I spent the rest of the night on the bathroom floor, debating what I did wrong, and wondering why my father didn’t love me anymore.
***
“He broke up with you through a five-page letter?” Logan asked, shocked. I spent the past five days away from him, feeling embarrassed by the letter. Each day I could hardly keep anything in my stomach without it coming back up. What bothered me the most was how pleased Mom seemed that Dad let me down. She always seemed happy that I was hurting.
I sat with Logan at the billboard, knowing the five-page paper by heart. “Technically he broke up with me through ten pages since they are front and back.”
“Give me the envelope,” he ordered. His nostrils were flaring, his face red with anger. I didn’t know he’d get so upset by the letter, but he seemed on the edge from snapping.
“Why?”
“The address he sent the letter from, that’s probably where he lives. We can go there. We can confront him, we can—”
“There wasn’t an address on the envelope. He dropped it at the house I think, in the mailbox.”
His hands ran over his face. A weighted sigh left him. He began flipping through the pages once more. “What about the name of the band he’s in? Did he say?”
“No.”
“This is bullshit.”
“It’s okay,” I shrugged. It hadn’t hit me yet. A big part of me still thought he was coming back. Hope was dangerous when you were relying on unreliable people. “I’m over it.” I wasn’t though. I was far from over it.
“Well I’m not!” he shouted, standing up, pacing back and forth. “It’s not fair. What have we ever done to these people? Your parents. My parents. What have we done wrong?”
I didn’t have an answer for him. Many people probably couldn’t understand why Logan and I connected. We were different in so many ways, except for the one which was the biggest fire that burned in us: we both longed to be loved by our parents.
“You’re a good thing, Alyssa. You’ve done everything to be a good daughter to him. You went above and beyond with this dick and then he doesn’t even have the balls to break up with you in person?! I mean, come on. Who breaks up with their daughter via snail mail?!” he hollered. “What kind of parent breaks up with their kid at all?”
“You see why I told you to break up with Shay in person, instead of via text?” I tried to joke. He didn’t laugh. “Logan, come on. It’s okay.”
“You know what? Screw him, High. You’re going to do great things. You’re going to change the world without him. You’re going to succeed beyond his wildest expectations. You don’t need him.”
“Why are you so upset?”
“Because how could he do that? How could he turn his back on you? On you, High. You’re the most beautiful, genuine, gentle person I’ve ever met. And he left you. For what? For music? For money? Fame? It’s crap, because none of that adds up.” He sat back down beside me, his breaths still heavy with irritation. “I’m just trying to understand, that’s all,” he said, hanging his legs off of the edge of the billboard as we stared out into the distance.
“Understand what?”
“How anyone could ever give you up.”
***
That night it finally hit me. Dad wasn’t coming back. He didn’t want to be a part of my life. He gave me up for music, which was ironic because to me, he was my music. I spent the whole afternoon sick, wanting nothing more than for the empty feeling inside of me to leave.
Me: Can you come over?
Logan showed up to my house around eleven that night. I gave him a tight smile as he stared my way, wrapping me into a tight hug.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Lie?”
“Lie.”
“Truth?”
I shrugged, my eyes watering over. “Can you just hold me?”
He grew extremely concerned, pulling back a little to study every inch of me. “High… What’s going on?”
“He really left me.” I swallowed hard. “He didn’t want me.”
He led me to my bedroom, closing the door behind us. As I climbed into bed, he moved over to my vinyl record collection and thumbed through each record. When he found one, he put it on, making my eyes water even more.
As Sam Smith’s song “Life Support” began to play, Logan shut off the light and crawled into the bed and wrapped his arms around me. As he pulled me closer, making me curve into him, I began to shake as he began softly singing the lyrics into my ear.
I began to cry. As he continued to sing, my body kept trembling against his. He pulled me closer, he held me tighter. The song played on a loop, over and over again. He kept singing against me, into my soul, taming the wild fire, making me ache.
His voice put me to sleep, his arms kept me safe.
When I woke in the middle of the night, crying from a nightmare, Logan was fast asleep. His arms had fallen to his sides, his breaths fell through his mouth, and I stared at him, tears still falling down my cheeks.
“Lo,” I whispered. He stirred.
“Yeah?”
“I had a bad dream. Can you hold me?”
He didn’t hesitate. He pulled me close once more, allowing me to rest my head against his chest, feeling his heartbeats.
“You’re okay, Alyssa Marie Walters,” he sighed against my skin.
I cried more, pulling him closer. “I’m okay, Logan Francis Silverstone.”
Chapter Ten
Alyssa
When it rained, it poured.
My mom always said those words whenever she was in the middle of a court case, and bad news came rolling in. When one bad thing happened, something worse wasn’t that far behind. I never truly believed in that saying, because I was the optimist of the family, the glass-half-full girl. But lately, it seemed true. It was only a week ago since Dad broke up with me, and I hadn’t had time to process that event before the world came crashing down on me once again. I could hear Mom’s words playing on repeat in my head.
“When it rains, it pours, Alyssa. That’s just the truth about the world.”
