The Fine Line

by Kobishop, Alicia

  “The problem is he told me he loved me and then slept with another girl!” Was she delirious? Had she not remembered what happened? I gave her a disgusted look and started walking quickly.

  “Bullshit!” Melody argued as she caught up with me. “The problem is you’re scared and you’re making excuses. You said he didn’t even remember it, right? You know he doesn’t care about her.”

  “I don’t know, Mel, I can’t seem to get past it.” I said as we walked out the front doors of the school. “Besides, whose side are you on anyway?”

  “I’m on your side, Liv. I want you to be happy. Stop torturing yourself for things that you have no control over and let yourself be happy.”

  “You can’t possibly think what he did was okay.”

  “No. Of course not. If he did what you think he did, it would absolutely NOT be okay. But if there’s any possibility that he didn’t do it, wouldn’t you want to give it another chance? You believe that he doesn’t remember, right? Why assume the worst?”

  I didn’t answer her right away. Because I didn’t have an answer. Part of me was still too angry to give it a chance, while the other part begged to hear him out at the very least. Ever since meeting this extraordinary boy several months ago, my heart and my brain have been doing nothing but attacking each other. And I had no idea how to get a freaking grip. If this is what love was like, I wanted nothing to do with it.

  I stopped instantly when I saw Logan with his backside and palms against the hood of his Mustang, parked in the no parking zone. His head was bowed down as if he were deep in thought. A single red rose hung between the fingers of his right hand.

  “I forgot something in my locker,” Mel announced just before quickly scurrying off.

  A wave of emotions hit me all at once, and my eyes burned as I held back the tears. I took a deep breath, forcing the lump in my throat to cease. I would be strong. I would not falter like I did earlier today. This would not faze me. A rush of pain pulsed in my heart as he looked up at me.

  God, I’ve missed those eyes.

  His face brightened when he saw me, but there was an underlying sadness behind it. He smiled, but there were dark circles around his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in days. I walked to him, stopped two feet in front of him, and waited.

  “This is for you.” He handed me the rose. “I wanted to give you…something special.”

  “Thank you.” We stood silent for a moment, with our eyes locked. Why did I have to feel so at peace…so at home when I looked in his eyes? I told myself, again, to stay strong. It took all the willpower I had not to jump into his arms. After a few moments, the silence became awkward.

  “Okay. Well. I guess I’ll see you around,” I said, and I turned to walk away, confused as hell.

  “Liv, wait!”

  I turned to face him.

  “Can I give you a ride home? I know about your car.”

  “How?”

  “Mel texted me.”

  Of course she did. I looked around, fidgeting with my backpack, trying to come up with an excuse not to go with him, but nothing came to me.

  “Sure,” I nodded.

  With a glimmer of hope in his eyes, he opened the door for me, and I took a seat. My backpack found a place on the floorboard between my feet while my eyes stayed glued to Logan as he rounded the front of the car and slid into the driver’s seat.

  What the hell was I doing?

  The ride to my house was a silent one. As I sat in the passenger seat, the scent of Armor All mixed with leather and…Logan…instantly reminded me of everything I had been missing so terribly. I stared out the window, watching the snow-covered trees and houses pass. Feeling him so close to me, with nothing but the stick shift between us, but knowing I couldn’t reach over and take his hand, only increased my torment. Tears stung my eyes as I thought about how things between us would never be the way it used to be.

  As we rolled into my driveway, my cheeks began to burn. I tried to force the tears back so Logan wouldn’t see me cry, but ever since my floodgates opened a few weeks ago, I’ve had trouble getting my wall back up. Being near him was more difficult that I thought it would be.

  Why is he making this harder?

  I pulled myself together. “Logan, what do you want?”

  "Do you still love me?" he bluntly asked.

  Taken aback by the forwardness of his question, I stayed silent. Of course I still loved him. It's not something you can just turn off. Love wasn't the issue. Bad things happen when you love someone too much. I had already made the mistake of letting my guard down once. I had no intention of doing it again. The only problem was, my guard was already gone.

