The Fire Between High & Lo

by Brittainy C. Cherry

  “Mom, come on,” I begged, seeing the hate in her eyes.

  “Jesus Christ. Can’t you see we’re h-h-having a fucking t-t-talk?” Logan slurred.

  That wasn’t helping the situation.

  Mom hurried over to him, grabbing his arm. “You are trespassing. Leave before I call the cops.”

  He yanked his arm away from her, stumbling backwards, hitting the fridge. “Don’t touch me. I’m talking to your daughter.”

  Mom’s eyes shot over to me. “And this is exactly why we are going to have the abortion. He’s a mess.”

  Logan stood up as straight as he could, his eyes wide with disgust. “Abortion? You’re having an abortion?”

  My body was shaking, my eyes glassed over. “No. Wait. Mom, stop. You’re not helping.”

  “You really spoke about an abortion?” Logan asked again.

  “We are getting it on Thursday. I already called to set it up,” Mom said, which was a lie. I was eighteen and had the right to do what I wanted with my body, not what my mother found fit.

  Logan let out a low breath. “Wow. So you were gonna do this without talking to me? You don’t think I’d be a good dad or something?”

  Mom laughed sarcastically.

  Again, not helping.

  “That’s not what I said, Lo.”

  “That is what you said! That’s what you meant!” he hollered, his eyes dull, as if the light I loved so much in him had been sucked from his entire existence.

  “You’re not listening to me because you’re high, Logan.”

  “Which isn’t anything new,” Mom muttered under her breath, disgust stinging her words.

  “Mom, will you stop?” I begged.

  “No. She’s right. I’m always high, right? That’s all you people think of me,” he said, gesturing toward Mom and me. “You and all your fucking money in your big ass house with no fucking struggles.” As he stumbled around, he accidentally knocked over our knife set, sending them across the floor. Both Mom and I jumped out of fright.

  Oh, Lo… Come back…

  “You need to leave. Now.” Mom grabbed her cell phone and held it up. “I’m calling the cops.”

  “Mom, don’t. Please.”

  “No. I’m leaving. You can have this all,” he hissed. “Your money. Your house. Your life. Your abortion. What the hell ever. I’m gone.”

  He hurried away, and tears fell down my cheeks as I stared at Mom. “What’s wrong with you?!”

  “Me?” she screeched, shocked. “He’s a disaster waiting to happen. I knew you were naïve, Alyssa Marie. But I didn’t know how extremely stupid you could be. He’s an addict. He’s sick, and he’s not going to get better. He’ll drag you down into the flames before you bring him fresh air. You should give up on him. He’s a lost cause. Kellan and you both are his enablers. You’re allowing this to keep happening and it’s only going to get worse.”

  I took a deep breath before racing after Logan.

  He was walking toward the gate to climb back over it. “Logan, wait!” I cried.

  He turned around to see me, his chest rising and falling heavily. “I let you in,” he said, his voice harsh.

  My voice, was the complete opposite. Weak. Pained. Scared. “I know.”

  “I let you in, even though I told you it wasn’t a good thing. I’m not someone who loves, Alyssa. But you fucking made me love you.”

  “I know.”

  “So, you made me love you. And I loved you hard, because I don’t know any other way. I loved you to my core, because you made this life seem a little bit more worth living. And then, out of nowhere, you turn on me. What did I do? Why would you… I told you my dreams. I told you everything.” He stepped closer to me, his voice lowering, shaking. When our eyes locked he shook his head once, stepping backward. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?” I asked, bewildered.

  “I’m not my mother,” he snapped.

  “I know you’re not.”

  “Then why the hell are you looking at me like I am?”

  “Logan… Please just hear me out.”

  He walked over to me, and our bodies melted together as they always did. His forehead fell against mine, his tears brushing against my skin as my hands rested on his chest. We wrapped our arms around each other, both of our bodies heated from the inside out, burning to know the reasons why life had to be so hard. His lips fell against my ear, and his hot breaths brushed against my skin as he said the words that scorned my soul.

  “I never want to see you again.”

  ***

  He disappeared that night.

