Two Roads

by L. M. Augustine

  That’s the Roadkeeper’s poem.

  The Roadkeeper’s.

  And I met the Roadkeeper, so there is no way…

  “I love you, Cali,” Logan whispers, and I feel my hands shake. I don’t know what to do.

  He withdraws from the stage, grabs his poem and nods as he walks slowly out. No one claps. Not even me. I just stare and stare as he walks off the stage, keeping his blue eyes trained on me the whole goddamn time, and walks over to me. He forces a smile, sits down in the chair beside me, and still, I say nothing. I open my mouth to ask him something--anything--but he shakes his head.

  “Not yet,” he says quietly, and then motions to the door. “C’mon.”

  He leads me out of the convention, past the bustle of people, past the raucous laughter and into the lobby and through the front doors, and he doesn’t stop walking until we reach my car. He turns around then, takes my hand.

  I hold my breath, not knowing what to ask first. “Logan, are you… are you The Roadkeeper?” I finally manage to say. It doesn’t make any sense, though. I already met The Roadkeeper.

  He laughs lightly. “No, I am not. You can think of me more as a staff writer for her. I write some of the poems--many of them, actually--and the Roadkeeper, Katherine, writes the others.”

  The sun is out again, and the sky above is blue and cloudless. The parking lot is filled with cars but we’re the only people out here, baking in the late-spring California air. “But you--” I start to blurt out, start to protest, but I don’t even know what I’m going to say.

  Logan interrupts me. “Let me tell you a story, Cali,” he says quietly, holding my hand in his.

  “A story?” I look dubious. Even after I admit my love for him, he is still a senseless idiot at times.

  “Yeah, a story. Just… just let me have my stupidity, okay?” He smiles. “Now close your eyes.”

  I sigh, but I’m curious, so I go along with it. I close my eyes. I feel his breath beside me, the heat from his body as he leans on the car next to me. I try to picture what he’s doing, what he’s thinking, when he finally speaks again.

  “Once upon a time,” Logan says, “there was this girl. She was the sister of my best friend, and she was always the most annoying girl I’ve ever met. She seemed set on bothering my best friend and me as much as possible, and for a while, that pissed me off. But whenever I talked to her, I knew the whole annoying little sister routine was all just an act. I knew she was more than that. She was two years younger than me, and I started to love hanging out with my best friend not only because he was awesome, but because I loved being around his sister as well. She was smart and funny, strong and confident, beautiful and she didn’t even realize it then. I always had a crush on her, thinking it was just a stupid high school kind of crush, and so I never acted on it. But when her brother… died… I felt too guilty. I felt like it was all my fault, like seeing her would kill me internally and seeing me would kill her too, and so I left. My family moved as soon as we could and I didn’t speak to her for three and a half years until I transferred colleges for my senior year and, as luck would have it, she was there.

  At first, I didn’t know what to do. Should I tell her the truth? Should I admit how guilty I felt, how I was responsible for her brother’s suicide? Or should I act like it didn’t even bother me? I chose the last one because I thought ignoring her would mean she would stay away, thought it would make things simple, but she never made things simple, that terrible, horrible person.” He laughs. “When she first saw me in The Dungeon, she was looking devastated as she got off the phone with her parents, and I thought she was going to ignore me altogether, or ask me what happened to me, what gave me the guts to leave her like that, but she didn’t. Instead, she went right up there and called me a freak as if she’d never met me before. And so I did the only thing I could think to do: I insulted her back.

