I Hate You, I Love You

by Bailey B

  “Danika?” Dad asks again.

  I turn, my brows pushing together and stare at my dad. He’s a good guy, with thick ties in the community. Whatever Logan did all those years ago, there’s a chance my dad will know about it. “Who is Alan Shaffer?”

  The color drains from Dad’s face. He retracts his arm from my shoulder and shoves his hands in his pockets. The screen door slams behind me. We both look over to the Harris house. Watch Logan get into his car without so much as a glance in our direction, then peel out of his driveway.

  “Dad?” I pry. “Who is he?”

  Dad clears his throat. “He’s no one, sweetie. Why do you ask?”

  I chew on my lip, wondering how much I should say. Logan’s secrets are his to tell, but the way my dad blanched, he knows something. Plus Logan told me to talk to Dad, which means he’s involved somehow and keeping secrets from me. “I met him today.”

  “Who?” Dad asks hesitantly.

  “Dr. Shaffer. He was at Logan’s house today.” I watch Dad carefully, waiting for him to react. He swallows hard but doesn’t say anything. I think he knows what happened to Logan. I think he’s kept that secret for years, and I need to know why. So, I add, “He was super creepy. I don’t like him.”

  44

  Logan

  I take another sip from the beer in my hand, then toss the empty bottle into the grass. Forty-five minutes. It takes forty-five minutes to walk from dumbnut’s house to here.

  Dumbnut is not Jake, by the way.

  The one day I want him to throw a party, he doesn’t. No, dumbnut is some sophomore trying to make a name for himself. I was the only senior there, adding a cool factor of a billion to the kid’s pathetic excuse of a party. There were maybe twenty people, but there was beer and that’s all I wanted

  My foot slides off the edge of the sidewalk and I stumble. I left my car at dumbnut’s house, having enough sense not to drive tonight. Clearly that’s as far as my logic goes because this is a terrible idea, but I have to see it. To know if it’s changed.

  I stand in front of Dr. Shaffer’s old office, hands in my pockets and stare at the building that ruined me. It’s not a psychiatric office anymore. A few months after he died—or didn’t die— it turned into a cell phone store. Another commercially operated, chain store, with nothing special about it.

  Too bad the owners didn’t know Dr. Alan Shaffer had molested dozens of kids in that hollowed out space.

  I bet they would have never bought it.

  “I wondered how long it would take you to come back,” a voice drawls from the shadows.

  My head’s spinning. I rub my eyes, willing the beer and whiskey to stop dancing in my stomach. They’re fucking with me. Bad.

  “They didn’t tell you, did they?” he muses, stepping into the light. “They let you live all these years, thinking you killed me.”

  This can’t be real. My mind is doing it to me again. Alan Shaffer is dead. This is nothing but a fucked up hallucination. He wasn’t in my house today and he isn’t here now. He. Is. Dead.

  Alan points to the edge of the building, at a small security camera I didn’t have enough sense to notice. “I’ve waited for years. Watching. Buying my time until you came back to me, but you never did. You never once showed remorse for what you did to me.”

  Something in my brain flips. The anxiety and turmoil within me ignites. “What I did to you?” I step closer. Not quite on the property but not on the street anymore. “What about what you did to me? What you did to all those other boys?”

  Alan smirks and looks at his old building. He is still in the shadows, barely visible in the glow of the neon closed sign. “I was helping those boys, just like I was helping you.”

  “You abused them!” I shout, taking another step. “Me. You abused me! You knew I was vulnerable. You took advantage of my trust and made me feel like what we were doing was normal.”

  “It was, Logan.” Alan sidesteps closer to the building. “When two people love each other—”

  “I don’t fucking love you,” I cut him off. The fire in my blood burning hotter. “The only person I’ve ever loved is Danika.”

  I suck in a breath at the realization. I love her. I love her with every fiber of my being. I hate that I realized it here, with him.

  Alan smirks. “See, my methods worked. Without our affections, you would not relate those feelings you have for her to love.”

  I see the flashing red and blue lights reflecting on the storefront windows before anything else. There are no sirens. Just lights.

