“Logan…” He kept walking toward me, making my heart speed up until I felt faint.
“Alyssa…”
“Lo.” My fingers slowly laced together with his.
“High.”
Him.
Me.
Us.
We grew closer. Our bodies wrapped together, and I felt him trembling as my fingertips rested against his chest.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“Nervous,” he replied.
My lips hovered millimeters away from his. His breaths became mine, and mine were solely his. He was my life support, making my heart rise and fall, over and over again.
I shrugged.
He shrugged.
I laughed.
He laughed.
I parted my lips.
He parted his lips.
I leaned in.
He leaned in.
And we were both still so very much in love.
For a few brief moments, he let me into his heart, and I allowed him into mine. His skin met my skin, his lips met my lips. That night we held onto one another. We stopped our minds from wandering off. We didn’t speak of yesterday, and we refused to speak of tomorrow.
But we did remember, and we did dream.
We remembered everything we were and dreamed of everything we could someday become. Every time he moved into me, I whispered his name. Every time he pulled out, he whispered mine.
“I love you,” I softly said against his ear.
“I love you,” he gently replied, kissing my neck.
We loved each other that night. We loved each other with no restraints, no restrictions, no fear. We loved each other with every kiss, every touch, every climax.
We loved the pain, we loved the scars, we loved our wild fire that could never be extinguished.
We loved that night.
Yes…
We loved so slowly.
When I awakened, I still felt as if I were dreaming, because I woke up in his arms. His eyes were opened, and he placed a gentle kiss on my forehead.
“Hey,” I yawned, rubbing my eyes.
“Hey,” he replied.
“Is it time to get up?”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s only three in the morning.”
I sat up slightly, concern building inside of me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Logan. Tell me.”
“I’m just worried, that’s all. Kellan had his chemotherapy a day ago, and since I’ve been back, I’ve never not been there. He sometimes gets sick in the middle of the night, and I’m worried, that’s all.”
I climbed out of bed, and started collecting his things, then I tossed on my clothes.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
A pair of pants slapped him in the face. “Get dressed. We’re going home.”
The drive home was quiet, but he held my hand the whole way. I knew it seemed silly, but on that car ride, I fell even more in love with him. He pulled up to my house to drop me off, and leaned forward to kiss me.
Oh, how I loved his kisses.
“Call me if you need anything,” I said. The sky was still dark, the sun still sleeping. He agreed to keep me updated. “Oh, and I have something for you.” I reached into my oversized purse and pulled out a stack of DVDs. “I collected these over the past years, thinking they might be documentaries you’d be interested in. I watched a few, and loved them. The one on the phoenix was my favorite, and reminded me of you.”
His lips parted, and his voice cracked. “Why didn’t you ever give up on me?”
I shrugged. “Because some things—the best things—are always worth fighting for.” I kissed his lips, and started to climb out of the car.
“Oh, and High?” He reached into the glove compartment of the car, and pulled out a DVD. “This is for you.”
“What is it?”
“I made a documentary while I was in Iowa.”
“What?” I asked. “What is it about?”
“Us,” he replied, a bit shyly. “It’s called Highs and Lows. Every message you left me has a response on that. One thousand and ninety replies. Plus a few in-between moments.”
“Lo…”
“It’s not all good, but it’s real. It’s raw. But I thought you should know that I did respond. To every single message. And I want you to know that you’re the one who helped me get through every second of getting clean. Your voice saved me.”
The moment I got into my house, I tossed the DVD into my laptop, and I held my breath for an hour straight. Some of his replies he spoke to me, others he simply spoke to the camera, as if it were a diary of sorts. Each reply told me what I’d wished I could’ve heard all of those years ago. Each reply matching how my heart bled, for five years straight.
Reply #1
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, High…
Reply #56
It’s my fifty-sixth day at rehab, and I’m lonely. I still don’t know what this all means. Being alive, being dead. Inhaling, exhaling. The simple idea of existence was always confusing to me. But then you walked into my life one day, and everything started to make a little more sense.
Maybe the point of life is to teach us that we aren’t always going to be our past mistakes. Maybe the point of life is to open ourselves up to the things that we fear most—like love.
Maybe the whole point of my life was to simply find you, even if it wasn’t meant to be forever.
And that thought alone is enough to get me through each night of loneliness.
Reply #232
The baby would’ve been born this month. You left me a message telling me this, but I already knew. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t stop thinking about lying beside you, holding you close to me. But I’m not better yet. I’m still lost. I’m not strong enough to love you the way you deserve to be loved. So here, I wait. Until I’m something you can be proud of.
Reply #435
So this is my apartment. I don’t know if I’ve shown you before, but here it is. We have all of the basics. Kellan helped me. Over here, you’ll find Jordy the mouse. He comes out to play every now and then. And, that’s pretty much it. It’s small, but it’s mine, I guess.
