“What?” Dylan barks, his tone suddenly acidic.
“Leave her alone, Dylan,” the low voice says, unmistakably male and, for some reason, unmistakably pissed. It’s instantly familiar to me, vaguely unsettling, even though I don’t recognize it.
“Or what?” Dylan bites back crudely.
I fight to control my panicked breathing, fight to control the fraught way I’m scraping my thumb over and over across my wrist, fight to control the deafening screams no one else can hear, but his hands are one me and his body is pressing against mine and my back is against the wall and I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.
“What are you gonna do?” Dylan demands.
“Let. Her. Go.”
Despite the obvious threat the voice holds, breaking through the dull roar of everything, Dylan only pulls me tighter, his breath in my ear. I taste bile splash in the back of my throat.
“If she doesn’t want to she can say so on her own.”
A second goes by in silence and suddenly I realize I’m just standing there screaming myself hoarse even though no one can hear me and I elbow him, hard in the ribs, forcing his body a few inches from mine.
It doesn’t help me breathe. I thought it would help me breathe, but it doesn’t.
Dylan smiles like it’s all a game and his weight shifts like he’s going to crush down onto me again but that’s as far as he gets because a hand comes out of nowhere and smashes into his chest with enough force to rap his head back against the wall.
“Leave her alone, asshole.”
“Fuck off, Brenner!”
Dylan must’ve made some other infinitesimal movement because once again he’s slammed back into the wall. His head bounces and just that fast the other guy is up in his face, so close he all but blocks Dylan from my view with the back of his dark head but it doesn’t matter now. I’m too far gone.
“She doesn’t talk and you fucking know it you fucking shit.”
I hear this snarled as I stumble away from the hallway, pushing toward the door, desperate to breathe.
My heart is still lodged somewhere in my throat, choking me, and I stumble and crash through the door, down the steps, the cold night air biting my arms and I keep going, away from the lights of the house, past the haphazardly parked cars in the grass out front. I have no destination beyond away. God, get me away.
I can’t hear anything but the screaming.
I stumble what feels like far enough, through a few neighboring yards and up toward the drainage ditch by the road before I stop, brace a shaking hand against the rough bark of a tree, and vomit up what little I had in my stomach.
It doesn’t make me feel any better.
The cold of the air is soothing, but only marginally. My throat hurts. My stomach twists and heaves again but nothing else emerges, just an awful gagging sound leaking from my lips. My mouth is dry and horrible. My wrist is screaming with sharp pain.
I spin around, scuttling back like some spineless thing when I hear footsteps behind me.
It takes me a second through my panic to recognize the guy standing a few steps back from me and my tree. The guy from my health class that no one ever spoke to. Dark hair, dark eyes, black jacket and jeans. From the way he’d followed me out here, I realize he must also have been the owner of that voice.
I resist the urge to cover my ears against the screaming because I know it won’t help.
He doesn’t apologize, even though I’m sure he can see the blind terror splashed across my face from the trickling glow of the nearest porch lights. He doesn’t ask if I’m okay because he already knows the answer to that, and certainly by now knows I wouldn’t respond, anyway.
He just stands there, studying me, and then I can’t care anymore and I sink down onto my knees in the dirt, barely catching myself with trembling arms, my shaking body giving in to the pull of the attack. I feel like my chest might explode. I’m breathing so fast I think I might be having a heart attack but I know better. This is just how my broken body deals with stress.
So much for normal.
Through my frantic gasps for air I suddenly feel a presence next to me and jerk away, landing on a rock or a stick on my hip and only dimly registering the pain. I stare in shock at the emotionless face before me as he holds his palms up and out for me to see, his head dipped slightly and his eyes open wide, almost like he’s asking for something. I can’t think what it is though because my lungs are about to burst with the need for air. Black spots are jumping around in front of my eyes and I know I can’t pass out. Not here.
Moving carefully and slowly, watching me the whole time, the guy reaches down, lifting my hand from where it is braced, clutching at the dirt like the world is trying to dislodge me from its surface. He studies my face as he lifts my hand and I let him, because he seems to be silently asking permission. I feel my hair slide across my bare arms and realize distantly that somewhere along the way it must’ve slipped free of the braid I’d carefully gathered it into only hours before.
And then he surprises me, because he turns my hand over and presses it against the center of his chest between the open plackets of his coat, the metal zipper cool against my wrist. He splays it until my fingers are spread flat against his warm shirt, holding it there with both of his. Instinctively I want to pull away but don’t; his hands are firm but aren’t imprisoning me. He keeps my gaze with fixed brown eyes and slowly and methodically breathes in and out, letting me feel his chest move beneath my palm, inhaling and exhaling, never taking his eyes from mine. Inhale, his chest moves up, expanding, and then exhale, down, and I feel the steady drum of his heartbeat from under his ribs. Inhale, up, exhale, down. Inhale. Exhale.
Slowly, I realize two things. One is that my heart rate is slowing, my breathing slipping painfully into a rhythm that nearly matches his, inhaling and exhaling in time. My vision clears, and the screams subside. Second is that this guy is touching me, and I am touching him, and it doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t bother me at all.
