by Zara Rivas
So, naturally, upon realizing all of this, I did the only logical thing I could do: I started laughing. Hysterically.
Footsteps pounded down the hallway and Dominic and Finn came to a screeching halt at the strange sight before them, and then joined in on all the hugging action going on in the foyer. Logan just stood there, peculiar smile still in place, and watched all of us.
Blake crept across the back of my mind and I felt a little bad that he wasn't here for this particular moment, but then Daphne sat up and promptly crushed my esophagus again, rendering pretty much any thought completely useless.
When I'd regained my abilities to breathe and speak, I stood up and, amused, watched my little sister run in hyperactive circles around us chattering about how long it'd been since she'd seen us.
I looked over at Logan, who was now leaning against the archway leading into the house, and gave him a small nod. No smiles, no hugs, no acknowledging what he'd done other than this. He returned the nod, though, and my crazy family slowly worked its way back into the house.
"She really hasn't dragged you on a lot of impulse days, has she?" Daphne's voice broke through my reverie. "She does a lot of insane things. Paintballing and dyeing her hair blue is pretty tame for her, so you better get used to it."
"Tame, huh?" Sinclair said, a mischievously contemplative look on his face. That look spelled trouble with a capital T.
I rolled my eyes.
"Come on you two, enough chatter about me. We've got to get going. Wouldn't want to miss the family dinner."
Xavier caught the slightly sardonic lacing on the words 'family dinner', but Daphne thankfully didn't pick up on it.
"How did you get here, anyway?" he asked as we stood up.
"Finn took me to go pick up my car from the shop this morning."
oOoOo
I was hiding. I was hiding and I knew it. Nobody'd tried to find me for a few hours, and I was strangely grateful for this—being forgotten for a while meant some peace and quiet and processing time, which I desperately needed.
Logan had reclaimed his wing of the house for himself, but let Daphne into her old room. We'd perfectly preserved it, of course, keeping it clean and free of dust while she'd been gone, and she was ecstatic to be back in it—if not a little miffed at the childish motif her room still had. We hadn't bothered to update it to suit her now-teenager-ish tastes.
So I sat in the attic, a paintbrush listlessly dangling from my fingers, and stared at blank canvas, irritated. I shoved a chunk of violently blue hair out of my eyes and huffed. I didn't have any idea why inspiration wouldn't hit me, but it was a disgusting feeling. I felt repulsed by the way the blank canvas seemed to taunt me, tell me I couldn't come up with anything to get out. I threw the paintbrush on the ground and it clattered despite the sheet blocking it from the wood floor.
I stood and pushed back the curtains from the window, looking out over the grounds and feeling a frown cross my face. My brothers and Daphne were playing rugby, although there wasn't much order in the game. If Daphne ever ended up with the ball she'd just get tackled with lots of hugs. Blake came home a few hours after we called him and told him Logan had showed up, and it felt almost…normal. We felt like a family.
That was fucking with my head. Majorly.
A soft knock at the door startled me from my reverie and I snapped my attention back to my brothers again, trying to see which one of them it would be, but they'd moved farther away and I couldn't tell from this distance.
I pulled open the door slowly and Nic stood there, hands in his pockets. He didn't have a smile on his face either, and I relaxed a little bit, knowing he wouldn't try and give me the 'come play with us it'll be fun' pep talk, and let him into the room.
"I knew you'd be up here," he said by way of starting the conversation, and I nodded.
"I knew you'd know." A small smile played at my face and he shook his head with a little laugh.
He reached down gracefully and picked up the paintbrush I'd tossed aside, letting it pass between his fingers and staring at it.
"Couldn't think of anything to paint?"
"Yeah. For once."
"That is weird," he conceded. I shut the door behind us and locked it, returning to the window. Our siblings ran around the lawn like morons and it was a welcome sight.
"I can think of a million things to paint or draw right now. Like this," I indicated the scene below us, "but I don't feel it. It would just be another sketch, not anything meaningful. I couldn't make it really come to life."
"It's a lot to take in."
"It's funny," I said pensively, "even if I rewind through my memories to just a few months ago, everything seemed so simple."
"I guess things can't always stay the same." Nic pulled my discarded stool over to the window and sat down on it beside me.
We stayed that way in silence for a long time, until finally I turned away from the window and looked at my older brother—the person who'd been a parent to me ever since ours had left, the one person I knew who loved me more than anyone else in the world.
"I'm not ready for him to be a father again," I said softly, raising a shoulder in a half-shrug, half-apology for the words coming out of my mouth.
Nic's mouth tightened in a grim line and his eyes were hard as he stared out the window when he said, "I know."
