Sugar & Squall (8 page)

I bobbed up again. “Just one.”

Logan drew his hand across the water. “As you wish. So, what were you dreaming about last night?”

It was unexpected, but no less dangerous in its implications.

“You’ve got to be completely honest,” he said, as if sensing I was preparing to strip away small truths from my story.

I drew in a breath, smoky wisps rushing in with it. “Remember how I said I punched someone, they fell through a window at my old school yadda-yadda? It was about that.”

Better out than in.

“Who was she?”

“Why do you think it’s a girl?”

Logan swam out further. “A hunch.”

All in.

“It was a teacher, actually.”

Truthfully, I expected
shock on his face, admittance I was mentally disturbed. He just stayed there centered in front of me, emotion checked, expression urging me on.

“She accused me of something I didn’t do,
got all worked up. I called her a fucking cow. She said something back, and I snapped.”

Logan pushed away with his arms. “Was she alright?”

The sight of her lying there flashed into my head. It was gone just as soon.

“She was pretty cut up, nothing major. There was a lot of blood, that’s all.”

Logan stroked past me before circling closer.

“You don’t strike me as the violent type, but there is something there. When I first saw you I knew you were different, not in a bad way or anything, just different, determined. What did she accuse you of?”

I laughed. “That’s another question, and you only get one, remember?”

“You got me.” He came closer still. I instinctively backed away with my legs. Self-consciousness swept over me. I drew myself tight together in the water.

“My turn,” I said.

He put his palm out. “Continue.”

I thought about it. “Actually, I’m going to save it.”

He dipped his head. “Suit yourself.”

We swam around slowly for a while, testing the waters you might say. The rain had dropped in intensity, but there was still a resounding hollowness to the room that made it feel completely isolated from the outside world.

I had no doubt in my mind now there was something between us. But that was just it. I didn’t know what to make of it or how to respond. There was always self-esteem reeling me back.
You’re not good enough. Your hair’s too thick. You’re not funny and no-one in a sane frame of mind would think otherwise.
This is what I told myself. And then I’d remember where we were, what was happening and a knot would ball up in my chest I couldn’t untie no matter how hard I looked for distraction.

Logan kicked out in front of me in a powerful action, scooping into the water with his hands, his shoulders rolling in and out. E
very now and then one of his butt cheeks would float up like a baby white whale and I was helpless to suppress laughter. He somersaulted back over to face me, too quick to make anything out, a scandalous smile panning out across his face.

“I saw everything,” I said, a lie.

“You saw absolutely nothing and you know it,” he responded, kicking back towards me.

I twisted a strand of hair together and pulled it back over my ear.

In the back of my mind I was waiting for the lights to come back on, exposing us. Strangers would rush through the door. We’d be helpless.

There was a thrill in it. I was in that perpetual state of nervousness you get waiting for a roller-coaster, and damned as it may be, three-thirds of me was enjoying it.

I noticed we were closer than ever. I hadn’t really moved around much, but the markings on the pool’s edge gave me the impression there was no shallow end. My legs were tiring. I could feel Logan’s kicking away just ahead of me. I caught his eyes.

We stared at each other for the longest time. My mind wandered.

Logan’s eyes were asking me to open up, and not out of guilt or pity. But I was scared that by looking too far into them I might well give over completely and in the process lose the comfort being on the fringe of life allowed.

God, I was serious sometimes, though the bare body below was telling a different story. I was impressed with myself for going through with it. Still, some part of me didn’t fully trust Logan’s motives, regardless of the fact he’d been nothing but a gentlemen since we’d hit the water.

“Have you done this before?” I asked, carefully.

He gave a little pout and shook his head from side to side. Had it not have been for the fact it was immeasurably cute, I would have been furious. I splashed water at him instead, subconsciously trying to keep any dangly bits below water.

He shook it off and ran his fingers through his hair. “To be honest, I’m amazed
you
went through with it.”

I took this little gold star with glee, trying to force the smile away but powerless to prevent it come through.

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” I said, with a wink. It sounded massively cliché and a little stupid, but he smiled, big, wide and all-encompassing.

