Logan watched as Dakota became a bobbing dot in the distance. His tall form didn’t completely disappear until he was swallowed by the dense trees that swayed in the spring breeze. 

Something like a knife was piercing Logan’s chest. He swallowed thickly, then lied down so he could catch his breath that had labored for some time. He raised his hands above his head. 

They didn’t look any different. He counted each finger then counted them again to be sure.

Yes. He wasn’t dreaming.

Another strange feeling crossed him now that he was alone. So was this death? Was he in the afterlife? These uncertain questions made him anxious. If they weren’t, and he truly had been sent back in time, this wasn’t a time to waste. He had a chance to change everything not just Dakota’s death. 

But what did he do now? It was easy to think that he could just be nice and think Dakota would forgive him and forget. 

Logan watched the windmill turn and turn. He didn’t feel as alienated from it like he had times before. In a weird way, he felt connected to it. Like he could stand taller now that he knew what to do.

He couldn’t stay here forever though. He got up and went to the only place he had during this time.

He went home.

There were two distinct neighborhoods in Hopptide. One was nicer than the other by a landslide. It hosted a plethora of families who either owned businesses in Hopptide or were part of a family that did. Some were teachers and others were retirees who thought a small town was the place to be.

The other neighborhood, as you guessed it, was an almost stereotypical imagination of what poor people lived like. A trailer park with more trailers than tenants sat on the city limits, two out of three homes were left abandoned and were in disrepair. 

Logan was born and raised at the corner of this juncture—not quite a trailer park rat, but close enough. Matthew, who lived in one of the trailers, was his next door neighbor. Most cases, Logan did live in the trailer more often than he slept in his bedroom.

And when he said he was born there he meant it literally. 

His mom had been the quiet type. She was raised in Hopptide too with no other plans to leave. She worked odd jobs until she met Logan’s dad in a bar upstate. He’d followed her back like any stray dog and decided he’d marry her.

He did. She might have been happy to have him. She had two kids with him so Logan assumed she must have liked him enough. Logan wouldn’t know because she died in a car crash when he was two years old.

The house Logan stood in front of was a hundred years old and looked like it was built out of cardboard. The house belonged to his grandfather before he died and left it to his mom. Now, it sat in the hands of a man who drank his check away and beat his kids.

Before he could think about doing something stupid, Logan walked up the porch and went inside. 

A light was on in the kitchen. The figure standing in front of the stove turned.

“Answer your damn phone next time. I don’t have minutes to be wasting.”

Logan had been preparing to face his father the whole time he walked to the house. During that time it hadn’t even crossed his mind to think of the other person who lived in this awful place. 

Kiley was a woman of twenty. She was tall, but not so much that she stood out. 

Her face was strikingly similar to Logan’s—or perhaps it was the other way around. She was the oldest, a year and some months, and she acted like it. Compared to each other, she was the responsible one, the one who took care of the house. Logan was the loser, the one who wrecked things and acted like he was still a toddler. 

“Why are you staring at me like that? If you don’t want what I cooked then you can fuck off.”

She turned back around and stirred the pot of boiling water. Logan pulled at his shirt, fanning himself from the heat that hotboxed the house.

Logan hadn’t come home the last time around he lived this moment. After he destroyed Dakota’s painting, he’d gotten high at Matthew’s. 

“I’ll eat,” he said, glancing around the living room. “Where is he?”

Kiley tensed. “Passed out upstairs. Stop talking and grab a plate.”

He shut his mouth as he was told and grabbed one of the plates from the cupboard. Kiley moved away from him as if she couldn’t stand the sight of him. Which was probably true. Logan’s bad attitude wasn’t just reserved for Dakota.

He loaded his plate with baked chicken and pasta noodles coated in butter. The food was dressed up with as many seasons as they had in the house. Though he knew he’d tasted better in the following years, his mouth watered for a nostalgic taste. 

He ate them right there, ignoring the fact that he was still standing over the stove where it was hot. The flavor made his throat itch as tears threatened to spill from his eyes. 

As he reminisced in the taste, footsteps came echoing from above.

Thump. Thump.

Kiley, who’d sat at the small table pushed against the wall, stilled with the fork still in her mouth. 