The look was so unusual for him that I watched him closely, waiting for any indication of a change in his demeanor. He sighed suddenly, his shoulders hunching, and I pressed my lips together.
"I don't know if any of us is ready," he said finally, "but I think he's going to try. We might as well try having him around without killing him, I guess."
His mouth twisted up in a wry smile as he said this last bit, and now it was my turn to breathe a laugh.
He patted his leg and I sat down on it gingerly, careful to not topple us over with the addition of my weight on the small stool. As we sat there and watched our siblings raucously play outside, I knew exactly what I would be drawing next.
Dominic, sitting there, staring out the window with that torn look on his face. I knew it wouldn't leave me alone until I got it out.
oOoOo
Monday morning arrived and still Logan showed no indication of wanting to leave. I wanted the warning, too. I wanted to know exactly when Daphne would once again be surgically removed from our lives, because it seemed like we wouldn't get over it this time when he decided to pick up and vanish with her.
However, for the time being it seemed like they were staying put so I decided to relax. Blake left again to go to work, Finn went to school, Logan had apparently set up his own little office somewhere in the house, and Daphne was…well, I didn't really know. I assumed she was out for some sort of home-schooling leave but I wasn't sure, and I didn't ask questions.
I went to find Sinclair before school. One, because I wanted to see my boyfriend (boyfriend…it felt so strange to say), and two, because I wanted to talk to him about setting up a time to work on the CAP Project before we ran out of time and went straight into last-minute panic mode.
"Lexington, if you keep skulking around the hallways people are going to think you're up to no good," I heard a voice drawl behind me. I didn't bother turning around; instead I just stopped, standing there while I heard his voice get closer.
"I'm never up to any good," I said offhandedly, "but if they want to think I'm up to something worse than I really am, let them."
"Never up to any good, hmm?" He stopped directly behind me and put his hands on my waist, kissing the point where my jaw met my ear softly. "We could get up to no good, if you wanted."
"We could," I conceded, "got any empty classrooms in mind?"
"You've been at this school longer than I have," he said, and I felt his voice resonating at the points where his front touched my spine. "Which means you know which rooms will be in use in about ten minutes when the second round of classes starts."
"You'll have to give me something for that inform
ation," I said, turning around and smirking at him. "See, because that's valuable knowledge, and I'll want something in return."
"Having me around isn't enough?"
"Oh, it might be," I teased.
"Sloane!" somebody said from behind us, and I turned again, still in the circle of Xavier's arms. Avery was jogging up to us with a strange look on her face.
"If it's bad news I don't want to hear it," I said flatly.
"No news," she shrugged. "Just kind of checking to see if any new locker bullshit has happened."
"So far, so good," I said. The bell rang and I sighed. "Time for class, I guess."
"We'll just have to get up to no good later," Xavier said in my ear. I smirked and shoved him a little with my arm.
"Catch you later, Sinclair."
oOoOo
"I feel like a therapy patient, I'll have you know," I said to Xavier as I laid on the couch in his room. He was sitting on his desk writing something in a notebook, and I was doing most of the talking. It was pretty reminiscent of all those television shows and cartoons where the crazy person spilled all their problems on the couch. I can't imagine it being all that comfortable to talk about all you worst problems while laying down unless you were with someone you really, really trusted.
"You are a head case," Sinclair murmured.
I threw a pillow at him. "I said therapy patient, not head case. Besides, the therapists themselves are probably more crazy than their patients."
"Yeah, any job where you have to solve people's problems probably isn't good for you." He snapped his notebook shut and set it down on the desk, carefully capping the pen and setting it right next to it.
I shifted on the couch habitually to make room for him and he hopped over me and settled near the back of the couch, laying beside me.
"I missed you this weekend," he said.
"You saw me this weekend," I pointed out.
"For a while at Savant."
"True." I twisted around a little to get more comfortable. "I didn't want to leave Daphne. I feel like the second I turn around she's going to disappear."
"I don't think Logan would do that a second time, do you?"
"I think if he did it once, he'd do it again in a heartbeat," I said sourly.
The silence returned and we just sat there. I thought about how my life was becoming a series of awkward silences and grinned internally.
"Okay," Sinclair said, shifting dramatically and turning me so I faced him completely. "You have got to tell me what's wrong."
I finished pushing my leg in between his to get more comfortable and looked him directly in the eye. "I have no idea what the hell is going on."
"Wh—"
"No," I cut him off. "Not about your question. I mean, I don't know what to do with Daphne here. I don't know what Logan wants. I don't know who slashed my tires or painted my locker, I don't know who's leaving stupid notes, I don't know what to do with my whole family together, I don't know what to do about you. I mean, do I introduce you to Logan? I don't know what the absent-father-meeting-new-boyfriend protocol is. Do you?"
