Two Roads (24 page)

~

The

girl

loves

Logan

Waters.

~

The
instant I wake up, there is only one word on my tongue: Logan.

(Well, that and some other really explicit things involving sexual activity, but let’s just stick with Logan for the sake of this.)

The instant I roll out of bed, the same word is there: Logan.

The instant I stumble to my feet, skid into the bathroom, and look at myself in the mirror, there is only the one word: Logan.

Logan.

Logan Logan Logan.

I am in love with Logan.

It hits me all at once, like a train running over me. I am in love with Logan Waters. I said it, I admitted the truth, the truth that my subconscious has been hiding from me ever since I first laid eyes on him. I don’t know what it is, but something about him just feels so right, so me, so necessary.

I realize now that I’ve always loved him, that I just never understood it until last night. But it makes so much sense. That’s why no boy ever interested me. That’s why Logan was always on my mind. That’s why our rivalry made me so happy. And as scary and terrifying as it is, for once, I embrace it.

I know I can’t ruin it this time around.

He loves me back
, I think, and it’s the most glorious thought in the world. I look at myself in the mirror, my hair a mess, my face all red, my heart still skittering from last night, and I feel myself smile. It’s a fleeting smile, hardly even there, but I pick it up instantly.

I don’t miss those kinds of things: those smiles.

I feel myself breathe, my chest heaving in the yellowish bathroom light, my whole body still buzzing with energy, and I feel different. Refreshed. It’s like a weight has been lifted off of me, like I’m a new person. I mean, I’m the same person deep down, but I don’t feel the same. The guilt that has been lodged in my heart ever since Ben killed himself seems to slip away, and for once, I feel free. Feel relieved.

Logan didn’t fix me; the truth fixed me. But he brought out the best qualities in me. I feel strong, too, stronger than ever, because if I can admit to my arch rival, obnoxiously gorgeous eyelashes and all, that I love him, then I can do anything.

Logan was right.

I can work it out with my parents.

I can embrace who I am.

I can follow my dreams.

I can do it all, because now I have the power to do it all. I am the key to achieving my goals. I took the leap, and now I have a whole road ahead of me, a road I’m ready to take.

I stand in the bathroom for a long time, just thinking, wondering, wishing. I think about Ruby, my one friend and the only one I need, about my parents probably worrying about me for real, about Ben and how he’d lecture me on how if Logan pulls anything on me, he’s dead. I think about Logan, about his smile, the warm feeling he gives me, and then I think about the conference.

Today.

The day we recite our poems to each other.

I check the time--11:12.
Shit
. I am twelve minutes late. Logan isn’t in my room--I assumed he just went out to get his breakfast or something--but I realize now it’s because he’s waiting for me at the convention. So I quickly splash water on my face, slam the bathroom door shut, shove on jeans and a shirt, grab the poem I wrote for Logan the other night, and hop into my car and speed right over to the convention.

The place is buzzing with activity when I arrive, and everyone has already started settling in. A speaker talks about something related to his wife and poetry at the podium, but I don’t listen. I just focus on the mini recitation area in the far corner of the convention that I saw the other day, push past a few people, and fast-walk over to it. I clutch the torn notebook paper I wrote my poem on the whole time, my heart pounding, cursing myself for abandoning Logan like I did.

At first, when I approach the area, I don’t see him. A few people sit in the seats in front of the tiny recitation stand and someone stands up there, bending over and adjusting the mic, their back to me, but no Logan.

Shit
.

I spin around the room, desperately searching for him, hoping he didn’t leave. I don’t see him so I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. I’m halfway to dialing his phone number when I hear a voice from somewhere behind me.

“Heya,” is all it says.

I whirl around and Logan’s smiling face stares back at me as he hovers up by the mic stand. He looks perfect, as always, in another one of his geeky math pickup line t-shirts--”Hey baby why don’t we go back to my place and I can show you the exponential growth of my natural log”--and baggy basketball shorts. I don’t think he plays basketball, but the look sure as hell suits him.

