Bear Witness To The Light…John 1:8
This is the first thing I remember. This is the first part of the rest of my life.
I didn’t know where I was. It was dark, and there wasn’t anything around me. I wasn’t cold, but I just felt like there was nothing there for a long way. It wasn’t frightening, it was kind of peaceful, but it was strange.
I was dreaming. Somehow I knew that, and somewhere I knew that I could wake up if I tried, but I didn’t think I remembered how. I wondered if this was one of those dreams where you feel like you’re flying, or falling, and then I knew it wasn’t, because something was keeping me on the ground.
I wondered if knowing that I was dreaming meant that I wasn’t any more, and then I knew I was almost awake, because I could feel the pillow under my head and the blanket over me, and I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t want to go back. But I felt like someone was taking my hand, pulling me up through the layers of semiconsciousness, and I squeezed my eyes shut harder, trying to make it all just go away.
“Hey. It’s all right, darlin’. Go back to sleep.”
My eyes opened then, and Logan was still there, and the reason I couldn’t move my hand was that he had it in his, holding it against his chest. I wanted to tell him something, but I couldn’t remember what. Logan turned onto his side, moving closer to me, and he lifted my hand up and held it against his face.
“It’s all right,” he repeated, and then I remembered. He shouldn’t have still been there. I’ll stay till you fall asleep, he’d told me, and that meant he should have left, because I’d been asleep. I was going to tell him that, only it was so hard to think what I should say.
Then I felt him press his mouth against the back of my hand, through my glove, and then he put that hand back down against my own chest with the other, and I realized I was still holding onto his dogtag. Logan tugged at my fingers, and it made me sad that he was going to take it away with him again, but I still couldn’t wake up enough to stop him. I just opened my hand and let him take it, and I closed my eyes again so I wouldn’t see him leaving. So I only felt it when he slid an arm under my shoulders and raised my head, and I barely even realized what he was doing until he’d gotten the chain around my neck and was tucking the tag, still warm from my own hand, into the shirt I was wearing.
I was fading back into sleep, but I still knew what was happening as he wrapped the sheet back around my shoulders and settled back, keeping me pulled tight up against his side. I could feel the cotton of his t-shirt against my cheek and his chest rising and falling with every breath, and his arms around me, and I knew no matter how important it was, I wasn’t going to be able to tell him to go. Maybe I was selfish, but even knowing how dangerous it was, I wanted him there. At least this once.
I don’t remember anything else, except that I felt safe.
I still felt that way the next morning. It was light. I remember the light.
I woke up with a terrific pounding in my head, and Logan’s arms still wrapped around me. The latter sensation was so powerful that it took me a minute to realize that the pounding was coming from the door.
I struggled up from the layers of sleep to realize Logan was awake too, and looking grimly amused. “Wha—” I ducked my head back down against his shoulder. I’m not good in the morning at the best of times.
“You better wake up, darlin’,” he told me. “I don’t think that lock’s gonna keep ‘em out.”
“Rogue, are you awake?” I heard from the other side of the door, and I groaned and shoved a hand through my hair. There was more knocking. “Come on. Open up or I’m coming through.”
Kitty. I sat up groggily. “What time is it?”
“Early,” Logan told me. There was another bang on the door. I stumbled to my feet and he stood up too. “Hey. You want me to—” He nodded towards the bathroom.
It took me a second to figure out what he was suggesting, and then I shook my head. “No.”
Logan gave me that half-smile I remembered so well, and then before I could protest, before I could even think about it, he reached out and caught my shoulders, and his mouth came down over mine in a brief, nearly-chaste kiss that ended too quickly for my mutation to pull at him. He released me and gave me a little shove towards the door before it really had time to sink in, before I even had a chance to react.
When I opened the door a crack, I saw Jubilee and Kitty both standing there, but only Kitty pushed forward. She caught my hand in hers, squeezing hard; Jubilee was standing a little further back, and she just crossed her arms and stared at me. Then somehow I was out in the hall and Kitty had her arms around my neck.
“We gave you till eight,” she said into my ear, and I can hear the relief in her voice. “Sorry if we rushed you.”
“I’m sorry,” I choked out. Her face was too close to mine and I tried to pull back a little. “Wait—”
“Shut up,” Kitty said fiercely. “You scared us to death, Rogue.” She held on tighter, if that was possible.
