The Elements Series Complete Box Set

by Brittainy Cherry

  43

  Logan

  Rushing to Ma’s apartment, I pushed the door open, my chest heaving. “Ma! Where is he?” I shouted. My heart almost stopped beating when I saw Ma on the ground, being kicked in the stomach repeatedly by the devil himself. I leapt at him and tossed him across the room with all my strength. I hurried to Ma’s side, trying to wake her up.

  A snicker was heard behind me as he stood up. “Well isn’t this a grand family reunion? Don’t mind your mama there. She’s just taking a nap.”

  I stood up and charged at him, wanting to tackle him to the ground, but I paused, hearing Alyssa in my head. You’re not your father.

  “Just leave us alone, Ricky.” He looked a mess, as if he’s been using a lot of his own drugs.

  “Not until I get Sadie back. You had your fun. Now give her back.” He hollered, walking toward me.

  “Ricky…you need help, man.”

  “Fuck off, asshole. Give me Sadie.”

  “She’s not your property. She’s not going with you.”

  He ran his hands through his hair, pulling on it out of anger. “I was there for you, boy! When you had nobody, I took you under my wing.”

  “Getting me hooked on drugs? Yeah, how thoughtful of you.”

  He rushed toward me and wrapped his hand around my neck, pressing our foreheads together. “You don’t talk to me any damn way you want, son.” Even though I wasn’t the tiny kid I used to be, Ricky was still much bigger than I was. He was even scarier when doped up, too. There was no telling what he’d do, but all I knew was I’d rather him do it to me than those two girls sitting in the car downstairs.

  “Go home, Ricky. It’s over.”

  “It’s over?” He pushed me away and then swung his fist into my eye. The pain that followed was hardcore. I stumbled backwards and tried not to fall, gripping the sagging sofa.

  “I’m not going to fight you, Ricky,” I muttered, my fingers falling to my eye.

  “Yes, you are,” he muttered, moving in and slamming his fist into my gut.

  I felt the vomit rising up from my stomach, and I did my best to push it down. “No, I’m not.”

  “Why not?” he asked, pushing me to the ground and slamming his foot into my stomach. “Why not? Because you’re weak? Because you can’t be a real man?” he screamed, kicking me repeatedly.

  “No,” I muttered, spitting out the blood that was in my mouth. “Because if I did, I would be just like you.”

  “I’m so tired of you,” he muttered, running his hands against his mouth before reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a gun. “I’m tired of you interfering with my life. I’m tired of you stepping in between my situations. I’m tired of your face. So we’re just going to end this now.”

  He pointed his gun toward me, and I shut my eyes, but when I heard the sound of the bullet, I felt nothing.

  My eyes opened, and I saw the cops standing behind me, and Ricky lying on the floor, shot in the shoulder.

  The cops and paramedics rushed into the scene. It was all a blur as I watched them race to Ma and then to Ricky. Alyssa spoke to the officers with Sadie, explaining what happened. I tried to open my mouth, but my jaw was so swollen that it hurt to speak. A paramedic came over to me to check out my face, but I shrugged them away.

  “I’m fine,” I choked out, my throat burning. They ignored me, and started cleaning my cuts, speaking of stitches to my nose and chin.

  “We’ll have more questions at the hospital,” the officer told Alyssa. “We’ll follow behind you as you drive over.”

  She nodded, then headed over to me. She grimaced as her fingers lightly touched my face. “Oh, Lo…” she whispered.

  I huffed out a chuckle. “Yo-yo-you…” I paused, cringing at the pain in my jaw. “You think I’m bad, you should see the other dude.”

  She didn’t laugh.

  I guess because it wasn’t funny.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get you fixed up.”

  I wanted to say something sarcastic. I wanted to make her feel better because I could tell she was distraught. But no words would leave me. My mind was whirling, thinking about Ma, if she’d be okay. I couldn’t stop wondering how long she had been hit before I arrived. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I should’ve been there to protect her. I couldn’t stop thinking about how many times I swore I hated her, but the truth was, I loved her.

  I loved her so much. And I let her down. I let her down when I went away.

  Logan, thirteen-years-old.

  Grandpa sent me a documentary on hamburgers for my birthday. I’d already watched it three times, but I placed it back into the DVD player. It was pretty interesting, and I was pretty bored before I got the documentary because I watched most of the ones at the library already.

  “What are you doing?” Ma asked, standing in my doorway.

  “Nothin’,” I replied.

  “Can I do nothing with you?”

  I looked up, and gasped. Ma looked beautiful. Her hair was combed into a high ponytail, and she had tied a red ribbon around it. She was wearing make-up, something she never did, and she wore a pretty black sundress that normally sat hanging in the back of her closet.

  “You look amazing,” I breathed out.

  Her muscles were twitching, but that was kind of the norm with Ma. She was always fidgeting and twitching with tremors, but after a while it didn’t bother me. It was just a part of her. “Yeah? I don’t know. I’m going to this meeting later today.” She smiled and curtsied. “It’s a meeting about helping people get clean, ya know? I want to stop using, Logan. I want to be a better mama for you.”

