Before You Go

by Ella James

  “Schmoozy, huh?” She could hear his smile.

  “Everybody there has their own plane. And lots of houses. Like my roommate, Elizabeth Timberdime, she has seven of them.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “I’ve been staying at their home in Tahoe since school got out. It’s smaller. Only nine bedrooms. I saw one of their homes in New York state. It had twenty-three bedrooms.”

  “Your mom’s got a lot of houses, too, right? Isn’t there a big one out in Bel Air?”

  Margo remembered the feature on the Travel Channel. American Palaces, she thought it was called, and evidently Logan had seen it, too. Cindy’s Bel Air home was off Linda Flora Drive, and Logan was surely thinking it was a palace.

  She let her breath out, took another one in. It wasn’t going to be weird, because she wouldn’t let it be.

  In a casual tone, she said, “Chandra. It is kind of a palace—so I hear. I’ve never been inside.” She hesitated, then plunged. “You know, I’ve only really met her twice.”

  “Only met…your mother?” His voice lilted at the end.

  “Like I said—we didn’t really know each other until my dad died.”

  He made a soft sound, a little oh.

  “It’s okay,” she lied. “And technically, I guess me and Cindy met three times. Once at birth.”

  Logan’s chest shook, and he emitted sound that couldn’t really be called a laugh. It was weird.

  In the silence that followed, an ice sheet settled over her—the same sensation that always came when she thought about Cindy.

  “So no one here said anything about…why I was coming?”

  “No,” he said quickly. Too quickly.

  “Really?”

  He cleared his throat. “People here are kind of busy. I’m sure Jana knew about it, but maybe no one wanted to make you uncomfortable.”

  “Maybe it made everyone feel awkward.” Hurt burned through her chest, hurt and shame that she’d even brought this up.

  “How so?” he asked.

  She looked down at the horse’s neck. Flexed her fingers. Figured, what the hell. She wouldn’t know Logan after the next week, so why not jump off the cliff she’d climbed? “At one point, one of the big networks reported that I actually had been kidnapped. Someone called Cindy’s press person, and somehow the rumor… it got out of hand.” She bit her lip, ashamed that she’d felt the need to share something so humiliating. “Cindy thought I’d been taken and she…she offered a reward.”

  “Okay…”

  Margo inhaled deeply. “She offered five-hundred thousand dollars.”

  Cindy was worth $25 billion, and she’d offered a measly half a million for her daughter.

  “I see,” he said simply.

  “Yep.”

  After a moment, she felt his chin near her neck, heard his voice, soft in her ear. “She obviously doesn’t know how much you’re worth.”

  Margo felt her neck burn. She shut her eyes, and for a few minutes, there was only the feel of Logan next to her, only the sound of Gamma’s hooves. She wondered what she should say to break the silence. If she should say anything…

  Logan did it for her. “Just a little longer,” he said gently. “Then we’ll use the barn phone and call Jana.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, so glad he’d changed the subject. He’d changed the subject, and yet…things still felt cozy. The realization made her nervous, so she jumped into another subject. “Do you think I have a concussion?”

  “Probably.”

  “I’ve never had one before.”

  She hadn’t meant to sound quite so pitiful, but the pain from her head got into her voice, and Logan sighed. “I’m sorry. I wish to hell that I had given you that tour.”

  Maybe it was the remorse in his voice, or because she felt hurt in more ways than her concussion. Maybe it was, again, the head trauma. But for whatever reason, Margo told him exactly what was going through her mind.

  “You asked where I’m from… and I’m from nowhere, really. I don’t have a home anymore. My permanent address is a dorm room. It’s kind of funny: no home, and my mom has all those houses.”

  Not funny, she thought with disgust. Pathetic. She was shocked when he said, “I feel a little like that, sometimes. I moved to Massachusetts, to go to Milton, when I was eleven, and then to MIT at sixteen. My family’s still in Georgia, but I can’t go back.”

  “Why not?” she asked, feeling the tension in his arm around her waist.

  “Oh, you know. ‘You can never go home.’” He sounded almost flippant, and even through her pain, Margo could tell he was being evasive.

  “I’d go home if I could,” she offered.

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  If she thought he was tense before, now he was miming a brick wall. His body tightened, inanimate and hard. His fingers around the reigns were clenched into a fist. He let his breath out, a long, painful-sounding sigh, and Margo wished again she could take her question back.

  God. He wasn’t going to answer her. They were going to ride all the way back in total silence, with her head throbbing, and her—

  “Going back there is…I don’t know. Stifling. I probably should go home more, see my mom and little sister, but I don’t make the time.”

  For a while, she thought that was all he was going to say. Then he sighed, like just thinking about home made it hard for him to breathe, and in a quiet voice, he said, “I don’t think home’s the same for everybody.”