Sinclair didn't even look a little bit fazed at my miniature outburst, and picked up a piece of my hair and started playing with it as a temporary distraction.
"I don't know," he said, "but it's not really in your control, so why worry about it?"
I started to say something but he held up a hand.
"I don't mean ignore it completely, but you can't really do anything about this person that's after you, so all you should be worrying about is taking care of yourself. Don't go out alone, and maybe they'll leave you alone. As for Logan…I don't know what he could want. Maybe he really does just want his family back."
"Maybe," I shrugged.
"As for the meeting thing…I really don't care. If you want me to meet him, it's fine, if you don't that's fine too."
"I guess it's not important unless it seems like he really is going to stick around."
A breeze came in through the window and cavorted around in the air, playing across my face pleasantly. Xavier traced his fingers up and down my arm. I felt my eyes closing of their own accord and started drifting off to sleep.
"Do you need a break?" Xavier asked abruptly. I opened my eyes and gave him a blank look.
"What do you mean?" I asked, watching his face intently.
"Exactly what I said. Do you want to get away for a while? We can take a weekend trip somewhere if you want."
"Not right now," I sighed, "I can't leave Daphne. But…I'll keep it in mind, yeah?"
"Yeah."
oOoOo
I had a missed call on my phone from Logan when I woke up, asking me in a very crisp voice where I was. I smirked at this; Dominic was familiar with my habits of staying out all night and I'd already told him where I'd gone—Logan had no idea. Perhaps he was irritated at Dominic's lax way of letting me stay out all night, but what did it matter? If he wanted to be back in our lives, he'd have to get used to the way we did things.
I prodded Xavier's arm while he slept. He brushed it off, still asleep, and I shook my head at him.
"Time to get up," I sang, prodding him some more. He grabbed my wrist suddenly, instantly waking up and sitting up. He winced a little when he moved his head.
"Couch," he explained when I gave him a look. "I wasn't expecting the crick in my neck."
My phone screen lit up just then, and said Incoming Call…Tyler, so I flipped it open and chirped a hello.
"Somebody's in a good mood," Tyler said in an amused voice.
"I'm going to go get dressed," Xavier said, clambering over me on the couch, and I threw off the blanket that ended up on me sometime during the night and proceeded to get up myself.
"And now I know why," Tyler said, still sounding amused.
"Oh hush," I said. "What's up?"
"I thought you might like to know that word on the street is that you have a boyfriend," Tyler said.
"And this is news how?"
"Oh, it's not. Just checking to see if you were paying attention."
"Then what'd you call me for?"
"I can't call to hear my favorite dirty artist wish me a good morning?" he faked a hurt tone.
"Oh wonderful and amazing Tyler, please grace us with your presence at school," I said dramatically, putting as much sugary sweetness and reverence into it as I could. "For the day wouldn't be a proper one without your shining visage—"
"Cut the crap, Sloane, I get the point," he said dryly.
"Oh good, I was afraid I was going to vomit all over Sinclair's floor if I had to keep going."
"You still call him Sinclair?"
"Shut up," I muttered, digging around through the pile of laundry in the corner for a pair of Sinclair's pajama pants.
Silence reigned on the other end of the line and I rolled my eyes when I realized Tyler took that flippant remark at its face value just to annoy me.
"Fine, you can talk," I said, exasperated, while I pulled on the pants. "You're on speaker phone, though."
"How degrading," he teased. "I called to tell you that if you make plans for Friday night, you're toast. There's a party at Henson's, but this time it's different."
"Different how?" I asked absent-mindedly as I tossed my own pants over the back of the couch. Sinclair walked back into the room in fresh clothing and shook his head when he saw me wearing his clothes.
"It's exclusive. Don't tell anyone except the people you want there."
"Is this for my benefit?" I asked speculatively, and the short pause Tyler gave before he answered was enough confirmation for me.
"Kind of. But you didn't hear that from me. Nobody wants to make you feel like a victim or anything."
"Party, Friday night, exclusive guest list, not a victim. Got it. Thanks, Tyler."
I clicked him off of speaker phone and raised the phone up to my ear again while Tyler said bye.
"Come on, let's go find some breakfast," Sinclair said, plucking my phone from my hands and
tossing it down on the couch.
Breakfast at the Sinclair house was pretty much the same routine as at my house—people wandered in and out, sitting on stools around the island and talking while they cooked and/or procured something from a cereal box.
Emma was there when we went into the kitchen and she smiled warmly when she saw me.
"Hey Sloane, how are you?"
"Can't complain," I shrugged, catching the apple Sinclair threw at my head. "Didn't anyone ever teach you it's rude to fling things at people's skulls?"