I stall.
But Logan is a master of patience. He simply waits until I’ve gathered my books into my bag and rearranged them twice to catch my gaze, bending at the knees slightly and ducking to see my face past the curtain of my long hair, raising his brows.
“Should I text you instead?” he deadpans.
I shoot him a look which only makes his eyes smile in victory, even though he manages to keep it from reaching his lips.
I nod.
“Yes, you want me to drive you home?”
Another nod.
“Good,” he says, and I reach up to close my locker.
His hand shoots out, clamping over my left arm.
“What the hell is that?”
He’s staring, appalled, at the raw welt across the skin on the inside of my wrist, his fingers biting into the flesh of my forearm. His face is unmistakably angry and I lurch back but his grip only tightens, refusing to release me. My breathing hitches in fear.
“What is that?”
I shake my head, not really an answer, but my heart is hammering in my chest and it feels like someone is pushing down over my mouth and nose, stealing away the air. Logan’s eyes are dark and glaring at me and inexplicably, utterly pissed.
“Was it Dylan? Did Dylan hurt you?”
I shake my head slightly, just enough.
“Someone else?”
Shocked, staring at him.
“Did someone hurt you?”
We’re frozen like that, his hand holding my arm up by my shoulder, his eyes boring into me, teeth gritted, and though I know there are other students walking past I don’t see any of them, don’t see anything but Logan. Something in his eyes shifts as he realizes I’m not going to answer and he visibly works to control the burst of anger, his fingers loosening, slipping down to tuck against the palm of my hand. It is clammy and cold.
Logan’s eyes are gentler now, almost like it never happened, but something still hangs, haunted and heavy in them. He scoops up both my hands, presses them against the center of his chest for a moment, all without looking directly at me, and then he’s gone.
As Logan walks away, I see Eric standing with a group of his friends I recognize from lunch. He gives me an odd sort of stunned, dismayed look before I turn and leave, frustrated and completely baffled.
But I know there’s no way in hell Logan is driving me home from school that afternoon, no matter how much I might want him to.
I hear little of what is said during first period, unable to shake the image of the rage in Logan’s eyes. After that night in the car, it was unsettling to see that display of emotion directed at me, and it should’ve frightened me, past that initial shock. Should have. But it didn’t. I wasn’t afraid of Logan. Not at all. Mostly I was just afraid of the way he’d turned and walked away, afraid that meant he’d changed his mind about me. It was startling to realize how much that upset me after so little time.
Although I never put much effort into my schoolwork, not anymore, I find it difficult to focus the rest of the day. At lunch I grab my V8 and scan for Logan, but I already know he doesn’t share the same lunch period. I would’ve noticed him.
I sit next to Erik at the usual table, unable to catch his gaze before I lower into the seat; just one more hazard of not speaking. I look up from popping the cap off my drink to find several of the girls staring at me, although Erik is noticeably looking anywhere but. Though I’m used to the stares, I’d hadn’t been on the receiving end of this much attention since the first days of school. I shift uncomfortably in my seat.
“Is that . . . Logan Brenner’s jacket?”
I blink at her, the jacket suddenly burning where I’d draped it across my lap when I’d sat down. From the way she’d asked it, the girl with the pixie-cut – Chloe, I think - already knows the answer. And from the way Erik suddenly freezes like a statue in the seat next to me, he does too.
Oh. Right. Here was the reason for that odd look in the hall.
“It is,” says another girl with a skinny black ponytail; Andrea. She’s nodding like it was all part of some script. “He wears it all the time.”
Chloe smirks at her, and I’m idly aware that by then I should’ve learned something more about them than just their names, but I hadn’t.
“Stalker much?” Chloe taunts.
Andrea of the black ponytail pops a tater tot into her mouth and smiles wickedly, her lips an unnatural shade of dark magenta. “Um, no. He’s totally hot, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t do psycho.”
“I thought she was Dylan’s new thing, anyway,” Chloe says matter-of-factly.
What?
And – yea! - now they’re both looking at me like I might leap over the table at any moment and attack their male friends with my overzealous vagina.
