by Jay McLean
At two in the afternoon, there’s a knock on my door. I pray for Logan, but he has a key. He’d come right in. Because this is his house. Our house. Lucas and Laney look as worried as I feel. Laney hugs me. “Have you heard—”
“Not a single thing, and his phone—”
“Goes right to voicemail,” Lucas finishes for me. “I know, I’ve been trying all day.”
Laney says, “Lucy and Cameron checked out his shack. Cam even took a bolt cutter to the lock on the shipping container. It doesn’t look like he’s been there for months.”
“The twins went through video footage of the security cameras around the house and by the front gate,” Luke tells me. “He hasn’t been there.”
My stomach drops at their news, and I cry into my hands. “Where the hell is he?” I sob.
Laney takes me in her arms again. “We’ll stay here with you until we find out something.”
“Have you checked his truck?” Luke asks, and I shake my head, rush out to the garage with them right behind me. We search through his car frantically, looking for any clues. There’s nothing there.
Laney asks, pointing at the floor by Logan’s workbench. “What’s this?”
I make my way around the car to see what she’s pointing at. Ash. Not the normal kind I used to find back when Logan smoked every night. There’s more of it, and it’s thicker. Lucas squats down, runs his finger through it. “It looks like burnt paper.” He looks up at me. “Do you know what it is?”
“I have no idea.”
At 5:26 in the evening, Laney’s phone rings and we all jump at the sound. “It’s Misty,” she says. Her stepmother. The town’s Senior Deputy. The one who was there the day Carter was here.
“Oh God,” I breathe out, the worst possible scenarios running through my mind.
Laney answers, but the news Misty has for us is neither good, nor bad.
It’s nothing.
Leo comes home from campus, and that’s when I know it’s bad. That this isn’t one of Logan’s episodes where he disappears for a few hours and comes back as if nothing happened. Leo’s presence in my house replaces Luke and Lane’s. He enters with a bag of food from the diner. “Dad said to make sure you were eating.”
“Could you eat if you were me?”
“I can’t even eat, and I’m not you,” he sighs out. His eyes are red, raw, tired. I wonder what I must look like. “He’ll be okay,” he tells me. “He has to be.”
“How do you know?”
His throat rolls with his swallow, then he sighs. “I don’t, Aubrey. I’m sorry.”
Day turns to night, again, and I can’t stop the constant tears filling my eyes or the constant dread filling my soul.
Leo sits in the armchair.
I sit on the couch.
We watch our phones.
Watch each other.
We don’t sleep.
Can’t.
I ask, “Does Lachlan know?”
“Not yet. We don’t want to worry him until we know.”
“Until we know what?”
He rubs at his tired eyes. “I have no idea. I’m just trying to stay positive. Aren’t you?”
I cry harder.
He gets up to sit down next to me and holds me through every sob, every inconsistent beat of my heart.
“God, Leo, I’m so worried.”
“Me too,” he says. “Fuck, Aubrey. Me too.”
Logan
I wake up in the back seat of a moving car, and I have no idea how I got here. Denny’s driving. His roommate is in the front passenger’s seat. Next to me is a girl: hair darker than dark, longer than long. Black denim clings to her legs, white tank, black leather jacket. Her window’s down, and she’s smoking a cigarette, blowing cancer out the window. She turns to me, smiles. “Nice to see you’re still alive,” she says.
At her voice, my head throbs.
It takes a minute for me to register who she is. Charlie. A brat through elementary school, a troublemaker through middle school. By the time she was expelled from high school, she’d been suspended too many times to count. Her most infamous ordeal included an attempt to set the school on fire. She’s me on steroids, minus a dick. “I thought you left town,” I mumble.
“I did. Now I’m back.” She offers me a drag. I decline.
I attempt to stretch my legs, but the car is too fucking small, and every muscle in my body rejects the movement. “Where the fuck are we?”
Denny chuckles. “You said you wanted to go with us.”
