Chapter Seventeen – Wren
I fall asleep the moment I hit my bed. I had Reese drop me off a few houses down, and then walked to the back door, slipping inside so I wouldn’t wake Sloane and Elias. I’m going to have to tell her about Reese, but that’ll be a job for another day.
I’m so tired, so freaking exhausted, that I don’t wake up once, and by the time I come to the next morning, it’s nearly lunch time.
Dang, I can’t remember the last time I slept in that late, minus when I was groggy on pain meds after the accident—but I’m not going to count any of those days.
When I finally get up the next day, or technically later that same day, I hop in the shower and rinse off the evidence from last night. Not that anyone will be checking my body for signs of, uh, sex, but it’s always a good way to start the day. Fresh. Clean. New.
The masked man was Reese all along. Honestly, when I saw his face above mine after taking off his mask, I really wanted to smack myself. I should’ve known. The signs were there. I kind of felt stupid for not putting it together before.
I don’t know what this makes me and Reese. Are we together? It isn’t like he asked me to be his girlfriend or anything, but at the same time, when he was talking about me and how I was always meant to be his, it certainly sounded like he was taking ownership of me.
I guess I’ll have to talk with him and get some clarification next time I see him. He’s always a text away, but that’s not something I want to do over messages. No, I want to see his face, read his expression. Sometimes things come across wrong, especially in tone, over texts.
My phone goes off when I’m eating lunch, and I instinctively assume it’s Reese, but it’s not. No, it’s someone who hasn’t texted me in a very, very long time.
Logan.
Why can’t I have one nice day without feeling like I’m being pulled in two? Why didn’t the guy take the hint when I blocked him on social media, or even when I kicked him out of the house when he came to visit when Sloane and Elias were gone?
And, what’s even more pathetic, why do I want to see his face again? You’d think I’d have enough with Reese, that I could easily ignore any residual feelings I might have for the jerk, but I can’t. It’s like Logan has a permanent place in my heart.
Seriously, so freaking pathetic.
When I see it’s his name on my screen, I don’t open the message right away. I can’t. I can barely stomach the food I made, having lost my appetite just like that. It’s a good thirty or so minutes before I wander to the living room, plop myself down on the couch, and open up the message.
Can we please talk?
My first instinct is to respond with a big, fat NO. But I don’t send it. I delete the all-caps response and type something out that sounds way more normal: I don’t think we have anything left to talk about. Even as I type it out, it hurts my heart to put it into words.
What is wrong with me? Why does he still make me feel like this?
He must be waiting near his phone, because he replies instantly, Wren, I’m begging you. Let’s meet. I need to see you.
Logan doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who ever begs anyone for anything, which is why it surprises me so much to read that particular message. I’m not saying I can imagine the guy on his knees for me, but it is a nice thought.
I don’t respond to him. I can’t. I sit there on the couch and stare at the blank TV on the opposite wall. I could grab the remote and put something on, but it’d just be background noise. Not really in the mood to actually sit down and watch something. The mere thought of Logan does this to me.
He texts me again, saying, Are you home? I’m coming over. Your roomie can kill me later.
When I read that last part, my brows furrow. Not sure what exactly he means by that, but I could totally see Sloane kicking his butt for me. She knows how much he messed me up last semester, and it’s obvious he wanted to steer clear of her.
It’s as if she sensed she was being spoken about, or texted about, because right then Sloane comes down the stairs and goes into the kitchen, grabbing something from the refrigerator. She spots me in the living room and comes to join me, sitting beside me as she opens up her water.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, then takes a long swig. “You look like you saw a ghost or something.”
Or something is right. My good mood from last night has officially crashed thanks to Logan, though that should come as no surprise to anyone. “Logan messaged me,” I mutter with a frown, and just like that Sloane gets prickly, ready to defend me from someone who isn’t even here.
Maybe Logan was right that Sloane would try to kill him. The expression she wears when she hears his name spoken aloud is icy, to say the least.
“What the fuck does that asshole want?” she hisses out.
“He wants to see me.”
She grinds her jaw, her hatred for him evident, but that hatred dwindles a bit when she studies me. “Do you want to see him?”
“No.” The word flies out of me fast, but then I find myself adding, “Maybe. I don’t know.
