Chapter 14
He of all people wanted to talk?
Selene
“It takes some precision, so be careful,” my mother whispered as I attempted to sketch out a tulip on a glass plate with paint.
Since coming back to Detroit, I passed the time by preparing for restarting school, spending afternoons with Janel and Bailey, and having long chats with my mother over a glass plate or cup to be painted.
Though we could usually talk about everything, my mother and I still hadn’t addressed what had gone down in New York, and I was grateful for that.
Still, she knew me very well and could see that I wasn’t okay.
It wasn’t just the post-accident headaches; it was my actual state of mind.
All I did was fantasize about Neil and me in some alternate world where we could be together, ready to fight off his demons and bring our chaotic souls together.
I’d heard it said that dreams were deceiving while also being manifestations of our deepest desires.
For me, that was true. I dreamed of him, imagining us finally together, happy and ready to kick the past aside.
How could I not hate him after everything that happened?
I didn’t understand him, but unfortunately, I still wanted him.
I wanted every part of him. I wanted to kiss the good parts of his soul and caress the flawed ones.
I wanted to embrace not just his perfection but also his imperfections, to share memories of the past and make plans for the future.
I yearned for him to belong to me and for me to belong to him, today and every day after.
Like we were the shell and the pearl who had found each other after searching for so long through the worst of the storms.
I was afraid, though, of hurting again. I was fighting alone for a love that was never going to bloom. I was also afraid of being crushed again, of finding out that Neil was still screwing his blonds. Of Neil once again using his razor-sharp words to shred my heart.
He had been perfectly clear with my father: “As soon as I saw her, I knew I was going to use her.”
“Selene…” My mother roused me from my thoughts, and I turned to look at her. She stood, lovely and elegant as always, in front of the door, preparing to open it. “I think you have some visitors.” She smiled, and I frowned.
I got abruptly to my feet, leaving the paintbrush and glass plate I was working on at the table.
I patted my loose hair, afraid I wasn’t sufficiently presentable.
I wiped my hands nervously on my jeans. All the while, my mother was smiling like she’d already known we were having guests that afternoon.
She pushed the door open wide, and moments later Logan and Alyssa walked in beaming.
“What?” I shouted, immediately shrugging off my initial concern. I hadn’t seen them in weeks, so discovering them here in Detroit was a totally unexpected surprise. I ran to them and tackled Alyssa.
“We wanted to come see you,” she explained as I wrapped her tightly in a warm hug. Logan, standing next to her, patted my hair and pressed a tender kiss to my cheek.
“How are you doing?” he asked as I motioned for them to follow me into the living room. My mother immediately fled to the kitchen to get some juice from the fridge. In the meantime, I sat down on the sofa with Alyssa. Logan took a seat in the armchair opposite us.
“I’m good. I wasn’t expecting to see you.
What are you doing here?” I asked, looking at both of them.
After Matt found out about everything, I’d left right away without even saying goodbye to Logan and Chloe.
I apologized to them both later over text messages, but I didn’t tell them what happened.
I knew they were informed shortly after I left, though.
“You left without even saying goodbye. We know about everything; Matt’s still wrecked,” Logan said with a soft sigh.
I knew that finding out about my pseudo-relationship with Mia’s son had put my father in a state of shock, but that wasn’t why I was hurting.
Instead, it was Neil’s words—they were so cold and heartless.
“My brother didn’t really mean those things he said to you,” Logan continued as though he was reading my mind. How did he know that? Had he actually talked to Neil about it? A faint, ironic smile spread across my face, and I immediately shook my head.
“Oh, he did. He meant exactly what he said, every word. I know you want to come to his defense because he’s your brother, but—” But I didn’t get to finish because Logan interrupted me.
“I would be the first to tell you that he’s a dickhead, Selene, but believe me—he likes you.
He likes you a lot, and that scares him.
” He sighed, and Alyssa gave a snort of displeasure, but Logan ignored her and kept talking.
“He hasn’t been doing well lately,” he continued sadly, and something strange vibrated in my chest. It felt like those same contrasting emotions—confusion, fear, lust, and love—that I felt whenever I thought about Neil.
