The Lies He Spoke

THIRTY ONE

In a slow horror, she saw that his shirt was off, and there were three bloody cuts on the left side of Logan's stomach, blood in the sink, blood on the tiles, blood dripping from the razor blade onto the counter, dark red splotches coagulating in the bathroom rug.

Logan was white, his face twisted into a furious but desperate scowl. He tried to push the door close but Olivia stuck her foot out in between the door and the frame.

Logan was so mad his lips were trembling. "Get the fuck out right now!"

Olivia was scared. She was more scared than she'd ever been in her life, except the time when she found out her mom had been murdered and the time she came home last year and thought every single one of her brothers was dead.

She stared at the blood running down Logan's abdomen and into the waistband of his pajamas and plop, plop, plop down onto the floor and felt a huge ball of tears engulf her throat and her eyes.

She wanted Elijah. She wanted Blake. She wanted anyone so badly because she wanted someone to come and help Logan and tell him it would be okay and be there for him.

But it was just her.

And she didn't know what to do.

"Um, wait," she rasped, heart pounding with Logan's angry voice and his cussing.

"We're not waiting. I said to get the fuck out of here."

Logan tried to push her out but she slid underneath his arms and to the wall, farther away from the door now.

"No," she said breathlessly, her heartbeat pulsing furiously in her neck. "No, you're bleeding."

"Olivia, you have three seconds to get out of this fucking bathroom or I swear to god it's not going to be pretty. One."

"Logan, wait-"

Her heartbeat rose so fast in her chest her ribs ached.

"Two."

She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what would happen if she made him mad. What did Elijah even tell her to do?

"Stop it, I'm not going to leave-"

"Three."

Terror blinded her. She wasn't going to let him go-

"Logan-"

In one swift move, he put his hands on her waist, hauled her up off the tiled floor, and swung her over the doorway and out onto the wood outside. Blood beaded up against his skin and streamed faster as his arms strained underneath her weight.

Olivia teetered as he pushed her away from the door and before she could regain her balance to shove her hand against the door to keep it open, Logan was faster than her.

He slammed the door shut so hard that dust fell from the frame and the wall shook, but not before Olivia caught the haunted, hollow look on his face.

And even though the shower water began to come down full blast from the faucet, it could only muffle Logan's sobs.

And Olivia was so afraid of everything in that moment and so unsure of what in the hell she was supposed to do that she stood exactly where she was, unable to move, tears coming hotly down her face.

In the silence, she could hear him crying too, ugly gasping noises like he couldn't breathe.

It was like someone had poured whole gallons of poison into her veins, hot and cold all at the same time, preventing her from moving a single inch, from saying a single word, from thinking of a single thing to do.