CHAPTER TWELVE
Once again Logan was lying on Remy's couch, attempting to fall asleep. The clock across the room glowed "6:32 A.M." in big, red, digital letters, and Logan had been back for about fifteen minutes.
As he tried to fall asleep Logan began to think about all he had been told since he woke up in that room the day before. It seemed that he was a humanoid alien that loved to fight. Also, his best friend Eddie was an alien, along with the two most down to Earth people Logan had ever known; Eddie's parents. Last but not least, Logan was not only an alien, but he was a super hero alien from a prophecy an old man dreamed up.
"Sounds like something from a cheap science fiction movie," Logan said to himself as he began to doze off.
But Logan did realize that there was a serious side to all of this. If all these things were true, and something inside Logan told him they were, then everything he had ever known about himself, about his life, was all a lie.
"Ignorance is bliss," seemed to ring in Logan's head as he finally fell into the deep sleep he had been waiting for all morning.
* * *
Logan awoke sometime later to the sound of someone knocking on the front door. For a moment he pondered not answering it, considering this wasn't his house.
"Hey Remy! Answer the door!" came a woman's voice form the other side of the door. Logan thought he recognized it.
After a few groans of tiredness Logan forced his well-muscled frame to the Cajun's door.
"Hey Rem…" the voice started again, but was interrupted by Logan as he quickly swung open the huge, wooden door.
Standing right in front of Logan was her; the girl from the party. Today she wore brown sandals, with blue jean shorts, a red t-shirt, and she had her hair tied back in a ponytail with a red scrunchy. At second glance the shirt struck Logan as odd. It looked like a shirt for the Mexican restaurant 'Chi-Chi's', but instead it only said 'Chi-Chi'.
"Hi," said the girl on the other side of the door.
"Hi," Logan said as he stepped back to let her in. "Come in," he said politely as he extended his hand into the house. The girl walked in, and sat down on the couch. She seemed to be familiar with the house. Logan closed the door and followed her.
"Remy's not here right now," Logan told her as he sat down on the other end of the couch. He wondered if he should have told her that before he invited her in.
"That's okay," she said. "I didn't really come here for him anyway,"
"Oh," Logan responded simply. Usually he was good with girls, but he completely didn't know what to say around this girl.
"Do you remember anything we did at the party last night?" she asked. "Because, uh, I don't," she admitted sheepishly.
"No," Logan answered with another simple, dumb-sounding response. "But Remy said all we did was talk," he followed up to prove he was capable of complete sentences.
"Oh, good," she said. "I forgot your name," she informed him, seemingly also having trouble holding conversation. Logan thought for a moment, and realized he didn't know her name either.
"I'm Logan," he said rather uncooly.
"Oh, that's a cool name," she complemented with a smile. "Kind of like Wolverine from the X-Men,"
"Yeah, I guess so," Logan said back. He'd never been much of an X-Men fan.
"I'm Lynn," she said, showing her smile again.
"Like Lynn Strait form the band Snot," Logan said, making note of her name the same way she did his.
"Yeah, I guess so," she said with an odd look on her face. Logan could see she wasn't a very big fan of the underground rock scene.
"I'd offer you something to drink, but I don't know where Remy keeps everything," Logan informed the girl who was apparently named Lynn.
"That's okay," she said. "I'm not thirsty anyway,"
Silence replaced conversation for an eerie and uncomfortable moment, as neither person could think of what to say next.
"So, have you been in town long?" Lynn asked, finally breaking the silence.
"No, I just got here last night," Logan answered.
"Maybe I could show you around then," she offered. "If you're not busy," she added.
"Yeah," Logan started. "I mean no, or no I meant yes," Logan stopped for a minute. It seemed at the moment he wasn't capable of answering a question as complex as this one.
"Yeah, I'd love for you to show me around," he finally answered, letting his usual calm, cool, and collective side shine. "No, I'm not busy," he added.
Once again an odd silence hung over the two.
"So, do you want to go?" Logan asked, thinking it was good that he broke the silence this time.