“Yeah. You don’t get to pull this crap with us anymore.” Jubes was still standing back, but she held up one hand semi-threateningly towards my face. “We don’t care. You might like sending up sparks for a change.” She was being her usual self, I guess, but there was something brittle about the tone of her voice. Then, deliberately, she looked over my shoulder and arched an eyebrow. “Mornin’, Wolves.”
Kitty let me go and stepped back, finally, and I knew from the way she turned red that she hadn’t known he was there. And then I felt Logan’s hand on my back, and it surprised me a little, that he was there so quickly, and I shivered. And I didn’t look back, but for some reason Kitty’s eyes suddenly turned a little watery and Jubilee glanced away, and when she looked back she seemed older than I’d ever seen her before, strangely stern and forbidding.
“Morning,” Logan replied. “Didn’t get your name the other night, but your friend here told me. Jubilee, right?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but Jubes nodded, and that might be the first time I’d ever seen her at a loss for words. I was more aware of Logan’s hand, warm against the small of my back, than anything else, but he was talking to me when he spoke next. Explaining. “Ran into her at a bar a couple of nights ago. She told me about your show.”
It took me a second to put it together, and then I could barely breathe. Jubes told him…which meant…and before I could do anything else, Logan moved past me, just a little, dropping his hand away so he could hold it out to her.
“Never had a chance to thank you,” he said, and then Jubilee’s expression changed. She didn’t look old any more, she looked like she was about five years old, and then she just took a step forward and threw her arms around him. She’s so tiny, she barely came up to Logan’s waist, and he had to lean over to hug her back. I think he whispered something to her, and when she looked up at me and put a hand up to push her bangs back, she didn’t say a word. But she still looked like a little girl. Like she’d just seen the first bad thing she’d ever seen in her whole life, and she couldn’t quite believe it. It was heartbreaking, both because I knew that wasn’t true, and because I’d done that to her.
I wonder if I ever looked as young as that.
I reached out to touch her cheek, and I wished I could feel how soft and warm it must be. “I’m sorry,” I repeated, just for her. “Thank you, Jubie.”
Jubes stared me for another second and then took a step back, away from Logan, and now she looked like herself again. “Breakfast, downstairs. Ten minutes,” she said, and walked away without another glance. Kitty looked like she wanted to say something else, anything else, but nothing came out. Finally she just took my hand again. “It’s okay, Rogue. She just…we wanted to make sure you were okay. We really did make breakfast, in the kitchen, not the dining hall. Come down whenever you’re ready.” Kitty, with those manners her grandmother must be proud of, remembered to include Logan with her tentative smile. “You must be hungry too. There’s plenty.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just turned and disappeared in the same direction.
I stared after them, feeling a little dazed, until Logan pulled me back into my room, closed the door behind us. “Something I said?” he asked wryly.
“She’s mad at me,” I said quietly, and Logan ran a hand up my arm.
“Yeah.” He didn’t ask who I meant. I looked up at him, and I could tell he wasn’t sure whether to continue, but eventually he did. “She was the one who found you. Don’t worry about it now,” Logan added gently. “She’ll get over it. Go on. Get dressed before they come back lookin’ for you.” I knew he was trying to make it easier for me.
Somehow I made it to my dresser, gathered up things I needed from the messy piles of my belongings, and automatically I started towards the bathroom. Logan had sat down on the end of the bed to pull his boots back on, but he looked up when I paused at the door to give me a nod. “Go on,” he said again.
I wish I’d had the nerve to stay, then. It might have—but I didn’t, and I changed quickly behind the closed door. I peeled off my gloves and bathed my face and hands over and over—I don’t usually sleep in gloves, and my palms felt clammy. The gloves I’d worn were damp, so I left them in the bathroom when I’d changed and went to my dresser to get another pair.
But Logan stood up and crossed the room, taking them from my hands before I could put them on. “No gloves,” he said firmly.
I reached for them, but he wouldn’t give them back. “Come on. That’s not funny.”
“Who’s joking?” He folded them over and stuffed them into his back pocket. “I’ve got ‘em if you really need them. But you won’t.”
“Look, I know what you’re trying to do, but I can’t. I could kill someone.” I wanted to put my hands behind me, in my pockets, anywhere they wouldn’t be in the way—and then Logan reached out and took my arms. He held me still, and then he moved one hand, closed it into a fist. And placed it against my chest.
“So could I,” he reminded me, and both of us were silent for a moment before he dropped his hand away self-consciously. “Come on. You saw.” He jerked his head back towards the door. “They’re not worried about it either.”
