A More Deserving Blackness

by Wolbert, Angela

  After a minute, Logan pulls back slightly, our hips still tightly connected but enough distance between our upper bodies that he can see my face. He studies me closely.

  “Are you okay?”

  I feel myself simultaneously smile and blush as I nod.

  Logan winces. “I’m sorry, I have to . . .” and then he pulls up and off of me, disappearing out of the bedroom and down the hall. I miss him instantly.

  While he’s gone I sit up in the bed, combing my hair from my face and rearranging my clothing with trembling hands. It doesn’t take long before he’s back, a pair of dark jeans replacing the drawstring cotton pants he’d worn earlier. My blush deepens and I feel suddenly shy.

  Logan’s face is impassive as he crosses the room, grabbing his shirt from the floor and pulling it over his head. He sits next to me with one knee bent, the other leg hanging off the edge of the bed, searching my face.

  “I didn’t mean for that to happen,” he says matter-of-factly.

  I flinch like he’d slapped me. Throwing my legs over the side of the bed, I push to my feet.

  “Bree, wait.”

  Logan stands up too but I move stiffly toward the door, just needing to get out of there before I start crying.

  “Damn it!”

  Logan catches up to me easily, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me back against him. “I didn’t say I didn’t want it to happen.” He turns me around in his arms and bends at the knees a little, aligning his eyes with mine. He kisses me, soft and lingering. “I just didn’t mean for it to. Not yet. Not then.” A frustrated noise in his throat. “For God’s sake you’d just woken up screaming.”

  I had.

  I’d woken up screaming his name.

  Amazingly, I’d almost forgotten.

  Logan feels me tense, my eyes dropping away from him, and sighs. “Bree. Talk to me.” He cups my face, lifting, searching. When he sees the guarded look in my eyes he shakes his head.

  “No, I mean -” he spins around, quickly scans the room, and then launches at the table by his bed, snatching up his phone and shoving it into my hands. “Here. Love, I swear to God I don’t give a shit if you talk to me, just talk to me.”

  I waver, staring down at the phone, thin and cold in my hands.

  “What are you afraid of? What’s so bad you can’t let yourself speak? What will happen if you do?”

  I wince as his words pick at that still tender spot, unsettling the memories. Silent images of my nightmare – my past - drift up like specters from the fog in my mind. The screams float up until I feel myself stiffen under his hands, tightly closing my eyes.

  “Come here.”

  Logan leads me back to the bed, sitting me on the edge and squatting down in front of me. “Can you tell me what you were dreaming about?”

  The same thing, I type quickly, and he reads it upside-down from where it rests in my lap. It’s always the same thing.

  I see him considering that, dissecting it. “But you don’t always wake up screaming my name.”

  It’s getting harder.

  “What is?”

  Holding back the screaming.

  Logan’s eyes widen; that same shocked look people get when the blood is draining out of their bodies, before their brain registers the severity of their wounds.

  “Bree?”

  I want to close my eyes and crawl into bed with him. I want to wrap my body around him as close as it will go and sleep for days, but I force myself to answer the question he doesn’t even know how to ask.

  If I start, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.

  Chapter 12

  Saturday morning, the morning of the school’s Homecoming dance, I wake with the sun on my face, muted through the simple blue panel curtains over the windows, and I realize Logan had let me sleep in. I lift my head from the pillow and turn over to find him lying beside me on top of the covers while I, on the other hand, am wrapped in them twice over. He has a book in one hand, his thumb holding the page. His other arm is raised over his head, bent at the elbow so the sleeve of his black shirt stretches tight over his bicep, his palm cradling his head as he reads.

  He looks over, lowering the book to his stomach. “Good morning.”

  I smile, stretching, and in one motion he drops the book, rolling onto his hip and snaking an arm around my waist. He pulls me tight against him, his other hand propped on his elbow under his head, and his lips are smiling when they slant ever so slowly over mine. I can feel his arousal pressed against my belly but he just kisses me gently; light, whispering kisses. His tongue parts my lips to touch mine, leaving me breathless before he retreats, pressing his warm mouth to my jaw, my lips, my chest.

