Chapter 31
The world had blurred after Jade left the bathroom, and even the sound had morphed into one loud buzz that rang in my ears.
I didn’t remember leaving the bathroom, and whether or not there’d been people standing outside, demanding answers as they had on the dancefloor.
I didn’t remember if I’d run into Maisie again, or my mother, or anyone else.
I just remembered walking, walking, walking, completely and totally lost in the nightmare of my thoughts.
Everyone at school knew everything—even things that weren’t true.
Come Monday, Chelsea would kick me from the squad, the Top Tier would kick me from the table, and I’d be lucky if even the freshmen would eat their lunch with me.
Treason was unforgivable, and instead of easing the student body into the idea of a Bobcat dating a Bulldog, I’d been shoved straight off into the deep end, left to drown.
I could’ve gotten through that. If that was all that had happened, it would’ve sucked, but I could’ve held my chin high and doggy-paddled on.
You didn’t want him until I told you that you needed him.
I suddenly stumbled. The severity of the trip was enough to jerk me back to focus.
My heel had sunk into a patch of grass, nearly snapping off, and it was then that I realized I was walking along the side of a road.
I wasn’t sure which one. The side street was dark with no streetlights, and the houses looked ghostly and unfamiliar.
I should’ve been panicked, both at the fact that I was in a place I didn’t recognize and the fact that I’d so totally blacked out on the walk here. The only thing I felt was numb.
Despite not knowing where I was, I continued down the road.
The night air was sharp and cold as I pulled in a low, slow breath, and my stupid homecoming gown did nothing to keep me warm. Not that I felt the cold, though. The dress swished around my legs as I walked, but I barely felt it.
Headlights suddenly swept up behind me, illuminating the long, dark shadow of a girl in front of me.
She was something out of a horror movie, and it was another situation I should’ve felt panicked about—some stranger had pulled up in their car behind me—but I couldn’t even bring myself to look over my shoulder.
What is wrong with me?
“Madison!”
The air rushed out of me, caving in my chest.
“Madison!” The voice was closer, louder, and the undercurrent of alarm was undeniable. “Madison, holy crap.”
Something heavy dropped over my shoulders, and a half second later, firm hands turned me around.
The dark world blurred, suddenly replaced by light as I found myself face to face with Logan Castle and the intense glare of his headlights almost causing his silhouette to glow.
For the briefest second, my eyes latched onto his—the blue was stormy and wrecked—before I dropped my chin.
“You didn’t pick up,” Logan said, readjusting the way his varsity jacket settled over my shoulders. The scent of him on it was too strong. I found myself holding my breath. “I—I’ve been calling you, but you—”
“I don’t have my phone.” It was like I realized my hands were empty at the same time Logan did. My clutch must’ve still been back at the gym.
“You’re out walking in the dark without your phone?” His voice was more incredulous than anything, but the alarm had worsened. He’d pulled his hands back, and they hung limp at his sides. “Did Jade… talk to you?”
Her name sounded like the slam of a door. Closing. Final.
“What did she tell you?”
Logan didn’t know the full extent of it. He couldn’t have—he hadn’t been at the dance, so he wouldn’t have gotten the paper with the QR code, exposing all my dirty little secrets. The fear in his eyes, though, was bright and sharp, assuming the worst.
I thought about Maisie, the stomach-turning anxiety I’d used to get at the thought of her, and at the thought of my secret getting out.
That had to be what Logan was feeling now, like his world was falling off its axis.
I wanted to reach out for his hand, to squeeze his fingers in assurance, but I couldn’t.
I should’ve been more concerned about the numb feeling at the center of my chest, but all I could think about was that Logan’s jacket was heavy on my shoulders. Too heavy.
What is wrong with me?
“Whatever it was, it was a lie.” Logan took another half step forward, hesitantly stretching a hand out again to touch my arm. “Let me—let me explain everything from the beginning—”
“So Jade didn’t threaten you and Noah if you didn’t flirt with me?
” I asked him, staring at the wrinkle in his hoodie.
I’d traced it with my fingers earlier. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“She didn’t force you to date me or else she’d lie and make it seem like it was your school trying to bribe Brentwood? ”
Logan faltered, clearly taken aback that Jade would’ve painted herself as the bad guy. “She didn’t force me to date you,” he objected after a beat. “She just told me to flirt with you. She never said anything about dates. I took you out all on my own.”
It was my choice to date you, he said without saying. I chose you. “Logan.”
“I know what you’re thinking.” Now Logan finally reached down and picked up my cold hand, the heat from his fingers trying to thaw mine. “Don’t go down that path. I like you, Madison. I know what it looks like, but I really, really like you.”
A choking sensation gripped my throat. “Logan.”
“I haven’t been faking my feelings for you.” Panic caused his voice to go up an octave, and his hands fluttered on my arms, as if wanting to hold me still but afraid to grab on too tightly. “Not once. I’m not—I’m not that good of an actor. What I feel for you is real. You have to know that.”
Of course I knew that. If there was one thing in the entire world I was certain of, it was that Logan liked me. Or, at least, thought he liked me. He believed it so totally, but even I wasn’t sure if it was something more like Stockholm syndrome.
You’ll always wonder if it’s real, or if it’s another game I let you win.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked him, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “Why didn’t you tell me what Jade did?”
Now, though, Logan was hesitant to reply. “I—”
“Was it because you didn’t trust me?”
