The scars on my neck...

Chapter VII

Turns out, he'd called me 7 times over those 6 hours.

"Gabby... I should call him back. He's probably really sad..." I said to her as she was getting ready for her night shift.

"No Nate, you can't pity him. He's using you."

"But Gabby! He's depressed what if he's doing bad things to himself?"

"Nate, I doubt it, he's just trying to make you feel bad so you'll stay and be his human punching bag, that's not fair to you."

I can't believe her.

"Oh..."

"Alright Nate, I'm going to go. It's almost 10, and I need to go downtown, will you be okay here?"

"Yeah... I'll likely just sleep."

"Okay, I get back at about 6, I'll probably collapse on my bed, feel free to wake me up whenever, I live on coffee at this point" She smiled a little, trying to cheer me up.

"Thanks" I gave my half-hearted smile.

She left and the house was quiet. I played some music quietly, but every love song I heard reminded me of him, and there were quite a few in my playlist. It was 20 minutes after she left that Ryder gave me another call.

I hesitated but answered.

"Who is this!? WHERE IS HE, I'll pay any price, give him back to me!"

"Ryder... It's me. No one kidnapped me."

"Oh... Well, where are you?" His voice wasn't so accusing as hurt.

"I'm at Gabby's I'm coming home right now."

"Please Hurry..."

"I will oh god Ryder I'm so sorry..."

"Just come home..."

I hung up the phone and shut off the lights. I left Gabby's apartment and locked the door, using the spare key she kept buried in the plant beside her door. I took off for the train station, too afraid to walk out in the night alone.

I sent her a message

"I'm sorry Gabby, Ryder needs me, I'm going home, I don't know what I was thinking."

She didn't answer for a good 4 minutes but she sent:

"... Please don't..."

"I have to." I typed back as I was approaching the train station.

The train wouldn't be here for a few minutes, so I sat down on the bench and bought a ticket with the few dollars I planned on spending for lunch. I still felt sick, I had no appetite, but I knew I was hungry.

A man approached from behind me. I looked up at him.

"Yikes, what happened to you?" He said, taking note of my bruises.

"Uh... nothing... do I know you?" I said, feeling a little unsteady.

"I've seen you ride the train before, but other than that, no."

I didn't recognise him at all. Something felt off.

"You're with Ryder right?"

"Y-yeah... how'd you know?"

"He's talked about you before. Showed us pictures, he thinks very highly of you, always saying he doesn't deserve someone like you."

"Oh... How do you know him?"

He chuckled a little, "I suppose we haven't properly met" I heard the train rumble in the distance.

"I'm Legion." He held his hand out to me. The train light's fully showed what he looked like. He was kind of short, with dark blue hair down to his mouth.

"Like the blue hair? I lost a bet" He said, chuckling a little. I shook his hand, I'd heard Ryder mention his name before.

"We met at work, but we both like being drunk and stupid, so we get along. Where you off to... Nate was it?"

"Yeah... Just back home, I was at a friend's for a while..."

"Cool... Finally met someone nice on the train." We walked into the car. There weren't many people on this late. The trains stopped at 12, after all.

"Is that not common?" I said. He looked like he was about to start laughing.

"When you ride alone, yeah. Lots of people will mess with you. Especially when you're all beat up like you are."

"Oh... Thanks... why are you being nice to me?"

He chuckled a little.

"You're Ryder's bitch, why wouldn't I?"

"H-hey! I'm no bitch..." I didn't know how to feel about this man, at all. A part of me found him weird and another part kinda liked him- platonically, of course. I'm loyal to the end.

"Hey take a joke. Just trying to make the train more interesting."

"Yeah... it's quite interesting..." I said, he was quiet for about 30 seconds and I pulled out my phone.

"Nate... I'm sorry to rush you, but do you need me to pick you up?"

I typed back quickly.

"No, I'm almost there I'm on the train, I met Legion here, he's nice."

"Cool, don't tell him about... you know. I love you, get home please..."

"I won't and I'll be there soon"

Legion and I shared a few stories, and before long I was at my stop.

"Alright... Well, I gotta get off here, hope to see you around?"

"Sure thing. You're fun to talk to Nathan, hope to see you again."

"Yeah same to you."

He's a nice guy. I thought as I started running toward our house. I was out of breath by the time I got to our door.