A silence, short and brutal. "Fuck. I knew it." He rises, paces away, tugs his hair free of the ponytail with a jerk, and shakes it out, spears his fingers through the wavy blond locks. Looks at me from ten feet away. "What's the long answer?"
"I hate myself for it. I knew it wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't change him. It wouldn't change me. It wouldn't bring answers. But . . . I'm weak, Logan. He mixes me up. I . . . don't even know how to explain it. But this time . . . I felt . . . empty. I realized if he does care at all, he just can't show it. Or he has a very bizarre way of showing it. I don't know. I'm no closer to knowing anything about myself or my past than when I left here, and now . . ."
"And now what, Isabel?"
"You, and me. How can you look at me?"
He touches my chin with a finger. I didn't know he was there in front of me, so absorbed in myself am I. "Why do you think I let you leave in the first place? Why do you think I wouldn't let us actually have sex?"
"I don't know."
"Well, that's bullshit, because you do." He sits beside me again. "I told you why."
I think back. "You said that there couldn't be a beginning to you and me until there was end to Caleb and me."
"Right." A pause. "And? Was that the end?"
"I don't know. I know you're hoping for a decisive answer here, but . . . I can't give it to you. It was an end to his hold on me, physically. But emotionally? I don't know. There are still so many questions I need the answers to. I--I'm tangled up, still, Logan. He knows things, but he's not telling me. You were also right about that. But I don't know why he's keeping things from me. What is there to be so secretive about? I just . . . I need to know more. And until I do, until I feel complete, I won't ever be totally free of Caleb."
"Can't fault you for that, I guess."
"And I don't know if this means anything to you, but . . . I didn't fuck him. He fucked me, and I let him. It's the way it's always been. I was complicit, I have to be honest about that. I allowed it, the way I've always allowed it. In the moment, when he's there, I just . . . I lose myself. I lose myself." I want to take his hand, but I am afraid to; I suffer a moment of bravery, slide my fingers under his. "Where does this leave us, Logan?"
He threads our fingers together. "I'm hurt. I'm upset. I mean, I knew it was going to happen, which is why I held us back. But it still sucks." He stands up, leads me inside. "I just need some time, you know? Put some space between you and him and . . . you and me."
I'm in no state to think about him and me. I can barely function. My mind is whirling like an orbital model of our galaxy, a million thoughts each spinning and all of them revolving in complicated, heliocentric patterns around the twin suns of Logan and Caleb. They are both supermassive entities, each possessing their own gravitational pulls on me.
Or maybe Caleb is a black hole, sucking in light and matter and all things in inexorable destruction, and Logan is a sun, giving life, giving heat, permitting growth.
Logan leads me to his living room, nudges me toward the couch. I sit. He lets out Cocoa, who welcomes me with exuberant puppy kisses and then lies on the floor and watches us. Logan vanishes into the kitchen and returns with two open bottles of beer and a half-empty bottle of Jameson. "A caveat, before we start drinking: This doesn't fix anything. But sometimes you need to just get hammered and not worry about the fucked-up mess that is your life. It gives you some space from everything. And I've discovered that I do my clearest thinking about problems when I've got a wicked hangover. Something about the pounding headache and roiling stomach just makes me more brutally honest with myself."
He hands me the bottle of whisky and one of the beers.
I just stare at him. "Where are the glasses?"
A laugh. "No glasses for this kind of drinking, sweetheart. Just pull right off the bottle."
"How much?"
"Two good swallows is about one decent-sized shot. But under the circumstances, I'd say just keep drinking until you can't handle any more."
This strikes me as very bad advice. But then, maybe that is the point: to get me very drunk very quickly.
I lift the bottle of whisky to my lips and take a tentative sip. It burns, but not the same way exactly as scotch. It's easier to drink, actually. I let the burn slide down my throat and breathe past it. And then I do as he suggested: I tilt the bottle up and take one swallow, a second, a third, and then it burns too badly and I'm gasping for oxygen and my throat is on fire. I drain half my beer in an attempt to assuage my protesting throat, after which my head is spinning.
