initial shock wore off, I will admit I did make the most of it. We roasted marshmallows, started at the stars, drank until we all but collapsed in bed. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he intentionally planned something that I wouldn’t like. He always liked having fights.

Early on in our relationship, he had a habit of picking fights. If he heard I was going out to a party, he would sit in my dorm and wait for me to come back. It was as if he was hoping to find me stumbling in, drunk with another guy. I would ask why he was in my room, but he would always have an answer to smooth things over. “What? I can’t visit the love of my life?” he would ask. Or, “You invited me over, where have you been?” even though I had done no such thing.

Still love is blind and all that.

When we moved in together it got worse. Fireworks turned to grenades and champagne turned to gunshots. After college, Caleb got a job at an insurance company, which demanded him to travel a lot. On one of the weekends he was supposed to be away, I went out for lunch with my brother to catch up. Somehow, Caleb heard about me, ‘being out with another guy’ and flew back home immediately. He came home in such a rage that I had, for the first time in my life, been afraid of him. I started to be more careful after that.

I had been cleaning our apartment when I found it. A little black book, tucked neatly away in his sock drawer. When I opened it, a wallet size photo of a girl fell out. On the first page there was a paperclip and a description of the girl in the photo.

Age: 19

Hair: Blonde

Eyes: Green

Height: 5’ 4”

Weight: 110 pounds

Underneath was an address labeled: home. What was even more strange was the second address labeled: drop-off. My fingers started to shake and I could feel my eyes go out of focus. Sitting down on the bed, I took a deep breath and started flipping through the little black book. There must have been twenty girls all documented, a photo and drop off on each page. I searched the drop-off location and my heart sunk when I realized that it was only a half hour away from our apartment. Carefully, I tucked the book back where I found it.

I don’t know what Caleb has been doing but I do know it can not continue.

That night Caleb came home to a masterpiece of a dinner. We stayed up late drinking and when he went to bed I crawled in with him. I waited until his breathing grew steady and then I started to work. Starting in the bedroom, I took the vodka that he had been using to make mixed drinks with, and poured on and around the bed, leaving the empty bottle on the floor near his nightstand. With two more bottles in hand I poured a stream from the bedroom to the kitchen table and on the stove top. I then went into the bathroom and took out the matches I left in there. Pulling my hair into a tight ponytail at the top of my head, I light a match. I left the flame engulf my hair before quickly putting it out. It singed off half my hair, but when taken out of the hair elastic it certainly gave the desired effect. Next I lit the bottom hem of my shirt and pants on fire and rinsed it off in the sink. I go to the kitchen, grab a water out of the fridge and walk to Caleb’s side of the bed. He looked virtually harmless in his sleep, but I knew better. I opened the window to the first escape, lit the match and threw it on the floor. The fire ignited immediately, engulfing the room in heat and smoke. I stayed in the smoke long enough to fill my lungs then made my way out with the water bottle in hand.

It was a month later that his will was opened. Since he didn’t have any family, everything Caleb had was left to me. $20,000. I used the money to get myself a small condo in a quiet and gated neighborhood. So, imagine my surprise when an unexpected knock came at my door. A detective stood on my steps when I opened the door.

“Excuse me, ma’am. Are you Anna?” said the detective.

“Yes.”

The man nodded slightly. “I need you to come down to the station with me.”

I found myself sitting in an interrogation room starting blindly at my own reflection. The same cop came in after about fifteen minutes, carrying a small briefcase. I could tell by the way he didn’t make eye contact that he thought I was guilty of something. I willed myself to remain calm. He reached into his bad and pulled out a little black book. The edges were burnt and it looked like it was clearly missing a few pages but I would recognize it anywhere. I stared blankly at the book trying my best to keep my expression neutral. The detective opened the book to a page somewhere in the middle of the book.

My photo was paperclipped to the top of the page. My description is written in Caleb's messy handwriting. My address at the bottom.