Chapter 9 Rose
I rip off my clothes and crank the hot water. My eyes are burning.
I knew better. I knew the whole time—he’s told me himself, more than once, how much Pearl means to him. How he’s always on her side. Everyone is always on her side.
I told myself Pearl’s obsession with Logan was one-sided. But I knew. Of course, I knew. Nobody puts up with her kind of crazy unless they really love her.
That picture I saw on his phone.
That’s not a picture sent between friends. That’s a picture you send someone you’re fucking.
I turn the heat up until it’s almost too much.
The tears are still coming, which is pathetic because I’m not even surprised.
I knew the whole time, and I still let myself get swept up in one stupid dance—his hands on my waist, holding tight, like I was something worth holding onto.
The way he talked to me. Like maybe this stupid crush wasn’t one-sided.
That’s exactly the right word for it. Crush.
Okay, I’m a little buzzed and being dramatic. But still.
The way he defended her at the diner should tell me all I need to know about their relationship.
I climb into the shower and let the water wash over me.
Breathe in, hold.
Exhale, hold. I’m fine.
This is fine. I knew where I stood before tonight. I just forgot for a minute.
I finish showering, then wrap a scratchy, over-washed towel around my body, another around my hair, not caring that I’m using the only two towels in the bathroom. Logan can find his own damn towel.
Each exhale comes out shaky. It’s fine, I’m fine. I know my place. I’ve always known my place in life. It’s not as if it hasn’t been clear since the day I was born.
I loved the cottage I grew up in. But Dad never fought to bring me into the big house.
We both knew Pearl didn’t want me to live there, and sometimes he’d say, I don’t love you any differently, but Pearl is more sensitive than you.
As if that was reason enough to make me feel like he wanted me around less. Like her feelings mattered more.
The summer after Pearl’s senior graduation, my mom got really sick. She had been, off and on, for a couple of years, and after the first successful round of chemo, she told me point-blank she’d never do it again. So when the cancer came back, I knew what was coming.
Dad and I took Mom to Portugal, where she wanted to spend her last days, and Pearl lost her mind over it.
She knew my mom was dying—she knew—and she still couldn’t let it be about anyone but herself.
She booked a trip to Bora Bora, then begged Dad to come, saying she only graduated from high school once, and it was a trip just for the two of them to celebrate—and when he said no, she had her excuse to fall apart about how he was abandoning her.
He even asked her to come with us. I was grateful she didn’t.
Mom was born in a little village in the north of Portugal, deep in the wine country.
She’d been back only once since she moved to the States, and when we arrived, she cried.
Every weekend, we had grande almoco, a big lunch affair with all my extended family, who, even though I hadn’t met most of them, treated me like I was theirs.
With a split oil barrel, two grills thrown on top, and so much food, tias I’d never met, and over a hundred people who were all somehow related to us, it was the best month of my entire life.
Mom, despite how sick she was, how small and frail, had never smiled so much.
She spoke English less and less those last few days. We were there a month while hospice came and went. We said goodbye and buried Mom in the family plot.
I left my heart in Portugal, and it took years to feel like I was walking on solid ground again.
It didn’t help that when I came home, Pearl acted like I’d stolen something from her—going on about how Dad was supposed to be there to celebrate her graduation.
That he skipped Bora Bora to gallivant around Europe with me.
Never mind that she’d never once mentioned wanting him in Bora Bora before she even booked the trip.
Never mind that she went anyway, with Harlow and Logan and all their other friends.
She had a whole life full of people, and I had just lost my mother, and she couldn’t even let it be.
I don’t know what I ever did to make her hate me. And I’m a fool for letting myself forget, even for one stupid second, that to Logan I’m nothing more than Pearl’s annoying sister, a potential warm body to get through this shitty week with.
I brush out my hair, then braid it up in two tight French braids. Thick as it is, the braids will help with the humidity. I’ve always been too lazy to blow-dry.
After peeling off the butterfly bandages, I dig through my herbal kit and dab the arnica beeswax blend on the bruise. The cut has barely closed, so I press on a fresh band-aid from the first-aid kit Logan pulled off the plane.
I take my sweet ass time getting ready for bed. Only once I feel like myself again—mental walls up, mostly sober—do I open the door. The room is dark. Logan is sitting at the edge of the bed, and it hits me again.
Even slightly hunched, he commands so much attention. The t-shirt pulls tight across his shoulders. He doesn’t look my way, and I stupidly hate that. I feel tongue-tied and annoyed.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but he was pissed at me when we got back to the room.
I barely drink, and it caught up with me fast—fine, I was being dramatic and acting childish.
Whatever. Fuck him. He’s probably sleeping around with my sister, even while she has a boyfriend, even while he’s here, putting his hands on me, dancing with me.
I walk to my side of the bed. There aren’t enough pillows to build a wall, but I’m wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt, and we’re grown-ass adults. I can handle sharing a bed.
He says nothing while he gets up and closes the bathroom door.
I crawl in and pull the sheet up to my shoulder, facing the window, my back to his side of the bed.
The rain is loud against the glass. I watch the water streak down in the dark and wait, and eventually the door opens again, and the mattress dips and shifts as he settles in behind me.
I’m sleeping in a bed with Logan Wells.
I don’t know how much time passes, but we listen to the rain battering the window and eventually fall asleep.