When he sees that I’ve stabilized he shifts slightly, just slightly, and I can’t help it, my fingers flinch against his chest, underneath the warmth of his hands. I don’t want to lose the contact yet, afraid I might descend back into oblivion without the feel of him, solid beside me.
He seems to sense this because without smiling, without any change in his expression at all he enfolds my hand in one of his and shrugs the opposite shoulder to dislodge the jacket there. Then he switches, grasping my hand with his other as he slips the jacket fully from his body. He uses his free hand to swing it up and around my still shivering body, encompassing me in a blanket of warmth, all without ever letting go of my hand.
He returns the free hand overtop mine, his warm skin entirely enveloping it. “Better?”
The softness of his voice shocks me after the thinly veiled malice I’d heard in it back at the party, but I nod. The sound is familiar to me. Comforting.
For a second he’s just there, crouched in front of me in those same boots he always wears, him in a t-shirt of indistinct color and me wrapped in the coat still warm from his body. Then he shifts with the snap of a branch beneath him, sitting with his back against the tree, knees bent and boots planted in the dirt, right there in some stranger’s front yard. Like he has absolutely no desire to be anywhere else.
He still hasn’t let go of my hand and he catches me looking down at it.
“I’ll let go if it bothers you but you seemed to want . . .”
He stops because I’m shaking my head, a little too forcefully, my fingers gripping his for good measure.
“Okay.”
After a moment I rearrange myself as well, tucking my feet to the side, getting somewhat comfortable without leaning up next to him – worried that might be too close – all without loosening my grip on his hand. With my other I pull the sides of his coat together, grateful for the warmth. I’m stiff and achy, but afraid to move too much or he’ll think I want him to leave and then I’ll
be back to gasping for breath, trying not to hear the screams that rip me to pieces.
When his lips twitch with a smile I tilt my head in question. What?
“They’re going to find us here, years later. Two mummified bodies by the edge of the road, still holding hands.”
I don’t smile with him, glancing down at our hands, suddenly excruciatingly self-conscious.
“Stop it,” he says without force, and his thumb sweeps gently over the back of my hand. “It’s fine.”
When he gets tired of holding them up he lets our hands rest on his knee, which is oddly both intimate and comforting at the same time. He has to know I’m still studying him, matching my breathing with his. He has to hear it, has to see it as closely as he’s watching me, like he’s searching for clues, but he doesn’t comment.
Silence drops over us, not heavy or awkward, just calm. Silence that he settles into like it’s an overstuffed sofa, not made uncomfortable by it at all, until he notices me glancing around, biting my lip.
“Did you . . . did you come here with Dylan?”
I shake my head. No.
“Who, then?”
He waits a beat and than grimaces slightly at my blank look, actually seeming ashamed that he’d forgotten, instead of pissed and irritated that I wouldn’t talk, even to tell him such a simple thing. As if even one word clawing up my bruised throat, exploding out of me like a blood clot shaken loose with all the gore spewing forth behind it, would somehow be better. Easier, like everyone thought.
“Sorry. Nevermind.”
I shake my head again, amazed.
“Do you have a ride home?”
I can feel the grip of panic start in again but I hide it with another shake of my head. I did, technically. I think. But I’d have to go back in there, somehow find Erik, coax him away from the on-again-off-again love of his life, beg him silently to take me home. My chest feels like an avalanche, just before that first brittle block of ice breaks free.
He stares at me, his expression never changing. “I’m Logan.”
That wasn’t what I expected him to say. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but that wasn’t it. He must see the surprise on my face because he explains, “I thought we should be properly introduced if I’m going to drive you home.”
I don’t smile. I don’t want to go home. Not yet. Possibly not ever.
“Bree.” Softly, almost a question. “Will you let me drive you home?”
Focusing on my breathing, I try not to look at him. It was going so well. It was going so well but I can feel it slipping, I can feel it coming unhinged. My heart is pounding. My mouth is dry. I swallow but it doesn’t help and I can’t look at him but I’m clutching his hand like I’m about to be swallowed into the pits of hell and maybe I am.
“Woah. Okay.” He – Logan, I remind myself - returns the tightened grip for a second but then just sets my palm on his chest again, doing even better and grabbing my other hand too, firmly holding my gaze. We’re sitting there facing each other under that tree and he’s pressing my hands to his chest like we’re lovers but really I’m sinking into that pit and the screaming rips at my ears and he’s the only thing keeping me from drowning.
“Okay,” he says again, softer this time, taking careful, deliberate breaths. For me.
I feel tears prick my eyes.
There’s a long pause in which I can feel him staring at me, gauging this second attack as its grip loosens, but I can’t see him because I’m hiding my face, focused on the rising and falling of his chest like at any moment he might disappear into a swirl of smoke on the cool breeze.
“Bree?” I blink away the tears and glance up at him, wary. Of course I realize this cannot last forever but I feel raw and shaken, and I’m not ready to let go yet.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to leave you out here like this.”
It takes a second. I tilt my head in question.
“I don’t have to drive you home,” he explains patiently. “If it makes you uncomfortable. But there’s no way in hell I’m leaving you out here like this. Is there someone I can call, or . . . ?”
