Can this truly work?
Is she the one who’s supposed to be mine? To cure me.
A knock on the door upstairs jolts me into action. It’s time I made sure I can trust her. I’ll give her an inch of freedom, and if she takes advantage, I’ll know she needs to be locked up.
It’s difficult to let go, to allow someone inside when all your life you’ve spent it hidden in shadows. Alone. I’ve been lonely for so long, it feels strange to have someone here, to have company. Someone to talk to.
I stand before heading up the steps and stopping just outside her door. She knocks again, and I lay my hand on the cool wood. Can she feel me? I wonder.
“Logan?” Vera calls my name, and every nerve in my body sparks to life. “Logan, I need the bathroom,” she pleads and my heart twists. The sincerity in her tone, the way she speaks does things to me. It tears and rips at the darkness molding around me and flicks light back and forth in my mind.
She’s everything good in this world.
And me… I’m everything bad.
But like the saying goes, you need balance to exist.
19
Vera
The door opens, and Logan stands there looking tired. He hasn’t slept, I can tell by the way those dark circles under his eyes seem more prominent now than they did yesterday. The sun hasn’t risen, and he’s still dressed in the clothes he had on when he left my room.
“You know where the bathroom is,” he tells me before turning and making his way back down the steps. My mouth falls open, but no words come out. He’s trusting me to be up here alone, not locked up.
Has something changed?
Is he feeling guilty because of what happened?
Shaking my head, I pad over to the bathroom and shut the door. I try not to consider what could’ve transpired as I relieve myself and then wash my hands. When I look at my reflection, I don’t recognize the woman staring back at me. I feel different. But I’m not sure how it happened.
Was it what happened earlier?
I pull open the bathroom door and step out into the hallway. Taking note of the doors, I find mine still open, and another one in the far corner shut tight. But I don’t go to it; instead, I head downstairs where I find Logan sitting at the kitchen counter looking at his laptop.
“Am I… Am I in trouble?” I venture deeper into the large open plan space. The living room is homely, with a couch that looks like it’s seen better days and a throw rug that matches the one in my room. No tv, no sound system, nothing else but the small wooden coffee table and the sofa.
“I decided that if you’re going to be here, I need to trust you,” he tells me. He shuts the laptop lid before meeting my questioning gaze. “And I need you to trust me.”
“So, I’m no longer a prisoner?” I smile, hoping he’ll notice the humor behind my words. I don’t want to make him angry.
It takes a while before he chuckles. “No, you never were a prisoner, I just needed you to hear me out.” His voice is gruff as if he’s just woken up from a deep sleep.
“After our… I mean, after we…” My words fail me in the moment I need them most. “I meant what I said, Logan.”
He tips his head to the side, his dark eyes regard me in silence before he finally asks, “What you said?”
I nod. “I want this, I… I’ve always thought about you. For a long time, I hated you. It was anger that took over, and I blamed you for walking away and leaving me to be bartered off to your father.”
I don’t know if this is the best time to be confessing everything, but if he’s allowing me out of the room, he needs to know how I feel. What I feel.
“I wanted to hurt you to… I don’t know, just hit you and make you feel the pain I did. My heart hurt, Logan.” This time, there’s a flash of guilt in his stare, before he shakes his head and turns away from me.
“I never meant to hurt you. But you could understand how I felt when my father brought me to your house.”
“I do. Now I do, back then, I didn’t understand.” I settle on the stool opposite him and clasp my hands on the countertop. He takes my fist in his larger hands and holds them tight.
“I never wanted to be like him, to take without consent. It’s how my father made his business successful. He stole, he broke the rules, and he hurt people without a second thought.”
Agony laces Logan’s words, and I wonder what it would’ve been like to grow up in a world like that. With a father who was so evil, so vile.