Twenty-Six
Logan
This is stupid. It’s careless. It was never supposed to happen again. But it doesn’t stop me from walking through the front door of my house with him anyway.
It was the look he gave me. The yearning and desperation that turned into relief when he saw me enter the room. It was addicting to watch his face light up. It didn’t take much to do it anymore either, but it made me want to do more and more.
It also made me feel like shit, because it doesn’t matter what I gave him and did for him, it was never going to be enough.
He deserved better than this and it took me trying to break an already broken man to realize it.
I saw his dad at the store last week and he shot me a distasteful look, squeezing past me to flirt with the lady at the pharmacy.
He was laughing and smiling without a care in the world.
Meanwhile his son had been missing for two months.
Everyone in town was acting like normal, his friends replacing him with each other and new people.
They were still going out for drinks, throwing parties, and shooting pool at the bowling alley.
No one was looking for him or asking where he was anymore.
Hayden was stuffing his face with cheese fries and making chicken noises at me when I last went out, and I ignored him.
He had his arm around a guy I’ve never seen before, and it could have been Blake if Blake wasn’t stuck in my barn.
I don’t know why that made me angry, but it did.
The thought that Blake only chooses me and wants my company because there’s no one else here.
That’s what I originally wanted, though.
All his directions only leading to me. But doesn’t that go against me teaching him to only do something if he wants to?
And not to do it because someone makes him feel he has to?
It turns out I only wanted that to apply to others, but now I don’t know what I want. I don’t think it’s this anymore. Yes, I want him. I want him so fucking bad and it screws with my head daily, but I don’t know who he really wants. I don’t think he does either.
“Are we back in your house?” he asks quietly.
In my house but not my room. My mom’s room. He’d recognize mine. “Yeah. We are. You’re going to be good while you’re in here, right?”
He nods. “Your roommate isn’t home?”
“You let me worry about that.” I lay him on the mattress and hook a cuff link to his ankle, securing it to the bottom bedpost.
“Is that really necessary? I promise I won’t try to go anywhere.”
“It is for now.”
“Does it really matter if you plan to let me go anyway?” He scoots back in the bed, folding in one of his legs.
“I’m too tired for all your questions and I need to hurry to the store before the roads get too bad. How’s your face doing? I’ll probably get more first aid stuff for it while I’m there too.”
He touches his cheek and his expression tenses. “It hurts, but not too bad. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did it.”
I sigh, rubbing his leg. “It’s okay. Well, it’s not okay, but this was the only way you felt you could get what was going through your head across to me. If I’d been around more, you wouldn’t have felt the need to do it.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“You’re looking awful snuggly in my bed to be that sorry.”
He turns his face away, the blindfold swishing against his eyes. “Can’t I be sorry while also being happy to be out of the barn?”
I let out a long breath. “I guess so. Do you need me to bring you anything before I leave?”
He leans his head down and shakes it. “No. I don’t think so.”
“I’ll bring you an ice pack anyway and some pain meds.”
“You got any Diet Coke?”
“No, but I’ll grab some today. I keep forgetting.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” I exit the room, and before I leave for the store, I bring him everything I think he’ll need before heading out.
The parking lot is crowded, but that’s not any huge surprise since I bet everyone’s panicking at the thought of being stuck inside for three days.
We’ve got all next week off from the academy, and until further notice.
The storm is supposed to be really bad with freezing temperatures, so I might have had to bring him inside the house anyway, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be for the whole time in case my mom came home.
She was stopping by less and less, though.
I don’t blame her, since I’m sure seeing all my dad’s stuff doesn’t really help her to move forward.
I haven’t had the time to pack the rest of his shit, and he hasn’t bothered me about it in a while.
His new job must be keeping him busy. Good.
I hope it always does. I sigh in annoyance when two people are kissing at the end of the aisle I’m in.
I try to avoid looking their way, and then I’m forced to when one of them backs into me.
“Logan?” My dad’s eyes widen and the person he’s with looks back at me. The hood of their jacket falls, revealing their face, and my mouth gapes.
Hayden mutters curse words, lifting his hood up, and tells my dad he’ll wait for him in the car, hitting my shoulder with his as he rushes past me.
“What the fuck was that?” I yell.
My dad’s face distorts. “Look, I should probably go after him. He doesn’t have the keys.”
I grab his arm as he’s walking off. “You and Hayden? For how fucking long? You’re just hopping from one young guy to the next now? Is that it?”
His brows lift. “What are you going on about? Is that something your mom’s been telling you?”
“How long?”
He scrubs his jaw. “He’s the only one there’s ever been since your mother.”
“Bullshit.”
He pulls out of my grip. “Look, believe what you want, but that’s the damn truth. It’s not like I get anything out of lying. He was the one who needed to keep us a secret for a while.”
“Yeah, well, making out at the grocery store probably wasn’t a good idea. So, is he the one mom caught you texting? Why wasn’t it his photos she showed me?”
He deflates and his hand moves to the back of his neck. “She wanted to know who it was, so I lied because like I said, Hayden wasn’t ready for anyone to know about us yet.”
I was wrong all along, and Blake was telling the damn truth. He was never with my dad. “You know he’s probably using you, right?”
“I really don’t care to hear your thoughts on what I choose to do in my personal life. It has nothing to do with you. Now, if you would excuse me, my boy’s waiting in the cold for me.”
I huff a laugh. “Your boy, huh? With the way he’s getting around these days, it seems like he’s everyone’s boy.”
“I’m done standing here listening to this.” He storms off, shoving at my cart, and I let him go, disgust settling deep in my gut.
Him and fucking Hayden. Not in a million years would I have seen that shit coming.
My question is, what the hell is Hayden getting out of it?
What’s his game here? Does this have to do with his own insecurities?
Is he not getting enough attention from people his age anymore?
Or was he the one who needed to be where Blake is all along?
I scrunch up my face. No. No, Blake is the only person who gets to be where he is.
Especially now that he’s in my bed waiting for me to come home to him.
It’s starting to feel like his home too.
Like our home. It’s why I keep going back and forth on letting him go.
This has all gone too far. I thought he was finding his way to a better version of himself, but he’s finding more damaging sides too. He’s hurting himself to get his way.
I no longer think I’m making him better.
I’m no longer any better than he ever was either.
I think I might be worse. And more and more I don’t recognize myself.
I didn’t think we could ever be good for each other with the way he was before, and we can’t be now either.
Not because of him anymore but because of both of us.
Where do we go from here, though? How do I fix this?
If only there was a way to do it all over.
I slam my hand on the cart handle and zoom through the other aisles, tossing in enough food to last us a week. I grab some other essentials too, adding in hot chocolate and marshmallows. I think about Blake holding his steaming cup to his mouth as we laugh in front of the fire.
He wasn’t the only one who got in the way of us having that. I did too. I still am getting in the way. I can still give him that for the last few days he’s with me. I don’t know how I’m going to let him go or exactly when, but I know it has to happen.
It has to be, for him and me. As I told him earlier, it’s time he found his way on his own, and it’s time I find my way back to who I was before I let all the wrong people influence the monster I’ve become.
That’s what I am. I look at my reflection in the store’s glass doors, only seeing the masked version Blake has been getting of me.
I don’t want to be like that anymore. Blake will soon be free to make all the right choices on his own. I have to start making some too.