Where Words Fail by Katheryn Kiden, Kathy Krick, Melissa Gill, Kelsey Keeton

definitely figure out something better to do than talk to Jameson.
    “Nice place you got here.” He started as soon as I sat down. I chose the chair furthest away from him as possible, being so far away from him made me feel protected somehow.
    “Yup. It is... But please tell me you didn’t just want to talk about my house.”
    “No, no I don’t. I really am sorry Abby. I never meant to hurt you.” I was having a hard time keeping myself from either crying or hitting him. My mind hadn’t figured out which one yet.
    “You can’t possibly believe the shit that just came out of your mouth, Jameson. I mean seriously. I never meant to hurt you? If you didn’t mean to, you never would have...”
     
     
    Jameson
    Ok, this already isn’t going how I wanted it. I can tell she’s really not even interested in hearing what I have to say now, and my mind is still trying to figure out what’s going on with Alex. He wasn’t the big tough guy whom I remember trying to scare the pants off me.
    “I mean it Abby. It killed me to walk away...”
    “Stop... You just stop right there.” Her face was turning red and the tears in her eyes were about ready to spill down her face. “Right now, I don’t care how you felt, if it hurt you that bad you wouldn’t have done it. All I want to know is why.”
    How could I tell her the truth? How could I tell her how fucked up my family was growing up? “My dad made me.” There, that’s part of it. He did make me, so I wasn’t lying.
    Abby jumped from the chair and headed towards the door. “That’s bullshit,” she screamed. “You were eighteen Jameson. A fucking adult. You broke my heart and fucked my entire life up because daddy told you to leave me. That’s fucking fucked up!”
    Something inside me broke as she started to push the door open, and I decided to put everything out on the line. She already hated me, even if her heart still told her that she loved me… “He threatened to kill my mother if I didn’t move with them. I really didn’t mean to hurt you but I couldn’t let her get hurt.” My words were barely a whisper, and I didn’t think she heard me, but she hesitated with her hand on the door handle.
    “There’s an apartment above the barn for you if you want to stay the night, second door on the left, but I need a little bit of time and I need to go check on Alex.”
    “Hey Abby?”
    “Yeah...” Her forehead rested against the door as she spoke.
    “What’s wrong with Alex?”
    She took a sharp breath before answering me. “Cancer.”
    Shit...
    She pushed her way out the door before I had a chance to say anything else.
    I sat in the studio for a bit trying to figure out where everything was going. It could be a bad thing that she walked out right after I told her my secret, but it had to be a good thing that she told me I could stay, right?
    I made my way upstairs and opened the door Abby told me I could use. It was beautiful. Knotty pine was laid out everywhere, stained with a honey color. The open layout caused the space to seem a lot larger than it was. To my left was a state of the art kitchen that led into a fully furnished living room. The log framed furniture fit in perfectly. A half bath was off to the left of the living room, and a large bedroom with a four post log frame king sized bed. The master bathroom was done in deep gray walls with a white vanity, a drop in tub and a large shower with a waterfall shower head. It was the only room in the apartment that wasn’t wood, but it was amazing and oddly didn’t seem out of place.
    It’s sad that a place where no one lives at all feels more like a home than my apartment does. I slipped my shoes off and made my way to the bed. It looked way too inviting not to lay down and my mind was working so much overtime that I was tired. I figure Abby won’t want to talk to me for a while so I’ll get some shut eye until she does.
     

 

    Abby
    “So, what are you going to do?”
    “I don’t know,