A More Deserving Blackness

by Wolbert, Angela

  “Bree!”

  I’d heard him. Back, before.

  It’s okay. Shhh. It’s okay.

  I’d heard him.

  “Look at me.” Logan helps me sit up, his arms still wrapped around me, warm and hard. “Bree. Bree?” He shakes me urgently. “Damn it, look at me!”

  I do and his brown eyes are probing, intense. Worried.

  “It’s me. You’re safe. It’s okay, Love. It’s me. You’re safe.”

  He keeps saying it until my eyes focus on his face, until my jerking breaths smooth and even out. Whispering and rocking me, huddled there on the floor.

  Finally he stops, letting his hands slide down my spine and then scooping my hair back, cupping my face and pressing with his thumbs, rubbing them over my cheeks. He searches my eyes and I let him, feeling drained. Still unsteady, I reach my hands up and hook them over his forearms, hanging on to the solid strength of him. His skin is hot where mine is icy. It feels good.

  “You’re safe,” Logan says again, the words shifting the soft strands of hair at my temples.

  I nod slightly and he exhales, letting his head fall forward against mine, our lips almost touching. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

  My eyes close. I’m surrounded by the scent of him, the sound of his voice, the feel of his skin under my hands and his thumbs against my cheekbones and his breath on my mouth. My hands slide up his arms, over the notch of his elbows, the swell of his biceps, the bunched muscle of his broad shoulders, reveling in the feel of him. His long fingers are delved under the weight of my hair, his fingertips pressing hard against the base of my skull. When my palms slide down over his chest I hear his breath hitch, feel the tension of his body under my hands, and pull back slightly, opening my eyes.

  This close, I can see the exact point where his dark brown irises spill into tiny pools of black.

  He searches my eyes as he leans forward, just faintly, and my breath catches.

  Logan groans softly. His fingers tighten and he lowers his head until our lips are just touching - just barely. And then he stops.

  My body is clenched, taut, in anticipation. My fingertips are digging into the muscle of his shoulders, clutching him as our breath mixes, lips parted.

  I make a small, instinctive sound in my throat when he pulls back, and then he covers my mouth with his, one hand flattening, cupping the back of my head while the other drops to the base of my spine. Something fists low in my belly when his lips ease mine further apart, making way for the hot sweep of his tongue. I exhale tremulously and he takes it into himself, sliding his mouth across mine, grazing my lower lip gently with his teeth and then angling his head, deepening the kiss.

  Softly, Logan eases back, whispering kisses over my lips as he pulls away. The hand gripping my head loosens, dropping to the back of my neck and massaging gently, and when my eyes slide open he’s watching me. We’re both breathing heavily as he studies my face, warm and burning from the kiss, and I can feel his heartbeat returning to normal beneath my hands.

  When he finally speaks it’s barely loud enough for me to hear.

  “You okay?”

  My hands feel awkward, still touching his chest, so I drop them to my lap.

  “Bree?”

  When I still don’t respond, he exhales hard. “Love, answer me. Are you okay? Was that okay?”

  I nod my head yes.

  “Good.” Logan smiles. “Good.”

  He easily pushes to his feet, reaching down for my hands and pulling me up with him. I carefully avoid looking at the gun, the dismembered black pieces stark and cold against the white floor. I’m still a little unsteady on my feet, a fact I try to cover it up and Logan lets me, just holding my hand as we walk further into the house. He leads me to where I can sit on the edge of the couch and then turns, disappearing back into the foyer. After a second I hear the unmistakable snap of the clip being loaded into the gun and then the sound of a drawer being opened and shut. When he comes back into the room he squats down in front of me, his elbows on his knees and his empty hands hanging between them.

  He’s not looking at me.

  “I got the gun about a year ago, after the threats started sounding serious enough that I thought I might need one. It’s not registered. It’s illegal to own a handgun if you’re under the age of twenty-one. No one knows I have it.”