“I could say the same. I’m a real box of surprises,” he said, raising his eyebrows up and down in a quick double-take.

I rested my back against the edge of the pool, gripping onto the small shelf with my fingers and listening to the water slurp in and out of the trough that ran around the edge.

“How long have we been in?” I asked.

“Maybe half an hour. We’ll start to prune soon.”

“I guess we should get out.”

“You first.”

“No, you,” I replied, splashing water in his face.

“Ladies first. That’s the rule.”

“Fine, but you’ve got to look away again. Promise?”

He gave me a little salute. I quietly quivered at the definition in his arm. Sports or not, he was well-toned.

He rolled his body over, started stroking to the far windows. I suddenly felt cold.

I breast-stroked – how true that was – my way back to the far-left side of the pool, gliding up to it and lifting myself out of the water as smoothly as I could before making my way to the change-room. I looked back briefly.

Logan was there, facing the opposite direction with his elbows up on the tiles. I was thankful he was looking away, but somewhere inside me I was also hoping he’d have one eye on the reflection in the window.

6. SHOCK

People assume that because I have two different-colored eyes, I am, therefore, two people trapped inside one body. I have felt that way before. I’m not talking about bipolar or anything, but just that I’ve got two distinct sides. There’s a green-eyed rage on one, arctic blue placidity on the other. I was currently, without question, the latter. I couldn’t have cared less we were still here alone.

I lay on my side in bed examining the small squares in the ceiling, Logan in Jemma’s bed beside me. I had to admit I was comforted by his presence. It kept the buzz going. All I had to do was slip out of bed, kneel beside him, put my lips to his and that would be it. So simple.

Unfortunately, reality is distinctly different to images we compile in semi-consciousness. It held me back like a rat trap. Will myself all I could, there was little chance I would ever actually make the move required. Instead, as always, I waited for a sign, for safety.

Crossing out goal number one on the DNB did feel good. I instantly fel
t more open, more reckless even, despite our predicament.

Last night I was skinny-dipping, completely nude, with Logan, who is hot. Me,
I
was skinny-dipping. I’d done things people might call crazy, stupid crazy, but I’d been pushed hard into them, and over a long period of time. Logan had spoken all but a few words and I’d ended up, well, swimming with him.

I smiled and let out a muffled laugh into my pillow. He had a certain power over me
, a dangerous power. Was that an entirely good thing? Probably not. Did I care? Hell. No. I. Did. Not.

He wasn’t exploiting me. I was fairly sure of that. He could have looked last night. That would have been easy. Darker still, he could have plain out taken advantage of me. Given Xavier, he woul
dn’t have been the first to try, but I could handle myself.

I rolled over and looked at the digit
al clock beside the bed. Eight a.m. – too early for thoughts so serious. I was about to go back to sleep, when I noticed Jemma’s bed was empty.

My stomach tightened at the sight of the vacant space. The idea Logan might have suffered the same mysterious fate as the rest of the school populous pushed toward the forefront of my brain. I was trying to hold it off and think things through when I noticed the note.

It was folded over once and placed just under his pillow, hard to miss being bright pink and all.

I threw my quilt off, swiveled my legs over the side of the bed and reached out for it, but the sudden movement made me faint and dizzy. My arm was like a tract
or beam. I held it there in midair while I took a breath and regained consciousness before picking up the note. I eagerly devoured its contents.

Morning, sleepy h
ead. Guess what? No one’s around, so get dressed and come down to the dining hall. I made you breakfast. – L.

There was no grand prose here hinting at any kind of non-Platonic relationship, but that wasn’t about to stop my imagination skipping and bounding away from me. I folded the note up and placed it under my pillow. I’d find an appropriate place (read: frame) for it later.

As I dressed, I noted the room itself failed to provide any clues as to anyone else’s whereabouts. Jemma’s clothes still dotted the floor. Amy’s teddy still sat on her dresser, its single black button of an eye giving the illusion it was eternally peeking about. I patted it on the head before walking out and down to the dining hall.