I blink. Oh. Right. He thought I was nervous about him driving me home, like I didn’t want to be alone with him in the car or something, which seems absurd as we’re sitting here alone in the dark only inches apart from each other. I shake my head.
I just couldn’t think about him dropping me off, driving away, leaving me alone with the plunge and the screaming . . .
“Okay,” he says again, sensing my alarm. “All right. We’ll figure something out, I don’t have to -”
He stops at the quick shake of my head.
“No?”
God, I want to crawl into his lap if I can breathe like this forever, if it would keep the screaming quiet.
Oddly, I think it would.
Tentatively, I twist my fingers around the soft cotton of his shirt in the middle of his chest, gripping the fabric tightly. He feels it and his breathing changes for a second – a pause, and then a deep breath – before returning to his natural rhythm.
He looks down at my hands. “Are you afraid to go home?”
I shake my head. No. I’m not afraid to go home. I’m afraid of everything. Most especially what I’m doing just that second, touching someone, letting them touch me. Except I’m not. Not with him.
“Okay. Next question. Did Dylan hurt you? Did he -”
I shake my head. No. Dylan didn’t hurt me.
My response doesn’t seem to satisfy him; he’s staring at me intently, his eyes roving over my face as if searching for an injury, which I suppose makes sense. He was too close behind me not to have heard my puking, and he’d witnessed my falling apart firsthand. It would’ve made more sense if there was some reason for it all, some visible wound he could place blame on, but there had never been any visible scars. He watches me carefully, but leaves it at that.
I want to ask him why he cares. Why he’s going to so much trouble, trying to figure out what I need when I won’t do the simple thing and just open my mouth and tell him. I want to ask him why his voice sounds so familiar to me. And I want to ask him why he looked so tortured that first day, standing slumped over in the hall, but the words can never come.
He glances behind him, back the way we’d just come, and then back to me. “Can you walk?”
I nod.
Logan accepts this, removing my hands from his shirt and pushing fluidly to his feet. He watches me carefully as he helps pull me to mine, bending at the knees slightly to study my face between the fall of my hair. He’s taller than me by a few inches and I tilt my head, letting him look. When he’s apparently satisfied he releases one hand only to loosely cup my elbow, slowly guiding me back. We find his car easily, the lights from the party reflecting off a colorless, glossy exterior, and he unlocks it with the button, opening the passenger door for me.
I stop. Stare at it, mentally preparing myself for letting go of his hand. There is no reason to fall apart without the touch of him, this boy I’d only just met. There isn’t.
Just as I’m trying to convince the death grip of my hand over his to relax he surprises me by ducking into the car, crawling awkwardly over the gear shift and plopping into the drivers’ seat, the movement pulling me down a little as he still hadn’t let go. He leans across the seat, peering up at me standing outside.
“You coming in, or are you planning on dislocating my shoulder?”
And I can’t help it. I laugh. Out loud. I can’t remember the last time I’d laughed out loud.
His face freezes in surprise at the sound and then melts into an easy, pleasant smile. “Glad I amuse you,” he says quietly, and it doesn’t sound sarcastic at all.
As soon as I lower myself into the seat next to him he braces one boot on the floor of the car and hikes up a hip, digging in the pocket of his jeans, tapping the screen a few times and then sliding a sleek looking smartphone into my free hand.
I just look at him, suddenly notici
ng how clean the inside of his car is, the black interior appearing almost new, in stark contrast with his well-worn jeans and boots. He’s still watching me holding his phone.
“Type your address into the GPS,” he prompts, and I do, grateful for the easy out he’d just given me. I rest it on my leg and poke the screen with one hand, then pass it back to him.
He takes one look at the screen and laughs heartily, dumping it into the cup holder and backing out onto the road. “Well, this is my lucky day,” he says, amused. “We’re practically neighbors.”
The ride home is silent but not awkwardly so. At some point I realize he’s intertwined his fingers with mine where they sit on the console between us, and somehow that feels safer, more secure than the other way. I steal quick glances at his face as he drives – straight nose, slightly scruffy jaw, dark lashes – and wish I could thank him for that small thing.
When we pull into my drive I take a deep, shaky breath. I feel better. Not nearly as fragile, like the ground beneath my feet is crumbling away, but that doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to letting go of him, either. There’s something calm about him, calm and confident, and it grounds me.
I realize he’s stopped the car already and I’m just sitting here, unmoving, staring at our linked hands. I glance up at him apologetically from behind the mess of my hair and find him watching me.
I see anger simmering there, and that’s all it takes. That bubble of comforting warmth pops and I snatch my hand from his, the other fumbling around in the dark for the door handle. I don’t want to be in the car anymore, stuck in that close, black space with an angry stranger.
“Bree.”
His voice stops me. Then he reaches over, taking my hand gently back into his, waiting until I turn to look at him. The anger I thought I saw is completely gone.
“Are you safe here? Really?”
I nod. I’m not safe anywhere, but I can’t explain that to him. My sister means well, and she’d never hurt me. But he just sits there staring at me so I nod again, forcing a little more emotion into my face.
A More Deserving Blackness Page 4
