I shook my head again.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “A year?”
I tilted my head up and down, guzzling the room temperature water.
“An entire year? Why? What happened for you to be all alone?”
My scar on the back of my head started to burn, and my head throbbed. I cried out, dropping the water bottle on the floor and clutched my head.
“Abigail!” He ran toward me, and his hands touched my shoulders. Usually, when people touched me, I got a flash of a terrible memory or dream, but not with Logan.
Calm and peace washed over me, but my head still hurt.
It was then I realized I wasn’t trying to get away from him, and when I saw that, I ripped my body out of his hold and pressed myself against the wall again. I wanted the wall to swallow me whole and make me disappear.
“I won’t hurt you. What happened? Does it have to do with the scar on the back of your head?”
I nodded.
“What happened?”
I lifted a shoulder, shrugging. I hated to talk about it because I only had snippets and feelings. The real truth was something I’d never know.
“You don’t know?” he asked with disbelief and tried to reach for me again but thought better of it and laid his hand back down.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything.
“Abigail?”
My eyes caught on something shining on the side of his jeans; the holder was long, wide, and came to a point. It was a knife.
I pushed him away, screamed, and hurried to the other side of the room, grabbing one of the boards in my hands to defend myself. The wood rubbed against my palms, leaving splinters, but I refused to have a knife come at me.
Something about knives….
“Stay away,” I said. “You said no hurt. No hurt!” I screamed, swinging the heavy two by four back and forth. My eyes stayed locked on the knife, waiting for him to come at me.
“Abigail, I’m not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you. Put down the beam,” he urged. Of course he would try and get me defenseless.
But like I said before, I wasn’t stupid. Disappointment sank into me, weighing down my chest. Logan had been able to do something no one had been able to do in a year.
He made me believe in expectations because, for just one second, he was better than everyone else I had ever come across. He came here to kick me out, but the knife on his hip told me otherwise.
Logan wanted to hurt me.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Abigail.” His eyes were sad as he stared at me, hands up like before, and slowly inching toward me. “I’m never going to hurt you. Please, believe me.”
“Don’t. No.” I waved the heavy piece of lumber at him, and he jumped back to miss the hit it would give his shoulder. I hadn’t lifted anything this heavy in a long time. My arms were getting tired. They felt light, like jello. “Don’t come near me.”
“Abigail.” The way he said my name, the deepening of his voice, the hurt and confusion laced in my name almost made me lower my weapon, but the knife spoke volumes to me. It threatened me. “I know we don’t know each other well, but I would never hurt anybody. If I had to, it would be in self-defense. That is what this knife was for, but I thought you were a man. I’d never use it on a woman. I can give it to you if you want—”
“No!” I was shaking at this point. I felt that horrible, nauseating feeling again, the one I had a year ago. “Get away.”
“Okay,” he took a step back. “Okay, let’s take a deep breath, alright? No need for anyone to get hurt because of a misunderstanding.”
I glanced to the door, eyeing my exit. I just needed to get away from him, but then my stuff… I would have to leave it behind, and I didn’t want to. I worked too hard to keep all of it together, to collect the belongings I needed to survive.
I started over once; I could do it again. My flight or fight response kicked in, and the will to live took over. I charged at Logan and swung the weapon in the air and smacked him over the head.