I know you’re mad at me.
But I miss you so much it hurts to breathe some nights.
You asked me what I do when it rains?
I lie in bed, and think of you.
Reply #1090
You said you were done calling me. I’m happy to hear that, but at the same time broken. I want you to be happy. I want you to find someone worthy to love you. I want you to fall in love with a heart that beats like mine beats for you. I want you to laugh so loudly, and I want someone to fall in love with the sound of your laughter, the way I love those sounds.
I want you to have your happy ending.
I want you to move on.
I tell myself each day that I’m not in love with you anymore, that I moved on.
But somehow that’s not true. Each day it happens, right before I close my eyes to sleep. I see your face, your smile, your soul, and in the quiet whispers of the night, I fall in love with you all over again.
I hope that never changes.
And selfishly, I hope a small part of you always loves me too.
41
Logan
Walking into Kellan’s place, I paused a moment when I heard the sound of upchucking. I rushed to the bathroom where the sounds were traveling from, and found Kellan on the floor, his head in the toilet as he threw up everything he had inside of him.
“Jesus, Kel,” I muttered, reaching for a towel to wet. I bent down beside him as he gagged, unable to throw anything up because he hadn’t much left inside of him.
“I’m okay,” he muttered, before the dry heaving began. My hand landed on his back. There wasn’t much I could do, other than be there with him through the pain.
“What’s happening?!” an alarmed Erika said, poking
her head in the bathroom. Her eyes widened as she deliberated over which direction she should go—stay in the bathroom with Kellan, or go toward the living room.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” she asked me.
“I just got home.”
Her hands raked through her hair. “Okay. He needs the nausea pills.” She hurried away, her feet hammering against the wooden floors. She came back with a glass of water and a little pink pill. “Here you go, Kellan.”
“No,” he whispered. “I don’t want that.”
“It will help with the nausea.”
“I don’t want that.”
Erika’s chin quivered and she pushed the glass and pill toward him. “Kel, come on. It will—”
“Just leave me alone!” he hollered, pushing the glass from her, and making it fly to the ground and shatter.
Erika leaned back, grimacing. Her lips trembled as her breaths sawed in and out. She placed the pill on the bathroom sink. “It’s right there if you need it.”
After I helped Kellan back to his bedroom, he took the pill from me. I took a few tentative steps toward the kitchen, where I found Erika going through her cabinets. In front of her was a box of new glassware, which she was unloading.
“Erika, he’s just tired.”
She nodded repeatedly, pawing her hands through her hair. “Yeah, I know. I know. It’s fine. I just wanted to get these glasses switched in before morning. I’m so glad I bought these. I knew they’d come in handy, and they are actually better than the ones before. Stronger. I don’t know why I didn’t switch before.”
She closed the box after all of the glasses were switched, and headed for the living room, where she stood with her hands on her hips, blankly staring ahead.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I think if I move the sofa to face the east wall, more people could see the television. Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”
“Erika.”
“Or maybe I should buy a new television. I saw a sale in the paper and—”
“Erika, come on. Go to bed.”
“No. No. It’s fine. I have to clean up the glass in the bathroom. It was seriously so lucky I had the replacements.”
“Erika.”
She burst into sobs, covering her face. Jesus. “Why isn’t he like that with you, huh?! Why doesn’t he yell… Why doesn’t he…”
“I left before and had no plans on coming back. He probably thinks I’ll leave again. Or worse, that I’ll start using.”
“I’m broken. I’m so broken. I’m not prepared for school to start. I failed my summer night class. Failed. I never failed anything in my life. And now Kellan’s mean. Mean. Kellan has never been mean. I don’t know how much more I can take.” She continued to sob, and I wrapped my arms around her.
I wasn’t sure what to say, or what kind of comfort to deliver her. She wasn’t wrong. It seemed each passing day, Kellan grew darker and darker toward her, pushing her away. “Do you want to smoke some weed?”
She pulled away from me and cocked her head, shaking it. “No, Logan. I do not want to smoke some weed.”
“Okay.”
Silence.
“Do you want to get drunk?” I asked.
She narrowed her eyes at me, pinched her bottom lip, and swayed, debating.
We’d sat on her patio for the past forty-five minutes, and for the first time ever, I witnessed a drunken Erika. Her laughter echoed through their backyard, and every now and then she’d snort before taking a swig from her bottle of whiskey. I smoked a joint which mellowed me out.
“You’re the best,” she said, slapping my leg.
“You hate my guts.”
“I do. I hate your guts.” She reached for the joint between my lips, and I pinched my lips around it, refusing to let it go.
“I think you should just stick to your whiskey.”
“‘I think you should just stick to your whiskey,’” she mocked me, before laughing again. “You know what I hate most about you?”
“What’s that?”
“Everyone loves you, no matter what you do.”
“Bullshit.”