There are a thousand things I could have answered to that, but for some reason I didn’t want to. I wanted that magical morning to go on and on the way it had begun—I didn’t want to think about practicalities and for once I had permission not to. I hadn’t had time to think about anything more than that.
And it did go on. For just a while longer.
Logan put his arm around my shoulders as he led me down to the kitchen, and it really did seem like things were all right. Kitty and Jubilee were waiting, and I didn’t have a chance to feel uncomfortable before they attacked the both of us with eggs and burnt bacon (Kitty’s work) and coffee worthy of one of New Jersey’s finest truck stops (courtesy of Jubilee). They bustled around and played waitress and fussed over me, and Logan watched it all and seemed to think it was funny as hell. Eventually they apparently decided they’d done enough for one morning and left us alone. The last thing Jubes said was that they’d warned all the other students to leave us alone too. I still remember her pausing in the doorway, tossing that out as her exit line. “Don’t worry. We’ll establish a perimeter.” She winked at me, and I started to get up but she just vanished through the doorway.
Logan was standing by the kitchen island, leaning against it with his coffee in one hand, and I came over to slide onto one of the stools across from him. He set down his cup and held out a hand, and I almost took it before I remembered. Then I crossed my arms so I wouldn’t forget again, and shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Told you to stop worrying about that.” But he changed direction, put his hand on my shoulder instead. “How’re you feelin’?”
I shrugged again. “Okay.”
“Hey.” Logan tapped me under the chin, and I looked up reluctantly. “I told you. She’ll get over it.”
I wanted to believe that, and for the moment his reassurance was enough. For the moment, everything felt—safe. Logan studied my face for a minute and then came around the island to stand behind me, sliding his arms around me, and if I tensed my body in fear of my bare hands touching his he pretended not to notice until I relaxed and leaned back against him.
For that moment, I was sure nothing would ever hurt, ever again.
This is the part I wish I could change. The part where everything changed.
“Oh—sorry.” Jean was in the doorway when I looked up, and I was really shocked when I saw her. I’d never seen her looking so, well, plain. She was still wearing her scrubs, the same ones from last night, there were dark circles under her eyes and her hair was pulled back crookedly. She barely glanced at us at first. “Coffee. Thank god.” She made a beeline for the coffeepot, poured a cup and took a gulp without pausing. Then she made a face. “Oh, my god.”
I laughed. “Jubilee’s special blend.” And I almost never got to burn my mouth on it, ever again, I thought. It seemed funny at the time. Ironic.
Jean made a wry face. “Well, perfect for right now.” She took another sip, refilled her mug. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting, but can I talk to you for a minute? Both of you?”
“Sure.” Logan answered, and she came to stand across from us. I started to sit up, to draw away a little, and Logan’s arm tightened firmly around my waist and held me where I was. And I didn’t resist, in fact I enjoyed that mark of possessiveness. “What’s up, Red?”
Jean didn’t really seem to notice; she just reached out to add some milk from a carton Kitty had left out to the dark brew in her mug before she answered. “I’ve been running some tests.”
“All night?” I asked, but the answer was obvious. “Why?”
“Well, you know how it is…when I’m onto something….” Jean spaced her words between gulps of coffee. She was wearing her glasses and at that point I noticed that she was holding a folder under one arm; she set it down on the counter in front of her as she spoke. “I don’t mean to sound nosy, but I’m too tired to be tactful right now. Rogue, you remember the experiments we tried when you first got here?” She really must have been tired, because she’d forgotten she didn’t have to call me that any more. Maybe she was just too used to it. Also because she should have known not to say that to Logan.
“Experiments?” I could feel Logan tense up—I knew that word held very different connotations to him.
“Jean was trying to figure out how my mutation works,” I told him quickly. “To see if they could help me control it. It wasn’t anything bad.” It was mostly just swabs of the inside of my cheek and a couple of blood draws, and then—after—she just stopped asking me for them. “What about them?”
She addressed Logan more than me at first. “All we found out was that her mutation works chemically,” she explained. “Something in her skin that infiltrates other people’s systems. We tried to find out what it was, hoping we might be able to inhibit it.” She took another sip of coffee and gives me a little smile. “We weren’t successful.”
“So what about it?” Logan still didn’t sound like he liked it. I hadn’t really liked it either, as innocuous as it was. It always felt strange, knowing they were trying to figure something out about me I didn’t even know myself.