  "Liv, please, I need to know." His expression became one of frustration.

  I sighed. "What do you want me to say, Logan? It doesn't matter."

  "Yes, it fucking matters!" he instantly shouted, banging his hands on the steering wheel. The outburst caused me to jump in my seat. "It's the ONLY fucking thing that matters." Resting his elbow on his window, he pinched the bridge of his nose and took a calming breath. "Shit. I'm sorry. Please, I just need to know."

  "I don't...I can't..." I couldn't get it out. I couldn't tell him that I didn't love him. It would be a lie. My heart was telling me to be honest, but I couldn't seem to do that either. All the heartbreak in my life came from love. Everyone I loved had either left me or fallen out of my life somehow, leaving an empty void. I knew if we were together, he would do the same eventually, intentionally or not. Wouldn’t it be better to cut the ties now than to wait until he was intertwined so deeply in my life that I would have no way of recovering? I couldn’t even bear the thought of having to get over him now. At this point, how would I manage it if I fell deeper in love with him?

  And what if he hurts me again?

  I turned to face him but still, no words came out. The hopefulness in his eyes gradually turned to anguish. He had taken my silence for rejection. His head bowed down.

  "Logan, I'm sorry..." Finally, my vocal chords were cooperating, but I still couldn't say what I needed to. My mind was on overdrive and all the answers were scrambled. Nothing was clear anymore, and I didn’t have an answer to give him.

  He wiped his eye with the meaty part of his palm, then faced me. "I'm leaving for a while, Liv.”

  No! My mouth fell open.

  “I tried so hard not to fall in love with you. Not to want you…or even care. But the more I'm around you, the harder I fucking fall for you. You’re everywhere I look. Everything reminds me of you. I need to leave town until I can figure out how to function here without you. There's a pretty big racing scene in Miami. They’re organized there, not like here. I made plans to leave in the morning. I just thought maybe..."

  Tears welled in my eyes, and this time I couldn't hold them back. A sob escaped me.

  “Oh shit, Liv. Please don’t cry.” He reacted to my expression by reaching over to me, pulling me to him, where he held me tight. He smelled so good. A mixture of leather and aftershave…and him. The thought of never being in his arms like this again destroyed me. He held on to me for several minutes. “This will be the best thing. For both of us. I know you can’t forgive me. Trust me, I get it. You have every right not to. This is the only way to move on.”

  His words made sense. I knew he was right. Why did it feel so wrong?

  As he slowly released me, he took my chin, forcing me to look into his crushed eyes, and wiped away the tears on my cheeks with his thumb. His touch ignited the familiar electrical current that I had been longing for this past week.

  "I couldn't leave without giving this one last chance," he explained. "I would regret it if I didn't try. At least now I know.” He brought his lips to my forehead where they lingered. Then, he looked into my eyes, forcing a sullen smile. “Your car is fixed by the way. It was the alternator.”

  After several moments, he sighed and abruptly pulled away, placing both hands on the steering wheel while looking straight ahead. It was my cue to ge
t out of the car. This was it. I was never going to see him again. Silent tears streamed down my cheeks as I took a final look at him. His cheeks were flushed, his jaw clenched, and his knuckles white. I waited for any further acknowledgement from him, but he wouldn’t look at me.

  Devastated, I opened the door and exited the car. He waited, idling in the driveway until I was safely in the house. I watched through the living room window as his car slowly backed out to the road and rolled away down the street. My ears strained until I could no longer hear the rumble.

  My body collapsed like dead weight onto the couch. I thought about the feeling I had when I was with him. Happiness. The way he looked into my soul like nobody else ever could. His strong arms around me. His laugh. Our intimate moments together. How could I let that go?

