More Than Her (37 page)

"Hey." Her smile was genuine this time. She looked at the nurse, and then to me. "I'm sorry about my outburst earlier. It's a lot for me to take on. I mean, you being here is enough
—
but Mikayla
—
it just
—
it was too much."

I nodded and took a seat opposite her. "She wanted to be here," I said.

"Yeah." She blinked tightly a few times. "She told me."

Then it was silent for a few moments until she finally sighed, "So..."

"So..." I repeated.

"Lucky we never slept together."

I choked on air.

She laughed.

Then it was silent again.

"He talked about you."

My eyes darted to hers, surprised. "Who?"

"Our dad," she answered.

"Not my dad."

She rolled her eyes. "I get it," she nodded, and then continued, "When I was younger, like really young, maybe up until I was six or something...he used to talk about you."

I laughed once. I didn't even know what to say. "He wasn't specific or anything, he just said that you existed. I knew your name. That was it. And then he stopped coming around. I wasn't sure why, but he was gone a few years. Anyway, my councilor at my old rehab sad I should try to find you
—
maybe it might help motivate me to get better." She paused to take a breath.

I leaned my elbows on the cold metal table and waited. What ever the fuck she was saying, there had to be a point to it all.

"Anyway, I think it must have been around the same time you got adopted out or something
—
when he stopped coming around."

"Maybe," I shrugged.

"Did he hurt you, Logan?" Her voice was still harsh, but underneath it, was a layer of sympathy.

"Why?" I asked her. "Did he hurt
you
?"

"No." She shook her head. "My mom, though. I saw it a few times. But not me
—
not when I was a kid at least."

"What does that mean?"

"What?"

"Not when you were a kid. Has he hurt you recently?" My eyebrows drew in.

Her eyes welled with tears but she looked down to the floor. "He's just not good people, Logan. You need to stay away."

"No shit. What the fuck did he do to you?" My jaw clenched and my fists tightened. She reached over to cover them but I pulled away. It was too soon for her to be touching or comforting me. I didn't need that shit. And even though I had to feel something for her
—
I wasn't ready to feel that.

She sighed, and leant forward. "Micky told me that you know...about my life in LA...she said that word got around and Amanda told you?"

I nodded.

"Also, Amanda Marquez?" She said her name like a question.

"Don't say her name again," I warned.

"Okay. Touchy asshole. No problem." Her hands went up in surrender. "So our Dad
—
"

"Your dad," I cut in.

"Fine, my dad
—
he went to LA, apparently to check up on me. But he was more excited to find out that my boyfriend was dealing drugs and that he could score off him. One thing led to another
—
it started with weed, then ecstasy, meth and then cocaine. It was like the most fucked up form of family reunion possible. For five months straight it was just..." her words trailed off. Then a single tear fell, "And then we had to pay for it all, and I mean
—
how could we? So my boyfriend decided to pay with me."

"And your dad let it happen?" I yelled. I couldn't help it. The nurse sat up straighter, "I'm sorry," I told her, and then repeated the question, quieter this time.

"Like I said, he's not good people."

My head fell back. I eyed the ceiling wondering how the fuck people get so unbelievably bad.

"Now they run some sort of drug ring," she continued. "Pauly from LA, Dad from here."

I shook my head.

"And me?" she said, her eyes falling to the bruises on her arm. "I have the same nightmare every night. Except it's not a nightmare. It's almost like a dream. It's too good that it hurts when I wake up. I dream every night of them. Of Mikayla's family. I can still hear Emily's laugh. And I shouldn't be allowed to. I shouldn't be able to feel the joy that that one sound can bring. I shouldn't be able to close my eyes and see them. I don't deserve to."

***

"Watch it, asshole," some dick in front of me said. Valid. I'd just walked out the visiting room doors when and wasn't looking where I was going, I would have run into him if he didn't say anything.

"Sorry, man."

"Yeah." He tried to square his shoulders, "You better be."

I took him in. He had the same lifelessness that Megan had. His hair was thin, almost like it was going to fall off at any time. He had those same fucked up blood spots on his face. You could tell he made an effort to dress up, his suit hung off his body and was sizes too big. He had flowers in his hand that were clearly picked from the bushes just outside. I don't know how old he was. He could've been forty
—
or he could've been twenty.

"Chill out," I said calmly, opening the door for him. I watched as he walked in and started for Megan's table. She looked up at him. She didn't flinch. She didn't gasp. Her breathing didn't even hitch. But I saw it in her eyes. She was scared. Scared of monsters.

Logan: I need your help

Dad: Anything.

***

"I wonder what fucked up things Dylan and Cam are going to do to your car," Jake said through a laugh. He turned his head to glance at me from the drivers seat.

"I know. Those assholes. We should do something to D's."

We were driving back home. Amanda had fallen asleep in the back seat with me, but she was starting to stir.

"Like what?" Micky asked.

Amanda sat up. "What are we talking about?" Her voice was scratchy from sleep.

"Fucking with Dylan's car," I replied.

She turned her head to face me, her eyes squinting, trying to focus. She bit her lip, looking me up and down.

"What's with you?" I laughed out.

She leaned into me and rested her hand on my dick, rubbing it softly. "I'm so fucking horny right now," she whispered.

My dick twitched.

She kissed my neck, and then bit my earlobe. "I can't wait to get you home and fuck you."

I groaned. My dick got harder.

I pulled her into me and kissed her. Hard.

She palmed my dick through my jeans.

"You got any ideas?" Jake asked.

Fucking cock-blocking Jake Andrews.