“Go fucking where?” I reach into my pocket, feel Mary’s needy grasp light hope into my lungs, and I no longer care where we’re going, just as long as I have my bitch by my side.
“Acid’s a trip, huh?” Charlie asks.
I spark the tip of my joint and roll down my window. Then I pull Mary inside me, my head rolling when I feel her warmth cover me, her legs wrapping around me.
Isn’t it good to have me back, Logan?
“So good,” I mumble.
Charlie giggles. “If you think acid’s good, you should try ecstasy,” she says, dropping a bag of pills on my lap.
“I’m good,” I tell her, staring down at the pills.
Mary laughs right in my goddamn ear, cynical and sinful. You don’t want to be nine years old forever, do you, Logan?
Aubrey
Logan: I’m safe. Don’t let anyone worry about me.
As soon as Leo gets the text from Logan, he tries to call him, but his phone’s already off again.
At least we know he’s alive.
At least there’s that.
Leo calls Tom, who calls Misty, who calls Laney, who calls me.
And I have no one to call but my mom.
She shows up a few hours later, followed closely by Lucy. We sit silently at the kitchen table that Logan had made me, the table we spent days sanding and staining in the garage, laughing and dancing and happy to just exist together.
I pick at a knot in the wood until my fingers ache.
“Aubrey,” Mom whispers, covering my hand with hers.
I look up at her, but she’s barely visible through my never-ending tears.
“What are you feeling, honey?”
I inhale a shaky breath, because breathing through this level of heartache feels impossible. “I feel… selfish for feeling insignificant.” I get to my feet, start pacing. “He contacted Leo, who doesn’t even live in the same house or the same fucking town!”
“Leo’s his brother, Aubrey,” Lucy says, her tone full of pity. “And they’re very close.”
“They don’t live together!” I cry. “They haven’t planned a future together! He has to know! Logan has to know that I would worry about him, that I would—” I break off on a sob, drop my head in my hands. And for a moment, just one, I let anger overpower concern, let the single emotion control me. “He knows I love him! And he doesn’t care about what he’s done or how it would make me feel! If he didn’t want to be here with me, he could have told me! He didn’t have to run away like a fucking pussy!”
“Aubrey,” Mom says, now on her feet, trying to console me.
“No, Mom!” I shake my head, keep her at arm’s length. “I knew this would happen. I knew it. I knew it was too good to be true. He asked to move in. He told me he loved me first. I did everything I could not to push him away. Everything. Because I wanted him to stay, because I didn’t want to lose him. And now…” I can’t breathe through the pain, through the constant stabbing in my chest. I cry and I cry. Mom’s arms are around me, and I fall into her, unable to stand. My sobs are loud, my tears fat, each one landing on her shoulder. My body shakes with agony. I can barely breathe, barely speak. “He’s gone, Mom. He’s gone even though I tried. I tried so fucking hard to keep him. And he’s gone…”
Logan
I’m in Myrtle Beach, in a random guy’s house, on a random strip of road, surrounded by random people. The music blares, pounding at my eardrums, and the walls are moving, warping. I’v
e spent the entire day with Mary between my lips, letting her fill my mouth with her pleasure. She tastes so damn good, and I can’t fucking get enough. We’re back to the way it was, the way it should be. We use and abuse and set each other off just to bring each other down. Up and around and around and around, but always high. Always.
I leave the dark bedroom where I’ve just had a fucking four-way with her and her friends, Acid and Ecstasy, and I’m so fucking high I can barely walk, but I don’t care.
Who needs to walk when you can fly?
There are too many people in such a small space and just enough drugs in my system to tolerate it. Denny’s in the kitchen, drinking straight from the keg, and Charlie’s in the living room, tapping on her phone with a bank card. Three lines of coke stay put on her screen when she looks up, catches me watching her. She smiles, motions for me to join her on the couch.
Mary takes my hand, leads me into the room.
“I don’t mind sharing,” Charlie tells me.
