L O G A N

Being at the hospital has been hell in so many ways:

1. My body hurts like a bitch.
2. I have to walk around with an oxygen tank and a drip stand.
3. I can only eat...drink liquid food and trust me, nutrients aren't delicious.
4. Guilt is prickling me like a cushion of pins.

I have yet to apologize for what I said to Ayo and trying to run away from it. Said guy came back from his volunteer work to hang out with me for a while before going home. He sat on the chair beside me tuning his acoustic guitar and trying out some notes. There was relative silence in the room that was broken from time to time by the guitar notes and some chords. I watched him for a while and cringed when I remembered what I said to him that day.

"Ayo?" I called out.

"Sup?" He answered absently while he tuned his A-string.

"You know..." I started not really knowing what to say but I decided to just go with the flow. "What I said that day, I really didn't mean it. I-I never thought of you that way...never! I'm sorry." Ayo stopped tuning the guitar and dropped it beside him before looking at me with an unreadable expression.

"I know." He spoke up. His brown eyes stared intensely into my green and blue eyes so I looked down to break contact.

"I'm sorry." I whispered softly.

"Why did you do it? Cut yourself I mean." He leaned back on his chair and crossed his leg over the other as he questioned me. I sighed and fiddled with my fingers as I stumbled over my words. Ayo patiently waited for me to form a reasonable word.

"I don't know." I finally let out. "I felt so empty and I needed a release. I guess it was my alternative to drugs, I...it made me feel..."

"...numb." Ayo and I completed together. I met his knowing gaze and chuckled slightly while crossing my arms. "You sound like you know it." He shrugged.

"You know you'd have start seeing a shrink, don't you?"

"Yeah...rehab." I sighed.

"It's not so bad once you get used to it." My friend commented.

"You sound like you know how it feels." Ayo's lips quirked and he leaned forward.

"You've never seen what is underneath my shirt, do you?" He asked and I shook my head suspiciously. "Welp, I guess I have to tell you my back history." Ayo started rolling his sleeves and my eyes widened at what was on his arms...scars of... "Self infliction."

He completed my unspoken words. I frowned. He is always happy go lucky so it is normal that I didn't expect him to have a trauma that led him to cut himself. Shelia used to say then that he must have had a traumatic experience but nobody was really sure, now I know.

"Why?" I breathed.

"Just lie back and listen, this would take a while." I hesitantly lied down and Ayo pulled the covers over my torso, after which he started his story.

-

Danna tucked a seven year old Ayo in bed and went downstairs to wait for her husband, Matthew, who was running late from work. Some moments later, Ayo came downstairs saying that he was thirsty so Danna gave him a drink of warm milk. When the duo were about to go upstairs to Ayo's room, they heard the click of the front door.

"Looks like daddy's home." Danna smiled at her excited seven year old as they walked hand in hand to the living room to meet with Matthew.

"Daddy!" Ayo ran into the arms of his father and got lifted by strong arms.

"Ayo, my little bud." Matthew ruffled his short hair before giving Danna a peck on the cheek.

"Daddy! Today I saw a cat and gave him my sandwich!" He grinned toothily at his achievement as if he won a medal. Matthew frowned, do cats eat sandwiches? But his son didn't need to know the answer to that, right?

"Ayo, off to bed with you now. Daddy's tired." Ayo cast a forlorn look at his mother and unwillingly climbed off his father. Matthew pat his head and smiled.

"We would talk tomorrow, right bud?" He promised his son.

"Yes!" Ayo nodded enthusiastically and held his mother's hand as she led him to his room.

"There are some leftovers in the fridge for you, I'll be back." Said Danna as she led Ayo up to his room. The duo walked up the stairs of the big place and got to the hallway. Danna froze once she saw a figure leaning on the door to Ayo's room and holding a gun. The figure pointed the gun at her and brought his finger to his masked lip in a shh motion. Danna hid Ayo behind her back to keep him from seeing what she saw but the man came closer to her, with the gun still pointed at her forehead. She knew who this man was, if the gold contacts were anything to go by, he is the one that murdered her best friend. What does he want with her?