“No.” She nodded. “Really. Especially Kellan and my sister. They think you are some kind of god. Logan Silverstone can do no wrong! They both love you more than they could ever love me.”
I frowned. “That’s not true.”
“No, it is. I mean, let’s face the facts. You crashed Kellan’s car. You almost burnt down my first apartment. You broke my sister’s heart when you drove into a building. You ran away, ignored her for years, and still—she’d freaking marry you tomorrow if you asked. Kellan didn’t go a day without mentioning your name. Your mom cried every day after you left. She even managed to get clean for a while because she wanted to make you proud, before your crazy father dragged her back into that crap and landed her into the hospital. Screw whatever kind of crap you used that send you to rehab. The truth is, the biggest drug in this small circle of people is you. They are addicted to you, and they won’t stop using.”
My throat went dry, and it became hard to swallow. “What did you just say?”
“Uh, I just said a lot. You want me to repeat it all?”
“No.” My head shook. “The part about my mom. My dad put her in the hospital?”
Erika looked up fast, locking eyes with me. “Oh my gosh.” Her eyes bulged and she shook her head. “Don’t tell them that I mentioned that. Please. They didn’t want you to know, because they didn’t want you to feel guilty for not being there. Please don’t say anything.”
I put out the joint, stood up, and then headed back inside. “Go to bed, Erika.”
42
Alyssa
The next day, Logan asked me to go with him to visit his mom. We stopped by Bro’s Bistro first to pick up some food for her, and as he ran into the restaurant, I waited outside in the car for him. My eyes traveled across the street when I heard yelling from the alley a few steps away from the car.
Opening my door, I started walking in the direction of the sound and my heart leapt out of my skin as I saw Logan’s father standing over Sadie, screaming at her. She was shaking against the concrete wall of the shop next door.
“I’m sorry!” she cried as he raised his hand and slapped her hard across the face. I listened to her whimpering as her body slid down the wall into the fetal position.
“Hey!” I screamed, running down the dark alley, toward the two. “Back off,” I hollered at him.
He boxed Sadie in with his arms and glanced my way. His eyes were bloodshot and cold, vicious. “Fuck off,” he ordered.
Sadie’s eyes met mine with nothing but fear. The bruises slowly forming on her face made my stomach twist. I didn’t know what else to do as I watched him bend down and whisper something in her ear that made her cringe with fright. “Leave her alone, jerk!” I screamed.
His hands wrapped around Sadie’s wrists and he started pulling her in the opposite direction of me. “You stupid bitch,” he muttered to her, dragging her beside him. Without thought, I rushed down the alley and shoved him from behind. “Let her go!” I screamed, slamming my fist into his back.
He dropped her hand and without any hesitation, swung around and hit me right in the eye and sent me slamming against the wall, making my body slide down to the ground from the sudden loss of balance.
Before I could stand, all I saw was Logan come charging down the alleyway, and I watched as he slammed his fist against his father’s jaw, knocking him to the ground. Sadie rushed over to me to help me stand. “Are you okay?” she asked, panicked, but I was fine, if not just shaken from the whole situation.
“I’m good, I’m good,” I said. My eyes fell to Logan who was standing over Ricky slamming his fists into his face over and over again. His eyes were hard, his stare cold, and he kept swinging.
“Logan, no!” I shouted. I yanked on his arm. His eyes were wild, the fire inside of him burning him to ashes.
Logan.
; Lo.
My most painful low.
“Logan, that’s enough. He’s passed out. It’s okay.” I kept my voice gentle, trying not to show how scared I was. He went back to swing at his father, but I held onto his arm. “Look at me, Lo. Please,” I begged. “Logan, you are not him,” I promised, making him pause. “You are not him. You are not your father.”
He stopped.
“You’re okay, Logan Francis Silverstone,” I swore, tears falling down my cheek. “You’re okay. Give me your hand,” I ordered.
He took it.
I helped him up.
I watched his breathing slow as he climbed off of Ricky, and he stared at his bloody knuckles. I reached for his hands, but he yanked them away. His eyes fell to Sadie’s face, which was almost as bad as his father’s. “Shit,” he exhaled. “Come on,” he said, walking off. Sadie and I followed behind him as he led us to TJ’s doctor’s office.
After banging on the door, TJ came down in his pajamas and unlocked the door. “What the heck, Logan? It’s Sunday. Sunday is rest day.”
Logan didn’t say anything, but he stepped to his side, revealing Sadie and me.
“Shit,” TJ muttered. “Come in.”
We stayed there until we were all fixed up, and TJ checked on Sadie’s baby, who was thankfully okay. When we left, I told Sadie she could stay with me, but before she could reply, she received a text from Ricky.
Ricky: Tell your hero that he’s going to pay for this. Starting with his mom.
“Oh no,” I murmured, as Logan’s eyes widened with fear. “Call the cops.”
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