“And I don’t mind taking.”
She snorts two lines, passes it over to me. I finger the rolled-up Benjamin and close my eyes. Scarlet upon scarlet upon scarlet.
When I’m done, I rub my nose, sniff the leftovers on my hand. Charlie climbs onto my lap, her warm hands pressed against my nape. She scoots closer, closer, closer, closer. Her cunt’s on my cock, and she licks up my neck, whispers in my ear, “I’ve wanted to fuck you since high school.”
I push her off of me, watch her fall to the floor. “I have a girlfriend.”
Aubrey
I sit in the middle of my bed, my legs crossed, my entire body and mind begging for some form of stillness. It’s been three days. I don’t remember sleeping, but I’m sure I have. At some point, after hours and hours of worrying and waiting and anger and more waiting, something has to go numb, right? Numb enough to sleep?
Mom’s still here.
She’s the only one left.
Surrounded by white drapes, I stare up at the canvas, hanging over our bed. At the words You + Me.
I remember when I’d asked him to hang it. It was about a week after his grounding had ended, and he’d spent every night of that week with me. I’d sat right where I’m sitting now, staring up at him. He was shirtless, in sweatpants, and I kept making him move it from side to side, not because I wanted it centered, but because I liked watching the way his body moved, the way his muscles curled, bulged in areas. It took a whole five minutes for him to realize what I was doing, and when he did, he was on me, verbally, physically. He lay over me, his forearms keeping the top half of his weight off me, his bottom half between my legs. “I’m not a piece of meat, Red,” he’d said, kissing my neck. He loved kissing my neck. My shoulder.
My gaze lowers, and I look at his side of the bed, at his pillow that hasn’t been slept on in days.
I smile through my tears as the memory plays on. He’d tickled my side then, made me squirm. He’d said, “You little pervert.” I’d laughed uncontrollably.
Logan always made me laugh.
My smile fades when my insides turn to stone, and the single bubble of hope I’d held onto bursts. Because… I’m thinking about him in the past tense.
As if he no longer exists in my life.
Or maybe… maybe he never truly existed at all.
I thought I’d broken his bravado.
But I was so, so wrong.
Logan
I am nine years old, and the leather cracks beneath my weight. The car still smells new, even though I’ve been in it for months. The dash is gray. I can barely see over it. In the pocket of the door, there’s a tube of hand lotion. It’s pink. I wonder who it belongs to. “Are you all buckled in?” he asks, looking down at me.
I nod, and he smiles.
“So… how are things at home with your mother?”
I gasp for air, having passed out in the bathroom. My pants are around my ankles, my cock out, and the last thing I remember was coming in here to piss. I’m higher than high, but the memories keep me beneath the water’s surface. I pull Mary from my pocket and bring her to my mouth, spark her to life. White ribbons emit for my lungs, and my mind brings me visions and moments of white drapes and freckles half the shade of her scarlet hair. She’s in a long skirt, white tank top, and an oversized granny cardigan, and she looks like a hobo. But she’s my hobo. Her laughter fills my ears, my heart, and I can feel myself weakening.
See what she does to you, Logan?
“Leave her out of this. She didn’t do anything,” I whisper, tugging at my hair. I bring Mary to my lips, shorten her lifespan just to shut her up.
As soon as I exhale, she’s talking again. Laughing. It’s sinister and it’s deranged, and if she doesn’t quit it, I’ll flush her down the goddamn toilet. You think she didn’t know? Of all the towns in all the world, she moved to yours. Why do you think she went after you? Why do you think she stayed with you? You know, Logan… You know…
My eyes drift shut, my jaw tensing. Mary burns between my fingers as my mind plays havoc with my emotions, tugging my heart in all different directions.
In my head and all around me, Aubrey replaces Mary’s laughter.
Then Mary replaces hers.
On and on.
And on.
And on.
You’re nine years old…
“Quit it!”