  He’s still not looking at me, and I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone, my thumbs moving quickly over the keys. Because I’m fairly sure he doesn’t have his on him I just stuff the thing under his face so he can see it.

  “No, I – I trust you, completely, that’s not why I -” He stops and lifts his head, steadily meeting my gaze. “I just wanted you to know why I have it. The way you were looking at it . . . I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  It’s not your fault. If I were a normal, unbroken girl, the sight of a handgun carefully pointed at the floor wouldn’t have shattered me.

  Logan looks up at me from the words on my screen, carefully blank. “I won’t hurt you.”

  But I already know that. He doesn’t have to say it, when he tells me every day, in a thousand other ways.

  Silently, I reach out with two fingers, pressing them against his lips. Something flashes in his dark eyes and my heart kicks seeing it, seeing the response to me right there in the heat of his gaze. He kisses my fingers and I feel an achy tightness, low in my belly again.

  Suddenly Logan’s on his feet. “Wait here.”

  He darts off down the hall, only to come back a minute later having pulled on a t-shirt and with two of the thicker blankets from his bed in his arms. He grabs my hand as he passes and pulls me with him, over to a door off the kitchen where he snaps the lock open and we step out into the garage, past the edge of his car and through another door he pauses just long enough to unlock. Then we’re standing in his backyard. Logan lets go of my hand to spread one of the blankets over the grass. Then he leads us to sit in the center of the blanket and lays back, pulling me with him so I’m lying on my back, my head pillowed on his arm. His other hand, still woven with mine, rests on his belly.

  “Before we see them as shooting stars, meteoroids fly through the solar system at up to twenty-six miles per second.”

  I glance over at him, but he’s staring up at the sky. I can just make out a smile tugging at his lips.

  “Yeah, I know. But I was told I would one day use my useless knowledge about shooting stars to impress the girl of my dreams. So pay attention.”

  I smile and do as he asks, looking straight up at the sky. The night is clear, and through a break in the trees the light from the moon and the stars is brighter than I would’ve thought it would be.

  He clears his throat and continues self-importantly. “They’re chunks of rock or dust particles, these meteoroids. When the earth travels into the path of debris left by a passing comet, we see a glowing streak called a meteor stream. They hit the atmosphere and they burn, over three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The earth’s atmosphere is impacted by millions of these a day, most of them completely vaporizing in the heat. The rare few that actually make it to the planet’s surface, only about five hundred a year, are called meteorites.”

  He’s silent for a second, but then he turns his head and looks over at me expectantly.

  “Are you impressed?”

  For some reason my heart is beating hard in my chest and I reach for my phone, bringing it up close to my nose to see the keys as I type. I hand it over to him, choosing to watch the sky rather than his face as he reads.

  I’ve never been kissed before.

  Logan puts the phone down wordlessly and rolls onto his side, propping a hand under his head and looking down at me. His face almost blocks out the stars, hovering above me, but there’s enough light that I can see his eyes. They’re flicking back and forth between mine, and for just that moment they look infinitely sad.

  Then his hand slides over my belly, and my toes curl in my shoes.

  “Really?”<
br />
  I nod, and Logan smiles.

  “Well, damn. I didn’t even need it.”

  When Logan picks me up the next morning, it’s only about an hour after I’d left him the night before. Trish is just leaving for work, and she gives me a hug and asks me how I am, and I can honestly tell her I’m better. I scribble it on the napkin she’d wrapped around a blueberry muffin and left for me on the table, and she grins, hugs me again, and with a quick apology, flies out the door.

  Logan had stayed up with me all night, further astonishing me with his notable repertoire of meteoroid-centered trivia, but after a while he’d just started making things up. He’d played with my fingers as we’d stared up at the clear sky and he’d talked about shooting stars and their significance in the Battle of Cold Harbor during the American Civil War, making me laugh. When I’d started shivering he’d covered us with the other blanket, cuddling me into his warmth.

  Now, when he knocks on my door, I open it, already ready.

