The Station Girl

Chapter 10

If I had mentioned it to Sir or had given him a sign before it'd happened, it never would have happened. I had so many chances over the course of three years, and yet I never acted upon a single one of them. I was too terrified of my past, too terrified of breaking my present. I clung with feverish hope in that last year that Lucy would one day appear and take Sir and I away from David.

At first, I didn't know what to think of the reprieve David was offering me. It baffled me, and I found myself more frightened of him than I had in the past year. But if there was one thing that I took away from them and not the bad room, it was that you needed to be able to rebound quickly if you didn't want the consequences.

And rebound I did.

By the time that first week was over, my overall demeanor had picked back up again. I was talking more, and even talking on equal terms with David when the three of us ate together. The joy of seeing the trains was coming back again, and I would even share a few words with David while I waited for them if I could see Sir in the distance.

By the end of the second week, I no longer despised David coming into town with me. Instead, I was happy that he was there with me. It made the errands go much faster. I no longer blocked the shed door with the chair at night. I even became comfortable enough around David at the train station that I could talk to him without Sir around for brief periods of time.

But it was always in the back of my head though that David could snap at any moment, and it made me careful to not stay alone with him for too long in case he reverted back to his old ways. That I didn't know why he'd acted the way he had originally didn't help. I had figured out that he wanted to break down my self-esteem and confidence, but I still didn't know why.

That was the scariest thing of all.

During that third and final week, I would often find myself staying up until late at night after I'd wished for Lucy. I could only think of reasons why he'd done what he did to me. Was he jealous of me? Did he want me for that with the lewd comments he'd made time and again? Did he want to take my place, or did he want me to leave? Hate him? Like him? Surely he didn't think that a girl would like him if he acted like a brute toward her?

These thoughts would be the last things in my mind as I fell asleep, and the first things I thought of when I woke up before heading out to meet Sir and David. With these thoughts fresh in my mind, my guard would be up during the morning around him. But as the day wore on and these thoughts faded into the background, my guard would subtly drop as I desperately tried to convince myself that he'd had a miraculous change of heart.

And then one day, I let my guard down around him more than I'd ever done before.

It was a book. Of all things, a book about trains. A book that dwarfed my own picture book from thirteen years ago that I still owned. It was the first gift he'd ever given me, and the first technical book I'd ever owned for myself about locomotives.

When he gave it to me, I stared at it in shock. I looked at it, softly touching its hard cover and carefully flipping through a few of the pages inside it. And then, I beamed up at him. A smile that I'd only ever showed to Sir until that instant.

"Here, let me show you something in it," he'd told me, and gently took the book from my hands.

He held the book in his large hands, about to flip to a page inside of it. And then, the small smile that had graced his face the whole time changed in a split second. I saw the malicious smirk it warped into as the book slammed into my head.

I toppled to the ground, dazed and confused. My head hurt, but it wasn't bleeding. Not yet. The face I looked up at, a face that I saw for only a second, was corrupt in a way that I'd never seen in my life before.

The white book came down on my head again, and came away stained with blood. It was pure instinct that had me curled into a ball in time to protect from the next blow.

He screamed at me as he rained down hit after hit onto my body. Why did I cheat on him!? Why did I leave him like that!? Why did I hate him!? Why, why, why!?

Sir heard the screaming from his building, and he rushed out of it to save me. I could hear the sounds of a struggle over me, but I didn't dare let my head leave my hands for even a moment. I could feel the warm blood, sticky on my hands. My body ached to the point that I couldn't even move my arms if I wanted to.

Someone landed beside me, and I peeked out between my arms. It was Sir, leaning up off the ground and presumably glaring up at David. His lips moved – he was yelling something, I'm certain of it – but I couldn't make out what it was that he said. Whatever it was, it was enough to cause David to painfully drop the book of trains on my legs and run away from us.

The buzzing was back. That constant, treacherous buzzing. I squeezed my eyes shut again, but it only got louder. The tears pecked at my eyes, yearning to be let free and to show the world the pain I was in. But I didn't. I took one breath in, and one breath out. It kept the tears at bay, but not the buzzing all around me.

I felt someone tug gently at my arms, and only then did the sound begin to fade. I peered out in front of me, and there was Sir's face. His voice filtered over me, as if it came to me through water. He was asking if I could stand up and follow him to his building.

"I'm okay," I'd murmured to him, smiling my fake smile. The sorrow that rushed over his face when I'd told him that was indescribable as he helped me to my feet.

Sir must have felt immense guilt in that moment. With each passing year, he grew older and older; and with age, he became less in tune with his surroundings. There were moments during the years David spent with us where Sir wouldn't even notice the customers until they had called out for him several times.

If only he'd noticed sooner. If only he'd never forgiven his son. If only he'd spent more time with David. If only... So many if's left unsaid, and yet I'm sure he must have thought of every single one in the few minutes it took to get me up off the ground and into his building in the fading light of day.

Before I stepped into the building though, I took a last look at the train tracks behind us. I'll be missing the train of the day I'd thought at that moment. But as I stepped into the building with Sir, I thought of another thing:

The room had finally caught me after thirteen years.

*****

A/N: You know, I actually felt really terrible when I wrote out the scene between Little One and David. If anything, I almost didn't write it because I didn't want to do that to her. So, I'm hoping that the scene made you guys feel something regardless of what it may be.