“So I’ve been running some more experiments based on the old data and the blood samples I took last night. From both of you.” That didn’t make sense. “There’s something I’ve isolated.” Jean looked directly at me. “Have you touched Logan since you left the lab?”
I felt my cheeks redden. “A little. Not enough to—” God, that was embarrassing. “Not enough to affect him.”
“I’m not gonna hurt her,” Logan added, slightly menacingly.
Jean threw up the hand that wasn’t holding her coffee. “Look—can both of you understand, please, that this is a medical question? Rogue, I’m not trying to take Logan away from you. Logan, I’m sorry my ex was an jerk to you, but that was never my idea. Now can you both please stop treating me like I’m the enemy?” I heard Logan give a snort of laughter behind me, and Jean dropped her hand to the counter, where it landed on that folder. “Thank you. For heaven’s sake.” It was funny, honestly, but I was too keyed up to be able to be amused. I knew there was more coming.
Logan shifted a little behind me and leaned forward. “Okay. Truce.” He reached out and touched her hand, briefly. “So what’s with all the questions?”
Jean’s expression grew serious. “I probably shouldn’t say anything before I know more, but I don’t think the samples are enough to continue with. Logan, your mutation counteracts all kinds of chemicals, right? Drugs, anaesthetics, poisons.”
“Yeah. So?”
She looked at me with a clinical gaze. “Last night, when Logan touched you, it took a long time for your mutation to affect him at all.”
I couldn’t breathe, all of a sudden.
“Because she was hurt,” Logan said impatiently, and I knew he didn’t understand, and it couldn’t be what Jean meant. It just couldn’t.
“No,” she told him. “That shouldn’t matter. In fact, the more significant factor was probably your health. You were tired, and you hadn’t had any contact with her in several years. Any immune system is less able to fight off toxins when it’s stressed, or when it lacks exposure.” Jean took in the obvious incomprehension that was facing her and translated into layman’s terms. “There’s a good chance you can touch her now without being absorbed.”
When she said that, right out loud, my hands started shaking, even pressed against my own body. “Are you sure?” My voice sounded strange in my own ears. I made myself sit forward, away from Logan, and I reached out to hold onto the edge of the counter in front of me. I needed something more solid to touch; I felt like I might faint.
Jean shook her head. “No. I only know that right now, Logan’s blood sample is unreactive to yours in vitro. In the test tube,” she clarified hastily. “But I’m sure enough to suggest the possibility. We can set something up in the lab where—”
Before I could even think, before she even finished the sentence, I felt Logan’s hand come down over mine, where it was gripping the counter. I don’t think any one of the three of us took a breath for at least a minute. Then he lifted my hand, and just like he had the night before, I felt him press his lips against the back of it. Only this time, I could feel it. I could really feel it. Then he let my hand back down, but he didn’t let go.
Finally Jean reached up and took off her glasses. “Theory confirmed,” she said, and she really sounded shaken. “Logan—are you sure—”
“It’s fine,” Logan answered her, and he didn’t sound like himself either. Jean looked at me, and I don’t know what she saw, but she started to say something and then changed her mind.
“I’ll just…we can talk later,” she stammered, and gathered up that folder and her coffee mug and glasses and just left us there.
It might have been better if she’d stayed.
I pulled my hand free of Logan’s and brought it up in front of my eyes. It looked the same as always. I felt dizzy. I remember thinking I needed to wash my hands, and then thinking that that didn’t make any sense. I was starting to hyperventilate; Logan was saying something but I have never had any idea what it was. I wanted to move, all of a sudden, but I couldn’t. Then Logan’s hands were at my waist, turning me around, taking my hands away from where they were covering my mouth—and I hadn’t even realized I’d moved them—and taking my face in his hands. I felt his lips against my forehead.
“Take it easy,” he told me. “Take it easy. It’s all right. Take deep breaths.” His fingers stroked my cheeks, my neck. Then—I think mostly to try and make me calm down, get me to snap out of it—he kissed me again. Just like he had that morning in my room. It was quick, gentle, almost innocent.
Almost.
This is the part I can hardly stand to remember, the part I wish I could forget. It used to be easy, forgetting.
No. It wasn’t easy. I just got good at it.
I shoved him away.
I still, to this day, don’t know why. All I knew was that I had to get away from him before he…I still don’t know. Before he saw something? Did something? I remember thinking I was going to fall apart again and I didn’t want him to know that. I think I wanted to tell him that, to tell him I needed a minute, but I was afraid to open my mouth because I thought I was going to be sick.