I’m just staring at them, my drink open and untouched in front of me, when Erik clears his throat. He leans sideways, bumping me with his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure they think you’re deaf too,” he tells me in a mock whisper. On the other side of him, on-again Jess gapes at him in open disapproval.
“No, I think she’s crazy,” Chloe says, looking straight at me. Her eyes are rimmed in thick silver glitter, and all I can think is how much that must hurt at the end of the day when it does the inevitable and slips inside her eyelid like tiny shards of glass. “She’d have to be, to wear that.”
“Or just to hang around him long enough to get it,” Andrea chimes in, now staring at me like I’m the Bride of Frankenstein, which is definitely an improvement.
It’s just a jacket, I think, but Erik is the one that speaks.
“Maybe he was just trying to be nice.”
From the other side of Erik, Jess scoffs, leaning her elbows on the table. “Logan Brenner isn’t nice, Erik. He’s scary.”
“Totally psychotic,” Andrea agrees succinctly, like it’s common knowledge, and I can’t help but remember Logan’s sudden, unexplained anger. Had it all been about that red wound on my wrist, or something more?
Erik just shrugs, sharing a look with his girlfriend, and thankfully the conversation moves on. Nobody looks at me, their exaggerated lack of staring almost unnerving. I don’t bother drinking my lunch, I just wait impatiently for the bell.
Health is the only class I share with Logan, and he isn’t in his seat when I enter the room. As per usual, he’d wait until the last possible moment, and sometimes even slightly after it, to find his way through the door. I dart to the back of the class, ignoring the prickle of the eyes that always follow me. As I pass, I notice Erik in a seat three up and one over.
I’m taken aback for a second, but then just slip into my seat, exhausted. Apparently nothing is going to make any sense at all.
When he sees me he leans an arm over the back of his chair. “Hey. Where’d you disappear to Saturday night, anyway?”
His blue eyes are smiling jovially as always, like it’s no big deal that the girl he’d brought to a party had disappeared without him. Though, to be fair, I hadn’t really given him a choice. There’s a new reluctance beneath the lightheartedness, though. A distance, punctuated by his choice of seat, leaving the one next to me empty for the first time in a while.
Needless to say, I don’t answer. I just brace myself for when Logan would take his usual seat across the aisle, and Erik twists his lips with an odd look of regret and swivels back in his seat to face front.
Once again, it’s the boots I see first. He walks by without a pause and drops into his seat, as always never exchanging a single word with another classmate, though they all seem to watch his every move. He ignores them and I ignore him, though it isn’t easy, forcing myself not to look at him, not to see the disgust and anger I’m afraid will still be raging in his eyes. I can feel him watching me, and I resist the urge to drop my wrist into my right hand and scrape away the nerves.
When the bell clamors overhead I lurch from my seat without looking back.
Dylan avoids me in pre-calc, aiming his loud intentions elsewhere for once, pret
ending I don’t exist, which is fine with me. I keep my distance and easily ignore him, shutting him out like the rest of the world. Only Logan slips through. His eyes. His face. Those damn boots that were all I’d seen of him. His voice. He squeezes past every other thought.
Hours later, I’m shocked to find him waiting for me at my locker after school. Shocked enough that I lurch to a stop, still a few steps away. He’s still there, leaning casually against the wall. When I step toward him, he watches me trade out my books and slip on the coat I was still carrying before slinging my bag over my shoulder. I try not to look at him too much, but he does his bending at the knees to catch my eyes thing again and when I finally look up at him his expression is ambiguous, though his brows are furrowed tightly.
I’m wary, waiting for the sudden fury to return, but it never does.
When Logan sees I’m ready he turns, starting off down the hall. There’s a couple walking hand in hand opposite him and the boy actually tugs the girl away from Logan’s path by their linked hands, like he’s a leper or a rapist or both. Then Logan turns a corner and he’s gone.
I stare after him, undecided. Did he come over here just to ditch me? Or am I supposed to follow? I’m not sure.
