A More Deserving Blackness (11 page)

             
“Then you’re the only one.”  But after a second the stiffness melts, and he smiles softly.  “But I’m glad.  Come on.”

             
Logan leads me into the living room by my hand, dropping onto the couch and pulling me down next to him, lifting his arm to settle it around my shoulders.  “Relax.  You look exhausted.”

             
Allowing myself to snuggle in gratefully, my eyes are already feeling heavy as I scan the multitude of his books, so many of them that he’d filled the shelves completely and then started shoving them sideways over top of the others, a jumbled literary Stonehenge.

             
“Yeah, so, you got me,” he whispers over my hair, combing his fingers lightly through the strands.  “I’m a history buff.”  He leans down, his lips brushing my ear.  “Just don’t laugh.”

             
I smile as I slip into sleep.

              When I awake it’s to the sound of Logan’s voice saying my name, the distinctly manly but pleasant smell of him in my nose.

             
“Hey, Love,” he murmurs close to my ear and I blink, shifting to see him knuckling the sleep from his eyes.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t want to wake you up but I have somewhere I need to be in . . .” he glances at the face of his phone – “twenty minutes.”

             
He walks me back to my sister’s house and we fall effortlessly into step with each other, not touching until his arm brushes my hip, and he hooks his index finger through mine, linking us by that one point.

             
When we reach the front door, I stop.

             
“Thank you,” Logan says, and I raise my brows at him.  “For helping me sleep.”

             
I think it was the other way around – I hadn’t had a single nightmare that I could remember, hadn’t woken in a cold sweat with terror cleaving my chest and my stomach in my throat - but he says nothing else.  So I prepare myself to turn away, to leave him for the first time in what feels like months.  Trish won’t be home, and the inside of that empty house echoes, haunted with all the things I’d left inside.  It feels oppressive and I hate it, hate the rest of the hours in the day that push claustrophobically at me, hate everything that isn’t Logan.

             
“Hey.”

             
Logan pulls me from my swirling thoughts and I look up at him.  His dark hair is disheveled, poking out from his head, the shadow on his chin more pronounced.  His shirt is a landscape of wrinkles pressed into the fabric from me sleeping nearly on top of him, and his feet are still bare.  A mess, maybe, but his eyes are bright, alert, and I wonder just how many more those few hours of sleep together on his couch were than he’s usually able to get.

             
“Will you be okay?”

             
I nod.  A lie.

             
“You can still text me if you need me.”

             
Again, I nod.

             
“Promise?”

             
Nod.

             
“Okay.”

             
Logan reaches up, cupping his hands over my face.  He rubs the warm pads of his thumbs against the soft, thin skin under my eyes, pressing lightly against my cheekbones.  It feels wonderful, and then he’s gone.  He glances back just before he disappears back into his house and I slip through the door of Trish’s, restless and heavy.

             
The door clicking shut behind me is loud in the silence, and I kick off my shoes just to hear the two solid thuds of them hitting the floor.  The house smells of coffee and Trish’s perfume, and there’s a note on the counter telling me that our mother had called, that she’s worried about me, that she loves me.  Always the same message.  It’s held in place by a sandwich in plastic wrap, a kind if not terribly subtle gesture, but my stomach revolts at the thought of eating anything.

             
I make my way into my room and toss Logan’s coat onto the white quilted bedspread, missing it the second I let it slither down my arms.  I should brush my teeth.  Shower.  Get dressed.  But I don’t.  I stand in the middle of my room, staring at the crumpled carcass of Logan’s black jacket with the pale blue walls spinning around me, and clutch at my wrist.  Not with my nail, not slashing, just . . . gripping.  Rubbing.  Under my thumb I feel the slam of my own pulse and it makes me want to gag, my mouth hot and dry and sticky, swelling around my tongue.  My chest feels tight and I clench my eyes shut, willing this not to happen. 

             
I want to beat the walls with my fists and screech until I’m gargling blood and my hands are meat and bone and it terrifies me.  I can’t.  I can’t scream.  I know I can’t, but I want to and I never used to.

             
Not before Logan.

             
Black splotches splatter like clots of blood over the image of my room and I drop to my butt on the carpet, shoving my head between my knees.

             
God
damn
it! 

             
It takes a long time to slow my breathing, to blink the clots away, to loosen my painful grip.  I’d looped my arms around my thighs in order to press the pad of my thumb between the tendons of my wrist, stretching the scabbed flesh there, and when I peel it away the red stain is already dry.

             
Exhausted, I reach one arm up and snag Logan’s coat from the bed, folding it in half and pillowing it beneath my head right there on the carpet.  My body aches.  I lay that way, not sleeping, not moving, until Trish comes home and I have to force myself up and into the shower so she doesn’t poke her head in and find me like that on the floor.  So she doesn’t worry. 

             
I think about last night, about the morning, a little about everything he’d told me but much more about his scars.  I pick up the coat and breathe in his scent that is already beginning to fade from my wearing it and wonder if that had been him that had called me “Love,” as I’d woken, or just another echo of his voice in a dream.