  And you know what she said? She said, ‘I hate you, Logan. But you aren’t bad.’ The next day, she came into The Dungeon, and the same thing happened. Our rivalry started there, and over the months it grew and grew, but I always knew it wasn’t just a rivalry because I always knew I loved her. She wasn’t just the same cliché mean girl. I could tell she didn’t really hookup, could tell she wasn’t really happy, could tell she was still letting Ben’s suicide get to her as much as I was letting it get to me, could tell she had a more beautiful heart than she even realized. And so I loved her. I started writing poems about her; I couldn’t get her out of my head. I’d been working for The Roadkeeper for a few months by then as a kind of internship of sorts, and then I showed her my poems about this girl, to the girl, and The Roadkeeper loved them and we started posting them. The girl was you, Cali,” he continues. “The girl was you, and I always loved you. I set all these things up--the date, the convention, everything--so you could give me a chance, so you could see how much I love you. I did it all for you. Almost all of those poems you saw on the blog, including the Frost one, they were love poems to you, in one capacity or another; I was the main character, and you were the love interest. I wrote those poems because they were the only way I could tell you how I felt without actually telling you, confess my love without actually confessing it. It was stupid, I know, but love… loving you… it made me do stupid things.” He takes a deep breath.

  When he finishes, I don’t know what to say. My heart just pounds, and as I think about the poems I read on the blog, about the main character and the girl, it all makes so much sense. He was writing them to me. That’s why the poems spoke to me because they were meant to speak to me. There is something so wonderful about that, that he wrote all those poems to me. It’s like a breath of fresh air, and I’m about to tell him that, to hug him and hold him and never let go. Instead, though, I ask dumbly, “But how did you know I’d find them? How did you know I’d read them?”

  “I didn’t.” He laughs to himself. “I so didn’t. I didn’t even plan on you to read them, so that’s why I freaked out when you showed me the blog the other night. It was such a strange coincidence, but I guess that’s just life’s funny way of making things happen.”

  I nod, still not sure what to think, what to feel, but one thing I’m sure I feel is simple. Is love. Is genuine, full-on love for this boy.

  I open my eyes then, see Logan’s blue eyes trained on mine, his dimples, his lashes, and he cups my face in his hands and whispers, “All along,” he says, “all along I knew I loved you. Well, I got convinced at some points and I wasn’t sure if I was making it up, but then when I was sure I couldn’t say because I didn’t know if you loved me and I was scared and I didn’t want and I’d seen this movie where--”

  “Logan,” I say, steadying his hands to shut him up, a flicker of a smile crossing my lips. He blushes, his eyes darting to his feet, and I wish I could explain to him how adorable it looks. I don’t know why I never noticed it before: how sweet and heartwarming his random tangents are, how utterly gorgeous the faint trace of dimples at the corner of his mouth looks, how he cares--how he’s always cared.

  I stare at him for a second, one painfully long second, leaning against my baking car and watching Logan Waters. And thinking. And wondering. And then, just like that, a surge of strength whips through me. “Shut up and kiss me, you asshole,” I say, and now I really smile, and he smiles back, and before I even know what I’m doing I wrap my arms around his neck and I kiss him, hard and strong. He kisses back, holding me ever so gently, his lips moving with mine, his side pressed against my stomach, and we just kiss and kiss until the rest of it melts away, until it really is just us, kissing on this car, secret-free and together and so, so happy.

  ~

  The girl is smiling

  happy

  herself again.

  Her life is far from perfect

  but this is a start.

  This flutter of the heart

  this constant desire to smile

  this feeling she feels for the boy

  this is all a start. />
  She made her choice

  she picked a road to take

  and it was the only one

  it was the right one.

  It was Logan Waters.

  The girl is me,

  Cali Monroe.

  This is my story.

  ~

  WHEN everything is over, Logan gets the brilliant idea to drive me home from the conference, and he of course makes us take a totally different route than normal. Neither of us have any idea where we’re going, and that would be super terrifying if it wasn’t so freaking romantic.

  Logan drives me in circles a long ways, and I just laugh because the only place we’re headed is far from our apartment complex back at Williams University and at this rate, we are probably going to die of old age out here on this road. For once, however, I am okay with that, because it would mean I live out my whole life with Logan, teasing him, kissing him, loving him. I’ve got to give it to him; for a nerd, he is seriously charming.

  Before we left, I texted Ruby to tell her about everything that happened--she responded with a OMFG GIRL TELL ME EVERYTHING WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!, which I vow to do--and I even, finally, texted back my parents to let them know I’m okay.

  And I am okay.