  My eyes widened. I felt like I was floating, as my stomach fluttered. “Really?” Ma never talked about getting help. She always said no one could help her.

  “Yeah.” She sat down on my mattress. “You’d have to go stay with Kellan and his dad for a while, though. I want to go to rehab. I really want to make something better for us.”

  “You’re leaving me?” I said, my hands clammy.

  “Only for a little while. Then I’ll be back better than ever.”

  “You’ll come back for me?”

  “I’ll come back for you.”

  I sighed in relief.

  “You think you can take a break from watching your DVD and come make a lasagna? We can celebrate before I leave.”

  My eyes beamed and I nodded my head. “Yeah!”

  We cooked together. I made the sauce, and Ma layered the noodles and cheese. After it was done, she had me move the small television from my room into the living room. We sat on the sofa, watching the documentary on hamburgers, and ate our hot lasagna out of the pan.

  “Ma?”

  “Yeah, Logan?”

  “Why are you crying?” I asked. She gave me a tight grin and shrugged.

  “Just happy, that’s all, sweetie. I’m just happy.”

  I smiled, too, and went back to eating. The lasagna burnt the roof my mouth, but I didn’t mind at all, because Ma was going to rehab. Then she’d come back to me, and we’d start our real lives together. We were getting better. Soon our normal life would be eating dinner together and watching documentaries. She’d come to my parent-teacher conferences, and graduations. She’d slow dance with me at my wedding. She’d read my future kids bedtime stories.

  We’d have a future together, and it would be perfect.

  I kept smiling, and smiling, and smiling.

  Because I’d never been so happy.

  44

  Alyssa

  Logan walked away with a fractured nose, two black eyes, and a broken wrist. He was lucky, seeing how the damage to his face looked fifty times worse than it actually turned out to be. We sat in the lobby, waiting to hear about his mother’s condition. I closed my eyes, praying that she was going to be fine. I knew Julie had always brought so much pain into Logan’s life, but there was no doubt that she meant the world to him.

  The cops came over to speak with us.

&n
bsp; “Sorry to interrupt, you guys, but we just wanted to update you. After everything we spoke about, we are currently obtaining a search warrant for your father’s house. The gun he had was illegally in his possession, and we found drugs on him at the scene. He has quite a history of coming in contact with the police, so I think we’ll be able to really nail him this time. For now, we’ll keep him in custody for the attack on your mother. That should give us enough time to get the court’s warrant. We’re going to get this guy.”

  Logan nodded. I thanked the officers, and they wished us the best, saying they’d be in contact.

  “What a relief,” I sighed.

  Logan’s head rested in his palms, as he kept nodding. “Yeah.”

  I rubbed his back as the doctor approached us. “Hey, so just an update.”

  “A lot of updates today,” Logan murmured.

  The doctor gave a tight grin. “Yeah. So your mother’s condition is improving, but the level of narcotics in her system is pretty worrisome for us. We’re going to keep her here for the next few days to help flush her system. She has two broken ribs from where she was kicked, but can’t give her too much medicine for the pain due to the narcotics. We’re kind of playing it by ear at this point. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  I thanked the doctor, and Logan’s head remained in his palms.

  “See, Logan? Everything’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine. Do you want me to call Kellan and let him know?” His brother hadn’t been informed of anything. Logan didn’t want to worry him until he knew all of the details.

  He groaned, looking up. “No. I should be there to tell him in person. Just in case he reacts badly. I don’t want to tell him over the phone.”

  “That makes sense. That’s a good idea.”

  “High?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I just want you to know you have the right to opt out now. Out of all of this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My life,” he said, strain evident in his voice, hinting at the pain in his jaw. He cringed, and started rubbing it. “My life is a mess. It always has been, and I’m giving you a ‘get out of hell’ free card. I’m in love with you, and that’s why I’m giving you an out. You deserve more than this messed-up life.”

  “Hey,” I whispered, moving closer to him. My lips fell against his ear, and I combed his hair back. My heart broke seeing the blood on his face, and in his hair. It was all so heartbreaking—the life he’d lived. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He constantly nodded, clasping his hands together, his eyes glassy. “I’m a mess, High. I’m a mess. I’ve always been a mess. I’ll always be a mess.”

  “Logan, stop. You’re not who you were back then. Okay? You’re not the product of your yesterdays.”

  “But you deserve the world. You can do better. You deserve more.”

  “I could have a decent life with someone else,” I said. “I could have the white picket fence. The normal job, the normal kids, the normal husband. I could have a comfortable life with someone who I’d be content with, but never fully love. But that’s not what I want, Logan. I want you. I want the scars. I want the burns. I want your mess. Your scars, your burns, your mess—that’s my heart. You are everything I ever wanted and everything I’ll ever need. Your hurt is my hurt. Your strength is my strength. Your heartbeats flow through mine. So no, I’m not going to opt out. I don’t want to run away because things are hard sometimes. I want you. All of you—the good, the bad, the pain, the anger. If you’re walking through hell, I’m holding your hand the whole way through. If the fires in our lives keep rising, we’ll burn as one. You’re it for me, Logan. Yesterday, today, tomorrow—I’m yours. You’re my eternal flame.”