  He disappeared from my life in a blink of an eye. The late night calls vanished. His gentle voice was gone. Each night I wondered where he was, if he were safe. Whenever I stopped by his apartment, he wasn’t there. Whenever I called him, it went straight to voicemail. Kellan said he hadn’t heard from his brother, neither. He hadn’t seen him, and he was just as terrified as me.

  When I told Mom I wasn’t going to give up the baby, she screamed at me, and went ahead with her threats, and cancelled her payment plan for my college. Erika and Kellan let me move into their small apartment as I tried to find my footing.

  Each night Kellan and I came back to town, and we’d drive around to the different places that Logan might’ve been. We spoke to his friends, but always seemed a minute too late.

  He was at parties, but seemed to always vanish. His friend Jacob told us Logan had been using a lot lately, but he hadn’t been able to talk to him.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for him,” he swore. “If I run into him again, I’ll let you know.”

  I felt a knot in my stomach.

  What if Logan crossed a line?

  What if he couldn’t come back from this hurt he was feeling?

  It was all my fault.

  Chapter Eleven

  Alyssa

  I hated receiving phone calls during the middle of the night. They always shook my nerves. No good news came at three or four in the morning. Unfortunately, I’d had way too many of those calls during the past few months, all because of one boy who set my heart on fire. Whenever the phone rang, my mind went to the worst possible situations—an illness, an accident, death. Some nights I’d stay up with heavy eyes, waiting for the phone calls. When I didn’t get them, sometimes I’d dial his number just to hear his voice, just to make sure he was okay.

  “I’m okay, Alyssa Marie Walters,” he’d say.

  “You’re okay, Logan Francis Silverstone,” I’d reply, before falling asleep to the sounds of his breathing.

  But lately, we weren’t talking.

  When I worried, I couldn’t call him.

  When I was scared, his sounds weren’t on the other line.

  So that night when the phone rang, I was more afraid than ever before.

  “Alyssa?” a voice said into my cell phone, not Logan’s, even though his name was the one that appeared on my screen.

  “Who is this?” I asked, sleep still stinging my eyelids.

  “It’s Jacob…Logan’s friend. I…” He hesitated. “Look, I’m at this party, and I found Logan. He’s not doing too well. I didn’t know who to call.”

  I sat up in bed, wide awake within seconds. “Where is he?” Jacob gave me all of the information, and I scrambled out of the bed, searching for a pen and paper to scribble it all down. “Thanks, Jacob. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Yeah okay. Listen, you might want to bring Kellan, too.”

  I hurried to Kellan and Erika’s bedroom and banged on the door. My heart pounded against my ribcage, and I bit my tongue to keep from crying. My body wouldn’t stop shaking as I waited to hear Kellan’s voice. When he opened the door and spoke, I took in a pained breath. He sounded so much like Logan, it almost knocked me backwards. It’d been a few weeks since Logan stopped talking to me. All I wanted to do was hear his voice again.

  “Alyssa? What’s wrong?” Kellan asked, alarm and alertness filling his tones. He knew just as
I did that a late night call when Logan was using again could’ve always been the call that we each feared the most. “Is he…”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. I told him everything I knew though, and we were out the door within minutes.

  When we arrived to the party, Jacob was standing on the front porch of some broken down house while Logan laid on a bench. His eyes were hardly open, and he was drooling out of the left side of his mouth.

  “Jesus,” Kellan muttered, walking up to his brother.

  “He’s not that responsive.”

  “What did he take?” Kellan asked.

  “He was shooting up some heroin, and I think he did blow earlier. I don’t know what else though.”

  “Why didn’t you call the cops?!” I screamed. I rushed over to Logan, and tried to lift his body. He cringed at the movement, and started to throw up on the porch.

  “I don’t know, man. Listen, normally Logan can handle this shit. But these past few weeks he’s been getting into some deep shit. I couldn’t call the cops because… Look. I didn’t know what to do, so I called you guys.”

  I’d known Jacob for a while. Logan didn’t have many people he called friend, but Jacob was one of the rare few that he spoke about in a good light. But I disagreed that night. A real friend—a true friend—would never let someone fall so deeply and not even reach out a hand.