Amanda laughed and pulled away. "We can get soda and pour it on the car, get it really sticky, and then cover it with bird feed. A few hours from now it'll be covered in bird shit."

Jake threw his head back in laughter. "You guys are fucking perfect for each other."

I watched her face as a grin overtook her features. "Yeah," she said, her legs coming up on my lap. "We kind of are."

Logan

The day after we visited Megan at Dalton, my dad called. He said that he made a few phone calls and was able to get her transferred to facility in Washington. Far away from any monsters that might chase her. He didn't tell me how he did it or where the money came from to do it and I didn't ask. I knew that if I did, he'd lie.

Apparently Micky called her the next morning to check on her. She said she was fine, but didn't want either of us calling her until she was clean or on her way to recovery. She said she was happy to email and write, but everything gets checked and filtered so it might be a while until we heard from her. That was almost a month ago.

I was still processing everything.

You'd think that finding out you had a sister, and your sister turning out to be who she was, would turn your world upside down. But it didn't. Not for me. Maybe because a part of me had so much to look forward to in the future, that I really didn't give two shits about my past.

Maybe it was because I had Amanda.

"Amanda," I said. "I'm thinking about maybe buying you a car."

I was sitting on the floor, on the edge of the bed, playing on the Xbox. She was lying on the bed, reading a book, her hand played with my hair. "I'm thinking of punching you in the junk," she said flatly.

I laughed. "So that's a no then?"

"That's a fuck no, and don't bring it up again."

"Fine, " I sighed. "What if it doesn't cost me anything?"

"You into grand theft auto?"

"No, what if I trade my car in and get two?" I threw the controller on the floor and faced her. I'd been thinking about it for a while. At first I wanted to just buy her a car, but I knew she wouldn't take it. So I asked Ethan to help me out and lie, say that he bought it for her. He said he couldn't lie to her, that she had some crazy twin sixth sense and knew whenever he was bullshitting. He couldn't even sneak food into the house without her knowing. I continued trying to convince her. "I mean, what kind of twenty year old college student needs a Mercedes? I could get a truck, it'll be bigger, and we can fool around in there more." I sat up straighter and held her face in my hands, she bit her lip, refusing to look at me. "You can get whatever you like, something small. Whatever you want. I already asked my dad, he said it would be fine."

She looked at me then, her eyes shining with tears, she swallowed loudly. I didn't know what to say, so I just kept talking. "Um, Cameron, his mom's boyfriend owns a dealership. I called him the other day, he said he'd work out a great deal for us."

Tears fell then.

"Baby, don't cry."

She didn't respond, just leaned in and kissed me.

And that's what we did, for I don't know how long, just kissed. With our hands on each other
’
s faces and the taste of her tears on our lips, we kissed. "I need you to make love to me now," she whispered.

So I did.

Amanda

Boys in books are so not better. Not compared to Logan Matthews.

I love him.

"So that's a yes to the car?" he asked, kissing me on the forehead. We lay naked in bed, face to face.

"That's still a no to the car. But the fact that you thought of it..." I trailed off. I didn't have words.

"Fine," he sighed like a disgruntled kid.

Then a crack of thunder whipped and rain hit hard against the roof.

He smiled. Huge. "Get dressed!" he ordered, getting out of bed and pulling on his sweats.

"What!" I sat up.

He leaned on the bed, his weight being held up by his arms. He kissed me once. "You trust me, right?" There was excitement in eyes, and for a second I let myself think of him as child. But then I remembered
—
he didn't have that.

"Baby?" He had a huge grin on his face, his dimples the deepest I'd ever seen them. "Please?"

I nodded, and got out of bed. He pulled something out of his desk drawer and waiting for me to finish dressing. Then he took my hand and led me to the front door, opening it wide for me to step through.

"What are you doing?" I yelled over the sound of the rain. It was thick and heavy. I could barely make out the road in front of the house. He just smiled bigger, and lifted me by my waist until my legs were wrapped around him.

"Ready?" he yelled.

"For what?"

And then he stepped into the rain. It only took a few seconds for us to be soaked. I held on to him tight. He kept walking until we were in the middle of the yard where his car was parked.

"It won't hurt you!" he yelled.

I wiped my eyes with one hand; the other was still wrapped tightly around his neck. "What?"

"The rain. It won't hurt you. I won't let it."

He placed me back on the ground, and held my face in his hands.

And then he kissed me.

In the middle of our yard, in the pouring rain, he kissed me.

And it was like no other kiss in the history of kisses.

You know in movies, where the kiss happens, and the cameras pan around in a circle, and you almost get dizzy from watching it? This was that kiss. This was the make-you-dizzy type, the I'm-giving-you-all-of-me type kiss. And I did, somewhere along the way
—
I'd given him all of me. And nothing in the past mattered, because Logan
—
he was my future. My world. My everything.

And then he pulled back. "I'm not going to let anything hurt you. Ever." His hand went in his pocket and he pulled out a gold chain, with a glass vile pendant. He opened it and held it in between us, letting the rain fall into it, and then he screwed it shut and put the chain around my neck. "And now you have this." He lifted it for me to see. "And this." He pushed me backwards until my legs hit the hood of his car and he slowly laid me down, and then he kissed me. And everything around me disappeared. The rain, the sounds, the cold of the metal underneath me. All of it disappeared. And all I could feel was Logan. His warm body pressed against me, his hands in my hair, and his mouth on mine. And then he grabbed my hand and placed it over his heart. "You and me," he shouted. "We're going to make new memories. Ones that you aren't afraid of. And it's going to be amazing."