  “Logan!” Sheriff Tomlinson barks. His car door closes. Heavy footsteps jog over to me, and then there’s a hand on my shoulder. “He’s baiting you.”

  Alan steps out of the shadows. It’s then I notice the crowbar in his hand. The fire in his eyes. The sinister smile on his lips. He was going to do it. He was going to get his revenge and beat me to death like I did him. My stomach lurches and empties itself in the grass.

  “Jesus, Logan,” the Sheriff mumbles. Sheriff Tomlinson—Uncle Ryan although I rarely called him that—rubs his chin. He’s my mom’s half-brother but we never see him anymore. They had a falling out around the time of my parents’ divorce when he took my dad’s side. Not like he had any choice. Dad had him by the balls with this secret.

  “He is on my family’s property, Ryan. Threatening me.” Alan points to the camera again. “I have the proof this time.”

  “Fuck you,” Uncle Ryan replies. “Did you forget the deal? I could arrest you, right now, if I wanted to.”

  Alan holds out his wrists and flashes a sinister grin. I don’t know what’s happening. What deal? I thought Alan Shaffer was four-feet-under in a shallow grave somewhere. “By all means, Ryan. Do it. We both know you can’t.”

  Danika’s little red Mazda skids to a stop behind the cop car. She rushes out and runs to kneel beside me. I push her away and she comes back. She’ll always come back to me. “Logan! Are you alright?”

  “Take him home,” Uncle Ryan demands. “Your home, Danika.”

  Danika stiffens beside me. She looks around, a question hanging on her lips but nods. I climb to my feet with her help, just as pathetic as I was this afternoon, and pass out in her car.

  45

  Danika

  Don’t ask me how I got Logan out of the car and to my dining room table, because I honestly have no idea. He’s half asleep, not fully coherent, and a mess. I’ve never seen him like this and with his dad’s history of alcohol abuse, it’s a little worrisome.

  The first person through my door is Sheriff Tomlinson. He drops his keys on the table and slumps into a chair like I assume he does in his own home after a long night. He’s not an old man, maybe late twenties or early thirties. Sometimes I forget he and Logan are related, but every so often I see the resemblance. A brooding look. An eyebrow arch. A crooked grin. If this is what I get to look forward to ten years from now, I’ll be one happy wife.

  Not that I’m thinking that far ahead. I’m just saying…

  “Here.” I set a carton of cream and a container of sugar on the table, along with a few cups. I have the feeling Sheriff Tomlinson won’t be my only guest tonight. I pour coffee into each mug then set the pot back on the counter.

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” he says, stirring some cream and sugar into his cup. “I gave Walter my condolences a few weeks ago, but never got around to seeing you.”

  I shrug and put some bread slices in the toaster. “Not like you’ve had a reason to see me, Sheriff.”

  “Ryan,” Dad says, coming through the door. He’s not wearing scrubs. In fact, Dad’s wearing the same trousers and polo he walked out the door in this morning. He kneels beside Logan, who’s passed out and drooling on the table, and checks his pulse. “Is the boy alright?”

  “He’s drunk, dad, not dead.” I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him. He’s too calm. They both are. I get the sneaking suspicion they were both involved with the Alan Shaffer issue long before ton
ight. “What’s going on?”

  “She doesn’t need to know,” a voice booms from the doorway.

  Logan stirs as his dad, Jeff Harris, enters my house. He wears the same brooding expression Logan had my first few weeks of school. I hate looking at the man. Every time I see him, I remember the lashings and scars all over Logan’s body. I bite the side of my tongue to keep from saying something rude.

  Jeff Harris closes the door, locking it behind him, then turns his attention to Logan. He shakes his head, tsking in disappointment. “You’re a fucking mess.”

  “Good to see you too, Dad,” Logan groans. He folds his arms on the table and sets his head down.

  I pop two slices of bread in the toaster for thirty-seconds and pour Logan a glass of water. I set them in front of him, ruffling his hair to get his attention. Jeff noticeably rolls his eyes and directs his attention to me. “Leave.”