  “Hungry?” his voice is muffled against my skin and I blink. When did my hands find their way into his hair?

  What did he say?

  When he looks up at me, all sleepy almost-black eyes and messy dark hair and shadowed jaw, I just shake my head and Logan grins.

  “Too bad. I’m starving.”

  He rolls from the bed and pads barefoot down the hall and I sit up slowly, glaring after him before following.

  He eats breakfast, but not until I sit with him and nibble at a piece of toast at his beckoning. When my phone trills from back in his bedroom, Logan raises his eyebrows at me while he chews. I push up from the table, brushing my hands off on my shirt while I go retrieve my phone.

  Are you still at Logan’s? It’s Trish.

  I type back that I am, returning to the kitchen and sinking into my chair, and because I can see that Logan is curious I tilt the screen toward him so he can read it.

  I’ve almost set it back onto the table before it beeps again. You’ve been over there a lot - everything ok?

  I like it here, I type simply.

  Mom and Dad keep asking about this guy you’re spending all your time with.

  I glance up at Logan, and he just looks back at me, waiting. He’s leaning over the table on his forearms, his broad shoulders filling out his black shirt, head cocked slightly to the side and that one clump of hair just barely long enough to fall onto his forehead. Gradually, a wolfish smile starts in his dark eyes and spreads slowly over his lips.

  You can tell them he’s a gentleman.

  I’ve told them he makes you smile, which is even better. Then, You could tell them yourself. Just call them. Just try.

  I can’t.

  Don’t say that. You will, when it’s right. You just need some time.

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes, distracted by the warmth coming off of Logan’s skin as he leans close to me to read. He smells like a combination of the orange he’d just eaten and the bed we’d just crawled out of and I want to grab the front of his shirt and drag him back there.

  At least text Mom, okay? She wants to talk to you.

  I don’t answer, thinking about the last time my mom had spoken to me on the phone, and there’s a long pause. I’m just about convinced she’s gone back to her usual hands-off optimism when the phone beeps again, vibrating loudly against the table where I’d set it between Logan and myself.

  Are you being careful?

  Logan clears his throat and abruptly sits back.

  I blink at him. Look down at the screen.

  Oh, God.

  She didn’t mean it like that, did she?

  My face is uncomfortably hot when I text back evasively, I’m fine.

  Logan is trying not to smile and I resist the urge to kick him under the table.

  Where’s he taking you tonight?

  When I’d told her Logan was taking me on a date the night of Homecoming, just not to the dance, Trish had practically exploded with joy. Since then she’d asked me about it at least seven times and counting.

  I was a little more reserved, unable to erase the feeling of dread I’d had since Dylan’s thinly veiled threat, which was only intensified by my conversation with Erik.

  Now, Logan is gathering orange peels in his hand and pushing to his feet, sha
king his head. “It’s a surprise.”

  I type as much, and a second later comes, Will you be coming home first?

  I look down at myself. I’m wearing a thoroughly rumpled t-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts, the same thing I always wake up in when I’m with Logan, as I hadn’t quite gotten around to keeping a spare of anything but a toothbrush over here, so . . . Yes.

  Ok. See you then.

  Huh. That last part surprised me. Trish was hardly ever home in the middle of the day on a Saturday, and it wasn’t like I regularly checked in with her, other than through my phone.

  I show the message to Logan and he shrugs. “Maybe she wants to make sure I haven’t chopped you up and buried you in my basement.”

  It’s not funny and I say as much with my disapproving scowl.

  The mystery is solved easily, however, when I cross the road back to the house a few hours later to find Trish poised in middle of the living room, still in her perfect work clothes, her smile taking over her freckled face and two large shopping bags dangling from her hands. I stop dead, staring at her.

  “Oh, come on,” she says at my expression. “Can’t I buy my sister something for her big date?”

  I feel myself smiling as she pulls me over to the couch, perching me on the edge of the cushion and making a big production out of showing me her purchases.

  “I’m sorry for snooping but I looked, and you didn’t bring a single dress with you, and none of mine would fit over all those curves Mom passed on only to you.”