Chapter 7

A noise startles me awake
Saturday night, and I sit straight up in bed.  My eyes dart around
in
the dark, searching for the source of the noise, but the room is quiet and still.  Just when I’ve almost decided I must’ve dreamed it I hear a squeal of tires on the road outside and throw off the covers, moving quickly down the hall to the kitchen.  With one hand I push the white slatted blinds out of the way and then lurch back, inhaling sharply.

             
Logan’s house is burning.

             
Racing through the kitchen, crashing through the front door, I’m outside and across the street in a matter of seconds. 

             
No, it’s not the house.  But the small white fence out front is crackling with fire and tongues of it are reaching, arching toward the support beam at the corner of the porch, the flames huge and angry.  The heat of it slaps me in the face as I reach the end of his driveway, just as he comes barreling through the front door.

             
He’s carrying a white five gallon bucket of water that he flings toward the flames as I throw myself up the remainder of his driveway.

             
“Damn it Bree, stay back!”

             
I just shove past him into the house, grabbing the first thing I see – the salad-turned-fruit bowl on the kitchen counter – and upend it, apples and oranges and bananas tumbling over the counter and onto the floor.  Wondering inanely why it isn’t still empty, I thrust it under the faucet Logan had left running full force.  He races in behind me and cuts right, slamming open the door to the bathroom and clanging the bucket into the tub, wrenching on the valve.

             
My heart is racing as I sprint back outside and throw the water, scramble back through the door, fill up the bowl again and return, only peripherally aware of Logan’s pounding steps, his heavy breathing as we pass.  Once.  Twice.  Three times.  On the fourth our timing is off and I turn to rush back inside only to smack dead into his chest, the bowl falling from my hands with a clatter.

             
“
Damn
it!”

             
I flinch and he drops his bucket full of water, a splash of it splattering my bare legs and feet, and grips my arms, yanking me inside.  He pushes me into a kitchen chair and then disappears, only to come back a few minutes later, closing the door and leaning wearily back against it, closing his eyes, his chest heaving for air.  Sweat drips from his dark hair, mud splattered over his bare feet and the bottoms of his jeans.  He lets the empty bucket drop from his fingers, bouncing loudly and spraying droplets of water before rolling to a stop.

             
“It’s out.”

             
I stare at him, unable to not notice that he’s not wearing a shirt.  Unable to not notice that, although he’d pulled on a pair of jeans before dashing outside, he hadn’t bothered to button them, hadn’t bothered to pull anything on beneath them.  They hang loose from his hips, revealing a trail of dark hair low on his stomach that disappears into the half-open V of his zipper. 

             
His eyes pop back open and he crosses to the kitchen in a few huge strides.

             
“You okay?”

             
I’m shaking and my arms feel like that cheap white paste we used to use in elementary school for craft time, but I nod anyway.

             
He scowls at me.  “Damn it, you’re not even wearing shoes.”

             
Neither was he, but I wasn’t shoving him around cursing at him.

             
The thought shocks me, how naturally the idea of swearing back at him had sprung to mind, and I push it away.

             
Patting my back pocket for my phone, I realize belatedly that I’m not wearing my jeans, only a pair of grey cotton boxers and a faded old Gone with the Wind t-shirt two sizes too large and . . . absolutely no bra. 

             
My phone is back at my house, charging on the table at my bedside, right where I’d left it.

             
Along with my bra.

             
Logan catches the gesture and curses again under his breath, turning to stomp down the hall only to return a few seconds later with a pen and a pad of paper.  And his jeans buttoned.

             
He slaps them down on the table in front of me and waggles his hand irritably.

             
I push away the urge to cover myself with my arm, as I know exactly how my more than usually large breasts look under a shirt without the smoothing support of a bra, and narrow my eyes at him. 

             
Stop swearing at me.

             
He pries open his jaw.  Claps it shut again.  Sighs and collapses into the chair opposite mine, propping his elbows on the table and dropping his face into his hands.  “Okay.”

             
I quickly jot down a question and scoot the pad across the table, nudging his arm with the edge so he’ll look down.

             
“A couple of assholes from school.  It doesn’t matter.”

             
This time he watches as I write the question -
Someone sets your house on fire and it doesn’t matter? –
but he doesn’t answer. 
You should call the police,
I scribble, but this only prompts a thick, bitter laughter.

             
I wonder at that for just a second before,
Are you sure it’s out?

             
“Yeah.  It’s done.”

             
You should press charges.

             
“No, Bree, I can’t.”

             
Why not?
  Then, underlined twice,
You could’ve died!

             
He angles a look at me, all dark eyes and sweaty brown hair.  “It’s a fence.”

             
Grumpily glaring back at him. 
Maybe they just have shitty aim.

             
Logan laughs, but it’s tired.             

             
“Did I hurt you?”

             
I shake my head.

