I was 13 the night my whole life was split into “before” and “after.”
One moment I was half-asleep in a small house on Highway 8 in northern Wisconsin. The next, my mom was shoving me into the bathroom, her hands shaking so hard she could barely tap 9-1-1.

We were a boring family, the kind people forget about at reunions. My parents worked long shifts at a food plant, we ate dinner early, went to bed early. No drama, no enemies, no secrets. The kind of life that makes you believe bad things only happen on TV.

That night in October, headlights rolled up our driveway. Too quiet, too slow. My dad went to the door, probably thinking it was a neighbor, or someone lost. I remember his voice, confused and firm: “Who is it?”

Then a man’s voice. Harsh. Demanding we open up.
Then the first crash against the door.

My mom grabbed me. We ran to the bathroom. I felt the cold of the tile through my socks while she tried to lock the flimsy door. The phone slipped in her hand, but she managed to hit call. We didn’t even have time to speak before the world exploded outside.

They say cops arrived four minutes after that call. Four minutes. But in those four minutes, my parents were gone and I was in the trunk of a car, driving into the dark.

People imagine kidnapping as a constant scream. For me, it turned into long, heavy silence.
A small house in the woods. A stranger who knew exactly how to make me invisible.

He kept me under a bed, pinned in by heavy bins and weights so I couldn’t crawl out when he left. Sometimes I could hear his footsteps above me. Sometimes I heard nothing for hours and wondered if he’d ever come back… and if that was better or worse.

I counted everything: cracks in the wood, breaths, the times I heard a car pass. I let myself cry only in my head because real tears made noise. I told myself one thing over and over: If a chance comes, you run.

Outside, I later learned, my town searched for me. Strangers walked through fields and forests. Flyers went up. The story went national. My name on screens, my face on posters, while I lay under a bed, listening to the sound of my own heartbeat.

Then one afternoon in January, almost three months later, the routine broke. He told me he’d be gone for a while. Pushed the bins around me like always. Closed the door.

But this time, it felt… different.
Quieter.

I waited. Listened. No footsteps. No doors. No car. Just my breathing.

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, but I started pushing. One bin moved a little. Then another. My fingers hurt, my arms burned, but fear was louder than pain. I slid out from under that bed, grabbed whatever I could throw on, and ran.

Outside, the cold slapped me in the face. Snow up to my ankles, thin clothes, the kind of sky that looks almost blue-black. I didn’t know where I was. I just knew “away.”

I came out of the trees onto a lonely road, heart pounding, lungs burning. That’s when I saw her: a woman walking her dog, just doing something normal on a not-normal day.

She looked at me, really looked. I could see the moment she recognized my face from the news. Her eyes went wide, and I heard my own voice before I even decided to speak:

“My name is Jaime. He took me. I need help.”

She didn’t panic. She didn’t ask a hundred questions. She took me to a neighbor’s house where they called 911. While I tried to warm my hands, officers were already blocking roads, looking for his car.

They found him minutes later. When they pulled him over and asked his name, he said, “I’m Jake Patterson.”
Then he added, “I did it.”

People like to say I’m “a miracle,” “a hero,” “so strong.” Truth is, I was just a scared kid who refused to let that be the end of my story. 🌲

I still have nightmares. I still jump at certain sounds. Healing is not a movie montage; it’s slow, boring, messy. But I also have ordinary days again. Dinner at a table. Walks without fear. Choices that are mine.

If you had lived those 88 days as me, what would you do now — try to forget everything, or carry it as proof you survived?
Tell me honestly in the comments. 💬