  Logan lifts his head, takes a buttered piece, then sticks it in his mouth. “She stays.”

  “She,” Jeff says, pointing directly at me, “is a liability.”

  “I know what happened.” I feel like a sassy eight-year-old standing up to the school bully. That’s all lawyers are, grown up bullies and Jeff Harris is the biggest bully in town.

  “You don’t know shit, little girl,” Jeff growls.

  “Jeff,” my dad warns, standing at full height. “Don’t disrespect my daughter. This affects her just as much as it does the rest of us.”

  “He’s alive?” Logan mumbles, running his fingers through his hair. I kneel beside Logan and take his hand in mine. Logan scoots his chair back and pulls me onto his lap, holding me tight.

  “Of course he’s alive,” Jeff spits. “He was at the house a few hours ago. Or were you too fucked up to recognize him?”

  I leap off Logan’s lap and slap Jeff Harris across the face. I know his secrets. Know the abuse Logan endured for years because of him. Back in middle school, I had a hard time connecting the monster Logan described to the supportive family man I saw in the football stands. I see it now, everything Logan warned me about. I guess it’s true what they say, people’s true colors eventually show and Jeffery Harris’ are black. “I could have you arrested for assault, little girl.”

  “Do it,” I growl. I’m not afraid. Jeff Harris is nothing but a bully, and I love bringing bullies down. “When the cops ask why I hit you, I’ll tell them I couldn’t stand to see my boyfriend be abused by his dad.”

  I don’t miss the snapping up of Logan’s head from the corner of my eye. I’ve never called him my boyfriend out loud. I didn’t mean to let the title slip, but if there ever was a time to stand up for Logan and call him mine, it’s now.

  “Danika,” Dad puts his hand on my shoulder and backs me towards Logan. “What do you know about this situation?”

  Logan sits upright and holds his arms open. I find my place in his lap, sheltered from the mess unfolding in the kitchen. “I know that sick fuck Dr. Shaffer sexually abused Logan for years and I know this asshole never did anything about it.”

  Jeff Harris smirks and opens his briefcase. He drops a handful of pictures on the table. Judging by the top photo, I’d say they’re evidence to the crime Logan committed. The one Sarah’s dad inadvertently warned her about. “Did Logan tell you about any of this?”

  I pick up one of the photos and stare in horror. I don’t bat an eye at Alan Shaffer’s mangled body surrounded by a blanket of crimson or the bruising on his skin. It’s how much blood is splattered across the walls and how destroyed the room is that gets me. The chairs are smashed, the desk is flipped over, papers ripped to pieces, scattered across the mess. This was a crime of passion. A reaction of rage.

  Sheriff Tomlinson picks up another photo and stares at it, likely reliving parts of that night. He drops the picture back on the table and sighs. “Jeff called your dad first. Logan was panicking. Said he’d beaten Alan to death with a baseball bat.”

  Dad pulls another chair over to the table and sits. “Alan wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t doing well. We had a short window to decide what our plan of action would be. I called Ryan. No matter which way I spun this, Logan was in serious trouble. We needed a plan, some insight on how to make this situation disappear. It wasn’t until we saw Alan’s laptop that we put the pieces together.”

  Logan hides his face in my shoulder. His body shakes, trembling with silent tears again. I can’t begin to imagine how hard today has been for him. I rub small circles with my fingertips on his back. “So, why did Logan think he was dead?”

  “Because I told Logan he killed him,” Jeff says nonchalantly. I stare at him, jaw slack. He what? I turn my gaze to Dad, who shrugs and nods. Jeff grabs a cup of coffee that’s probably lukewarm now. He sags into a chair, looking slightly defeated. “The plan was to blackmail Alan. It worked, because he signed a waiver, releasing Logan and us from all liability if we stayed quiet about his indiscretions.”

  “But those other boys?” I look from each of them, waiting to hear how they vindicated the other victims. All three men look down at their cups. I grit my teeth, disgusted.

  “I had to think about my boy,” Mr. Harris booms. “Besides, I didn’t think Alan would survive but your dad is damn good at what he does.”