  “You have your college place,” she offered.

  “The good ole dorm.”

  “I bet you’re a pro at cooking Ramen.”

  He chuckled. “I’m surprised you know of Ramen.”

  “I wasn’t reared as a Zhu. We only had three houses.”

  “Just three.”

  “One of them was a beach house, and the other was a townhouse in Washington. Isn’t that normal enough?”

  “Normal enough,” he agreed.

  She was trying to be light, and she could sense that he was, too, but there was sadness in his tone. She glanced over her shoulder to meet his eyes; they seemed flat, more grey than blue. “You’re not exactly Mr. Normal, either, are you?”

  He snorted. “Not quite.”

  She’d meant to tease. She figured he must be fine with being some kind of super genius, but the subject quieted him. She tried again.

  “Tell me about your sister. Are you close?”

  “I thought I told you to talk.” But he answered anyway. “Yeah. We always have been. Even though I’ve lived pretty far away, Maggie and I keep up.” His chest expanded, and she could sense his silent pride. “She’s a great girl. Smart and funny.”

  She knew that instant that she was going to ask. She waited a couple of heartbeats to get her courage up, gauging the distance between where they were, passing between two spindly trees, and the barn, a couple of dozen yards ahead. Deciding it was short enough to walk if she had to, Margo took the plunge.

  “Could you do me a favor…please?”

  “What?”

  “Tell me the truth: Why don’t you like me?”

  “Wh—”

  “I understand you wouldn’t be thrilled that you have to…be so close to me, but you seemed to get pretty pissed about the room, and eating dinner with me. Like, overly. So, is it something about me? It doesn’t make any sense unless it’s that. Or…I don’t know…you’ve got a girlfriend?” She blushed as she said it. “I feel like we get along well right now. Is there a reason why we can’t be…friendlier?”

  Her words hung in the muggy air, and the only thing Margo could hear over the pounding of her heart was Gamma’s hooves thumping against the grass. She leaned slightly forward; her head throbbed, distracting from the suspense of his answer.

  She needed it quick, like snatching off a Band-Aid, but Logan just sat there…like a mannequin. Just as she opened her mouth to say, forget about it, he took a deep breath.

  “So…um
, what was the question again?”

  She shut her eyes, and kept her own voice dead neutral. His arm around her waist had gone to stone. “The question was, what did I do to make you dislike me?”

  She felt him nod, and she thought her head might explode. “You didn’t do anything to make me dislike you, and I don’t.”

  “Then what was up with the room, or that dinner on the porch, and you avoiding me the last two days. And you refused to show me around the barn. Refused rudely. Or maybe I imagined all those things?”

  “No,” he answered. “No.”

  “Okay…” She waited, gripping the saddle horn. “So it’s true—you have been acting weird to me. Like, friendly at first, and now, and rude at all the other times. Is it because you have a girlfriend?”

  Logan laughed at that. He seemed to think it was hiiilarious.

  “Is that a confirmation,” she asked, “or a denial?”

  Another laugh. “A denial,” he said. “Most definitely.”

  She didn’t know whether to grin or punch him. As it was, she’d gone all warm and soft again. “You know what?” She glanced back at him. “You’re weird. Maybe it’s a good thing you don’t like me, because it means I’m normal.”

  She could feel him smile. Then shrug. “Maybe.”

  “Aaa-hah.” She turned, even though it hurt her neck, and poked him. “So you do dislike me.”

  And it was funny, because at that moment, she felt herself starting to float.

  Logan must have been floating, too, because he laughed a lot more.

  And then she laughed. It hurt her head. She said, “Crap,” and then he said, “What?”

  “You don’t like me,” she said, oddly confident now. “Just admit it. Is it cooties, or did Jana mention that deadly disease I picked up? I knew I shouldn’t have traveled to that slum in Calcutta, but geez, those orphans were so cute.”

  “They must have been.”

  “Worth the virus. And the mandatory quarantine. And the loss of a potential friend named Logan. Who doesn’t want to room with me because I have cooties. The really fatal kind.”

  “Are they?” he asked quietly. She could feel the sudden tension in him, in his chest and stomach and arms. The unhappiness.

  Looking down at his hand, Margo had the strongest urge to wrap her own around it. Instead, she stared out toward the barn.

  11

  Logan felt sick as he listened to the Jeep crunch up the gravel path behind him. He saw Margo in his head—the way she looked buckled into the front seat: pale and smiling, just a little, lifting her hand to wave goodbye. She’d taken all the blame for the accident, telling Jana she’d come right into the stables and saddled Apollo without consulting anyone.