"Yeah," she answered. "But I just thought you would want to put on some shoes or something first," she added, cracking a smile and giving a light chuckle at Logan's expense.
Without a word Logan quickly put on his boots. He left the house, with Lynn guiding him, as he recited the words 'stupid, stupid, stupid' over and over in his head.
* * *
"Is your hair always like that?" Lynn asked as she played with one of the short spikes on the side of Logan's head.
"Yeah," Logan answered simply as he brushed her hand away. Lynn gave him a slightly angry, but playful look, and in all didn't seem to mind Logan's lack of affection.
The two had been pretty much everywhere there was to go in the little village, which wasn't much. Throughout the course of the day the two had learned a lot about each other. For example, Lynn found out that Logan was from Idaho, although Logan told her he came by choice to enroll in college. Logan found out that Lynn had been born and raised right there in the very same town they were in at that very moment. At first he felt a little sorry for her, having to spend her entire life in a boring place like that, but then he realized his hometown in Idaho wasn't much better.
As of now Logan and Lynn were atop a hill, overlooking a pond. They had been lying in the grass, conversing about Logan's hair for about ten minutes.
"Why don't you put some gel on it?" Lynn asked as she grabbed at another spike.
"I tried that," Logan answered as her brushed her hand away again.
"And…" Lynn pressed for more info.
"It didn't work," Logan finished.
"That's okay," Lynn said as she gave up trying to play with Logan's hair. "I like it like this. It makes you different,"
A brief fuzzy feeling arose in Logan after hearing Lynn's last comment. It was rare that someone accepted Logan because he was different, especially a girl as beautiful as Lynn.
Suddenly a bell could be heard from across the village.
"Oh, that's the five o'clock bell," Lynn explained. "I gotta go. My father has a Kung Fu studio just outside the village and I help teach," she informed Logan as she rose from the grass and brushed herself off.
"You're a martial artist?" Logan asked, showing more interest now at the mention of his most beloved hobby.
"Yeah," Lynn answered sweetly, as always. "We'll talk about it later,"
"Okay," Logan agreed. "When can I see you again?" he asked as she started to walk away.
"Are you staying with Remy?" Lynn asked.
"Yeah," Logan answered.
"Then I'll come by his place tomorrow," she said as she turned and began to walk away.
"Bye," was all Logan could manage as he watched the most beautiful girl he had ever seen walk away.
* * *
Logan was about halfway back to Remy's house when he began contemplating whether or not he should stay and train, or go back to Idaho and forget all about what he had seen in the last two days.
Currently he was walking along the side of the road, ascending a short, but steep hill. To his right were a few small houses, and to his left were three or four tall, brick buildings that made up part of the college campus.
"Should I stay or go?" he asked himself as he continued walking. There were definite advantages and disadvantages to either decision. The advantages of staying would be that Logan would be trained further in the martial arts, and from what he was told, would become the ultimate fighter. Logan really liked that ultimate fighter thing. Also this place offered a good explanation for what Logan was. It was an odd explanation yes, but Logan still couldn't kick the feeling that it was true. And of course there was the girl.
But in the normal world Logan was already head and shoulders above any other fighter. Despite his feelings, when Logan really thought about it, all this saiyan stuff was definitely too weird to possibly be true. As for the girl, as great as she was, there would be others. But the real clincher was that this village didn't have Eddie; the only true friend Logan ever had, and it didn't have Logan's family either. However, Idaho did. So it was decided, Logan would go back.
Logan was feeling good now. He had finally made his decision. But then 'it' hit again. That sickening, desperate, anxious feeling that always seemed to show up just in time to wreck anything that was going right in Logan's life. Every time it came Logan realized a new aspect of it. He had guessed long ago that it was everything wrong, all in one.
Once again it tore him down instantly. The emptiness, the anxiousness, the despair, the anger, it all chewed away at him. Then he thought of her. Lynn that is. The way she accepted him, the way she thought the weird things about him made him more normal. And then it was gone. For the first time in years Logan felt whole again. Just at the thought of her.
If Logan went back to Idaho, then it would be free to tear him down as it always had. It was at that moment Logan realized he couldn't go back.