  “You should’ve called an ambulance,” I hissed, angered. Scared. Angered and scared.

  “Help me get him to the car,” Kellan ordered Jacob. They laid him in the backseat, and I climbed back there with him. “He might throw up again, Alyssa. You might want to sit up front.”

  “I’m fine here,” I replied.

  Kellan thanked Jacob, and we drove off toward the hospital to get Logan checked out. I’d never seen him like that, and I was seconds away from losing my mind.

  “Keep him awake, okay?” Kellan said.

  I nodded as my tears fell against Logan’s cheeks. “You have to stay awake, okay? Keep your eyes open, Lo.” He laid his head in my lap in the backseat of Kellan’s car, and I was terrified that if he closed his eyes, they wouldn’t open back up. His whole body was soaked from his own sweat, and every inhale he partook in looked painful. Every exhale, exhausting.

  He laughed. “Hi.”

  My lips turned down. “Hi, Logan.”

  His head shook back and forth, and he sat up on his elbows. “No. Not hi. High. H-I-G-H.” I hated when he talked about being high. I hated the way he lost himself in something that changed him from my best friend into my greatest fear. What happened to you tonight, Logan? What made him go so deeply toward the darkness?

  I paused, knowing the answer.

  It was me.

  I did this to him.

  I made him chase his shadows.

  I’m sorry, Logan.

  My Mom’s words rang in my ears and mind as I stared down into his slatted eyes. He’s an addict, Alyssa. He’s sick, and he’s not going to get better. He’ll drag you down into the flames before you bring him fresh air. You should give up on him. He’s a lost cause. Kellan and you both are his enablers. You’re allowing this to keep happening and it’s only going to get worse…

  “You’re high,” Logan whispered, falling back down.

  “What?”

  “You call me Lo, which makes sense because I am low. I’m the bottom of the fucking pit. But you?” he chuckled and closed his eyes. “You’re my High. And you broke my fucking heart.”

  Tears filled my eyes as I held him in my arms. “Keep your eyes open, Lo. Okay? Just keep your eyes open.” I glanced to the front of the car, where Kellan was wiping at his face. I knew seeing his brother in the shape he was had to be the hardest thing ever.

  I knew Kellan’s heart had to be breaking like mine was.

  “Take me back,” he muttered, trying to push himself up from the backseat.

  “Chill out, Logan. Everything’s okay,” Kellan said.

  “No. Take me back,” he hollered, leaping up from my lap and diving at the wheel, making Kellan swerve the car. “Take me back!” We both tried to stop him, to get him to control himself, to get him to calm down, but before we could, Kellan lost control.

  The car took a sharp left.

  And everything went black.

  Chapter Twelve

  Logan

  When my eyes opened, I was in a hospital bed, and sunlight was shining through my window. I tried to turn away, but everything hurt. “Shit,” I muttered.

  “You okay?” a voice said. I twisted my head over to see Kellan sitting in a chair with packets in his hand, and a large bandage on his forehead. He was wearing a hoodie, and sweatpants, and missing the smile that was always on his face.

  “No. I feel like I’ve been hit by a semi-truck.”

  “Or maybe like you hit a freaking building,” someone else murmured. I turned to my left to see Erika. Her arms were crossed, and her stare harsh. Beside her was a man in a bowtie holding a notepad, and Jacob was in the far corner, sitting on the countertop.

  What happened? Why was Jacob with Kellan?

  “You don’t remember?” Kellan asked, sounding somewhat short with me.

  “Remember what?”

  “Driving into a freaking building!” Erika exclaimed, her voice shaky. The man beside her put a comforting hand on her shoulder. I closed my eyes, trying to remember what happened, but everything seemed a blur.

  “Logan.” Kellan pinched the bridge of his nose. “We found you passed out on a front porch. Then we were trying to bring you to the hospital to get you checked out, you panicked and took control of the wheel, making us hit a building.”

  “What?” My throat was dry. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, but Erika disagreed. “Show him your side, Kellan.”