It was when he reached out to me again that I slid off the stool and onto my feet, stumbled back away from him. Logan jerked his hands back, and I turned and ran, pushing through the kitchen’s French doors and out into the grounds. I ran past the tennis courts and the soccer field, towards the trees. There was a trail that led into the woods and a sort of clearing there where there was a picnic area and I followed that without thinking, but I didn’t stop there. I just kept going. Following an instinct, I guess, maybe even one of his. To get to ground. To hide.
Then something knocked the breath out of me, and I was flat on the ground, and even then it took me a second to realize that the wetness on my face wasn’t only tears, not anymore. I’d just caught my foot and fallen hard, and I could taste my own blood where my teeth had driven into my lip. I sat up as soon as I could, crawled toward the tree whose root had tripped me, crept around into its shade and waited there, pressing my hand against my wounded mouth.
I expected him to come after me, expected him to appear any second to drag me back to the house, to make me wash my face, to demand what the hell I thought I was doing. I curled myself into as small a space as I could manage and waited for that to happen.
It didn’t.
The leaves that carpet the ground were damp under me and I could feel the bark of the tree rough against my face and hands, still strange to feel them uncovered, oh God, and the rustling I heard was only the wind through the branches of the trees around me. I could smell the earth.
I breathed. In and out, I breathed, and waited, and tried to tell myself that the way my heart was pounding was only because I had been running so hard, because I’d fallen, because of the pain. I stayed there for so long that it felt like I would never move; everything seemed to be standing still. Maybe I slept, but I don’t think I did. I just stopped noticing that time was passing. The next thing I knew it was much later, even though I really wasn’t aware of having done more than blink my eyes. The sun had moved despite my efforts to make things just stop, had started its downward journey across the sky, and the shadows slanted differently across the ground. I was stiff with the cramped way I’d been sitting and when I raised my head I could feel the pattern of the bark etched into my cheek.
The terrified, incoherent feeling in the pit of my stomach was finally gone, and I didn’t feel nauseated any more, so shakily I got to my feet and brushed the dirt off my hands and jeans. I rubbed my palms against my sweatshirt again as I made myself walk back towards the house, and I still remember thinking how odd it was for my hands to be dirty.
I wonder if I’ll ever learn the trick of living in the center of things, not so much all or nothing. It’s exhausting.
And then I got to the little clearing, and Logan was sitting there, his back towards me, on the bench of the picnic table with his arms resting on his knees. He didn’t turn, though I knew he must have heard me coming.
I could see a little trail of smoke rising from where he was. Then he moved, but not much; he dropped his cigar and ground it out with the heel of his boot.
Slowly I came into the clearing, step by step, and I thought I should say something, but I didn’t. He was more patient than I was, more patient than I’d ever realized, and I knew it didn’t matter how long it took for me to make my way across those last few yards and sink down onto the bench beside him, near but not near enough to touch. I knew he wouldn’t leave before I got there, and I was pretty sure he’d been there all the time I’d tried to hide from him. He wouldn’t leave. Not yet.
We just sat there for a while, until finally Logan dropped his head forward a little, not really looking at me but almost. “Feel better?” My throat felt too dry and tight to answer, so I just nodded, and he nodded back, just once, raising his head to look back off into the distance. “Yeah. Sometimes you just have to get away from everything.”
I stared off in the same direction. He didn’t say it as though he was angry, or hurt. He didn’t say it with any emotion at all in his voice. Just a statement of fact. He might not even have been talking about me.
I knew should apologize for behaving like that, or for shoving him away, or I should try and explain that it wasn’t because of what he did, not really…only I didn’t know how to start, and somehow I didn’t really think Logan wanted that anyway.
“I wanted to ask you something.”
My shoulders tensed as I braced myself against whatever was coming.
“That picture you painted of me, near the church. You know where that is?”
It was so unexpected, and it didn’t even make sense for a second, and then I realized what he meant. I shook my head, and then I realized something else. I still remembered the things I painted, although now they seemed more like stories I’d heard than real memories. I knew the painting he was talking about. And I knew there was a church there, I just didn’t paint it in. But I had known it was there.
Where that is? I didn’t understand how he couldn’t know that. How else could I have known?