His forehead creased. “Jade spins everything in her favor. She—she lies about everything. I was afraid she’d lie, and that you’d—”
“That I’d choose her over you.” Exactly what Jade had said.
Logan’s fingers suddenly pressed into my skin harder, giving my body a soft shake. “Don’t do that,” he scolded gently. “Don’t pull away from me.”
“That’s why you thought we wouldn’t work out.
” Like a domino toppling over, I thought of the night of Noah’s bonfire, when I’d come up to them in the garage.
You think she’ll stick around when she finds out?
The realization came as a hollow boom, like a bomb going off miles away.
“And that’s why Noah hated me—not because I went to Brentwood, but because he knew what Jade made you do. ”
“I’ll do whatever you need—our read the texts, and I’ll explain everything. It—it started out bad, but I swear—”
“You don’t have to explain.” My stomach cramped as everything crashed down around me. And really, there wasn’t anything to explain, anyway. I knew what he’d done and why he’d done it. “I’m not mad at you. How—how could I be mad at you? It wasn’t like you had a choice.”
Logan’s face fell. “Madison—”
“But that… makes it worse.” A rush of cold air washed across us, and Logan shivered, but I held perfectly still.
“I’m the reason you were forced to do something you never wanted to do—something that I’m sure made you sick to do.
I know you, Logan Castle. You try to handle everything yourself, even if it kills you inside. ”
I could remember so clearly how heavy Logan’s body that night in the alley had been, when I’d wrapped my arms around him to try and hold him together. If I focused, I could almost hear his frantic heartbeat in my ear, tripping over itself as anxiety had sunk its teeth into him.
And that night, it’d been my fault, too.
“Every time you looked at me, you must’ve felt guilty. Even tonight. You couldn’t kiss me because you felt so guilty. And it’s my fault.” Sorry, he’d gasped out that day in the rain, when he’d come close to bridging the gap between us. Sorry, sorry. “You even said yourself, if you could go back—”
“I would’ve done it differently, but not you.” Logan spoke through a clenched jaw. “Never you.”
Something in my chest broke. “I don’t know if I feel the same way.”
Logan suddenly took my face in his hands and forced my head up, lifting my gaze once more back to his.
So much had changed in them—they were still stormy, but open, as if he wanted me to see every inch of him he could bare.
“What happened to what you told me?” he demanded, but his voice was quiet, reserved for the space between just us.
“You told me that I can’t take on the guilt other people refuse to carry.
That I can’t blame myself for Noah getting hurt.
So why are you doing this? Why are you blaming yourself? ”
Something in me broke then, and all at once, I began to unravel.
I felt like a piece of fabric being torn through the wind, threadbare and useless.
“Because I can’t handle it,” I whispered, the words almost caught and tugged away with the wind.
My gaze began to mist over, the numbness finally wearing off.
“It makes me feel sick. Looking at you. It… it makes me feel sick.”
Every thought of Logan made my chest cave in, like I’d swallowed shards of glass. It would’ve been easier if Logan had chosen this. If he’d played me at first by some flippant dare, and then accidentally stumbled into real feelings. That I could understand.
But the reality? That Jade had twisted his loyalty into a leash, forcing him to hurt himself in order to protect the people he loved—that was unbearable.
And worse? I’d pushed him right back into it.
He’d tried to walk away after I found out he was from Jefferson, and I’d been the one who tracked him down.
I’d talked Logan into the exposure therapy, into proving that I wouldn’t peak in high school.
It was about me, about what I needed, and he let me, because Logan always carried other people’s weight before his own.
All of it traced back to the fact that Jade had used him like bait that she’d dangled in front of me.
And I’d never realized. Those moments where his expression would change, and he’d suddenly look different—I’d never realized that was his guilt shining through.
The pain of being forced to do something he felt was wrong.
Every laugh we shared, every touch, every kiss—he’d been suffering in silence, and I’d been too busy falling for him to notice.
Logan’s palms slowly slid from my cheeks, falling empty to his sides.
He let out a breath that seemed to rattle, visibly puffing in the cold air.
“Madison,” he murmured, the two syllables cracking in between, but that was all.
He had to have known there was nothing else he could’ve said.
The look in his eyes was like I’d gutted him open, but it was a necessary evil.
I lowered my gaze for the last time, shrugging off his jacket. The air bit into my bare shoulders as I offered it out to him. “I’m sorry,” I told him, surprised by how flat my voice sounded. It wasn’t shaky or choked or broken. “I just… can't.”
For a long moment, Logan remained motionless. The silence between us stretched, heavy as lead. I thought maybe he would’ve fought me further, argued, forced me to see sense. But he didn’t. Logan just stood there, breathing hard.
And then he took his jacket. “Hop in,” he said quietly. “I’ll give you a ride home. We—we don’t have to talk, but I’d—”
“I’ll walk.” I couldn’t get back into his car, not after the way I’d felt the last time I’d been in it. Not even two hours ago, I’d leaned across the console and kissed him. And now I’d never kiss him again. “Drive safe.”
And then I turned and walked away. My shoulders were stiff and frozen, and my legs wobbled with each step, but I continued down the dark road, further from Logan’s headlights.
I felt even worse as I walked, though, like there was a rubber band inside me stretching to its max.
You’re nothing. You’ll never know who you are until someone tells you.
After a long beat, I heard Logan’s car door shut, and could hear the gears as he shifted into Drive.
But Logan never drove past me. He didn’t turn around, either. Even as I walked away, his headlights followed me all the way home.