He tosses his dark hair as soon as I meet his gaze, and he gives me a huge, dimpled smile. I can’t help but blush. “Logan,” I say. “So are we… are we doing this? Reciting our poems for each other?”

He nods. “No backing out now, wimp,” he says, smiles, walks over to the podium, and points at a seat in the front. He reaches into his pocket and smooths out a piece of paper on the podium, clears his throat, then turns to me as I sit down. His blue eyes lock with mine, clear and strong, with that little twinkle of happiness I’ve grown to love. If eyes can smile, his are seriously beaming right now.

“Cali,” he starts to say, talking like he’s in front of some huge room and this is a big deal, when in reality his audience consists of a married couple and then a random old man sitting beside them, all looking bored, but it could not be more perfect because I’m here, and he’s here, and that’s all that matters. I watch Logan closely, watch every shift of his jaw, every moment of hesitation he takes. He looks oddly nervous, clearing his throat and forcing himself to smile, and I wait with anticipation. “I, uh… I dared you to swap poems with me so we could recite them for each other, and I decided it only felt right for me to go first.” Breath. “I have something small to confess, and I think this will answer some of your questions.” Breath. I clutch the poem in my hand, frowning.

Logan watches me carefully. He doesn’t look sad, though. He’s telling me a secret, and he doesn’t look sad. Just nervous, in a happy kind of way. I force a smile and nod for him to go on, and he does. “This poem is to you, Cali,” he says, more quietly this time. “I love you, and… well, just listen.” He takes a step back then, moves his hands from the side of the podium to a piece of paper in front of him. Then, he clears his throat, locks eyes with me one last time--a final warning, almost--and as I wait with rapt attention, my insides on edge, he begins reciting it.

From the first line, I know something is wrong.

“Frost once said that life always goes on,”

Logan says quietly, his eyes not leaving mine, and my heartbeat slows. I know that beginning. I know it all too well.

“That one’s song is never silenced,”

he continues, and the alarm starts seeping in because I know this poem.
I know this poem!

“So I should be fine continuing.”

“But Frost never met you,”

Logan says,

“he never saw your smile, he never heard you laugh, and he never knew.”

My toes curl. This is the poem.
The
poem. The one on the Two Roads blog. The one I love with all of my heart. I keep my gaze trained on Logan’s, and he returns the favor. But why is he reciting this poem? He said it was
to
me. Which doesn’t make any sense.

Unless--

“He never knew like I know.”

Not once does Logan take his eyes off of me.

“He never knew that you are the one

that you and all of your quirks have stolen my heart

that you are beautiful and not just in look,

that you make me feel like I matter and that I need you,

I love you.

“Life does not simply go on without you,

My song does not live without yours,

I am not whole without you.

“I often want to tell Frost

that he should shove it up his ass

which may not be the best idea,

but really what is there to do?

Because Frost was a moron

because goddammit he had issues

and he never felt what I feel,

never saw what I see.

There are not two roads when it comes to you;

there is only the road that leads to your love.”

Logan stops then, finishes reciting, and watches me. I don’t know what to do, how to react, what to say. I just stare at him, open and closing my mouth, not bothering to hide the complete confusion racing through me.

That’s the Roadkeeper’s poem.

The
Roadkeeper’s
.

And I met the Roadkeeper, so there is no way…

“I love you, Cali,” Logan whispers, and I feel my hands shake. I don’t know what to do.

He withdraws from the stage, grabs his poem and nods as he walks slowly out. No one claps. Not even me. I just stare and stare as he walks off the stage, keeping his blue eyes trained on me the whole goddamn time, and walks over to me. He forces a smile, sits down in the chair beside me, and still, I say nothing. I open my mouth to ask him something--anything--but he shakes his head.

“Not yet,” he says quietly, and then motions to the door. “C’mon.”