Shifting slightly, I feel the soft inner material of his jacket lick over the welt on my wrist. I shift again, turning away.
My phone jangles in my bag and I jump, then twist my bag off and fish it out.
I thought you wanted me to drive you home.
I glance down the hall where he’d disappeared but he’s not there. Thought you changed your mind, I type quickly.
You coming?
I drop it into my bag and follow him.
Somehow I’m not surprised to find him just around the corner, waiting for me. He doesn’t smile when he sees me, but he reaches his hand out for mine and that’s infinitely better. His fingers close over mine and we walk like that all the way to his car, earning ourselves more than a few stares and whispers along the way.
He opens my door for me and I sit, but he doesn’t close it immediately. I glance up at him in question.
“Okay?”
He waits for my nod before he shuts the door.
My eyes follow him around the car and when he slides behind the wheel he leans across me, reaching to pop open the glove box. Inside he finds a small white first aid kit and withdraws it, snapping it open and snatching a single bandage from inside before tossing it back. He carefully takes my arm and places it over the armrest between our seats, unwrapping the bandage and smoothing it gently over my wrist. He’s being careful not to hurt me, and it feels nice. His fingers are warm on my skin. When I look up I see him already watching me grimly, his eyes darting back and forth between mine.
This close, his irises are a deep, endless brown, pure of any flecks of other color whatsoever. The edges are rimmed in almost black, and from there they lighten only just enough to be called brown before they end in the small black centers of his pupils. They are at once the darkest and most honest eyes I’ve ever seen.
Holding my gaze, Logan slips his fingers over the bones of my wrist, down the slope of my palm, and between my fingers until our hands are clasped tightly together.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t angry before -” He stops. Starts again. “It wasn’t you.”
He seems to be waiting for a response so I nod and he starts up the car. The entire way home he is quiet and solemn, and my thoughts swirl in my head. I can’t help but wonder who he is, why someone would spray paint the word “Muderer” across the face of his garage in stark red paint, why everyone either hates or fears him, why I seem to be the only person who isn’t afraid while he is equally the only person I’m not afraid of.
God, I’m so sick of being scared. Every move, every breath, every touch is like sandpaper, scraping at my flesh until I’m raw and bleeding and exhausted. All day long I’m constantly working, rebuilding the wall inside of me that keeps the screaming at bay. Laying brick after brick, terrified the whole thing will come crashing down at my feet and I’ll be there again, that rainy night, staring up at the bright lights twinkling merrily overhead. Raindrops falling down almost gently, unhurried in their plunge to the earth. They were cold as they soaked into my hair, my clothes, as they slipped like thieves down the paths of my tears.
Logan’s hand clenches down over mine and I flinch, drawn out of my churning thoughts by the pressure of his grip. I realize my breathing had gotten all messed up again and close my eyes, letting my head rest back against the seat, focusing everything on the touch of his hand alone, forcing the last claws of the memory from my mind. When I open my eyes I see two things. One, we’re sitting in my driveway. And two, his eyes are concerned.
He must think I’m crazy.
I am crazy. Crazy and terrified and wrecked.
It’s only when I’m ready to climb out of his car that I realize I want him to come inside. I don’t want to let go of him just yet, and I wish I could ask him somehow. I hesitate, wondering if I should. I could probably get the message across with body language, or I could pull my phone out and text him, but still I waver. Terror is a difficult thing to ignore.
Logan is, of course, watching my indecision unfold. “What?”
I force myself to shake my head, dismissing it and opening the door.
“Bree?”
I turn back.
“If someone’s hurting you -”
But something in my face stops him, and his hands wring over the top of the wheel, his lips pressed together.
I draw the sleeves of his overlarge coat down over my hands and climb out, closing the door.
“Tomorrow?” I hear from behind me, and I turn back to see him leaning one elbow out the window, the sleeve of his shirt stretched tight over his arm.
I don’t even think about it, I just nod.
Like yesterday, he waits until I’m safe inside the house before driving the fifty yards to his own home across the street.
But he’s wrong, because I’m not safe. I’ll never be safe.