  In fact, I am more okay than I’ve ever been before, and that isn’t just because of Logan. Through all of this, this going to the conference and meeting The Roadkeeper and saying goodbye to Ben and realizing how many people out there are similar to me, I’m not afraid anymore. I’m not so scared that I have to hide behind a personality that isn’t mine, and I’m most definitely not too scared to let anyone get close to me again. Because Logan, with his badass poetry writing skills, fucking obnoxiously gorgeous eyelashes, and his way too sexy glasses? Because Logan, with his laugh that can brighten up my whole day, with his personality that just molds with mine, with his insane ability to make me smile no matter what? That Logan? He has stolen my heart, and despite how terrifying that may seem, I feel insanely happy about it.

  I’m in love with a boy.

  I’m not afraid to be myself.

  I have a best friend.

  I mean, my life still sucks, but I like how it is: messy, yes, but with an odd sense of order in the mess, because the people I care most about are wedged in there, beside me, and I am not afraid to be near them. I’m not afraid of love anymore. I have this whole stretch of road ahead of me, this whole life I’m about to live, this life full of ups and downs, tears and giggles, heartbreak and hopefulness, and most importantly, this road filled with one Logan Waters.

  It’s a road I want to take, a road I’m ready to take. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if all of my dreams will come true. I don’t know if I’ll ever become a famous poet, and I most certainly don’t know if the journey will be anywhere near smooth. But I think that’s the beauty of it: that I don’t know.

  I don’t know what’s going to happen to me in my life, and that’s okay, because I know I’m going to grow, because I know I’m not going to be afraid, because I know I’m going to be surrounded by the people I care about, doing the things I care about.

  I glance over at Logan, who has his hand on the steering wheel. The window to my car is rolled down and it blows his hair in all directions, something that would look totally ridiculous if it so totally didn’t.

  “Do you have any idea where you’re going?” I ask after a while.

  “I really don’t,” Logan says, puckering those gorgeous lips of his.

  I laugh. “You’re such an idiot.”

  “And you love me for it.”

  He’s right--as usual.

  We drive for a while longer, letting the manure-scented air slip in through open windows. It’s late afternoon now, and the sun is starting to set. It makes the sky look so pretty, though, all red and orange and yellow, colorful in a way that makes me want to smile.

  We pass road after road, go deep into farmland rich with red barns and corn fields in a state I don’t think either of us are sure is--Nevada? Arizona? Still California? We have no GPS, no cell phone service, and no idea where we are, but I could not care less. Logan is next to me right now, and for the time being, that’s all that matters: that he’s next to me. That he’s smiling. That we’re happy together.

  So I just hug his arm, and he winks at me, and we drive and drive until I close my eyes and fall asleep in his lap.

  After maybe half an hour, the car comes to a halt, and I jolt awake. Logan is looking down at me, smiling lightly, showing off his killer dimples once again.

  “Are we there yet?” I mumble.

  He runs a hand through my hair. “Not quite,” he says back.

  I force myself to sit up. “Then why did you stop?”

  He watches me carefully, raising his eyebrows just slightly. “We, um, kind of have a problem.”

  I roll my eyes. “Let me guess: and you need someone intelligent to fix it, because what’s going on up there”--I wave my hand in the direction of his forehead--”is not made for practical use.”

  “Cute,” he says.

  I stick my tongue out at him. “I try.”

  “Are you going to help me or what?”

  I scratch my chin, pretending to think for a second, but we both know the answer is going to be yes. “I pity you,” I say after a minute. “So yes, I will help.”

  He nods at the door. “Then follow me,” he says and slips out of the car. I push open the passenger door, stepping out and getting immediately blinded by the setting sun. I cover my face with my hand and look around, frowning. We’re in the middle of what looks to be a farm. The smell of manure is everywhere and hay covers the ground under my feet, and about a quarter mile to my right is some sort of brick building.

  “What’s the issue?” I say to Logan, sighing. I slam the car door shut and walk right up to him, leaning against the hood of the car.