Moving along, the lack of noise was as d
isconcerting as ever. We’d been alone for days now. Even if it were weeks I doubted I would ever get used to it. Although I’d tried not to dwell on this, I couldn’t help but speculate where everyone had gone. I’d even considered I’d died out there on the beach and was now stuck in some kind of limbo awaiting Jennifer Love Hewitt to send me to the light. But then there was last night with Logan, and that was nothing if not vividly real.

He wasn’t in the dining hall. I walked around for a while, finally noticing the middle table, the one we’d been sitting at prior, was made up. There was a glass of orange juice, a bowl of cereal and toast to the side, but it was another pink note weighed down with a fork that drew me toward it.

I smiled. It wasn’t forced. I hoped Logan was watching. In fact, I was certain he was, and I imagined he’d be able to see the sincerity in it and sneak a little smile himself.

I opened the note.

I had planned to do scrambled eggs, but woke up late. I couldn’t find any in the fridge, and there aren’t any free-range chickens outside, sorry. I’ll be in the gym. – L

I didn’t eat much. For one, it just felt weird slurping away on cereal in such a cavernous space with only long-faced windows to watch your every move. Two, I had the jitters – bad. I hadn’t taken him for the spontaneous, on-a-whim kind, though he had proved me very, very wrong last night.

I gulped down a single mouthful of OJ, because I couldn’t bear to leave it there untouched with the toast, and stood.

The gym was the newest part of the school and a contrast to everything else because it looked like it had been plastic-wrapped and literally dumped there at the back. One of the senior girls had toured me and two younger newbies around the day I arrived. The gym had been first on the list, so I knew my way there fine enough.
We’d searched it before. Nothing came up.

Access was via a short hall that ran down from the dining area. So
on I was standing at the double doors to the gym itself, my heart bouncing in my chest and a tingling sensation running over every inch of my body. The gas strut on the door wheezed as I pushed it open.

The lights were out. The only windows were up near the top of the roof. What little light there was blanketed only the tops of objects so all I could make out was maybe a scoreboard up on the far wall, the bleachers on either side, and something in the middle.

There was a whirring sound and the lights flickered on, forcing me to squint given the horrid combination of the hour and their overpowering brightness.

At the center of the gym stood a replica of Stonehenge made out of gym mats and giant foam blocks all covered in thick blue vinyl. The industrial lights above gave it an otherworldly glow. It was like a crazy art installation, some post-modernist
mumbo-jumbo you’d see a whole bunch of intellectuals standing around going ‘ah’ and ‘mmm’. The floor was freshly waxed, turning it to water, and the soft Stonehenge looked mirror-imaged because of it. Pretty damn clever, all considered.

Visit
Stonehenge – number two on the DNB. Mom had set off when she was seventeen and travelled the world before meeting Dad. Her first stop was Ireland, one of the few countries I’d never been.

“What do you think?” Logan asked, walking over from the corner behind me.

“Since when was Stonehenge blue?” It was all I could think of.

“Do you know how long this took to put together?” He was pacing around his creation’s perimeter. “Getting the proportions and scale right, the correct number of blocks, dragging them all out of there.” He pointed at the storeroom in the corner.

I gave him a curious look. He put his hands up in surrender. “Fine, so I got bored and it took me half an hour, but still, impressive, no?”

“Very impressive,” I said, pacing around it. And it was. If you squinted it did indeed look like the real thing. There may have been glossy floorboards instead of meadow grass underneath, and I doubted this structure would be around for three millennia, but yes, it was impressive.

“Is it or is it not the best megalith you’ve ever seen?” He was practically beaming with pride.

“I can’t say I’ve seen that many.”

“At least you can cross something else off your list.”

“You’re really going to help me cross them off, one by one?”

He folded his arms. “That was the plan. By my count, there are three to go.”

“You memorized them?”

“Sure. My memory does function, you know.”

“I didn’t say–
”

“I know. Look, let’s just bask in this glorious creation, okay?”

“Okay.”

So we stood there looking at the makeshift Stonehenge a half-yard apart. That had somehow become the new uniform distance we abided by. I subtly tried to step closer, but it looked obvious, so I pretended I was correcting my balance instead.

Logan had one arm across his chest, the other stroking the stubble on his chin. “In this light they remind me of hay bales.”