  I felt myself creep into a mental state of despair that was more brutal than the misery I felt after my dad, Kevin, and Adam. Suddenly I realized that I didn’t have a say with them. I never had the opportunity to fight for what I wanted before, like I do now. And my only chance was slipping away.

  My body shot up to a sitting position. In an instant, I realized that the only thing that would prevent this hurt was being with Logan. I no longer cared about Chloe. I knew deep in my heart that she was nothing more than a mistake to him. To me, she was just an excuse I was using to prevent the inevitable abandonment. He didn’t love her; he loved me. But the inevitable was happening anyway. And it was all my fault.

  The fear of what might happen vanished. All I wanted was to be where he was. Even if it was brief, even if it ended tomorrow, I wanted to be with him as long as I possibly could. The only thing that scared me was losing him now. Maybe I could forgive him. The least I could do was try. I would regret it forever if I let him go like this.

  I'm such an idiot!

  I had put him through so much already, I hoped it wasn’t too late. I hoped he would forgive me. Without another thought, I jumped up and impulsively ran out the door, grabbing my phone and car keys out of my coat pocket on the way out the door. As I reached my car, with my fingers under the door handle, I stopped abruptly, as my heart stopped beating.

  My ears perked up to the sound of a low distant rumble. A rumble that grew louder and deeper with every passing second. My head turned to face the road in anticipation. A moment later, a canary yellow 1969 Ford Mustang pulled into my driveway. A half-laugh, half-sob came out of me as Logan stepped out of it.

  “I still love you!” I cried as he ran toward me with wet, bloodshot eyes and a panic stricken face. “I’ve always loved you! Please stay!”

  I thought he was going to pull me into a tight embrace, but instead, his strong hands clutched my neck, eagerly pulling me close, and he linked his lips firmly to mine, parting them a second later, deepening the kiss.

  Absolute euphoria erupted throughout every part of my body. My skin burned and my heart pounded hard in my chest. The fight in me was gone. The cold winter air was replaced by the fire radiating from our skin. Everything else in the world washed away, with each passing moment becoming more intense than the last.

  I slid my hands up his back and pulled him to me, although it still didn’t seem like I could ever get close enough. He let out a muffled moan as I tried desperately to bring him closer. He lifted me so that I had to wrap my legs around him, and I buried my eyes into his neck, squeezing them shut to stop the tears, as I clutched onto him. He simply held me that way for several minutes.

  “What are you doing?” I mumbled, keeping my face buried. “Why did you come back?”

  He lowered me back to the ground. With an expression that could only be described as tortured, he stared intently at me. "I can't leave you,” he admitted as though he couldn’t understand it. “All I could think about was how wrong it felt. I couldn't physically fucking do it because I'm scared to death of not having you in my life. Not being around you in some capacity would be my own personal living hell. I know I fucked up. And there’s nothing I can do to change what happened. I’m so, so sorry. I wish you could forgive me, and I know you shouldn’t, but I can’t fucking leave you.”

  His eyes filled with tears as his face crunched up in disgust at the thought of what he had done. “Tell me what you need, Liv. I promised you that I would do whatever I need to do to make you happy, and that will never change. No matter what…Regardless of how you feel about me…I am always going to love you.”

  His profound, heartfelt words brought tears and laughter out of me at the same time. “Just tell me you'll always be here. With me," I pleaded, letting go of any trace of my stupid pride. I pulled him tight to me and rested my head on his chest. “Please don’t ever leave.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief and held me close. “Never. I promise, Liv. I'll never leave you."

  “You won’t go to Miami?”

  “Fuck no.” He looked at me and gently brushed my hair behind my ear, as his bewildered gaze collided with my desperate one. “Not without you.”

  Relief overcame me. He wanted to be with me. But as much as I wanted everything to be okay, I needed answers before I could completely turn a blind eye to the devastating incident that took place with Chloe less than a week ago. I needed to be sure it would never happen again.

  As he cupped his hand on my cheek, my teeth began to chatter. My body could no longer take the below freezing temperature. “My parents aren’t home…Do you want to come in for a while?” I asked.