  He nods ahead. I follow his gaze.

  An intersection stretches in front of us, one complete with tall birch trees on every side and a golden sunset peeking in between the tangled branches. The first road is to my left, and it looks like it leads to some sort of main road, a highway perhaps that will get us out of the middle of nowhere and back on our way home. The second road, however, is not quite a road. “Dirt path” may be the more accurate description. I can’t see where it leads beyond a few yards, just that it twists off into deep woods somewhere. It looks like the perfect spot to either get lost or eaten by a pack of wolves.

  I turn back to Logan, frowning. “And what is the issue?” I ask.

  “It seems pretty simple,” he says, squeezing my hand. “Which way should we go?”

  I glance between the two roads. The paved one is the clear choice as it leads to the highway, so I’m not sure why he’s even asking me. I’m about to tell him that, too, but then I stop. I said myself that I don’t care that we’re lost because Logan is with me, so why not get more lost? Safe is too boring. Safe is too easy. And that road on the left, the one that leads to some sort of highway, is safe.

  I turn to him. “The one on the right,” I say simply. “Take the one on the right.”

  Logan watches me with some sort of odd fascination. “You sure?” he says.

  “Sure as ever.”

  “This is a terrible plan, you know.”

  “I’m well aware.”

  “Like, you’re practically an idiot for choosing the dirt road. We could most likely die out there, and there is no way a car would even fit.” He looks more amused than anything else, though.

  I feign a gasp. “Did you really just call me an idiot?”

  “I really just did.”

  And up soars my heart.

  “Logan Waters,” I say, smiling. “I hate you so goddamn much.”

  “And Cali Monroe,” he says back, matching my smile. “I hate you more than anything else in the world.”

  Then, he takes my hand and I lean my head on his shoulder, and we take the road less traveled by, la
ughing all the way.

  ~

  Free.

  For once

  I am free

  ~

  ON the one year anniversary of the day my parents set me up on the blind date with Logan, I invite them to the same horrible sandwich shop for lunch. I have to admit, though, I’ve grow kind of partial to the place. Terrible sandwiches aside, it’s not such a bad restaurant after all. Plus, if it weren’t for it, none of this would have ever happened, so in the end it has served me pretty well.

  “What’s going on?” Mom asks as soon as she hurries inside, wearing the same pulled-back hair and business suit I’ve grown to love. She and Dad immediately sit down at my table, watching me with the same anxious fascination they’d have if I were about to tell them I’m pregnant--I’m not, I swear.

  I just smile at them.

  My parents and I are a lot closer now than we were before. I mean, we don’t exactly have a perfect relationship, but it’s a start, and for now, that’s all I can ask for.

  The day Logan and I returned from the convention, I got this weird bout of courage. I ran all the way to the hotel they were staying at, practically shoved my way through their door, and then, resisting the urge to yell at them, I told them everything. I told them why I’ve been miserable these last four years, why I’ve been afraid to follow in Ben’s footsteps, why still I won’t. I told them that I was sorry, that I knew they were trying and knew they cared about me and that I shouldn’t have acted like I did, but they also felt like the enemy to me, like them taking Ben away from his love of archaeology was what drove him to kill himself and when I learned it wasn’t any of our faults, I knew I was wrong all along. I told them that engineering was the farthest thing from what I wanted to do with my life and that no matter what they said, no matter how hard they pushed, there was no way I was changing my major or my life path for them. I’d rather work dead-end jobs that I got next to nothing out of on my way to fulfilling my dream like Frost did than I would being forced to work at a company I hated. I told them that I forgave them, that I was willing to work on our relationship, but they were never going to take me away from poetry. But then, after all that, I stopped. I looked my parents in the eyes and told them that I wanted to make things normal again. I told that I would make the first step if they took the second. And I don’t know what it was, maybe it was them seeing how much poetry meant to me, how much this life I am shaping for myself makes me happy, or maybe they were just tired of fighting with me. But whatever happened, it worked. They met each other’s gaze, nodded slowly, and then, without warning, they both brought me into a huge hug.