“Hay bales? I thought you had a memory. Have you ever seen hay bales? They look nothing like this.”

“Sure they do.”

“Sure they
don’t
,” and I tacked “stupid” onto the end for good measure.

“You can’t talk… bully girl.”

I laughed out loud. “Bully girl? Is that the best you’ve got? My dad could come up with better insults.”

Logan turned away. “Hey, I don’t know how to insult girls. I’m not into all that ‘treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen’ crap. In my books, a lady should be treated like a lady.”

I really had to steady myself now, such was the laughter ensuing.

“You’re calling
me
a lady. Man have you got a lot to learn.”

Logan circled around in front of me. “All I’m saying is that the opposite sex should be treated with respect. I’d never hit a girl, for instance.”

“What if the girl hit you?” I shoved him in the chest.

I’d put in a lot of force, more than I’d realized. He bounced and staggered around before over-correcting and stumbling backwards into Stonehenge. The large foam block closest to him cushioned his fall, but it lost its top, starting a domino effect. Each block bowed and knocked into the next. Within ten seconds the entire masterpiece resembled a giant bucket of blue Legos emptied out onto the floor.

I stood there while Logan emerged. I couldn’t tell whether he was about to break out in laughter or burst into tears. He flung one of the smaller blocks from out behind his back. It caught me right in the left leg, sending me spinning over onto the floor.

“Hey!” I stammered, trying to stand up, but failing miserably and falling back onto my bum. “I thought you didn’t hit girls.”

“I’d hardly call your actions ‘girly,’” he replied, half-covered in blue blocks.

“That’s it,” I said, dragging the thrown block up off the ground and heading his way. I swung it down upon him. He deftly kicked it away with his right leg. I lost my balance, falling forward. He caught me around the ribs and rolled me onto the next block, bumping my elbow, sending tingles up and down my arm.

I half-laughed, half-cried somewhere between pain and joy. He was laughing, too, piling more blocks on top of me until I felt for all intents and purposes like the meat in a giant foam sandwich.

I burst from them to my feet. “I’m a black belt in ka-ra-te, you know.”

“Wipe-on, wipe-off. That kind of stuff?”

I smirked and tackled him onto the floor, but he was too quick, rolling over until he had me pinned completely, my arms caught under his thighs. He raised his head up, away from striking distance.

“You’ve got me,” I said. “Now what?”

“I haven’t got you at all,” he replied. “All you need to do is create some space, a bridge and then a diversion.

“Flash you my boobs, I guess.”

He laughed. “If you must.
Roll your hips and shoulders.”

I did as he said and his legs wavered, trying to maintain balance.

“It’s no good,” I said. “You’re too strong.”

“Says the sensei. Come on, try harder. Roll and then distract me.”

Okay,
I thought.
You want it. You got it.

I rolled hard, enough to get some space between us and bring my head up, where I playfully bit his shoulder.

He jumped back, more from surprise then pain.

“Jesus, I didn’t say bite me!” he laughed. “But okay, that works.” He stumbled back and I followed Nosferatu-like into the center of Foamhenge.

It was stupid, highly immature, but no one cared. We could do anything. If I wanted to roll around in a demolished pile of blocks with a boy, then damn it, that’s just what I was going to do.

After lunch, Logan informed me he had something to do, that we split up for the afternoon.
I protested internally.

Truthfully,
I couldn’t bear to spend even a second away from him at the moment, but I let him go, careful not to come across overly clingy or wanting. As he so deftly pointed out, if I really needed something there was the school PA system; something I wouldn’t use in a million years. The sound of my own voice was bad enough, let alone amplified through a hundred speakers.

I decided to do some snooping. I was curious to see what my competition was like, what made these Carver girls tick.

The staff rooms were first, separated from the main dorm. One of the cooks was kind of kinky. She had a whole drawer full of dildos.

Her neighbor was a family man. He had photos of his wife and kids in gold-gilded frames on the shelf, his stationary neatly arranged on the desk. English teacher, maybe. The only sign of dishevelment was his bed, the mattress having slid off onto the floor.