  He turned to me and kissed me. I kissed him back, a bit too hard, and he whimpered at the touch. “Sorry,” I laughed gently, kissing his forehead. “Come on. Let’s go to my place, get you cleaned up, and then I’ll drop you off at Kellan’s so you guys can talk.”

  When we got to my house, I turned on my shower, undressed Logan, and helped him inside. The warm water fell against his body as he closed his eyes, taking in deep breaths.

  “I’ll be right outside. I have a few of your old clothes from way back when that I can grab for you,” I said.

  “No. Shut off the light and come here,” he said, his eyes still closed. I did as he said. I removed all of my clothes and I climbed into the shower with him. He pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me, his skin on my skin, his forehead against mine. All that could be heard was the water falling against us, and our breathing.

  We stayed there for a long time, until the water ran cold, and then we stayed longer.

  “For always, High?”

  “For always, Lo.”

  45

  Logan

  When Alyssa dropped me off at Kellan’s place, she left me with a level of peace. My father was in custody. Ma was unable to leave the hospital, which meant she wouldn’t be able to come in contact with any drugs for a small bit of time. Maybe things were slowly turning around. Maybe.

  I stepped into a darkened house. Kellan sat on the sofa. “What’s going on?” I asked, flicking on the light switch. He cringed at the abrupt flood of light, but he didn’t say anything. He had tears rolling down his face as his hands shook, and he tried to open a bottle of his pain pills. When he was unsuccessful, he threw the pill bottle across the room.

  “Argh!” he shouted, pounding his hands against his head.

  “What’s going on, Kel? Where’s Erika?”

  “She went to her mom’s house.” He stood up slow, his legs shaking, and stumbled over to the pill bottle. He picked it up, tried to open it once again, and failed. His breaths were heavy as he leaned against the wall and kept trying.

  “Here, let me,” I offered. I reached for the pills, and he shoved me away.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  I started wrestling him for the pill bottle, and I snatched it from his grip. I opened it and placed a pill into the palm of his hand. He slid down against the wall to the floor and sat.

  “I don’t need you and Erika to babysit me and open damn pill bottles.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Kel, yes, you do!”

  “No, I don’t!” he hollered, his voice cracking as he broke down crying. He wrapped his arms around himself and turned away from me, trying to keep the tears to himself.

  “I’m dying, Logan. I’m dying.”

  I slid down to the floor, and sat beside him with my back against the wall. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “‘Be here now,’” I said, quoting Ram Dass. “That was the quote at the rehab clinic that was right over each bedroom. “They told us to stop blaming ourselves for our yesterdays and to stop worrying about when we left the clinic. We were meant to just be there, in the moment. Be here now, Kellan. Right now, you’re here. You’re just as alive as Erika, Alyssa, and I am.”

  “Yeah. But I’m going to be dead a lot sooner than all of you.”

  “That’s debatable. I’m a pretty big screw-up.”

  Kellan laughed, and lightly shoved me. Good. Laughing is good. We leaned back against the wall.

  “‘Be here now,’” he murmured to himself.

  “So when is Erika coming back?” I asked.

  “She’s not. I told her to go for a while.”

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t keep putting her through this, Logan. Every time I coughed, she thought I was dying. She deserved a normal life.”

  “Is that what you told her?”

  He grimaced. “Not exactly.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told her that I never wanted to marry her. I told her that we were over and I was sick of her nagging. I told her to leave and not come back.”

  “You pushed her away by being me
an.”

  He nodded, sniffling. “It was the only way she’d go. I couldn’t keep breaking her heart.”

  “Trust me, big brother, her heart is broken.” He frowned, knowing I was right. “Let’s just say that the roles were reversed. Let’s say Erika had the cancer, and you were the one taking care of her. How would you feel if she said those words to you?”

  His hands rolled over his face nonstop. “I know. I know. I miss her already. But I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to make it easier for her.”

  “She didn’t sign up for easy, Kellan. She signed up for you. Through all of it, she signed up for you. Don’t worry, though. We’ll fix this.”

  “When did you become so wise?”

  I smirked. “When Alyssa gave me the same exact speech about how she signed up for me, which included all of the baggage that came along with me.”

  He laughed. “I should’ve known you weren’t that wise.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m working on it.”

  We sat silent for a few minutes. “Uh, Logan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What the hell happened to your face?”

  I chuckled, and began to tell him about mom and my father. He reacted much better than I hoped, yet had the same thought as I did. “Well, at least she can’t get to any drugs while she’s in the hospital.”

  Ah, my brother. My best friend.

  Alyssa: You’re okay, Logan Francis Silverstone.

  Me: I’m okay, Alyssa Marie Walters.

  She texted me those words every few hours. When Kellan was ready, he and I went to the hospital to see Ma. She was in quite a bit of pain, because the doctors couldn’t give her much medicine due to her addictions. It was hard seeing her that way, but it wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen her.

  Kellan sat in a wheelchair, and I pushed it toward her bed. He took her hand into his and gave her a small smile as I stood back watching.