More Than Him (6 page)

I wondered for a second if Logan had forgotten about me. It'd been months.

"Trust me," he said, pulling me from my thoughts. "He hasn't either."

I turned to my side to face him, causing his hand to wrap around my waist. "Why are you so nice to me? I mean—you don't need to be. I was horrible to you. I treated you so badly, and you still talk to me. You still care about me. Why?"

He pulled me closer to him. "I don't know. I'm not going to lie, it really hurt—what you did to me, but I guess I learned to accept it. Truth is, I'm always going to care about you. You're my best friend, Dim. Shit things happened to you, and you just keep getting up and fighting. You could've easily turned the other way. You could've shut everyone out and let that consume you, but you haven't. And I admire that. I admire you. In fact, I'm pretty sure I love you."

I gasped.

"Shut up, idiot. Not like that." He laughed.

"Oh." Relief washed through me. "Plus, I keep you around because you're easy on the eye."

I shook with laughter and pushed him away.

He brought me closer. "I'm serious, Dim. In high school, you were cute, you know? Now . . . you've gotten so fucking hot—"

"Shut up!" I tried to pull away from him but his hand on my waist kept me there.

"Fine," he sighed. "You want to just fool around for a bit then?"

"Okay," I joked.

"Yessss!" he mocked.

We didn't fool around. We fell asleep.

He kept his hold on me.

And I let him.

***

I went to the store the next day, got all the ingredients that I needed, put on my big girl panties and drove to his house. A part of me hoped he wouldn't be home. The other part of me wanted to see him.

I knocked on the door. He answered almost immediately. His eyes went from my face to the bags in my hand. "Amanda, you have no idea how happy I am to see you."

"Dr. Matth—"

He raised his eyebrows, the gesture alone interrupting me.

I smiled. "Alan." I jerked my head in greeting.

He sat on the counter, like he had the first time I’d cooked for him. He didn't speak much, just watched me. He offered me a beer; I declined, opting for a soda instead.

"Is he safe?" I asked him.

He swallowed his mouthful of taco casserole. "Yes. He's safe."

"Is he happy?" The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Alan sighed, and rested his elbows on either side of his plate. "I wouldn't say he's happy . . . but he's . . . coping."

I placed my fork on the table. "Do you speak to him often?" My voice broke.

"He calls when he can."

I nodded and looked down at my plate.

He perked up. "You want to see pictures of him when he was a kid?"

My lips lifted at the corners. "Yes," I said sheepishly.

"He'd kill me if he found out."

I shrugged. "He's not really here to do that, is he?"

***

We brought our dinner into the living room and finished up eating in there. Alan found six photo albums and placed them on the coffee table. "I know everything is digital now," he said. "But I like to have something physical to hold, you know?"

I smiled, remembering Logan's words. "Yeah, Logan said the same thing about CDs."

"Really?" He smiled back at me. "He told me you said the same thing about books."

I nodded shyly. "Did he talk about me a lot?"

"Are you kidding?" he said. "You were all he talked about." He took his glasses off and pressed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and finger. "I know it doesn't mean much anymore, but he really loved you, Amanda."

Ignoring the conversation, I picked up the first album on the pile and started flipping through it. The first picture was of him as a kid in his little league outfit. You could tell straight away that it was Logan. Even through his forced smile, his dimples still came through.

"That's one of my favorites," Alan said. "Look at him. He was so little for his age, so skinny; not like now." He laughed once. "His clothes are hanging off him." I watched an emotion take over his face. Pride. "His hat's so big, it's almost falling over his eyes." He took the album out of my hands so he could get a better look. An envelope fell out and landed on the floor. I picked it up. "Oh no." He sounded panicked. He held out his hand and said, "You don't want to see those, darlin'."

My eyebrows pinched in confusion.

"They're not . . .
happy
pictures of him."

"What do you mean?" I squeaked.

He sighed and placed the album back on the table. "They're . . . uh . . . evidence."

"Evidence?" I whispered.

He nodded and cleared his throat. Then he lifted his eyes to meet mine, and I knew instantly what he meant.

"Can I?" I asked.

"Sweetheart, they're not—" He blew out a breath, a look of acceptance on his face. "Okay."

I opened the envelope slowly and shook out the pictures, they landed face down in my hands. Taking a huge breath, I carefully flipped them over.

I stopped breathing the same time that Alan gasped.

This is what monsters are capable of.

I pushed down my emotions and looked up at Alan. "This is what he was like when he was brought in?"

Alan just shook his head, his eyes unfocused, his mind elsewhere. "He was a lot worse. That picture was taken a few hours later, after we cleaned up all the blood."

I slowly flipped through the pictures, one by one. Each one told a different story. With each angle, each body part, I could see Logan as a kid, fading slowly with each hit. Then I got to the last one. It was different to the others; it didn't belong. He was smiling. I heard Alan laugh softly and take the picture from my hand. "He's smiling at me because I wouldn't stop laughing. You know those laughs that build up inside your belly. When you're just so damn happy that you can't contain it? It was the first time he spoke to me." He wiped his eyes and replaced his glasses.

"What did he say?"

"What's that, love?"

I smiled and covered his hand with mine. "His first words to you, what did he say?"

He sniffed once, his lips curling into a smile. "He'd just fallen off his bike. I was putting a Band-Aid on his knee and he said, ‘You're a nice doctor man. I want to be you when I grow up.'"

My eyes went wide with surprise. "And look at him now. He's all grown up and on his way there." I tried to comfort him with my words.

"Yeah."

It was silent for a moment as I flipped through the horrible pictures again. "How long did it take him to speak?"

"He didn't. Not until you showed up."

My eyes snapped to his. "What do you mean?"

