Chapter Twenty-One – Logan #2
Wren nods once. “It does. I don’t know how to turn that part of me off.
For years, I thought I had it all figured out.
I thought Mike and I would go to college, get engaged junior, maybe senior year, graduate, and get married.
I thought we’d miraculously find jobs close to each other and rent an apartment together or something.
I thought I knew what my life would be like.
You have any idea what that feels like? Having everything you thought you had taken away from you, including the future you planned? ”
Fuck, do I. I feel that in my soul—not so much the perfectionist part, but the part about everything being taken away.
“Yeah,” I say with a frown. “I do. You feel—”
“Lost.”
I meet her dark eyes. In the ambiance of the bar, they look almost black.
“Yeah. Lost. That’s exactly it. So goddamn lost you worry you’ll never find yourself again, never get back that spark of life.
So lost that sometimes you even wonder…” I swallow hard and rub the back of my neck. “…what’s the point of going on?”
She listens to me, so intent, so intent her expression is enough to make me forget about the hairs on the back of my neck. So intent the rest of the bar fades away around us, and it becomes just the two of us. It’s not something I’ve ever experienced before.
It’s kind of nice.
“What did you lose, Logan?” When Wren asks me that question, she leans a bit closer to me, like she doesn’t want anyone else to hear.
She studies me so hard I feel as if I’m under a microscope, like she’s studying every aspect of my body language.
Or maybe that’s just me feeling like I should run, that coming here was a mistake.
Old habits and all that crap.
I can’t tell her the truth, or at least, not the specifics of the truth, so I say something generic: “Everything.” Still, as generic as that is, it’s true. I really did lose everything, and although it didn’t happen just weeks ago, not like Wren’s wound, mine still hurts like a bitch.
“If you lost everything, you’re doing pretty well for yourself,” she says. “You’re going to school, have a house all to yourself—if you lost everything, it makes me wonder just how much you had before.”
Shit. She’s right.
I try to play it down by saying, “It’s… maybe I didn’t lose everything, but at the time, that’s what it felt like. Still feels like that. It’s hard to describe to someone who wasn’t there. You can’t know what it was like, just like I won’t ever know what it was like to lose what you lost.”
Thankfully, she lets the everything thing go as she says, “Right, because you’re not the kind of guy who sees himself getting married, I bet.
Never had a girlfriend, never a long-term relationship.
I know everyone views it differently, but…
I can’t imagine spending my whole life like that. Don’t you ever feel lonely?”
I force myself to bark out a laugh. “And why would I feel lonely when I could have my pick of girls, hmm? I bet I could take home half the chicks in this place, if I wanted to—”
“Just because you’re with someone doesn’t mean you’re really with them,” she says. “You can be surrounded by people and still feel alone. I think you know that.”
As I try to think of something to say to that, the duo on stage bows, finally finished with their last song, and the people in the bar all clap, including Wren.
I don’t, because those people sucked. So off key, and even though the screen with the words was right in front of them, during the last verse, the girl on the right totally fucked it up.
The bartender must have his own mic behind the counter, because once the duo are off the stage, he introduces the next group—a group of four. Oh, this should be good.
It’s only once their first song starts playing, a song by a boyband from the nineties, I finally respond to Wren: “It doesn’t matter what I know. Doesn’t matter what you know. No matter how hard you try, you’re always one step away from losing it all.”
“Some people would say it’s not about how you fall but how you get back up.”
“Those people don’t know what it’s like to fall from high heights. When you fall that hard, that fast…”
My memories flash: me on stage, wearing all black.
My mask snug on my face. My black-painted fingers curling around the mic stand as I become someone else in front of a sea of nameless faces.
The bright lights flashing overhead, blinding, making the temperature so goddamned hot I worry I’ll sweat off my body paint.
The screams. The cheers. The desperate look in the front row’s eyes as they hope to God I’ll notice them. Nothing will ever match that. How the hell am I supposed to go on knowing I’ll never get that kind of adoration again? That I will forever be a nobody?
I’m just as fucked up about it now as I was when it first happened, and I don’t know how to get better. Getting better wasn’t something I ever thought about. That life was all I knew.
“Sometimes you can’t get back up,” I finish. “Sometimes you’re just broken and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it.”
Wren’s eyes are suddenly full of empathy, empathy I definitely don’t deserve. “I don’t believe that, and you shouldn’t believe that, either. If you’re still alive, you can get back up.”
“And what if I’m not?”
She blinks at me. “Not what?”
“Alive. What if I’m not alive anymore? What if I’m just a shell of who I used to be, totally fucking dead inside, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it?
” I can tell she wants to say something else, probably to comfort me, but she needs to know I’m beyond fixing.
I’m the definition of unfixable. “Sometimes things are just broken, and no amount of trying to piece it back together again will fix it. Some things can’t be undone. ”
She stares at me for a while before she whispers, “I don’t believe that.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re naive.”
“Does having hope really make me naive? Maybe you’re just too cynical.”
I sigh a harsh, explosive sigh. My first instinct is to argue with her, but honestly? She’s right. She’s naive and I’m cynical. We’re a strange fucking pair, aren’t we? “I guess we’re both fucked up, then.”
Something passes on her face, I can’t say what. She’s quiet when she says, “I don’t think you’re that messed up. Whatever happened, everybody makes mistakes, even us perfectionists.” She raises her glass of Dr. Pepper, as if saluting herself, and then takes a deep sip.
With a shake of my head, I mutter, “I bet the only mistake you’ve made, besides wasting so much time with your ex, was coming home with me.
” I don’t know why I say it, but once it’s out there, I can’t take it back.
There’s no rewind button, no undo. The moment the words are out, she hears them, and I’m stuck sitting there, waiting to hear what she has to say to that.