“So,” Erika sighed, standing beside me in a grocery store aisle. “How many should we get?”
It’d been two weeks since I’d been throwing up each day. What I thought was created from nerves was now a bigger fear as we stood in front of the pregnancy tests. I didn’t know who else to call other than my sister, and when she heard the tremble in my voice, she was parked right outside of the house forty-five minutes later. Even though Erika was realistic and driven like our mom, she wasn’t so heartless. She loved me for my creative ways, and quirky personality, and I knew she’d do anything to help me.
“Maybe two?” I whispered, my body shaky.
She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “We’ll do five. Just in case.” We walked up to the cashier, and they looked at us as if we were crazy for having so many tests. She grabbed a jug of water, too. As I was about to run out of the store humiliated, feeling the judgment coming through the cashier’s eyes, Erika huffed. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s rude to stare?”
They rang up our items, not looking at us once.
My phone dinged as we were walking out of the store.
Logan: Where are you? I need to see you.
I couldn’t answer. My phone dinged from him four more times before we got home. I shut off my phone.
We sat in my bathroom with the door locked. Mom wasn’t home yet, and all five pregnancy tests were unwrapped, sitting on the sink, waiting for me to pee on each one. I’d drank a whole jug of water, and as I started to feel the urge to use it, Erika made sure to coach me through it.
“You have to pee a little on a stick, then hold it, then another stick, then hold, then another—”
“I get it,” I sassed, annoyed. Not at her, but at myself for being in the current situation. I was supposed to be off to college next weekend, not peeing on five sticks.
Once the deed was done, we waited ten minutes. The packs said they’d only take two minutes, but I felt as if ten minutes would’ve been more accurate.
“What does a pink line mean on this one?” I asked, picking up the first stick.
“Pregnant,” Erika whispered.
I picked up the second. “And a plus sign?”
“Pregnant.”
My stomach tightened. “And two pink lines?”
She frowned.
Vomit rose to my throat. “And another plus sign?”
“Alyssa…” her voice shook.
“And this one that says pregnant? What does that mean?” Tears were falling down my cheeks, and I wasn’t certain how to make them stop. My breaths sawed in and out, my heartbeats became erratic. I didn’t know what to think about first. Logan? College? Mom? My tears?
“Aly, it’s okay. We’ll figure this out. Don’t panic.” Erika’s hand on my leg was the only thing keeping me from falling to the ground and rocking back and forth in a corner.
“I start college next weekend.”
“And you still will. We just need to figure out—”
“Alyssa!” Mom hollered, walking into the house. “What did I tell you about leaving your shoes in the foyer! Come get these now!”
My hands started shaking uncontrollably as Erika helped me stand up, swiping all of the pregnancy tests into a bag before she shoved them into her oversized purse. “Come on,” she said, washing her hands, forcing me to wash my hands, and then nudging her head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“No,” I whisper-shouted. “I can’t, I can’t see her right now. I can’t go out there.”
“You can’t just hide in here,” she said, wiping my eyes. “Don’t worry. We won’t say anything to her. Just breathe.”
She walked out of the bathroom first, and I followed behind her.
“Erika? What are you doing here?” Mom asked, with a heightened voice.
“I just thought I’d stop by to visit. Maybe have dinner with you both.”
“It’s rude to just show up for dinner without calling. What if I didn’t get enough food for you? Besides, I was ordering in tonight. Alyssa has to finish packing all of her boxes in her room, even though I told her she should’ve had it done last weekend. And—”
“I’m pregnant.”
Mom’s eyes shot up to me as Erika’s jaw shot to the ground. “What did you just say?”
The moment I said the word once more, the yelling began. She told me what a disappointment I’d become. She screamed her disgust toward me. She said she knew I’d screw up somehow, and called Logan a deadbeat.
“You’ll have an abortion,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s all there is to it. We’ll go to a clinic this week, handle this mishap, and then you’ll leave for college.”
My mind hadn’t even wrapped around the fact that I was pregnant, yet she was already telling me to make it disappear.
“Mom, come on. Let’s not be so irrational,” Erika said, standing up for me, because words weren’t able to escape my closed up throat.
“Irrational?” Mom folded her arms across her chest. She raised an eyebrow with a glassy stare. “No, what’s irrational is getting pregnant five days before starting college. What’s irrational is dating a loser with no life plans. What’s irrational is Alyssa having a child when she hasn’t even grown up herself.”
“He’s not a loser,” I swore about Logan. He was so far from being a loser.
Mom rolled her eyes, and started off toward her office. “I have a case tomorrow, but then we are going to the clinic. Otherwise, you can figure out a way to pay for college yourself. I will not put my money into you going to a school for a fake major, when you’ll end up dropping out and becoming nothing,” she ordered. “You’re just like your father.”
I inhaled sharply, and the knife in my heart dug deeper.
Erika stayed at our place that night, moving furniture around the living room. Rearranging things was how she always got her frustration out. Other times, she broke plates and glasses from her frustration. “She’s being unreasonable, Aly. You don’t have to listen to her, you know. And if she threatens you, don’t take it to heart. I’ll help you figure it out.”