He leads me out of the convention, past the bustle of people, past the raucous laughter and into the lobby and through the front doors, and he doesn’t stop walking until we reach my car. He turns around then, takes my hand.

I hold my breath, not knowing what to ask first. “Logan, are you… are you The Roadkeeper?” I finally manage to say. It doesn’t make any sense, though. I already
met
The Roadkeeper.

He laughs lightly. “No, I am not. You can think of me more as a staff writer for her. I write some of the poems--many of them, actually--and the Roadkeeper, Katherine, writes the others.”

The sun is out again, and the sky above is blue and cloudless. The parking lot is filled with cars but we’re the only people out here, baking in the late-spring California air. “But you--” I start to blurt out, start to protest, but I don’t even know what I’m going to say.

Logan interrupts me. “Let me tell you a story, Cali,” he says quietly, holding my hand in his.

“A story?” I look dubious. Even after I admit my love for him, he is still a senseless idiot at times.

“Yeah, a story. Just… just let me have my stupidity, okay?” He smiles. “Now close your eyes.”

I sigh, but I’m curious, so I go along with it. I close my eyes. I feel his breath beside me, the heat from his body as he leans on the car next to me. I try to picture what he’s doing, what he’s thinking, when he finally speaks again.

“Once upon a time,” Logan says, “there was this girl. She was the sister of my best friend, and she was always the most annoying girl I’ve ever met. She seemed set on bothering my best friend and me as much as possible, and for a while, that pissed me off. But whenever I talked to her, I knew the whole annoying little sister routine was all just an act. I knew she was more than that. She was two years younger than me, and I started to love hanging out with my best friend not only because he was awesome, but because I loved being around his sister as well. She was smart and funny, strong and confident, beautiful and she didn’t even realize it then. I always had a crush on her, thinking it was just a stupid high school kind of crush, and so I never acted on it. But when her brother… died… I felt too guilty. I felt like it was all my fault, like seeing her would kill me internally and seeing me would kill her too, and so I left. My family moved as soon as we could and I didn’t speak to her for three and a half years until I transferred colleges for my senior year and, as luck would have it, she was there.

At first, I didn’t know what to do. Should I tell her the truth? Should I admit how guilty I felt, how I was responsible for her brother’s suicide? Or should I act like it didn’t even bother me? I chose the last one because I thought ignoring her would mean she would stay away, thought it would make things simple, but she
never
made things simple, that terrible, horrible person.” He laughs. “When she first saw me in The Dungeon, she was looking devastated as she got off the phone with her parents, and I thought she was going to ignore me altogether, or ask me what happened to me, what gave me the guts to leave her like that, but she didn’t. Instead, she went right up there and called me a freak as if she’d never met me before. And so I did the only thing I could think to do: I insulted her back.

And you know what she said? She said, ‘I hate you, Logan. But you aren’t bad.’ The next day, she came into The Dungeon, and the same thing happened. Our rivalry started there, and over the months it grew and grew, but I always knew it wasn’t just a rivalry because I always knew I loved her. She wasn’t just the same cliché mean girl. I could tell she didn’t really hookup, could tell she wasn’t really happy, could tell she was still letting Ben’s suicide get to her as much as I was letting it get to me, could tell she had a more beautiful heart than she even realized. And so I loved her. I started writing poems about her; I couldn’t get her out of my head. I’d been working for The Roadkeeper for a few months by then as a kind of internship of sorts, and then I showed her my poems about this girl,
to
the girl, and The Roadkeeper loved them and we started posting them. The girl was you, Cali,” he continues. “The girl was you, and I always loved you. I set all these things up--the date, the convention, everything--so you could give me a chance, so you could see how much I love you. I did it all for you. Almost all of those poems you saw on the blog, including the Frost one, they were love poems to you, in one capacity or another; I was the main character, and you were the love interest. I wrote those poems because they were the only way I could tell you how I felt without actually telling you, confess my love without actually confessing it. It was stupid, I know, but love… loving you… it made me do stupid things.” He takes a deep breath.