She held Ayo tightly and took sharp breaths. "What do you want from me?!" She demanded. The man seemed to be taken aback from her sudden question and sharp voice but soon recovered.

"The Griffin sannin." Was his short reply. Danna, albeit calm outside was a wreck on the inside. Her life, her son's life and her husband's life was on the line so she could not make rash decisions. When she was taking too long to answer, he cocked his barrel and made his request clear. "The Griffin sannin." He implied.

Ayo clung unto his mother's skirt and started crying, much to Maru's annoyance. "Make him stop or else he dies." He threatened Danna, who quickly knelt to Ayo's level and tried to soothe him but the sight of the gun made him cry louder.

Matthew wondered what was taking Danna long and decided to go upstairs to meet her. The sight he was faced with was however not what he least expected. His wife trying to keep her son from crying while a gun was pointed at her head was not what he expected. Before he could remove his gun which was hanging from his belt, Maru noticed him and pulled the trigger. Danna screamed and hugged Ayo closer while the young boy cried louder. He purposely missed Danna's head.

"Noisy." Maru condemned and looked at the head of the family. "I just need the Griffin sannin from you, I do not need to make myself clear that your family would die if you hesitate." Matthew's hands were up in surrender as he admitted defeat.

"Okay, I would give it to you. Just drop the gun and I'll bring it." Matthew coaxed.

"Are you fucking negotiating with me?! I am not stupid, officer Matthew. The sannin, NOW!" His finger was dangerously on the trigger, pointing at Ayo so Danna shot up suddenly.

"I WOULD GIVE YOU THE SANNIN! I WOULD SO PLEASE DON'T KILL MY SON!" She yelled. Meanwhile, Manfred tried to use Danna's distraction to reach for the radio strapped to the other side of his bely but Maru saw it, pointed the gun towards him instead and pulled the trigger.

Everything happened all of a sudden to Ayo and Matthew. Danna was suddenly in front of Matthew, taking the shot and collapsing on Ayo. At that short moment, Matthew swiped his gun from his side and shot just as Maru also shot. Both got hit on the shoulders, causing them to drop their gun in pain.

"You'll pay for this!" Maru seethed. "And next time, it would be that brat I would kill!" He turned around and ran away through the window in Ayo's room as the sounds of sirens filled the air. Apparently, a neighbour had heard the gunshots and called the police.

Ayo had gone unconscious under his mother's weight due to the trauma of seeing so much blood and violence, and Danna...died. Matthew cradled her dead body and his son's unconscious one and cried as the SWAT team broke into the house. No evidence could be found as Maru ran away just before his arm bled to the floor. His jacket did great help in absorbing the blood and he grabbed a cloth from Ayo's closet to wrap his wound with before jumping out the window and running to his hideout. He wore gloves so there was no fingerprint on the gun he left behind.

After that incident, Matthew and Ayo moved to a smaller town after changing their last name to Adams, it was Danna's maiden name. It was at that town that they both met Jennifer. Due to the trauma of the incident, Ayo developed keraunophobia (fear of thunder) and gynophobia (fear of women). Sounds of clashing thunder reminded him of that incident and that often gave him bad migraines and fever. It just came as a coincidence that Jenna was his doctor.

The woman was the one to notice that Ayo was afraid of touching women, even girls his age, because the last memory of his mother was of her holding him as she died. He believed that every woman that held him would die and avoided physical contact with them until it became a behavioural reflex.

When he began school there, he attracted girls like flies on honey and many boys wanted to be his friend but his closed off personality kept them away. The only person that became his friend was a girl named Sama. They became friends on a mother's day. That day, children made paper carnations for their mothers and Ayo made one two. When, after closing hours, he saw other children giving their mothers carnations and realized that he had no mother, he threw the carnation in his hand away and stormed off.