  “Stop, Erika.”

  “No. He needs to see this. He needs to see what he’s done.”

  Kellan lowered his head, staring at his shoes. “Drop it, Erika.”

  “Show me,” I ordered. He rubbed the back of his neck as he pulled up his hoodie, showing his whole left side which was black, blue, and shades of purple from top to bottom. “Holy shit. I did that?”

  “It’s fine,” Kellan said.

  “It’s not,” Erika snapped.

  She’s right, it’s not.

  “Kel, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

  “That’s not even the worst of it! You almost killed my sister!” she shouted.

  My heart dropped to my gut.

  Alyssa.

  High.

  My greatest high.

  “What happened to Alyssa? Where is she?” I barked, trying to sit up, but failing from the pain that shot through my back.

  “Logan, relax. The doctors are helping Alyssa. But right now is about you. We brought someone here to help you,” Kellan said.

  “Help me what? I don’t need anyone’s help. What happened to Alyssa?” I felt the walls in the room closing in. What was I doing here? Why was everyone looking at me as if I were damaged goods? Why won’t they tell me about Alyssa?

  “We’re all here because we love you,” Kellan tried to explain. Then it clicked in my head. I realized why the bowtie man was standing in the room. I read one of the packets in Kellan’s hands, and I closed my eyes tight. They’re having an intervention for me. In a hospital room.

  “Love?” I hissed, my voice filled with bitterness as I slowly realized what was going on. “Bullshit.”

  “Come on, Logan. That’s not fair,” Kellan said. I turned to meet Kellan’s heavy eyes as he looked at me with fear, worry.

  “Don’t ‘come on, Logan,’ me, Kellan. So what?” I looked up from my fidgeting hands. “This is an intervention? You all think I’m so fucked up that you had to gather into a hospital room and embarrass the living shit out of me because you think I’m dangerous? You have to bring in people that don’t give two shits about me? I made one mistake last night.” I gestured toward Jacob. “It’s pretty hypocritical to have
the asshole who got high with me last week here, don’t you think? Jacob, I’m almost positive you’re fucked up right now.”

  Jacob frowned. “Come on, Logan…”

  “No. And Erika, I don’t even know why the hell you’re even here. You can’t stand me,” I said.

  “I don’t hate you, Logan.” She swallowed hard. “Come on, that’s harsh.”

  “I really fucking wish you guys would stop saying ‘come on’ as if you’re better than me. You’re not better than me.” I laughed sarcastically, trying to sit up a bit. I was growing defensive, because deep inside of me, I knew they were right. “It’s comical, actually. Because here we are talking about me being screwed up in the head when we are sitting in a room filled with people who are just as fucked up, if not more, than I am. Kellan here can’t even stand up to his dick of a father to let him know that he wants to be a musician instead of a lawyer. Jacob has an addiction to weird damn porn that involves forks and shit. Erika breaks one plate and buys fifty to replace them, just in fucking case the new one shatters too. Does no one else find her break and buy lifestyle insane?”

  “I think we all just want you to get better, Logan,” Kellan said. I wondered if Kellan’s heartbeats were as frantic as mine currently were. “I can only imagine what you’ve been through with staying with Ma. I doubt she makes it easy to stay clean.”

  “You must be feeling pretty good,” I said, brushing my finger beneath my nose. “Because you’re Kellan, the golden child. The one with the rich father. The one with a future. The one with a full ride to a top college to become a top lawyer. And I’m just the fucked-up brother with a crackhead mother and a drug dealing father. Well, congratulations, Kellan. You’re the winner. You are mom’s better son who made something of himself, and I’m just a pathetic piece of shit kid who will probably be dead by twenty-five.”

  Kellan took in a pained breath. “Why would you ever even say that kind of shit?” His nose flared as he paced the hospital room. “What’s wrong with you, Logan? Wake up. Wake up. We’re all trying to help you and you’re yelling at us as if we are the enemy, when in reality the enemy is your own mind. You’re killing yourself. You’re fucking killing yourself and you don’t care,” he shouted. Kellan never raised his voice—never.