             
“I’m sorry.  I wasn’t – I didn’t want you to get hurt.  You shouldn’t have had to deal with that.”

             
The quiet of the kitchen, the orderly ticking of the clock on the wall; it’s all disorienting in contrast to everything that had just happened, so when Logan flops an arm across the table, palm up, I grip his offered hand gratefully.

             
He squeezes my fingers.  “Thank you.”

             
I’m smiling sadly at him when the look of gratitude freezes on his face.  “You
are
hurt.”

             
I’m shaking my head but he’s looking down at my arm and I glance down to see . . . blood.  But it’s not fresh, it’s dried, and we both know it has nothing to do with the fire.

             
Logan’s face blanks, his eyes flashing up to mine.  “You didn’t call.”

             
I don’t shake my head, but it’s not really a question, and he already knows the answer.

             
He’s just breathing, staring at my wrist.  Then he exhales and pushes up from the table with a scrape of protest from the chair legs.

             
I’m writing frantically, my fingers aching, and when I’m done I spin to try and catch him but I’m too late, he’s gone, and I don’t even think I just jerk up and race after him, the notebook and pen in my hand and my heart in my throat.

             
Only to screech to a halt as I nearly bounce off his chest for the second time tonight, and I just react.  I swing it hard, smacking him across the shoulder with the pad of paper.

             
“Ow!  What the
hell?”

             
Furiously I stab a finger back at the kitchen and then at his chest and he’s already shaking his head.

             
“I wasn’t leaving, I was just -” he holds up a simple green and white plaid fleece I hadn’t noticed he was holding.  “You were shaking.  Here.”  He shoves it at me, trading for the pad of paper.

             
As he reads, squinting at my sloppy, rushed writing, he steers me with a hand on my back into the kitchen.  I sit and wrap the blanket around my shoulders but can’t help but feel the absence of him touching me as he proceeds to collect the scattered fruit from the floor, but the bowl is still out on his burnt porch so he just sets it all on the counter.

             
He’s still reading, deciphering my choppy words.

             
I didn’t do it.  It’s not what you think.  I tried not to but I needed something.  I couldn’t control it any other way.  I didn’t cut though.  I didn’t use my nail.

             
Logan sighs heavily.  He’d been doing that a lot lately.

             
“You don’t have to apologize.  That’s not what I -”  He stops, starts again.  “If you needed something, why didn’t you call me?”

             
I’m shaking my head, and he tosses the paper back and I scribble,
I needed pain.

             
He says nothing, just watching me, his eyes miserable.

             
I’m sorry they burned your mother’s fence.

             
“She’s dead.  She doesn’t care.”

             
That’s
not funny.

             
“No, it’s not.  Bree, I’m tired.”  Then, “Damn it, no!  I’m not asking you to leave.”  Blowing out a hard breath.  “I want to ask you back onto the couch with me because I think I’m going to collapse any second now and maybe if you’re touching me we’ll both be able to get some sleep but I need to take a shower first because I reek and my mother also raised me never to cuddle with a girl when I smell like rotisserie armpit.”

             
It’s quite possibly the most I’d ever heard him speak all at once, and I find myself marveling that I’d once thought him quiet.

             
Okay
.

             
In the end, Logan gets his shower, and I wash up in the half-bath by the kitchen, scrubbing the sweat from my face, the blood from my wrist, and the dirt from my feet and underneath my nails.

             
I don’t have to wait long before he returns, wearing a pair of grey drawstring pants and a plain white t-shirt, his hair still dripping onto his shoulders.  He scoops me up from the couch irreverently into his arms, plopping down where he’d just lifted me from and settling me in his lap, applying just enough pressure that I flop my head down on his chest.  Then he stills.

             
“Is this okay?”  Like it had only just occurred to him that curling up in his lap might make me uncomfortable.

             
It doesn’t though, and I smile and nod against his shirt.

             
“Good.”

             
His skin is still hot from his shower through the fabric, and when his fingers find their way into my hair I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open.

             
“She didn’t deserve him, you know.” 

             
What? 

             
I almost ask it out loud, lulled into a feeling of safety in my half-sleep in his arms, but Logan doesn’t notice.

             
“Scarlett O’Hara.”  His voice guff with sleep.  “He was right to leave her.  That wasn’t a love story, it was Black Death in a dress.”

             
I lift up my head and stare at him.

             
“You’re shirt.”  Then, “Yes, I’ve watched it.”  And he smashes my head back down to his chest with the hand in my hair and I can feel him chuckling when he tells me, “Stop laughing.”

              I open my eyes to see Logan’s face.  Watchful, almost black eyes, with a clump of dark hair hanging forgotten on his forehead.  His eyes keep flicking down to my lips and I can see the black feather of his eyelashes, the tiny burst of lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes.  But I’m dreaming, I know I’m dreaming, because he’s never looked at me like that before.  There’s a restless hunger in his eyes and he leans toward me in slow motion, his breath on my mouth.