Logan takes the bottle and does the same, drinking the same amount as me and chasing it with beer. And then he does something truly strange. He lowers himself to the couch, sets the whisky and his beer on a side table, and drapes my feet onto his lap, tossing my shoes to the floor. Lifting one of my feet and cupping it in his palms, he digs his thumbs into the arch of my foot, immediately eliciting a moan from me.
"What are you doing, Logan?" I ask.
"Giving you one of life's greatest pleasures: a foot rub."
It is incredible. I don't want it to ever stop. It is intimate, so pleasurable it is nearly sexual. His thumbs press firmly in sliding circles over my arch, into my heel, the ball of my foot, and then his fingers crease between each of my toes and I giggle at the tickling touch. After a brief pause to sip beer, he gives my other foot the same treatment.
And then his fingers dimple into the muscle of my calf, kneading it in circles and from one side of my leg to the other. Higher, higher, near to my knee, and the massage becomes all the more intimate with every upward inch. The stretchy cotton of my dress is draped over his hands, one of which is holding my leg at the ankle, the other massaging my calf.
I've forgotten my beer; I take a pull, then peer at him. "This feels amazing."
"Good. You need some amazing things in your life."
"There's you." I didn't mean to say that; whisky loosens my tongue, it would seem.
Logan doesn't laugh at my faux pas. "One might say I'm a bad influence on you." He hands me the whisky, and I take it, down two swallows, and immediately chase it. "Case in point: I've got you chasing whisky with beer."
"That is true," I say. "Very true, indeed. But I don't mind. Mainly because your brand of bad is always so good."
This earns me a laugh. "I'm glad you think so."
His touch shifts from right leg to left, and it's impossible to think of anything but his hands on my leg, the way his fingers dig into the muscle and the smooth skin just beneath the back of my knee. The intimacy of it, the way I wish and want, in the dirty places in my mind, for his touch to slide upward, even though I know that's the worst thing that could happen right now.
"Hungry?" he asks.
I nod sloppily. "Yes. Very. Veryvery."
"You're drunk," he says, laughing.
"I am. Yes indeed, I am drunk. Aaaaaand I like it."
I also like this spot on the couch. It's comfortable, cozy. The couch has swallowed me, sucked me in.
"Good. That was the point. Didn't take much, though, did it?"
"I don't really drink very much, or very frequently. Caleb kept me . . . healthy."
"Well I've got something unhealthy and delicious for you. Just hang tight." I hear plastic crinkling, silence, and then the microwave door open and close, the gentle hum of the microwave heating something. I'm curious, but far too pleasantly and comfortably drunk to make the effort of looking to see what he made. I smell it after a moment, but can't identify it.
He plops himself down on the couch beside me, a ceramic plate in one hand, two more beers in the other. He takes the bottle out of my hand--I hadn't realized it was empty, nor do I remember finishing it--and replaces it with the full one. I take a sip, and it is, like every sip before it, delicious. But then I smell the food. I don't remember the last time I ate. The plate holds chips, yellow corn chips with cheese melted on them, liberal glops and strings and pools of orange cheese piled high on triangular white-
yellow chips.
I try one; oh. Oh my. OH MY GOD.
"Wha-is-this?" I ask, my mouth full of chip and cheese.
He laughs. "It's like feeding an alien. I swear you've never had any good food. It's nachos, man. Cheesy chips. Best drunk or stoned food there is."
"Except pizza," I add, "and chicken shawarma."
"And potato chips."
"And beer."
"Beer is very, very important," Logan agrees. He reaches for a chip, but then stops and laughs. Apparently I've eaten them all. "You are hungry, aren't you?"
I stare at him, embarrassed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to pig out."
Logan just shook his head, laughing. "Don't be ridiculous, and don't apologize." He reaches up and tugs a lock of my hair. "You want something else?"
I just nod. I can't believe I ate all that already. It was a big plate full of chips. "Yes, please."
He heads toward the kitchen but then stops and leans over the back of the couch, resting his chin on my shoulder. I want very badly to kiss him, his cheek, his mouth, his temple, his anything. I don't dare.
"You ever have a P-B-and-J?" he asks.
"A what?"
"I'm guessing that's a no. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
I shrug. "Not that I remember."
"Comin' up then. You'll love it. Another staple food. I lived on P-B-and-J growing up. Still a go-to when I don't know what else to have."