  She pulls a soft cotton dress from the bag and holds it up for me to see. “I thought you could use a little color,” she tells me, almost apologetically, and it’s true, it isn’t one I would’ve picked myself. The dress is lightweight and flirty and undeniably periwinkle, thin straps holding up a bodice of scrunched material, gathered in the center to show a hint of cleavage. The empire waistline falls to a knee-length skirt, full enough that it would flick and sway when I walked.

  I’m trying to imagine wearing it tonight with Logan when I hear plastic rustling again and she pulls out a thin black button sweater and a pair of low-heeled matte black cowboy boots.

  “I know, I know. You don’t have to wear them if you hate them, I just thought it would be a nice surprise, and I wanted to get you something special . . .”

  She trails off, and I realize I’m still just sitting there, my hands in my lap, staring at the clothes. I stand up, surprising us both when I draw her into a brief hug. She squeezes me tightly and I pull back, smiling my thanks. The hug was fast and I hadn’t said a word but even still, Trish has tears in her eyes when I turn and take the gifts down the hall with me to my room to get ready. While I’m there I send my mom a quick text, telling her about the date, about the clothes Trish bought me, keeping it light and upbeat.

  At five o’clock Logan picks me up, but I’d been ready a full fifteen minutes ahead of time. He knocks and I open the door and his eyes widen a little at the sight of me. I know what I look like. The dress fits me perfectly, hugging the generous curves of my hips, my full breasts, dipping low enough in front to display just a hint of cleavage. I’d pulled the sweater on over it and pushed the sleeves up past my elbows, shoved my feet into the boots that gave me another inch and a half of height but still left me needing to tilt my head back to see Logan’s eyes. They’re drinking me in, and I suddenly realize this is the first time he’s seen me in anything other than a t-shirt and jeans.

  Trish had insisted on helping me with my hair as well, and she’d painstakingly wrapped it, one excessively long chunk at time, around her curling iron. She’d chatted at me, asking me questions about Logan I’d answered with vague, wordless replies while she’d worked. In the end she pulled the sides back, clipping them together at the back of my head with a simple silver barrette, leaving the rest to fall in gentle curls past my shoulders.

  I had to admit, it looked nice. And Trish had enjoyed herself.

  “Wow,” Logan says, still staring at me. “You look incredible.”

  He does, too. He’d traded the old, worn-out jeans for a pair that is crisp and deep blue, fitted in all the right areas. Over top of them is a slim, black military-style shirt with buttoned straps on the shoulders, the long sleeves rolled casually to his forearms. The same boots, but cleaner, and a simple black leather belt.

  And a single white rose in his hand.

  “Here,” he says, offering it to me. “And -” and then he steps closer, taking both my hands in his and kissing me eagerly, tilting his head to fit his mouth over mine. He smells fantastic. I push up on my toes to meet him.

  Logan stops suddenly, pulling away just a little, kissing my hair before speaking over my shoulder with a slight nod. “Hey, Ms. McCaffrey.”

  From behind me, my sister is doing a crappy job hiding her laugher. “It’s just Trish, Logan, and it’s nice to see you again.”

  I’m still trying to remember if I’d actually moaned out loud while he was kissing me when Trish shoos us out the door, her smile ratcheting up to super-wattage as Logan chivalrously offers his arm, seeing how unsteady I am on the stairs in the modest heels of those boots. As always, he opens my door for me first.

  “You’re blushing,” he tells me matter-of-factly, dropping into the driver’s seat. I just glare at him and lift the rose to my nose, touched that he’d brought me white, that he’d remembered.

  He drives for a while and I’m grateful, knowing he’d once again chosen a place far enough away that we wouldn’t run into anyone from town. He drives confidently, his left elbow propped on the door with his fingers hooked casually around the wheel, and I let myself appreciate the way that black fabric clings to his body, the military buttoned straps only accentuating the breadth of his shoulders. He reaches his right hand to smooth it over my thigh, his palm hot through the soft dress. Every now and then he rubs his thumb over my leg, drawing small circles through the fabric, and it feels good enough that I have to focus not to shift in the seat under his touch. When I finally cross my thighs, restless, I see Logan’s lips hinting at a smile out of the corner of my eye.