Chapter 5
When Logan stiffens in front of me, my skin goes cold. He’d driven me to school the rest of the week, and today, Friday, is no exception. We’d been amicably silent, as we usually were; the school mute with the school pariah, who was admittedly reticent himself. It was comforting being around him, just being with him, merely because he didn’t see silence as a thing to stuff full of meaningless words, snatching them up and spewing them at me like a short-order cook, hoping maybe one more heaping pile would clear up that unsightly emptiness drifting between us.
Logan was content in quiet. Like he preferred it.
And he never asked me why. A whole week spending more time with him just with the drive to and from school than I’d spent with any human being in the span of almost two entire years, watching that bruise on his cheek slowly fade away, and he never once asked me why I wouldn’t speak to him. I’d heard the rumors. I was crazy or foreign or stupid or disfigured; they kept getting more and more creative the longer they went without answers, feeding off each other like the school’s entire drama department locked in a roomful of coffee and pixie sticks.
Erik hardly even looked at me anymore, and he didn’t wave me over at lunch. When I’d walk past the table to drink my half of a V8 outside in the courtyard, he’d just glance up at me with an expression that looked almost remorseful. It surprised me that I’d actually miss it, his company. That it had actually mattered.
And Dylan gave me the same force field of no-fly zone everyone gave Logan, which I figured worked out best for all parties.
But Logan barely even acted like I was different. He was calm and quiet and steady and by far the very best part of my day.
Which was why I was feeling increasingly hateful toward Friday in general. Every minute was a step closer to the precipice of two entire days without seeing him.
So when his whole body stiffens, his eyes going even darker, goosebumps skitter over my skin.
&
nbsp; Logan shifts his stance, staring at someone over my shoulder, and his hand settles at the small of my back. A gentle pressure, but I can feel the tension in his muscles.
When I turn I see Dylan standing behind me, one hand holding the strap of his obnoxiously orange backpack at his shoulder, the flex of his arm showcasing an excessively large bicep.
“Back off Brenner, I’m just here to talk to Bree.”
Logan says nothing but shifts slightly, his fingers curling over the edge of my hip, easily steering me back enough that somehow he’s put himself in a position to step between Dylan and me should he need to without obstacle. He hasn’t taken his eyes off of Dylan, who is sneering at Logan, only an inch or so taller but at least forty pounds heavier.
“What are you gonna do, Brenner? Beat me to death?”
Logan blinks but doesn’t move, glancing at me for a second before settling his infuriated gaze back on Dylan. “If you want to talk, talk. If not . . .” and he gestures down the hall at the doors leading to the parking lot.
Dylan’s glare is openly hostile, but Logan doesn’t back down. Seeing that Logan isn’t about to leave, Dylan finally focuses on me, pushing a lock of too-long hair from his eyes.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t – I shouldn’t have . . . done that.”
As far as apologies go it’s pretty lame but I don’t care, I just want him gone. Having Logan so tense beside me is setting my nerves on fire, and my skin has started to crawl. But Dylan must smell that same stink of inadequacy in the air because he reaches out for my arm, his eyes all imploring, and I can’t help but jerk away from his touch. While Logan’s hand never leaves my back, he still somehow manages to suddenly be up in Dylan’s face, snarling and pissed as hell.
“Don’t fucking touch her, douchebag.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dylan shoves Logan by his chest, Logan’s boots scuffling back barely an inch across the carpet. Even still, I feel his fingertips tighten down on my hip when Dylan narrows his eyes and spits out, “Fucking psycho.”
He slams his fist into the lockers by Logan’s head and then stomps away, leaving a ring of spectators, eyes and mouths equally gaping. As soon as Dylan is through the doors, Logan turns to me, as close as he can be without touching me, nose to toes. Brown eyes churning, he slips his hand from my back and loosens the death grip I hadn’t even known I’d had on my left wrist, enfolding my hand in his and snatching up my bag from where it sat at our feet. He slams the locker shut and drags me down the hall toward my class. I follow, conscious of the sea of eyes that rush into the void of our retreat.
A More Deserving Blackness Page 6