I keep telling myself I don’t want to see him, but…
I just don’t know.” I stop myself from saying it’s not his fault I got hit by a car that night; I’m the one who ran out into the road without paying attention.
That’s, like, kindergarten-level of paying attention.
But it is his fault he never checked in on me. How can I trust someone like that actually cares about me and isn’t just doing this to make himself feel better?
The sigh that she gives me is legendary. “Kind of sounds like you do.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of things I shouldn’t have done and I did them anyway.” Whether she’s referencing her relationship with Elias or other things, I don’t know, and I don’t ask. “It’s no secret I’m not the biggest Logan fan, but… if you feel like you need to see him, then just do it.”
“You won’t kill him?” I say it as a joke, referencing what Logan said in the one text, but the serious look Sloane gives me makes me wonder if somehow it wasn’t a joke at all.
If her last sigh was legendary, this one is its sequel. “If you don’t want me to, no, I won’t, but if you do… the offer is there.”
I laugh a little, because I still think she’s joking and the joke just isn’t landing well, but that chuckle of mine dies down when Sloane only looks at me and blinks.
Wait. Is she being serious? I literally cannot tell.
She certainly can be unnerving when she wants to be, huh?
In the end, I say, “Why don’t you let me handle Logan, hmm?”
She stands. “You’re right. If anyone has the right to kill him, it’s you.” And then she saunters off, disappearing up the stairs, like she totally didn’t say the weirdest thing ever… and sounded like she meant it wholeheartedly.
Now I’m starting to wonder whether those stories about her past might have some truth to them. She was surrounded by death an awful lot. But maybe that’s just me being a little paranoid.
I hope.
Once I’m alone, I get up and pace the first floor of the house. Logan doesn’t message me again, not that I think he will. Based on his last text, it sounded like he was going to come over right now whether I want him to or not. My willpower should be strong when it comes to resisting that guy, but…
I’m still weak. A part of me still likes him. I still want him to change. Seriously, so pathetic.
I must pace longer than I think, because a knock on the front door stops me.
Hesitantly, I approach that front door as I nibble my bottom lip, and then I glance down at myself, at the clothes I’m wearing.
Sweats and a baggy shirt; what I typically wear during winter when I don’t plan on leaving the house the rest of the day. My hair is still damp from my shower.
Am I ready to open that door and see Logan again? The night he came here, talking all that big talk, I don’t think I was. He was the last person I expected to see at the back door. Today, things are different.
I’m different. I have to keep reminding myself I don’t need him anymore.
At least, I don’t think I do. I don’t want to need him. Needing someone like Logan can only lead to disaster when it comes to someone like me. A nobody. He might’ve taken his words back, but they still stung. They still hurt, even now.
Another knock, and I gather what little courage I have inside of me and open the door.
Logan stands in the cold, wearing an old leather jacket, his black hair messy but his green eyes bright.
His pants are a bit too tight, leaving nothing to the imagination—which I imagine is the point of pants like that.
His jaw is freshly-shaved, no stubble anywhere to be seen, which is a first. Normally he always has shadows of hair on his square jaw and on his cheeks.
He always gave off the aura of the typical badboy: I don’t care.
Yet here he is, looking like he does care.
He studies me like he’s expecting resistance, and he’s cautious in asking, “Can I come in?”
I should say no. I should tell him to get the heck out of here before I call for Sloane and let her loose on him like a vicious dog.
She has it in her, and the more I think about it, the more I don’t think she was joking about killing him.
Her father was a serial killer. I don’t think she’d joke about murder like that.
A part of me worries what’ll happen if I do invite him inside. God knows how things tend to spiral when it’s Logan and me. I resisted him so well last semester, and then everything got blown up that night. Who knew going home with him and having him be my first would only be the tip of the iceberg?
But I stand there, under his emerald stare, and feel conflicted for only a few seconds. In the end, there’s only one thing I can tell him, and it’s not to go away and never come back. My backbone isn’t that strong when it comes to this guy.
“Sure,” I say, and then I step aside and allow him entry into the house.
He walks in past me, and as I shut the door, I can’t help but wonder what the heck I’m doing. There’s no way this can end well.