I smiled, then frowned. “I have to tell Logan. He’s been texting me all afternoon, and I haven’t texted back. I don’t know what to say.”
Erika frowned, then frowned some more. “That’s going to be a tough talk, but it should happen sooner than later.”
I swallowed hard, knowing that it had to happen that night.
“I’m worried though, Alyssa. I’ve known Logan for a long time, and he’s not always the most stable person.” Erika wasn’t the biggest fan of Logan, and I couldn’t blame her. He was the boy who almost burned down hers and Kellan’s apartment a year ago after going on a bender with drugs due to his parents belittling and hitting him.
“That’s only five percent,” I murmured.
“What?”
“He’s there ninety-five percent of the time, Erika. Ninety-five percent of the time he’s gentle. He’s kind. But sometimes that five percent slips in, and he’s not himself. He loses the battle between his truths and the lies that his parents feed him. But you can’t judge him on those moments.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because if you judge him solely on his few moments of lows, then you miss out on his beautiful highs.”
***
When it rained, it poured, and poured, and poured.
I’d seen Logan’s low points quite a few times within the past two years. Whenever it happened, he turned into a person I didn’t recognize. His words slurred, his body wavered, and his voice was always so loud. He was angry, and somewhat mean, whenever he used drugs other than smoking pot. I knew it mostly happened when his parents hurt him, though, when they left abusive scars on his heart. The bruises on one’s heart were always the hardest ones to heal, they seemed to last the longest. When those low moments happened, I knew it was best to just let them pass, because afterwards, he always found his way back to the Logan I loved and adored.
Five percent low, ninety-five percent high.
When I finally turned my phone back on that night, I had fifteen missed text messages from Logan.
Logan: Where are you, High?
Logan: I need you.
Logan: Please. I’m falling apart. My dad just left and I’m not in a good place.
Logan: Alyssa? High?
Logan: Never mind.
Oh no. He was having a low moment. Those were the ones that scared me the most.
Me: I’m here.
He didn’t reply until three in the morning. When he called, I heard it in his voice, how he was so far away.
“I’m on your porch,” he said. When I opened the front door, I gasped. His left eye was swollen shut, his lip busted open. Black and blues took over his normally tan skin tone.
“Lo,” I breathed, reaching for his face. He cringed, stepping backward. “Your dad?”
He didn’t reply as I took him in.
I noticed the twitching first, followed by his impaired coordination. He frantically scratched at his skin and kept licking his lips.
How far into the shadows did you drive tonight, Logan?
“Can I shower or somethin’? I couldn’t go home tonight.” He sniffled as he tried to widen his left eye, but it wouldn’t budge open.
“Yeah, yeah of course. Come on.”
I led him to my bathroom as he stumbled beside me. Once we made it, I shut the door behind us. I reached for a small cloth, soaking it in warm water as he sat on top of the toilet. As I started pressing it to his face, he hissed. “It’s fine,” he argued, pulling away.
“No. It’s not. You can’t open your eye.”
“But I can still see you.” His mouth hung open slightly before he went back to licking his lips. “Were you busy earlier?”
I blinked, not looking into his one open eye. I soaked the towel more. �
�Yeah.”
“Too busy to text?”
“Yeah, Lo. I’m sorry.” My breaths quickened as I eyed the exit. I needed a moment away.
“Hey,” he whispered, placing his finger under my chin, raising my stare to meet his one eye. “I’m okay.”
“Are you high?”
He hesitated, before laughing. “Fuck you for asking that, High. Look at my face. What do you think?”
I flinched. He never spoke to me in such a way, except for when he was almost completely down the rabbit hole. I should’ve answered his texts.
“I’m going to get some ice for your eye, okay? You can start the shower.” I stood up to leave, but he called after me.
“High?”
“Lo?”
He swallowed hard, and one tear fell from his eye which was shut. “I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t know why I said that to you.”
I gave him a tight smile and hurried away.
My hands were shaking as I went to grab a baggie to put ice in for Logan. I’d never seen him so beaten up, or out of it before. What did your father do to you? Why was he such a monster?
“High?” I leaped at the sound of Logan’s voice behind me. Hairs stood up on my arms as I turned to see him holding something in his hand. “What’s this?”
“Oh my gosh. Logan, I wanted to talk to you about that.” I stared at the pregnancy test in his hand, one that must’ve been left behind in the bathroom earlier that afternoon.
“What do two pink lines mean?” he asked, hardly able to hold himself up and he swayed.
You’re too far gone for this talk tonight. “We should talk tomorrow,” I offered, approaching him to place my hand on his shoulder. He yanked himself away.
“No, we should talk about this now,” he said loudly.
“Lo, can you keep it down? My mom’s sleeping.”
“I don’t give a damn. Are you pregnant?”
“We shouldn’t do this tonight.”
“What’s going on?” was asked behind me. I cringed, seeing Mom walk into the kitchen wearing her robe. When her tired eyes locked with Logan’s she grew fully awake. “What are you doing here? You need to leave, now.”
The Fire Between High & Lo Page 8