  Dad chuckles. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I thought I was going crazy,” Logan mumbles. He looks up at his dad with sad puppy dog eyes, red rimmed and wet. “I’ve seen him. For years.”

  “Fucking prick,” Sheriff Tomlinson yells, shoving the table. The only untouched cup of coffee splashes and spills onto the wooden surface. “We’ve got to do something, Jeff.”

  Jeff Harris runs his hands through his short black hair. Logan got his coloring from his dad. Dark hair. Olive skin. Ember eyes. Cooper, he took after Mrs. H. “We can’t do anything, Ryan, not without legally jeopardizing Logan.”

  “Do you have the agreement you all signed?” I ask.

  Jeff looks at me like I’m stupid. Maybe I am in his eyes, but it’s been years since they read over the document. Maybe there’s something they overlooked. “Why? Think you can find something I missed? I wrote the damn thing, little girl. It’s airtight.”

  “Fresh eyes, Jeff,” my dad defends.

  With a grunt, Mr. Harris shuffles through his briefcase. He drops the contract in front of me and leans against the counter, arms crossed. It’s smaller than I anticipated, only two pages, so it doesn’t take long to read. Even with the fancy verbiage, it’s pretty straight forward.

  “Here,” I touch one of the sentences. “Conditions of abuse. The whole document you’re talking about Logan. Nowhere does it state any other child. This makes the sentence sound like Logan’s abuse.”

  Jeff snatches the agreement from my hands. He reads over the contract again and mumbles, “Well I’ll be damned.”

  Sheriff Tomlinson holds out his hand and takes the paper. He skims over it and asks, “Will this hold up if we prosecute the other cases?”

  Mr. Harris rubs his chin and paces the kitchen. After a few minutes of silence he says, “I’ll have to approach the other families. They have to be the ones to press charges but yeah. It should.”

  “I love you,” Logan whispers. It’s the first time he’s said those words and while it wasn’t some big romantic gesture like when Gunner homecoming-proposed, Logan's announcement was better. It came from a place of true vulnerability.

  I kiss his cheek. I’ll tell him later. I love Logan, I do, but I want him to feel my words. Not assume I’m saying them just to say.

  “Things could get messy the next few days. Logan, I think you should leave town. I can’t risk you causing a scene again and fucking things up,” Jeff says, scrolling through his phone. “I booked you a room in Miami for the week.”

  Sheriff Tomlinson nods. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  “I want to go too.”

  46

  Logan

  “Oh, my god. Logan! This is beautiful!” Danika says walking into
our penthouse-esqe room. She looks around, setting her backpack on the couch and pulling back the grey curtains. Yes. Our room has a full living room, kitchen, dining room, and California-king in the bedroom. Dad must have assumed Danika was coming with me when he booked the room because this can’t be standard.

  “You’ve got to see this view,” she gasps.

  I drop my duffle bag by the door and wrap my arms around Danika’s waist, resting my chin on her shoulder. Our room looks out at the ocean, but I’m more interested in what’s in front of me. I’ve spent the last two and a half hours keeping my hands mostly to myself, thinking about all the things we might do this week.

  I dip by head, kissing the exposed skin of Danika’s shoulder. She squeals and spins in my arms. Hands on my chest and she looks up at me with those big Bambi eyes. “I love you, Logan.”

  My heart hammers heavily against my ribs. When I told Danika I loved her in her kitchen last night, I meant it. I didn’t expect her to say it back. I know that’s not how she works. Hell, it took her how many weeks to finally call me her boyfriend. I thought I’d be waiting just as long for this. “You do?”

  She presses her lips to mine, wordlessly reassuring me. It’s all I need. I slide my hands under her thighs and lift; she wraps her legs around my waist. I carry her, our lips never breaking until she squeals when we fall backwards onto the bed. Her hands find the hem of my shirt, tugging both of them over my head.

  I swallow hard, struggling with my scars being exposed. I never take my undershirt off unless I'm alone. Even then, I feel uncomfortable. Even though most of the marks are on my back and I can’t see them, I hate that they’re there.