  “Hey.”

  I can’t help but smile at the sight of him. He’s wearing the same dark, worn out jeans and boots, with a flecked blue t-shirt that fits him with distracting perfection. His hair is still wet from his shower, a dark mess on his head, and he’s clean shaven. My gaze pauses on his lips for a moment before lifting to his eyes.

  Logan smiles like he knows exactly what I’m thinking and passes me one of the apples he’s carrying, weaving the fingers of his free hand into mine.

  “Eat,” he says, and I watch his mouth as he sinks his teeth into the tight skin of his apple, taking a generous bite.

  And I do, because I am a little hungry (I’d forgotten all about Trish’s muffin) and because Logan has a way of making even the most ordinary food look downright decadent.

  Chapter 11

  Can I ask you something?

  I’m texting Logan from beneath my desk in the middle of my English Lit. class.

  Though he’d told me before that he always left his phone on during school, for me, I’m not sure if he’s going to get the message in the middle of class.

  Only a minute passes before his response beeps through to my phone, and my teacher just pauses a second, lifting her head and squinting wearily overtop the class before choosing to ignore the interruption, refocusing on her lecture about the themes of pride and divine will in Sophocles’ Antigone.

  I quickly depress the volume button, switching the ringtone to silent while I read his message.

  Yes.

  Why were you at the party that night?

  It takes a few minutes for the response to pop up, the backlight on my phone blinking off in the lengthening lull.

  I knew Dylan was going to be there. Something happened a couple days before that and I was pissed. I wanted to find out if he had anything to do with it.

  Did you?

  No. I got distracted by a worthier cause.

  He’d probably walked in looking for Dylan and found me, flattened beneath him against the wall, hyperventilating. Lovely.

  I text him furtively, I’m sorry.

  I’m not.

  So you think Dylan could’ve painted that on your house?

  It doesn’t matter who did it.

  What about the fire?

  The list of suspects is as long as the adult population of this entire town, minus one or two.

  Why didn’t you just ask him at school?

  Once again, there’s a pause before the answer blinks onto my screen. Didn’t need teachers watching.

  My stomach sinks.

  Of course. Logan hadn’t just gone to that party for answers; he’d gone itching for a fight. Two years of his best friend reviling him, of being condemned and cast out by the last living people he could possibly call family, and he’d finally reached the breaking point.

  But instead of throwing down the gauntlet, he’d taken a punch to the face for defending me, turned around, and left.

  All because of me.

  I’m still thinking about it when the bell rings, startling me, and when Logan meets me at my locker before health.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks when he sees my face, but I just shake my head and grab his hand, turning toward class.

  We manage to turn a few heads in the short walk, most of them just staring, but there’s the occasional whisper, a few shaking heads, as if our holding hands was a personal insult. I can’t help but wonder if it makes it worse for him, drawing more attention because I’m such a well-known freak.

  Erik is waiting for us in the hall, just outside the door. He straightens when he sees us, adjusting the strap of his olive green messenger bag over his shoulder, his blue eyes flicking back and forth between us like he’s not sure where to look.

  I lift my brows at him - he’s standing between us and the door - and he glances at Logan again, unsure.

  I don’t like the way he’s looking – or, more accurately, not looking – at Logan, as if at any moment Logan could snap and take a swing at Erik, unprovoked, right in the middle of the hall. It pisses me off and I huff impatiently, tugging Logan’s hand and stepping around him toward the room.

  “Wait, Bree. Please. Just – just five minutes. Please.”

  Something in his voice stops me, and then he surprises me by turning his attention to Logan.

  “Can you give us just a minute? Please?”

  Logan moves only his eyes, glancing over at me and lifting his brows. I nod and he squeezes my hand and slips quietly between us into the classroom. Erik watches him go before turning back to me.

  “Look, I’m sorry. But you need to know something. It’s important.”

  I narrow my eyes at him and shake my head. God. Not another warning about the unstable, dangerous creature that is Logan. I want to kick him in the shins but I just turn away.