He returns in a few minutes with four sandwiches, two for me, two for him. The first bite is . . . delectable. Crunchy peanuts, cool fruit jelly, soft white bread. I finish the first one in moments. I'm halfway through the second when it hits me.
The sun is bright. Blinding. Shining in my eyes as I sit at a table. I can feel the wood under my hands, rough, thick-grain wood, deep cracks and grooves, yet polished smooth by ages of wear. There is a groove under the index finger of my right hand, and I run my fingernail back and forth in it. I've done this a million times. Sat here, rubbing a fingernail in this groove, waiting. I smell . . . the sea. Brine. Ocean waves crash somewhere far away. A seagull caws, another answers.
Silhouetted by the sun is a woman, tall, willowy. Long black hair hanging loose down nearly to her waist. Her hips sway to music only she can hear as she stands at the counter, doing something. She is making a sandwich. Spreading grape jelly, thickly. Peanut butter, with lots of peanuts in it. Cuts it in half diagonally, sets it in front of me. On a white porcelain plate traced around the rim with delicate blue flowers.
She leans down, and the sun is blocked out by her body, allowing me to see her. I see her smile, spreading across her face like sunrise. Her eyes twinkle. "Coma, mi amor." Her voice is music.
She touches her lips to my cheek, and I smell garlic and perfume.
". . . Isabel? Isabel!" Logan's voice filters through to my awareness.
"My . . . my mother used to make me these sandwiches. When I was a girl. I think. I just . . . I saw her. I was sitting at a table. It was by the ocean, I think. That's all--that's all I remember. But I could . . . feel it."
Logan is at a loss for words, but I don't need his words. He wraps an arm around me, tugs me close. "I'm here, baby."
It's all I need. There is nothing he can say, nothing to be said.
His heartbeat is a steady thump, a reassuring soft drumming under my ear. I have no idea what time it is, and I don't care. The world is spinning, and I feel disconnected from it. As if I could fly away at any moment, cast loose by centrifugal force.
"At Caleb's . . . I had a dream. A memory, I think. M'not sure. A car crash. But only maybe. All I knew was that I was hurt, and it was raining, and I was cold, and it was dark. So much pain . . . I was alone. But then he was there, but it felt like I'd seen him before. And it wasn't a mugging. That's what he always told me. A mugging gone wrong. But that's not what happened. It's not. He lied to me. But why? Why lie about that?"
"Because maybe the truth of what happened is something he doesn't want you to know."
That makes far too much sense. And it makes my heart hurt. What could Caleb be hiding? There are simply too many possibilities, and I'm too dizzy to sort through them all.
I still have half a sandwich in my hand. I set it aside. I feel a cold canine nose nudge my hand, and I open my eyes to see a pair of Cocoas, blurred and overlapping, staring up at me hopefully. I barely manage to knock the remnant of my sandwich--just a small corner--on the floor at her feet.
She doesn't pounce on it, though, but rather looks at Logan pleadingly. "You're not supposed to have people food, but I guess it's okay this once." He scratches her affectionately behind her ear. "Go ahead, girl."
Cocoa devours it in one bite, licks her lips, and then returns to her place on the rug near the doorway between the living room and the hallway. Her tail taps the floor rhythmically--thump, thump, thump, thump.
"I like Cocoa. She's a good doggy."
A laugh from Logan. "I know. She's my girl."
"I thought I was your girl," I say, sounding a bit too petulant for even my own taste.
"Are you for real jealous of my dog right now, Isabel?" Logan asks, a laugh in his voice.
"No. Shut up." I can't hide the smile in my voice or on my face. Don't try.
The silence between us then is easy. I am content to let the world spin around me and beneath me, to lie against Logan and listen to his heart beating under my ear, and not think about Caleb or the lies or the mysteries or myself or anything.
"I have a confession to make," Logan says.
I wobble my head on his chest, a gesture meant to be a negative, but which ends up being more of a sloppy flopping of my head. "I can't handle anything serious right now."
"Nothing like that. It's just that I had an ulterior motive behind getting you drunk."
I twist and gaze up at him, but I have to shut one eye so there's only one of him. "Oh really? And what would that be?"
"So I'd be less tempted by you. I won't take advantage of you when you're wasted, especially not when you're as vulnerable as you are right now."
