London in the Past
“I’m scared,” my voice echoed across the inky night sky. My arms trembled as I hung from the edge of the concrete ledge outside of my window.
“Swing your legs over, latch onto the trellis, and then walk your hands over till you can grab on,” Logan whispered loud enough for me to hear. We only had a couple of minutes before the nuns made their rounds and caught us sneaking out.
I walked my hands one inch at a time across the hardened ledge as sweat sheened my body. My strained muscles were not going to hold me much longer since their idea of physical exercise was doing nothing more than writing notes to Logan every day.
“Logan,” I flinched when a piece of loose cement dug into my hand.
“Let go,” his voice reverberated in the wind as I looked down to see the drop below me. I looked for comfort in Logan’s eyes, but his dark hair was swept across his face as the storm in the distance gained momentum. Dogs barked across the field letting us know that the nuns were putting away the garden tools and would soon be circling the property before they went to bed.
“Logan,” I cried as my hand started to slip.
“Let go, I’ll catch you,” his hushed tones were hard to hear as we tried not to draw attention to ourselves. I winced at the pain and looked back up to see blood running down my forearm. “Drop London,” he quietly yelled as my eyes sought him out. There was a quiet reflection that resounded in my heart seeing him with his arms up waiting for me. At that moment, I put all my faith in him, trusted him completely, took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and just let go.
Before I could scream I felt Logan’s arms as he caught me and we both tumbled to the ground as I slammed into him and rolled away. He immediately crawled over and looked down on me ensuring I was fine without a care for himself, his fresh bruising, and the new dirt he now wore on his jean jacket.
“Are you okay?” He asked as he inspected my palm. I nodded, but a teardrop fled my eye allowing him to know I was lying. My body ached and the gash in my hand was on fire.
“Who’s out here?” Sister Katherine yelled loudly. Logan helped me up and we ran through the field till we passed the point of no return and ventured into the neighboring orchard that had been abandoned. No one could find us here. As often as it flooded we knew no one would come for us all the way out past the tree line by the water’s edge.
“Give me your scarf,” Logan demanded. I pulled it out from my belt loops and handed it to him. “Why do you wear your scarf like a belt?” He questioned me with a curious smirk. I grinned through the aches my body felt trying to find the words. I was finally feeling the full impact of the fall. My smile tried to hide the agony, but Logan could see through me.
“It was something my mom always did,” I explained when I could breathe through the discomfort. He pulled a small piece of concrete out of the tear in my palm. Then he wrapped my hand with my pink scarf as he tried to stop the bleeding. I tried to hide my wince as he tied it tight, but I failed. A soft guilty look slid across his face before he looked down at my hand again.
“I think it’s silly. It’s a scarf, not a belt,” he gave me a half smile as his lips crooked up to show me he wasn’t serious. “Your hand should be good until morning and by then we will have figured out how to explain it.”
Natasha's Book Nook 