-YOUR POV-
I kept my focus out the window at the road. As the lightening lit up the street outside, I swore I saw what I had witnessed from my bedroom window in New York. I saw it happen again.
I screamed so loud I bet my mom could hear me all the way from New York City. I tried to suppress the tears that were welled up in my eyes, but I couldn’t. I tried to hold them back but it was too late. The memories were already flooding back into my mind, which caused the tears to start flooding down my cheeks.
I heard my bedroom door open and close, followed by footsteps, then somebody sitting down next to me on the bed. I was sitting up with my knees pulled to my chest, as my arms squeezed them against me. My head was buried in my knees, and I felt Logan’s arms wrap around me.
“It’s just a storm, (YN).” He said. “It’s fine.”
He obviously mistook my tears for fear. I just shook my head then looked up at him. “It’s not the storm.”
I wasn’t sobbing so it was easy to talk.
His face immediately turned from sympathy to worry and concern.
“What is it, then?” He asked.
“I’ve told you the whole story about my dad, right?” I asked him.
“Yeah.” He clarified.
“There was something that happened before my dad left for good. Something that Taylor doesn’t even know about and my parents think I completely forgot.” I said. “Please, you can’t tell anybody.”
He held me tighter. “I promise.”
I stared down at my hands as I spoke. I didn’t want to risk seeing anything again.
“We were living in New York. My mom was one month pregnant with Taylor, and I was four years old. I had an older brother, his name was Brandon.”
By the way Logan tensed up, I could tell that he already knew this story wasn’t going to end well.
“It was storming really bad one night. Sort of like tonight but it was just a thunderstorm, not a hurricane.” I explained. “I was inside, watching the storm from my bedroom. I used to LOVE thunderstorms, until this one night. I was watching out from my bedroom window as the rain hit the road. It was one of my favorite things to do. Brandon was on his way home from a friend’s house. He was eight years old at the time, and we were really close. He was my best friend.” I started to cry a little more and Logan repositioned himself so I was leaning on him more. “The storm was already getting pretty bad and my parents were worried sick about him. He’d been outside in thunderstorms before, but no parent wants their eight year old walking around outside at eight o’ clock at night, especially when it was that dark out. So as I was watching out from my window, I saw Brandon coming up the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street from our house. He started to cross the street, and there was this car, and...and-“ I couldn’t even finish my sentence. I had never talked about this before with anybody besides my therapist when I was four. I’d never told this story, either. “It hit him.” I was finally able to say.
Logan held me closer to him, as if that were possible, and kissed the top of my head as I just cried into his shoulder.
“It just hit him and kept on going as if nothing even happened.” I said. “And they were never heard from again. I watched somebody carelessly kill my brother.”
“Shhh...” He said, rubbing my back.
One thing I appreciated was that he didn’t tell me it was going to be okay. EVERYONE says that, but that’s almost never the case.
Logan didn’t say anything. There wasn’t really anything for him to say.
I was just so glad he was with me.
