Lia #3
His voice feels awfully sad and tired, and I stare up at him through my tears.
For the first time, I notice just how deep his undereye circles are.
He’s always seemed to thrive on very little sleep, but now, he looks exhausted.
I frown, but cast aside the nagging worry I feel at the sight of his face.
“It was a present for you,” I sniff. “I wanted to give you a present. Your first present ever.”
“Thank you, Lia.”
He hardly ever calls me by my first name anymore, and the sound of it makes the worry grow.
“What did I do wrong now?” I ask resentfully—more resentfully than I mean, as a way to push the worry aside.
He marks a long pause. “Nothing. Everything. It’s not your fault, Lia. It’s mine. I should’ve taken better care of you. You’re my responsibility. It’s my fault this happened.”
“Bullshit!” The resentment is back for real, now. “I can take care of myself.”
A tired smirk flits across his face. “Right. It’s okay.”
“Are you going to tell me why you freaked out?”
“Pretty sure the only person who freaked out was you,” he says, his fingers rubbing up and down my spine. “Thank you for the present, Lia.”
The worry is full-blown, now. I don’t like this at all. He was furious at me, and this sudden shift to tired and calm, like he’s accepting that something horrible has happened and that he’s just going to have to deal with it… it’s terrifying. Far more than the neutral expression from before.
“What’s wrong, Logan?”
Another long silence, and then he pulls me up, a lot more gently than before. Like I’m a porcelain doll he’s scared of breaking. Or a stranger.
“I love you very much, Lia. I want you to know that. Please don’t protest. I don’t have the energy for it. I’m going to ask that you stay in the bedroom, and I’m going to lock the door. I need to make a few phone calls. Please do that for me, Lia.”
“Wait.” By now, the worry is strangling at my throat.
“Wait, Logan. Please. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.
I’m sorry about the insults, about… about going to town…
I was only trying to make you happy… I’m sorry, Logan…
Please… Are you going to leave me?” The thought hadn’t occurred to me before I’d said it, but now, it causes panic to course through my veins, and I cling to him. “Please, please… don’t leave me.”
The panic only worsens when he doesn’t show any surprise at the words.
Though he does deny them. “No, I’m not going to leave you, Lia.
Please stay in the bedroom. How much do I owe Dolores, by the way?
” He speaks the last question like an afterthought, his phone already in hand, and I see Damien’s name on the screen.
The man he didn’t speak to for two years because it was dangerous.
What the fuck?
“What do you mean, Dolores?” I ask, still clinging to him as he tries to shut the door. “Why would you owe Dolores anything?” I insist on the question, desperate for any reason to keep him from locking me inside.
“For the present.” He’s still speaking in a distracted, preoccupied voice, not even looking at me.
I manage to push a foot in the crack of the door, and he looks at it, then at me, annoyed and still very, very tired.
“She didn’t pay for it. I did. It was my money, Logan. I earned it—eighty dollars. Eighty dollars, Logan.”
I know you’re not supposed to tell someone how much their present cost, but that number means something to him. Doesn’t it? Panic beats at my chest as I reach out for the hand he pulls away.
“What do you mean, you earned it? How did you do that?”
I detect something new—not the anger from earlier or the exhaustion that followed it. There’s a note of worry in his voice that makes my body tense.
“I… I… painted something. I painted something, and sold it.”
“How did you sell it?”
His voice is back to being neutral, but I almost prefer that anger to the weariness and the worry.
“Well, Dolores went around… she found someone…” I rest my head against the frame of the door. “She found someone who bought one of my paintings for eighty dollars.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know… someone!”
My own anger is back, but it’s a different kind than before. I hate the way he’s shutting me out, the way I’m at a loss to grasp the situation.
“Where? In town?”
“Uhm…”
“Not in town, Lia?” he insists. “She sold it somewhere else?”
“She sold it… in a town…” I hedge.
He blinks rapidly. “She knew she wasn’t supposed to leave the safety perimeter. It was clearly defined. Why would she have left it?”
“She… I…” It’s a struggle to swallow, my mouth is so dry. “We wanted to surprise you.”
“Right.” He passes a hand over his eyes, then straightens suddenly, as if he’s just thought of something. “The painting—what was it? Flowers, or some shit?”
The swallowing gets even harder, because although I can’t fully understand it, the gravity of my fuck-up is slowly dawning on me. “It was of… of… Aurora.”
There’s another heavy silence, as I stare at him helplessly, understanding at last.
I’d forgotten the danger. Two years of happiness had made me forget it.
“Please, Logan…” I whisper.
He doesn’t respond, instead pushing my foot inside the bedroom and locking the door.
I hear his footsteps grow dimmer as he walks away. Then I collapse on the floor, succumbing to violent sobs.
Only now, the only person I’m furious at is me.
Can he ever forgive me? Can I?