Sama was behind him the whole time and saw what had happened so she picked the carnation and ran after him. "Ayo!" She yelled when she found him and ran to meet him. "You...*pant* dropped this!" She panted.

"I don't need it." Ayo said glumly and kicked a rock.

"Why? Don't you wanna give your mum?" Sama asked in childish confusion. Ayo shook his head and started crying.

"No...I don't have a mama anymore!" He wailed and hugged his knees in tears. Sama sat beside him and rubbed his back in comforting circles.

"It's okay, I don't have a mummy and daddy too." She comforted.

"You don't have a daddy?!" Somehow, that was the only thing Ayo heard in her sentence. He suddenly felt sad for the girl and started crying louder for her. After he had calmed down, she asked to be his friend and he agreed. She was the only female other than Jennifer to be able to touch him without him flinching or breaking down.

When he was ten, his father married Jennifer and he was happy with it. The doctor loved him like her own since she was barren and took care of him and other children at the hospital. Yes, she was a pediatrist. Sama and Ayo grew closer as they grew up and Ayo started developing feeling that weren't platonic towards her. However, he was afraid to tell of his feelings towards her because he found out that she was being abused by her guardian. Nothing he said could make her come out in the open about it and she made him swear never to tell his parents. She died when he was fourteen on the streets by a hit and run.

That day, her guardian had beaten her up so she ran to the park and called Ayo. When he heard her broken voice on the phone, he made his way to the park as fast as he could only stopping to catch his breath when he was across the street. Sama saw him from where she sat and stood up to run to him. What she needed was a hug from her best friend. It was too sudden. One moment he was looking at her as she ran towards him crying, the next moment she was flying in the air. She landed with a hard impact to her head and couldn't survive it. The car that hit her drove away quickly, which alerted bystanders and they called the ambulance. The only thing Ayo could see and hear was the image of blood, screeching of tyres and gunshots. A huge migraine wave hit him and rendered him unconscious.

When he woke up, Sama was gone and his depression was back. The voice in his head was back, his fear for physical contact was back and worse, and he became suicidal. The kids at school bullied him and it got into his head that he killed Sama and his mother. He cut himself in hopes that he would die but he didn't and it annoyed him. They moved to Beastville later that year and that was when he met Bryan, Don and Jordan.

Ayo was caught when he was fifteen. He had cut himself too deep and had almost died for it. When he woke up, he saw the looks on his parents' faces and regretted his actions. His father cried for him and that was speaking something for the man remained strong after his wife's death. Ayo broke him when he tried to commit suicide. Jennifer, who wasn't even his birth mother cried. He knew he let them down and he regretted it but he couldn't stop the sad thoughts from coming.

-

"So I had to go for therapy and I pretty much became...what's the word?... Clean? Whatever. So that's my story." Ayo concluded.

I lied down there in awe of the boy in front of me. He saw the deaths of two people he really loved...he is stronger than he let on. There was silence for a while until I spoke up.

"You had a girlfriend!" I exclaimed. I could see the irritation forming on his face as he fumed.

"That is the only thing you could pick out from the story?!" He developed a tick mark on his forehead. I laughed softly because of my ribs and shook my head. "Don't worry about the others knowing, only Scarlet knows." He assured.

When Scarlet came to visit, she gave me this long and emotionless stare that I had come to fear more than her blood glare. Whereas you could tell what the blood glare meant, you can never tell what she is thinking with that emotionless stare and that scares me. She still hasn't said anything about this and to say I am not scared of what she would do is a big lie.

I heard Ayo's chuckle beside me a faced him. "What's funny?" I asked but he stood up to leave.

"Don't worry," he said when he reached the door, "Scarlet might not do anything bad, she is a softie actually. Goodnight Lo." He switched off the lights and closed the door behind him. After some minutes of staring at the darkness, I fell into a dreamless sleep.

***
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-Star