Logan kept eating. He shoved the chicken into his mouth, stuffing as much as he could and barely chewed as he swallowed. He scarfed the noodles down faster as the thumps moved to the stairs. 

His fork was scraping across the plate by the time those footsteps were at the bottom of the landing. He felt piercing eyes on him as he swallowed his last bite. 

“Got some nerve coming back in here.”

The gruff voice was unmistakable. It made Logan’s stomach clench. When he’d been younger, he’d been anxious whenever he heard it. Now, though, he knew how bad it could get. 

Honestly, his dad couldn’t do more than what he’d already done to himself. 

Logan put his plate in the sink and started washing it.

“I’m talking to you, boy,” Gale said.

Logan kept washing until the plate was squeaky clean. He carefully placed it on the drying wrack then dried his hands on the towel next to the sink. Without a word, he turned to face his dad.

Kiley sat quietly at the table with her hands on her lap. Her eyes were firmly set on her barely touched food. 

“It was me. I told him to come home to eat.”

Gale jabbed his finger at her. “You be quiet!”

Kiley didn’t so much as flinch. She closed her mouth and stayed still. 

Gale was a short man with a flat face. He looked every bit like a thumb and Logan hated him even more for it. Ugliness was contagious—especially when it came from within.

“I don’t work my ass off to feed ungrateful shits like you.”

Logan started to walk past him. 

Gale threw his arm out. “Where do you think you’re going? You gonna pay for that?”

Logan snorted. “You can kiss my ass.”

Gale’s face went red as a tomato. 

“What did—” He didn’t finish his sentence before he grabbed Logan by the collar of his shirt and shoved him up against the corner wall. 

Kylie jolted in her seat. “Dad!”

Logan met his dad’s eyes. “Let go of me.”

Gale gave a twisted smile. “What are you going to do? You think you’re a man now?”

“Let go of me. Now,” Logan calmly said. 

Gale laughed in his face. “Make me, bitch.”

Logan counted in his head. He regulated his heart, swallowing down the anxiety. His hands were trembling only slightly, but they stopped. A sudden calm came over him. 

For the second time that day, Logan chose to go back to his old ways. But this time, he didn’t feel bad about it.

When Gale laughed the next time, it was abruptly cut off by Logan driving his forearm into the man’s throat. 

“Ack!”

Logan didn’t wait until Gale hit the ground. He slammed his elbow into Gale again, this time in the face. 

“Oh my god! Stop!”

Kylie jumped up from her chair. “Logan!”

Logan didn’t know why she was getting up now. She’d known what was going to happen from the start. Well, he guessed not entirely. 

Logan glared down at his dad who was trying to get up. “Try and hit me again. I’m not just going to take it anymore.”

The words were satisfying. He’d thought about this moment a lot since he left. Imagined he didn’t let his dad push him around. Imagined if he stood up to that piece of shit. Maybe then he wouldn’t be so miserable.

His arm ached. He wanted to beat Gale until he was a bloody mess and then some more. Anything to make the man feel any shred of pain that Logan did. 

But as he looked his dad in the face, he didn’t feel any less broken.

Gale got up. He stood straighter, taller somehow. His lips peeled back into a snarl. 

“Toughened up. Good. Let’s test that.”

He reached down to his pants. The jingle of the belt could be heard as he delooped the fraying leather. It whipped the air as he yanked it from his pant loops. 

Logan froze. 

“Kylie,” Gale called. 

No. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He had a chance to change his life so why were the same things happening.

Kylie started to take off her shirt. 

“Don’t. I’ll…” Logan gritted his teeth. Mutinously, he turned to face the wall and pulled his own shirt off.

“Maybe this time you’ll learn your lesson.”

The first strike hurt the most. It always did. He bit his lip, drawing blood, as he smothered his scream. The following lashes stung more and more, but the blooming pain swallowed his mind until he wasn’t really there.

Later, when he laid on his bed in the basement, Kylie brought down a rag to clean his cuts. 

“Why do you make it harder on yourself?” She taped pieces of toilet paper over the cuts that still bled.

He found that he still couldn’t talk to her. Words were hard to find when he was in her presence. He didn’t know what it was like to have a sister. She was more robot than human. 

“I wished you’d just leave.”

The words hurt. Even though that’s what he did, leaving her to face Gale alone. She couldn’t stand him either.