  “Wait. Just listen.”

  Crossing my arms, I irritably signal for him to finish.

  Erik sighs. “Right. I don’t know a lot. But I’ve heard enough to know you shouldn’t go anywhere near that dance this weekend. Especially not with him.”

  And just that fast I’m pissed again, but Erik isn’t done.

  “You don’t understand. People are still angry. Lieutenant Dawson was a good guy. He was active in the schools, he showed up at all the football games. People liked him. And Brenner got off with nothing. He didn’t even serve a day.”

  Erik stops talking as a group of kids hurries by us, passing a phone between them and laughing raucously at whatever is on the screen. I watch them, edgy, and turn back to Erik.

  “Maybe it’s just stupid pricks running their mouths, but I’ve heard rumors. And after last year . . .” he trails off, starting again. “Just trust me. Don’t go to Homecoming, Bree. And keep Brenner the hell away from there.”

  Erik slips into the room ahead of me, effectively ending the conversation. When I follow him in, Logan watches me, but his face is cautiously blank. Then his eyes shift, and he watches Erik cross the room and sit down. Amazingly, Erik meets his eyes with a slight tilt of his head that might almost be a nod.

  “What was that about?” Logan asks when I slide into the seat next to him.

  I’d already snatched my notebook out of my bag, and I shove the note I’m scribbling across the table to him.

  He was warning me.

  “About what?”

  For you. What happened last Homecoming?

  Mr. Apligian is passing out study guides at the front of the class, and Logan lowers his voice.

  “Nothing.”

  I shoot him a look and he sighs.

  “It was right after the acquittal. I was still a ward of the state, living in a temporary home, but I came back. I tried telling Dylan the truth. His dad threw me out of the house. I tripped on the stairs, left muddy with a cut on my hand from the gravel. The story was greatly exaggerated as it got passed around. Don’t look so worried.”

  I don’t want anything to happen to you. But I don’t write it down. I sit, my stomach churning as I digest this
newest hint at a threat against the single most important person in my life, and try to unearth a smile for him.

  He searches for my hand underneath the table and holds it quietly in his lap, clearly untroubled, as the girl with the bouffant bangs at the table in front of us uses passing back the study guide as an excuse to gawk brazenly. I don’t know how much she heard, but Logan accepts the papers without expression, like she’s not even there. She snatches her hand back like if she touches him she might catch cholera and I can’t resist the urge to kick the back of her chair. Hard.

  She jumps and swivels in her seat, glaring at me. I stare back at her, deadpan, while Logan shifts in his chair to cover up his laughter.

  “Love, it’s okay,” he smiles softly, squeezing my hand, but I can’t wait to get out of there.

  Apligian painfully walks us through every single question on the study guide. Since I’d missed most of the class that day, a lot of the information on CPR sounds new to me, but I barely listen. Logan just rubs his thumb over the back of my hand but it doesn’t ease my anxiety. And when class ends, Erik pauses before leaving the room, looking at us like he wants to say more before following the crowd out into the hall.

  Logan drives us home after school, and this time he insists we spend time at Trish’s house, claiming that he wants to see my room. I lead him back there, feeling oddly exposed, and he walks around, touching the few things I’d taken with me from home. All functional items, nothing frivolous or fanciful. For a second, Logan ponders the single framed photograph of my family and me that sits on a no-frills white shelf, something Trish had installed before I’d even gotten here. He doesn’t say anything though, he just soaks it all in, and I wonder what he’s learning about me from this barren, borrowed space.

  A few minutes later we’re sitting side by side at the kitchen table so he can eat some leftover general tso’s chicken from the fridge while we both work on our homework. He sits close enough that his leg touches mine just above our knees, and every now and then he drops a hand to my thigh, squeezing and rubbing absently. The memory of his tongue licking into my mouth flashes in my mind, and I adjust, restless, in my seat. From the corner of my eye I can see a smile touching his lips.