I’m your whore, Logan. Now and forever. Tell me what you want. Tell me what you need, baby.
“I need you to quit this shit,” I whisper, my eyes filling with tears. “Please,” I cry out. “I need you to stop. I can’t fucking take it anymore. Please. Stop.”
You’re nine years old, and the leather cracks…
“Make it stop,” I plead, liquid heat streaming down my cheeks, to my jaw.
But then Aubrey: “…or that I’d fall so fast, and so hard, and so deeply in love with every single part of you. Bravado and all.”
And Mary: She knew, Logan. You know, deep down, she fucking knew.
I swallow, thick, and plead with Mary for something more, something else. Something to take it all away.
She helps me with my pants, leads me out of the bathroom and back through the living room and toward the kitchen where the party plays on, clueless to my downfall. At the table, strangers sit. On the table are needles and powder and lighters and spoons and Mary taps my shoulder, whispers seductively in my ear, Have you met my friend, Heroin?
She presses down on my shoulders until I’m sitting with the strangers, and then she runs her hands through my hair, tells me to find her in one of the bedrooms when I’m done.
The high that comes is instant. Every inch of me warms, every memory disappears. Every thought. I’m walking on clouds. Floating. Opening every door to every room.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
I find my whore on a mattress in one of the bedrooms, laid out and waiting, her legs wide open for me. I climb on top of her, feel my heart slow when her fingers comb through my hair. Mary’s fingertips tap, tap, tap at my spine, her warmth surrounding me, caressing me.
I think I’m in love with Heroin, but Mary doesn’t seem to mind.
Mary loves me for loving her friends.
Mary loves me for me.
Pressure builds in my cock, her hands grasping me, begging me to give her what she wants. What we both want. She’s whispering in my ear, words I’m too far gone to make out. She licks at my flesh, at every inch of my body. I’m naked and needy, and she’s my dirty little slut, so wet, so desperate.
Mary is my comfort.
My joy.
I fuck Mary until she screams.
My Mary, Mary, quite contrary…
When I’m done, I pass out next to her, covered in a cold sweat, my mind, my heart, my soul finally empty.
I awake to movement next to me, and I realize I’m naked. I groan when I sit up, stirring the person next to me. My brain’s trained to see scarlet upon scarlet upon scarlet.
My
heart stops when it’s not.
There’s no fucking scarlet.
No upturned nose.
No freckles.
And Mary? Mary’s nowhere to be seen.
Hair darker than dark shifts on the pillow, her murmured words making my stomach flip: “You want a repeat of last night, huh, baby?”
I flip to my side, puke all over the carpet. Sweat coats my skin, fear pricks at my flesh, regret… regret empties the content of my stomach for the second time.
“Jesus, Logan,” Charlie mumbles. “Learn to handle your shit.”
I dress. Find Mary in my pocket and leave the room. The house is quiet. Bodies everywhere. I take whatever illicit drugs I can find. I’ll need them as much as I need Mary. I’ll need them as much as Mary needs me.
Sunlight burns my eyes when I step out of the house.
I wish it would burn me entirely.
I walk, having no idea where I am.
Who I am.
I pull out my phone, switch it on, and fall to my knees the instant I read her single message:
Aubrey: Whatever it is, Logan, we can get through this. I love you so deeply. Always have. Always will. Forever yours, Aubrey.
42
Aubrey
The mood in the Preston house is somber, filled with dread. Tom had gotten a call from Senior Deputy Misty Sanders, and she has news—news she wanted to tell him in person. As soon as he got off the phone with her, he called me. Now I’m here with my mom, along with everyone else who shares/once shared/will share the Preston name.
Everyone besides Lachlan.
He’s nowhere to be seen.
I sit with my mother, let her take my hand.
I don’t belong here.
I’m not his family.
Right now, I truly believe I’m not his anything.
Maybe it’s a defense mechanism.
Or, maybe the past four days have ruined me completely and I’m dead, dead, dead inside.