My expression must have given away my confusion, even though he still wasn’t looking directly at me, and he hunched forward over his knees a little more. “You don’t, huh.” It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t really seem to expect a response. “Okay.” He was quiet for another minute, apparently considering things. “There was some stuff you probably should’ve known about me, back then. I knew you were having the nightmares, but I didn’t know how much…” He sighed. “I still don’t know.” He glanced over at me, just for a second. “Don’t suppose you feel like telling me anything much now.”
I wanted to, and I hated myself because I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I stared straight ahead, and I saw him raise one hand briefly before letting it fall back to his side and sitting up, twisting his shoulders. He must have felt as stiff as I did, if he’d been there all that time. Then he told me.
“I don’t remember anything about my life before what happened in those nightmares,” he said bluntly, and I recoiled a little at the shock of that brutal statement. “Nothing. So I don’t really know what I would’ve told you, anyway. I just don’t talk about myself. To anyone. It wasn’t just you.” He shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know. Sometimes it seemed like you already knew. I still don’t know why you came with me. I never thought about it, not then. I just figured…” Logan seemed to get lost in his own thoughts for a minute. “Three weeks,” he said suddenly, and I caught my breath. “It doesn’t seem like that was all it was.” And now there was something in his voice, something I couldn’t give a name to, something I didn’t want to acknowledge, even then.
But I did move, closer to him, and I caught hold of his arm, pressed my face against his shoulder, and it felt as strong and as unyielding as the tree. I wanted him to touch me then, anything, even just to pat my hand or my knee, but he didn’t. He didn’t move away, though, and I held on, and waited for him to go on. To say something else. To make one more miracle. This time, I swear, I’ll be different. I tried to take it back.
It doesn’t work that way, and I knew it even then. Logan brought his hands together and laced his fingers through each other, very deliberately, and I could feel the tension in his muscles go all the way up his arm. “I don’t know how to help you,” he said tiredly, and I choked on a sob. “I keep doin’ the wrong thing.”
And I didn’t know what to say. Because I didn’t know either, and Logan giving up on me was the last proof of what I already knew: it was too late. Somewhere inside, I’d already decided that I was just so broken that nothing would ever fix it, and I’d kept thinking that so long that it became true. Logan was just a half-forgotten dream to me. I’d ground that dream over my poison skin like broken glass until it finally, finally stopped hurting me, until it was as dead as everything else. He wasn’t real, and I knew he’d never want to touch me even if he could.
Now he was real, and I could feel that he’d wanted to. He wasn’t just pretending, I had felt it, and if I’d had the least ability to make words I would have tried to tell him it was all my fault, all just me letting everything twist inside me until the good golden things I’d thought I was keeping safe had withered away, had turned out out to be as unreal as my demons. I wanted to ask him to understand that I would try to fix it, that I would try so hard. I wanted to tell him it would be all right.
And I couldn’t, because I wasn’t sure it would be, and I couldn’t lie to him. How could I explain it to him when I couldn’t even explain it to myself? He’d not only wanted to touch me, he’d risked doing it when he’d thought it could kill him. But as soon as I knew he could, I didn’t want him to.
Not in the way he wanted.
Logan reached up then with the arm I was holding, cupped my cheek in one hand and held my head against his shoulder, just for a second. Then he let it fall away and he turned, tipping my chin up to survey my face, and I didn’t care what I knew I must look like. I didn’t care if he saw me looking the worst I ever would. I didn’t care.
“What happened? You fall?” he asked gently. I nodded, and Logan touched one finger to my lip, for just one fleeting second. “You should put some ice on that.” He tried to smile, I think. “Come on, let’s go in. People’ll start worrying about you.” He stood up and took something from his back pocket, held it out to me.
I closed my hands around my gloves and looked away as I pulled them on, covering up the dirt and the scratches and my skin. Then I felt his hand on my shoulder, just for a moment.
“It’s okay, Marie. It doesn’t matter. I’m here for you, you understand?”
Yes. I understand.
Logan took me back to the Mansion, and he made sure I got upstairs without anyone seeing my scratches and bloody lip. He brought me something cold to keep down the swelling and he made me wash up, and he stayed with me that day and again that night until I fell asleep, stroking my hair back and rubbing my shoulders through my blankets. He told me over and over again that he was sorry. That it was all right. And I never said a word, that whole time. I couldn’t.
When I woke up he wasn’t there.
He’s never left, and he isn’t there. He talks to me, and he sees me every day, and he even puts his arms around me when I’m upset and comforts me when I have bad dreams, even though my dreams are all my own again. But when I wake up, he’s always gone.
I would never have thought that would make me feel safe too.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
And then there was what came next.