“Did something happen to him?” I asked in alarm. I never said anything about Player being behind my accident. What if he had hurt Neil? Right at that moment, my mother appeared, holding a tray with three glasses of juice on it. She set it down on the coffee table in front of us and smiled.
“I brought you all something to drink. If you need anything, I’ll be right over there,” she said as she took her leave, giving us the privacy we needed to talk. I immediately focused on Logan again.
“Neil has to deal with his issues, and lately it seems like he’d rather give up entirely instead of fighting like he always had before.
Matt’s anger and our mom’s disappointment have been like the last straw for him,” he continued miserably.
Logan assumed that I understood exactly what “issues” he was referring to but, in reality, I only had a vague idea.
He hadn’t really told me much at the beach house, so I could only imagine the full scope of the trauma Neil was forced to deal with every day because of what he’d suffered at the hands of Kimberly.
“What about now? Where is he now?” My voice broke, and my instincts urged me to grab my phone and call him, but pride stood in my way.
“We offered to let him come here with us,” Alyssa informed me. “But he absolutely refused to see you. Tell her the truth, Logan.” Then she glared at her boyfriend, and I looked down at my legs. I’d rather not know that kind of information, actually.
“I know my brother better than anyone else. He cares about Selene, and if he’s not here, it’s because he has a good fucking reason!
” Logan snapped back, annoyed at her. Alyssa cleared her throat uncomfortably.
No one, but no one, was allowed to rag on Neil in front of his brother. Not even his girlfriend.
After that little tiff, we continued talking about nothing in particular while sipping juice.
I steered the conversation toward college classes to dispel some of the tension still lingering between Logan and Alyssa.
Once harmony was restored, the time went by too fast. When, after a couple of short hours, they had to leave because they were planning to stay with some of Alyssa’s cousins in Ann Arbor, I was feeling melancholy.
In the doorway, Logan advised me to message Neil, while Alyssa told me to have some fun with someone new and get Neil out of my head. She couldn’t seem to stand him at all and, as time went on, her distaste for him only seemed to increase.
“When will they be back?” my mother asked when we were alone again.
“No idea,” I said thoughtfully. I sat down in a kitchen chair and watched the sky outside the window.
It had just started sleeting, and the glow from the streetlight rendered the tiniest water droplets visible, like thousands of pinpoints of light.
The drops raced down the glass, and the sky overhead was as dark as my mood.
“Sooner or later, missy, you are going to have to tell me about you and Neil. You do know that, don’t you?
I’m just giving you some time before the inevitable mother-daughter discussion,” my mother said in a stern voice, and I turned to look at her.
It had been a long time since she’d talked to me like that, and I’d almost forgotten how uncomfortable I got when she looked at me the way she was now: frostily.
“Yes, I know, Mom,” I murmured, trying not to look annoyed. I was well aware that I had screwed everything up and that my relationship with Neil had ended exactly the way I should have expected it to; I didn’t need her lecture as well.
“Okay, I’m going to take a hot bath,” she told me before vanishing through the kitchen doorway.
I snorted and returned to staring out the window.
I used my index finger to draw funny faces on the fogged-up glass, like a kid.
The first had his tongue sticking out, the second one’s eyes were crossed, and I drew a little heart in the middle between them.
I smiled to myself at my silly little drawing until the ringing of the doorbell interrupted my art appreciation, which was very annoying.
“Who the hell is it now?” I got up reluctantly and walked slowly toward the front door.
“Selene! Get the door!” my mother shouted from the bathroom at the back of the house, and I rolled my eyes.
“Yeah, I’ve got it,” I groused as the doorbell continued chiming impatiently. “Hold on a minute, for God’s sake!” I said acidly and put my hand on the doorknob to pull it open in a bored fashion.
“I don’t know why I came all the way out here either. I’m just hoping you aren’t going to immediately kick me out and will give me a chance to explain why I said that stuff to your dad.”
My eyes bugged slightly when Neil’s deep baritone rebounded off the living room walls, like the kind of powerful thunderclap that gave me goosebumps.
I shivered, and my pulse sped up.
That was Neil: butterflies in the stomach and a racing heart.