  He nodded, “Yeah.”

  Logan followed me into the house and watched me closely as I removed my coat and rested it on one of the kitchen chairs.

  “Do you want something to drink?” I asked as I reached into the cupboard for a glass.

  “No, I’m good,” he replied as I filled my glass with tap water.

  “You can take your coat off if you want,” I said.

  I peeked at him through the corner of my eye as I took a gulp of water. His eyes were still on me. I continued to drink as I watched him take off his coat. His eyes didn’t leave mine once, not even when he hung it on the chair, on top of my coat. He looked incredible, as usual, despite the dark circles around his eyes. Before I knew it, my entire glass of water was gone, and I placed the empty glass on the countertop.

  “Thirsty?” he asked. I wasn’t sure if he was teasing. There was no hint of a smile in his expression.

  “Not really. You’re just distracting me.” Why did I have to blurt out my thoughts like that?

  He continued to watch me intensely, then followed me as I walked to the living room. He sat down on the couch as I turned on the stereo. After picking a good station, one that played blues music, I sat down on the opposite end of the couch. If I was going to ask the tough questions, I needed to keep my bearings, which meant keeping some amount of distance between us.

  “I want you to tell me what happened.”

  He nodded as if he understood. He stayed quiet as he looked down, deep in thought. “I don’t fucking know what happened.”

  “What do you remember? Logan, please. I need this. You have no idea how much I want to work this out with you, but I need you to tell me what happened.”

  His eyes were filled with remorse and longing as he stared at me. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

  I couldn’t bear the way he was looking at me. He seemed so sad. I instinctively slid across the couch, gently took his hand in mine, and rested my head on his shoulder. “Please, just tell me what you remember.”

  He tightened his grip on my hand as he exhaled. “I was so pissed off at myself for what I said to you that night, Liv. I was stupid to say I didn’t want to see you anymore because nothing could’ve been further from the truth. I wanted…I want to see you every minute of every day. I wasn’t thinking straight, and I thought that if I gave you an ultimatum, you would choose me.”

  “Logan, you didn’t give me a chance…”

  “I know!” He pulled me closed and kissed my forehead. “I know that now. And I know I was being a control freak. And I kno
w when someone tells you to do something, you do the opposite. I was just so damn jealous, I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  I pulled away slightly, causing the look of remorse in his eyes to intensify. He took a deep breath and continued. “When I couldn’t find you, I went back to my apartment, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had royally fucked everything up. I was pretty damn sure you would never forgive me for letting you go like that. I don’t know what happened to you, Liv, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you don’t let people in. I knew I lost my shot with you. And I hated myself for it. I grabbed a bottle of Jack, took it to my room, stripped down to my boxers and started drinking. It didn’t take long to pass out after that.”

  “You didn’t call Chloe?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Well then, why was she there?”

  “Fuck if I know.”

  “Logan! Stop being so vague. You have to remember something.”

  “I remember going to bed. I know I didn’t wake up until morning. After you left that morning, I asked her how she got in and she told me the door was unlocked. She let herself in, Liv. I wouldn’t forget fucking someone.”

  His words placed hope in my heart. I remembered him saying that he had called everyone that night to try to find me…maybe Chloe heard about our falling-out and used it as an opportunity. But remorse still remained fastened in Logan’s eyes. There was more to hear. “What happened when you woke up?”

  He sighed, then rubbed his forehead. Whatever he was thinking was causing him some serious stress.

  “Please be honest with me,” I whispered.

  When he looked at me, I knew it wasn’t going to be good.

  “I thought she was you,” he said.

  Oh God.

  His eyes glossed over and as he looked down, a single drop fell from his right eye. “I woke up hung-over, and I didn’t open my eyes right away. Her back was on my chest and my arm was around her. I thought you had come back to me. I said ‘I love you’ thinking it was you, and then you…she…turned around and kissed me.”