Swing. Chop. Swing. Chop. The sound of the wood splitting in two echoed in her head already adding to her own splitting headache. She was sitting in the shade on the back porch where she could see Logan in the distance chopping extra wood. Scott had been right about the distance but with her eyesight it was hard to miss all the details of Logan’s strong body, especially when he had his shirt off. The bad part was she didn’t even feel guilty as she eyed him. Nathan would have no idea about what she was doing from such a distance but she supposed Logan did; perhaps that was why he was walking around with his shirt off, to further entice her or maybe it was just something he always did, frankly she didn’t blame him.
She felt like a lump sitting where she was, while the men worked, although, to be fair she hadn’t been invited up to be put to work. Logan was working along down by the forest line. She could hear Scott rummaging around in the kitchen and she knew Nathan was out front near the edge of the property working the fence. She didn’t have to guess what was happening; Scott was giving her ample time away from Nathan and more of an opportunity to be with them.
She winced as a stream of sunlight ricocheted off the hanging wind chimes. She had been extremely quiet after breakfast because she had a feeling if she opened her mouth she’d be declaring to Nathan that she wanted to go back into town right away. She wanted to be back at the facility she had woken up in where she was safe, where she had felt nothing, where she was numb.
Knowing how much these two men had suffered through their years and maybe she had been apart of that then perhaps she was better off not knowing; but one thing always brought her back. Logan. She was curious. Her body despite the sudden headaches and the itching of her knuckles, she found was moving out from her, licking at an enticing flame and Logan was that flame. She was drawn to him. Her body acting out for her; but something in the back of her mind told her it was more then lust, that it was important for her to remember.
Perhaps she rationalized it was not only important for her but both Scott and Logan. She could feel the desperation coming off Logan uneasily like a fresh sickness. He was silently begging her to remember. She would find him watching her, his gaze unrelenting and fierce, never backing down. She was never unnerved; on the contrary, she felt warmth spread through the coldness that she housed inside of her. Nathan never looked at her with such concentration, such emotion; she felt almost cherished, protected.
“You must be bored out of your mind?” Scott chuckled as he laid a tray out in front of her, handing her the proverbial ice-cold lemonade on a hot day.
She smiled kindly as she accepted it.
“Not really,” she answered truthfully, as she sipped at her drink. “It’s different from the diner.”
“Suzie and George work you to hard,” he teased.
“No,” the words that work was all she had on the tip of her tongue.
Taking another sip, she ran her finger tips up the cold glass letting the condensation glisten against her warm skin. “Although, it’s not me who’s probably bored. I’m sure Nathan’s not to happy that you’ve kept him plenty busy but more to the point as far away from me as you can possibly manage without tipping him off.”
She heard a cough as Scott most likely had gasped on his lemonade. “Excuse me?” he asked.
She set her glass on the table and turned to glance at him. “If I was any other plain girlfriend I have a feeling you’d be put off by my actions, by my quietness, by my bluntness of words when we have apparently only just met. But you don’t think I’m just any regular girl, I know both you and Logan think I’m somebody else and frankly I don’t think I can play along anymore so why don’t you ask me the questions you really want ask me.”
Scott set his own glass down a quirk of a smile on his weary face, small wrinkles apparent around his lips. “You always did have a way with getting to the point.”
Her body clenched. “I didn’t say I was this person so don’t talk to me like I am, I said ask your questions,” she bristled.
“Right,” he quickly replied. “My fault.”
“I don’t want you to tell me who or what you think I am, just ask your questions and I’ll tell you what I know. This is all giving me too much of a headache and honestly I’m finding it a bit weird but apparently not weird enough to leave you and your ghosts behind.”
He nodded. “What’s your real name?”
“How do you know Sam isn’t my real name and don’t say it’s because I don’t look like a Sam.”
“Sam’s too plain for you,” he mumbled. “It’s a nice name but it’s not right.”
She sighed. “I don’t know my real name.”
He nodded as if he expected it. “Who gave you the name Sam?”
She shrugged. “The doctor, the government, whoever’s job it is to sit at some tiny desk running through a database of names and putting them against the files of those who were only ever given numbers for their existence.”
“So you were at a facility once?”
“You know about them?”
He nodded. “More then I’d like to.”
“All I know is about a couple months ago I woke up in a lab with happy smiling faces telling me I was free and was welcome to society. They gave me my new information, my settlement for the crimes I can’t remember that I apparently suffered and shipped me off here. Told me I had been around during the war and that I had been hidden away in one of the more unknown labs, frozen inside a pod. Whatever files or information they had on me were destroyed in the riot fires.”
He was quiet for a few moments. “That’s a lot to go through in such a short time and you seem so indifferent about it.”
“It takes a long time to learn how to feel again, even more when you don’t know who you are or what happened to you.”
He opened his mouth to speak again but she cut him off. “But you think you already know who I am don’t you?”
“Yes.”
She was silent for a bit and he didn’t seem to mind. “It doesn’t matter if you do.”
“What?” he gasped suddenly.
“No offense, but just because you say you know and maybe even though part of me is inclined to agree just on the basis that I’m curious, it doesn’t mean I can just start wherever I left off. I have a new life now and there’s no point living in the past when I can’t remember,” she spoke as she stared at him hard. “You can’t force me just because it would be better for the both of you, whoever I was to you two.”
“You’re just going to give up when there’s a chance that we could be right?”
“Maybe there’s a reason I’m not meant to remember.”
He was silent for a long time and she didn’t move to get up.
“But you’re not happy now. I know you care for Nathan, but you’re just moving with the flow, just going along with the lights on but nobody’s home.”
She shrugged. “Does it matter when it’s all I’ve know.”
“You were happy once even…” he paused. “Even during the worst times. I won’t lie and say everything always went smoothly for you but there were moments, there were times when you had everything you ever wanted within your grasp.”
“Then I suppose it’s a good thing I can’t remember, it was a long time ago what makes you think I could feel that again, have that.”
His gaze looked up and out towards where Logan was still working. “Because,” he whispered. “He’s still here.”
She leaned back as far as she could in her chair hiding in the small shadows, she wasn’t going to grasp a slim straws, at false hopes, she was better off not hoping at all.
“I’m not going to stay here for forever.”
“A part of you wants to run, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she answered truthfully.
“What’s keeping you?”
She didn’t answer. A small sad smile drifted across his face.
“Why don’t you stay for the planned week that you came to stay and I promise I won’t try and push you and maybe, whatever it is that’s keeping you here will become clearer.”
He stood up and reached for his glass.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted out suddenly.
“What for?”
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling this isn’t easy for any of us and it’s because I’m here.”
“Not at all,” he answered truthfully. “But since we both agreed to settle ourselves here for the week, why don’t you take Logan his sandwich and drink, you might as well talk with him.”
“You don’t do subtle at all do you?” she quipped as she stood up reaching for the tray.
She had a sense he had winked at her from behind his shades. “Yes, maybe I’m pushing you on this one thing but you can’t deny that a part of you does want to talk to him.”
She looked away from him and didn’t say another word as she headed down the steps with the tray.