“For a little while… yeah, I thought it was a mistake.” She says that, and I kid you not, that dumb thing inside my chest constricts, like she’s pushing a knife through it.
“But now? Now I think, maybe, it was fate trying to tell me something.” Wren looks deeply into my eyes when she says, “I don’t think it was a mistake. ”
Fate. It’s something we used to sing about all the time, when I was a member of Black Sacrament. I didn’t think it actually existed, though.
I open my mouth to say something, but before I have the chance to, a large plate of cheesy fries is set before us, and Wren thanks the server before plucking one of the fries on top and saying, “This looks so good.” Then she stuffs that cheese-covered fry into her mouth and chews—and only seconds later does she open her mouth in an O-shape and breathe in and out quickly while fanning herself.
I lift a single brow at her, and when she finally manages to swallow, she giggles and says, “They’re really hot. ”
I’m grinning at her before I even realize it, and when I do realize it, I force myself to scowl and look away, giving her the back of my head as I try to wrangle my emotions under control.
Why is this girl, this random girl, this nobody, pulling these emotions out of me like it’s easy? Why do I feel so much better when I’m with her? Goddamn it. I feel like I’m going insane.
I mean, look at where we are: a karaoke bar. Look at what she’s going to have me do later: sing, the one thing I swore I’d never do again. She caught me at the cemetery, pissed me off, and then… then managed to bring me here like it’s all fine.
It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m not a walking contradiction. I’m totally fine. Everything is fine.
Fuck. Nothing is fine. I’m losing my mind. Here I thought I could come to MSU and be the person I would’ve been if I never was Pope. Just a college student who likes to party and drink a bit too much. I didn’t think I’d meet some random girl who makes me feel all these confusing things.
Once I’m certain I have myself under control, I grab a pair of cheesy fries and shove them in my mouth, and she watches me do it, still paying a bit too much attention to me. “Do you have any siblings?” she asks.
Is this really what dates are like, or are we just not good at this?
Either way, I find myself mumbling, “I have one brother. He’s younger than me.
We… don’t really talk much anymore.” Although, now that I’m thinking about it, even when I was in Black Sacrament, we didn’t talk that much.
When we weren’t working, I was always off, living it up.
Maybe at the time I was too self-absorbed to see things how they really were. That’s a really depressing thing to realize.
“Why not?” Wren asks.
I shrug. “We don’t see each other much. He’s… got his own thing going on, and I got mine. It is what it is. Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure. We can talk about what we’re doing our group project on: the psychology of avoidance.” The way she says it, so matter-of-factly, like it’s already been decided—and I suppose it has. Wasn’t tonight the deadline to turn in our topic? I’ve been so wrapped up in my own shit that I forgot.
But of course she didn’t, because she never forgets anything when it comes to schoolwork.
“Ah,” I grumble, “so that’s why we’re here? Going to make us both the topic of our project?”
“And what if I am?”
I shake my head and say, “You should’ve picked something more interesting.
” Anything else, really. I don’t think I’ll have an issue protecting who I used to be, but still, I don’t like the thought of her writing anything about us.
And let’s not forget the presentation. Why couldn’t she pick something else?
“I figured this way, it’d force me to get back into singing.
And you… it’s obviously a sore subject with you, too.
The things we want to avoid are linked to singing, so I thought it’d help us both.
” Quieter, she adds, “If it upsets you that much, I can always email Reese and see if we can swap topics.”
My brows furrow, and I can’t stop the jealousy from rising in my tone when I say, “Reese? Is that what we’re calling our professor now?” The way she looks down at her lap and kicks the soles of her shoes against the wooden floor make me even more envious, like she’s hiding something.
“I went to see him during his office hours.”
Grinding my teeth, I ask, “Why?”
The way she bites the inside of her cheek tells me she doesn’t want to say, but I’m not letting her get out of this one. The thought of her, alone in a room with our young professor, fills me with an emotion I can only label as rage. Rage laced with jealousy.
Hey, if you’re looking for a green flag-waving man, look somewhere else.
“I was upset with you. I wanted to see if I could do the project on my own.” Wren sighs. “He didn’t let me.”
“Uh-huh. Is that all he said?”
“He said if I have any trouble with you, to let him know.” When I exhale a loud breath, she looks at me strangely. “What? Why? He’s nice—a lot nicer than you. Pretty cute, too.” When she says that, she blushes and glances away.
“If he’s that fucking cute, why didn’t you invite him here to sing with you?” Shit. I don’t think I’ve ever said something more pathetic than that. Talk about cringe.
Wren pouts a bit. “Are you upset that I called our professor cute?”
“I don’t fucking care if you think he’s a god.
I shouldn’t be surprised—don’t all girls have a professor fetish?
Something about an authority figure.” I hate how crazy I sound, and I hate how I sound this mad when she’s not even my girlfriend.
Not even a girl I go out with. We fucked once, that’s it, and I’m acting like she’s mine.
She laughs. “Wow. I didn’t think someone like you would get jealous of anybody.”
Even though I am totally, one hundred percent, completely jealous, I still say, “I’m not jealous.” And I say it like a petulant child, so it’s more than obvious I’m a jealous little bitch.
Ugh. I hate myself right now. I really do.
“Mm-hmm.” She grabs a fry and chews, mulling something over in her head. “If you’re this jealous with me just mentioning him, I wonder how jealous you’d be if I would have invited him.” She grins. “I think I’d actually love to see that.”
“For a goody two-shoes, you like poking the bear,” I growl out.
Her comeback is instant: “And for someone who acts like he doesn’t care about anything, it seems like you actually care about an awful lot of things.”
Fuck. She has me there.
Still… the thought of Wren having a little crush on our professor makes me rage inside. It’s a damn good thing I’m here and he’s not, otherwise we’d definitely have a problem on our hands.