His eyebrows drew in as he watched me. "Oh. You mean the first time? Sorry. My mind was—"

"Wait. There was a second time?" My voice rose. I couldn't control it.

He let out a slow breath. "Sweetheart," he hesitated a second. "After that night, with everything that happened to you, and to him, he shut down. He blocked out the world and he turned in on himself. He didn't leave the pool house; he didn't speak to anyone. He barely ate. He barely existed. He turned back into that little boy that I'd first met."

"I'm sorry."

"You have no need to be. That's how he copes with things. He doesn't know how to verbalize things properly. His child psychiatrist warned me about it—that it might never solve itself. She said maybe someday, something might happen, and he could turn right back around. I guess that night, when his father came back—that was someday."

I tried to picture it in my mind—Logan, alone in that pool house, barely existing. And then I imagined me—alone in our house, barely existing. We could have barely existed together.

"Anyway," Alan's tone brightened, "I have pictures here of when he was around thirteen. I'm pretty sure that was the age he started to believe he was God's gift to women."

I couldn't help but laugh. "That's so Logan."

"Yes. Yes it is." He started to flip through the albums. "There's a few where he's flexing his scrawny little muscles. He thought he was jacked."

I threw my head back in laughter.

"Here it is," he said handing me the album. Sure enough, there he was, flexing his nonexistent prepubescent muscles. He had that same cocky smirk I was so familiar with.

I shook my head and ran my thumb over the picture. "This is so Logan."

My
Logan.

So that's what we did—talked about past-Logan for the rest of the night.

And then, somehow, I found myself cooking Taco Casserole in his kitchen every other Sunday.      

6

I didn't do much else apart from school, work and the occasional gym session. The self-defense classes Ethan made me do were actually a blessing. I'd learned more about male genitalia than any girl needed to know—unless, of course, you're using that knowledge to battle monsters.

I'd started running, too—on a treadmill. I never really understood running as an activity. It always kind of confused me why so many girls in books ran. Then I read a book where the hero explained to the heroine the benefits of running—about how it releases endorphins and can make you
feel.
I needed to feel, so I jumped on the treadmill, and forty-five minutes later, when I finally hopped off, I felt different. Maybe it was just in my head, or maybe it really did help.

"Will you run with me?" I turned to face Tyson on the sofa next to me. His eyes moved from the TV and slowly made their way to mine. He had a mouthful of popcorn. "What?" he said, popcorn falling out of his mouth.

"You're such a kid. Don't talk with your mouth full."

He swallowed. "You want me to run with you?"

I nodded.

He shrugged.

The front door creaked open and banged close, and I felt Ethan behind me. He tapped me on my shoulder. When I turned to face him, he had a solemn look in his face. Then he showed me the envelope in his hand. I was confused for a second, but then I saw the international stamp, and my name on the front.

Logan.

I closed my bedroom door and sat on the edge of the bed. My knee bounced like crazy. My hands shook. My heart pounded against my chest. Sweat built on my forehead. I inhaled deeply, and then let it out slowly. "Okay," I encouraged myself. I slowly opened the envelope and pulled out the letter.

Pretty girl,

I don't even know where to start. You've probably heard that I've been traveling around. Dad contacted a few people, and I’m working with Doctors Without Borders. I don't know if you've heard of them, but they do a bunch of relief work all over the world. I was helping this one kid, and his mom went into labor, right in front of me. One of the doctors delivered the baby and I was there. I witnessed it all. I was the second person to hold that baby. And you’re right—what you say about them. That they’re miracles. They really are. I wanted so badly to call you after it happened, to tell you all about it. And to tell you that you should do it, become a midwife, or at least try, b
ecause it’s such an amazing feeling, and you would be so perfect for it. 

But I didn’t call, because I knew it wouldn’t be fair to you. Neither is writing this letter, I guess. But I don’t know. I just kind of felt like I needed to. I just needed you to know that I was thinking of you.

Anyway, I’m sure that you don’t care about what some asshole thousands of miles away is doing. I just wanted to tell you that I’m okay . . . not that I expected you to worry about me, or anything.

I guess the real reason I’m writing is because I wanted to tell you that I hope you’re doing well. And I guess I wanted you to know that I understand. I understand that you hate me. And as much as it hurts, I know that I deserve it. But I just didn’t want to go another day without telling you, just in case you had any doubts, that there’s not a single part of me that feels that way about you. All that we had, every moment we shared, it meant everything to me. Everything you felt, I felt it, too. It was the hardest thing to do, to walk away from you, from us, but I had to do it, because you deserve so much more. And I hope you see that. I hope that you’ve moved on and found some guy who treats you like the amazingly beautiful girl you are. And that he knows how lucky he is to have you. I hope he appreciates every single thing about you. And I hope that he loves you and gives you the world, Amanda.

Because I would have.

If shit didn’t get in the way with us, I would have.

I would've given you the entire universe, because that’s what you deserve.

And I want you to know, that I wasn’t lying. Those last words I said to you, they are yours. And so am I. Forever.

Because I do love you, Amanda.

And that’s the truth.
      

Logan.

***

Ty lazily walked into the room and sat on my desk chair. I was still staring at the letter in my hand.

"You okay?" he asked, jerking his head towards the letter.

I cleared my throat. "Yeah." I put the piece of paper back in the envelope and placed it in my handbag on the desk. I started to walk away but he held on to my hand, stopping me. I turned to face him, confused. "What's up?"

He pulled on my hand and spread his legs so I could stand between them. A part of me started to panic. Another part of me was curious.

He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. "Was it from him?" he ground out.

I nodded once. He put one hand on my hip and brought me closer to him. "Come here," he said quietly, pulling me down until I was sitting on his lap.