While She Sleeps

“Why aren’t you running?” he asks, his voice pained. The expression on his handsome, rugged face is filled with confusion at what I can possibly see in him. How can I possibly want to stay here? I’ve lost my mind, but I shrug it off.

“I can’t run. You made it clear,” I tell him. “Also, you’re the only one who’s ever truly wanted me. You . . . understand my mind, the darkness that seems to live there on a daily basis.”

“Is this about the fantasies you confessed online?”

I nod.

“And you want that with me?” he questions incredulously.

“I trust you, more than anyone else I know in my life. Why can’t you see that you’re not truly bad? You’re just broken, and you’re living with guilt.”

Logan stares at me for a long time, and I’m sure he’s about to throw me on the bed and tell me to leave him alone, but he doesn’t. He turns, settling me on the mattress before he heads toward the door.

“Wait! Where are you going?” I ask, my chest tightening at the thought of him locking me in here again without anyone to talk to. I can only imagine he’s lonely, living up here with nothing but trees for company.

“I need time to think.”

“And you’re just leaving me in here?” My question is filled with a plea that’s clear and evident. My heart thuds against my ribs. It’s painful, but I ignore the ache. I want to run to him and ask him not to leave me, but I don’t. I’m not going to beg him if he’s made up his mind.

“For now.” He shuts the door behind him with a thud, and I sit and stare at the wooden object for a long while after he leaves.

When the door finally opens again after a few hours, I can only tell because the sky has changed color. Logan saunters in with a tray filled with food. A plate of lasagna with salad on the side. He’s also included a bowl of what looks like chocolate cupcakes that have been cut into smaller pieces.

“I thought you’d be hungry,” he tells me with a grin. “Earlier,” he starts, “I was caught off guard by your words. I didn’t expect you to say something like that.”

“I . . . I wasn’t expecting what I said either,” I tell him honestly. It’s true. I was so shocked by my pleas that I sat for a long while, reconsidering what I said.

“Did you mean it?” he asks, sounding like a little boy scared of what I could say. He is lonely. I notice it in his gaze when he looks at me right now. A man so strong, so powerful, yet he’s as broken as I am. I guess nobody can overcome loneliness. And not everyone is what you’re expecting from a mere glance.

“I did.” I nod the words no longer a lie. I’m not here to try to force him to let me go. If he needs me here to keep me safe, I’m going to trust him just like he’s trusting me with his confessions.

“I’m not sure about this.” He sounds lost to the thoughts that must be dancing in his mind. “I’m not gentle. I’m not a fucking sweet and loving man,” he tells me earnestly, and I can’t help but smile. “There are things that . . . I haven’t told you.”

My heart stills at his words, but I don’t back down. “Then tell me now.”

He pins me with a pained glare, one filled with so much agony it steals the breath from my lungs. I want to hold him. I want to wrap my arms around him and keep all those pieces of him together. To stop him from falling to tiny fragments at my feet. But I don’t move. I wait, holding my breath, watching the way his eyes burn with the past demons he’s fighting.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he tells me. “To be a man with a woman by his side.” The truth spills from his lips like a cool drink of water. As if quenching my thirst, he continues, “I’ve been taught to be cold, brutal, savage.”

“But that’s not who you are deep down,” I insist. I can see he’s at war with himself from the way his shoulders tense to the way his jaw ticks as he grinds his teeth together.

“The thing is,” he tells me, a wry tilt of his lips making his face darken even though it’s an attempt at a smile. “I’ve always thought I was broken. Cursed by something. And when I look back at my childhood, I realize I am. My father is not a good man. He never was. But all I know, I learned from him.”

“Did he . . .? I mean . . . was he . . .?”