  He takes me to a tiny restaurant with old black and white photographs covering almost every inch of the dark burgundy walls. We’re seated at a small table with a single flickering red candle and mismatched, decorative wrought-iron chairs, and once I settle into mine Logan drags his around the table to position it at my side. When the waitress brings out bread that is still hot and fills a shallow dish with olive oil and herbs, Logan rips a piece from the loaf, dunks it, and offers it to me. It tastes good, the fluffy inside soaking up the oil and seasoning, and I let him pass me a few more pieces. We order dinner, and once he’s eaten his meal and I’ve had as much as I can, he wordlessly switches our plates, easily finishing the rest of mine as well.

  The sun is slanting across the evening sky once we’re back in his car, bouncing off the windshield in a spray of brilliant white and sparking brightly against the changing leaves outside.

  I use my free hand to type into my phone.

  “You gonna show me that or am I just supposed to guess?” Logan asks dryly, shifting his hand on the wheel, and I take in the play of muscle in his forearm beneath the rolled sleeve of his shirt. He’s distracting as hell in that shirt, hugging the shape of his chest, his dark jeans pulled tight over his thighs from how he’s sitting.

  I tilt the screen toward him and watch his eyes flick back and forth between it and the road.

  “What, leave town?”

  I nod.

  “Because I thought I could change their minds. There’re a hell of a lot of people I didn’t give a shit about, but a few I did.”

  Dylan and his dad, I realize. The last of the makeshift family he and his mother had made. I ache for him.

  “Plus, my mom had lived in that house since before I was born so I was able to pay it off with the insurance money. It was ours. Back before, when it was just me and her.”

  Logan looks over at me as he slows the car, turning down
a dirt road. “But my shrink says I’m punishing myself because of the guilt I feel over the circumstances of my mother’s death.”

  That wasn’t your fault.

  “Yeah, that’s what she tells me.” He pulls the car off onto a long, bumpy drive, maneuvering slowly through the deep, cracking dirt ruts. At the top of a hill we reach an oblong unpaved parking area occupied with only two other vehicles and he stops the car and kills the engine. “That’s where I went last Saturday. After I asked you to have breakfast with me? One of the stipulations of my acquittal was periodic psychiatric evaluations by a court approved psychiatrist. The first year was required but after that . . .” he shrugs, and I can tell that even though he brought it up, the topic is making him uncomfortable. “She’s a friend, I guess.”

  I can relate, thinking of my own experiences, the revolving door of counselors my mother had set me up with, hoping that maybe the next one would be able to help. The parade of women – they were always women, my mother made sure of that - with kind smiles and nylon-covered legs, crossed at the knee. I wanted them to help me. I wanted them to fix me. But they couldn’t. The more they tapped at the wall in my head, the harder it was for me to breathe. And my parents couldn’t stand to see me suffer any more than I already had.

  It was one of the reasons I’d had to leave. To save them that.

  So I really don’t care if he sees a psychiatrist or an acupuncturist or a damn voodoo priest if it helps.

  “We’re here.”

  I look out the windows, scanning what I can see. A few weathered picnic tables scattered here and there. Two quaint older buildings surrounded in squat bales of golden hay, white paint chipping away from their wooden exteriors. And apple trees, stretching down in row after weaving row.

  An orchard.

  Logan laughs at the animated grin on my face. “I guess that means I did all right.”

  We do it all. My hand in his, Logan leads me leisurely up and down the lanes of trees, dotted with white, hand painted signs denoting the selected varieties of apple. With the sun sinking slowly at our backs we sample different apples straight from the branches, buffing them on Logan’s jeans and passing them back and forth, debating which are our favorites. Then he leads me down to a small patch of raspberry bushes and the juice stains our fingers red. Inside one of the buildings the spicy smell is incredible and he buys cider and two donuts, still warm. He sits down on a bale of hay to eat, pulling me down onto his lap with one hand over my hip in that dress. I let him finish mine, and then we’re both licking our fingers and sharing a cup of cider, stealing kisses that taste like cinnamon and sugar.