"That isn't what I expected you to say."
"I know." He rubs my arm. "I want it to be right. When it happens with us, I want it to be right. And you're just not there yet."
I shake my head. "No. I wish I were, but I'm not. He has answers I need, and until I get them, he has a hold on me I just can't break. It's not fair to you."
"Life isn't fair," Logan says. "It never has been and never will be. If it were, my best friend wouldn't have died, and I wouldn't have gone to prison. If life were fair, Caleb would have gotten arrested instead of me, and you wouldn't have amnesia. If life was fair, we'd be able to be together and there wouldn't be anything standing in the way."
"But life isn't fair."
"Not even close." A sigh. "I'm not saying I regret what we did together, but I just . . . it makes it all the harder for me right now. Because I've tasted you. I've gotten a little glimpse of what it'll be like when we can be together with nothing between us."
"But I'm weak, so there is something between us." I choke on my next words. "Caleb is between us."
Once again, Logan is left with nothing to say. It's true, and we both know it.
"What time is it?" I ask.
"Why?"
"Because I have no idea, and I'm curious."
Logan tilts his wrist to glance at his watch. "It's two thirty in the afternoon."
"I'm tired." I want to open my eyes, but I can't. They won't cooperate. "I'm sorry. I'm no fun right now. I'm just . . . so tired."
"I'm here, Isabel. Just relax. Let go. I've got you."
I'm always falling asleep around Logan. Maybe because I feel safe with him.
I dream of Logan. Of being naked with him. Nothing between us. And then I dream of shattering glass and twisting metal, and darkness and rain. And then Logan is in the darkness with me, in the rain with me, standing just out of reach.
Just out of reach. In the dream, as in life.
*
I wake alone, terrified. Sweating. Crying. Dream residue coats my mind with fear, fragments of nightmares flapping in the spaces of my soul like bats in a belfry. Hungry eyes, red in the darkness. Bright lights blinding me. Ice in my veins. Loss. Confusion. It's all there, in my mind, disordered and wild and jumbled and visceral but meaningless.
I try to breathe through it, but I can't. I can't breathe. My chest is compressed by iron bands, preventing me from breathing. My hands shake. Tears track down my cheeks, flowing freely, unstoppable. I ache to breathe, but I cannot. Terror batters at the inside of my skull and squeezes my heart so it beats like fluttering sparrow wings.
Where is Logan?
Where am I?
I'm in his bed. The mattress is wide, and empty but for me. The blankets are kicked back to the foot-end of the bed, the sheet tangled around my thighs. I'm drenched with sweat. It's dark outside. A digital clock on the bedside table near to hand reads 1:28 A.M. All is dark. Lights are off. Moonlight streams in through the window, a river of light silvering the floor and my skin. I am naked but for bra and underwear. I don't remember undressing.
I manage a thready gasp. Another. My voice rasps. "Logan?"
Nothing.
"Logan?" A little louder.
I tumble out of the bed, feet hitting the floor. The hardwood is cold under my bare feet. The bra is too tight, constricting me. I can't breathe. I fumble at the clasps and rip the garment off, toss it aside.
I'm still dizzy. My mouth is dry. My head aches. Pounds.
I can't breathe.
I can't breathe without Logan.
I find him asleep on the couch, clad in a pair of loose shorts and nothing else. A laptop computer is on the coffee table, open, screen dark, and his cell phone is near it, along with a pad of paper and a pen. There are several phone numbers written down, all local New York numbers, 212 area codes. Scribbles, things crossed out, doodles. Abstract designs, swirls of ink, squares merging with triangles, becoming trees of curlicues and arcs. He's written something at the bottom of the page, underlined it several times.
Jakob Kasparek.
Underneath that are two more words, connected to the name above by a darkly inked arrow: Signed out.
What does all this mean?
Just seeing him calms me. But he's restless, tossing and turning. I lower myself to the couch near his head, feather my fingers through his hair. He murmurs something unintelligible, shifts forward, closer to me. I pull his head onto my lap, and he makes a small, boyish sound of contentment that melts something in me. His hand rests on my thigh, and I scoot lower on the couch and prop my feet on the coffee table, and his arm wraps around my waist, between my back and the couch.
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