  “He was so pretty,” she’d said, a little wistfully. Logan hadn’t said a word. He couldn’t confess what he couldn’t stand to think about: It was his fault she’d gotten hurt, his fault she was riding to the Isis Clinic for a MRI.

  He began to unsaddle Gama, then realized he would need to ride to find Apollo. He turned back to the door, but his vision swam. Everything became a blur, and he lashed out, throwing his fist at the stall. The impact hurt, and Logan liked the way it felt. He slid down to his knees and tucked his arm to his chest, able to breathe for the first time in an hour. In the rhythm of panting, he shut his eyes.

  He and Maggie were swinging on that old swing set—the one in the back with the candy-cane stripes and the baby chair that they were both too big for but always tried to fit into anyway. Logan was explaining the stars.

  He was learning about them in his special Friday afternoon class, and about the planets, too. It was almost time for supper, and after that, he was going to take Maggie into the fields. The corn was getting tall, and they could lay between the stalks and watch it get dark without being seen.

  Sometimes you could see Jupiter and Mars, and he really liked that. He liked the idea of going to a planet. He would be the only one up there, unless he wanted to bring anyone with him. Sometimes he thought maybe he might bring Maggie, when she wasn’t being a brat. He would probably bring his mom. And that was it. Just the three of them.

  Right then, his mom stuck her head out the back door and called them in for supper. Logan was swinging really high, so he hit the pole with his tip-toes to slow himself down. If they were late for supper, his dad would get mad.

  When he was close to the ground, he jumped off and turned around to Maggie. “Come on.”

  Her pink lips puckered up.

  “I said let’s go!”

  She shook her head. “Nu-uh.”

  “Do you want Daddy to get mad?”

  “No.” Maggie used her baby voice, the one she always used when something had upset her, even though she was three and she knew how to talk for real.

  “Then come on.” He grabbed her swing chain. She shrieked as it wobbled and threw her arms out. Logan caught her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, putting her head on his shoulder.

  He tried to wiggle free, but she was locked on like a cicada shell on a tree. “Come on, let go of me.”

  “I don’t wanna go.”

  Eventually Logan got her inside, but it wasn’t easy. Maggie was what Logan’s mom called stubborn as a mule. Logan had to promise her the last of his fudge popsicles to get her to go in. He had also told her things would be okay, and he felt bad when they got to the kitchen, because they weren’t. His dad looked really mad, and he was already drinking out of his special cup.

  Logan didn’t tell anybody, but he thought his dad was a little bit scary. He was big, even compared to other adults, and his face was always frowning.

  When he came in for supper, he was dirty from working on Mr. Taylor—no, Mrs. Taylor’s planes. Mr. Taylor had died just a few months before, after a rattler bit him by a cotton gin.

  Logan got some mashed potatoes and fried steak. He even got green beans, to make his dad more happy. He helped Maggie get her food, because his mom was already sitting down.

  “You two’re late,” Orry Tripp growled.

  Logan was almost to the table, but he stopped. His dad’s voice sounded slow and sleepy, but there was an edge to it.

  “Come on. Sit down!”

  Logan’s mom was sitting across from his dad, so Logan had to sit beside him. And so did Maggie. She must have noticed his funny talking and his extra mean face, because she scooted her chair near their mom’s.

  Logan’s dad hit the table. “Sarah,”—that was Logan’s mom—“you don’t need to be cutting up her food any more. She’s almost four years old.”

  Maggie was just barely three, but Logan didn’t say so.

  His mom scooted Maggie’s seat back to its place and tried to tell her how to cut her own food, but Maggie couldn’t do it. Logan leaned across the table to help her, and his dad swatted his arm.

  “Get back over there!”

  “Can I eat wit my hands?” Maggie asked.

  “No! You ain’t an animal!”

  Logan never said anything to his father unless he had to, and he never disagreed with the man. But for some reason, he did that night. It was just a mumble—he backed out before he could really say the words—but his father demanded he speak up.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got somethin’ to say.”

  Logan moved his beans around with the tip of his fork.

  “Say it again, boy!”

  His heart thumped as he met his father’s eyes. They were red and kind of watery. “I said, we’re sorta like animals. Like the deer.”

  For some reason, Logan’s dad laughed—loud. It hurt Logan’s ears and made his mom frown. When he was done laughing, Logan’s dad said, “How’s that, son? Tell me how we’re like animals.”

  “Um. Well we both have eyes. And legs and hearts. And Ms. Suffolk said we used to have tails.”

  That got an even bigger laugh. Logan’s dad laughed so loud that he spilled his drink, and he made Logan pour him
more from the frozen glass bottle he kept in the freezer.

  While Logan was getting the drink, his mom and his dad started fighting. About him. Logan couldn’t hear them well, but he heard his mom say his name, and he heard his dad say something about sin.