Chapter Nineteen – Wren
Sloane makes her feelings known about Logan and whether she thinks I should go to the mic night he invited me to.
Spoiler alert: she doesn’t think I should give it or him a second thought, but I spend the next few days staring hard at that flyer.
I leave it on the small desk in my room and memorize every single detail on it.
It’s two weeks away. Plenty of time for me to come up with an excuse, a reason not to go.
But each time I start to think along those lines, I remember the look on Logan’s face when he came to give the flyer to me, I hear the sincerity in his voice as he invited me.
And then, of course, I remember what he sounds like when he sings.
That rough, scratchy voice that makes anything it sings sound like an anthem from hell.
Low, melodic, the kind of voice that crawls inside of your ears and infects your brain, and never lets you go.
It should be an easy decision, not to go to the mic night, but it’s not. Seeing as Sloane can’t really help, I decide to pay a visit to my favorite professor during his office hours that next week. Reese will get jealous and convince me not to go, right?
When I get to his office, I knock on the open door before I enter, and he looks up from his desk and grins at me, saying, “Close the door.” That grin, even now, threatens to knock me off my feet if I’m not careful.
I close the door and go to sit in one of the old chairs facing his desk.
His office really is small; it’s an older building on campus, so it also has that old-timey smell.
The books he has jam-packed in his bookcases don’t help things.
Though his office is neat in an overall sense, it’s also pretty cluttered given the tiny space.
The sigh that comes from me when I sit down is loud and it informs Reese something heavy is on my mind.
He leans back in his chair, still grinning, and cocks his head at me as he asks, “So, what’s bothering you, Wren?
” He’s probably dying to come over to me and kiss me or something, and I can’t lie, that would be nice, but given where we are, it’s probably best not to tempt fate.
We can see each other outside of campus, but on it? Best be professional, at least a little.
“How can you tell something’s bothering me?” I ask, dancing around the subject.
“I know you, and since you’re not in any of my classes, I don’t think you’d want to meet during office hours to discuss our next date, so something must be bothering you.” He folds his hands on his lap, those crisp blue eyes of his zeroed in on me. “So talk to me. Let me see if I can help you.”
“Do you remember Logan?”
It’s a moment before Reese nods. “Yes, he was the one who was working with you on that group project last semester, until the accident. What about him?”
Crap. Maybe this was a bad idea after all. I don’t know how to explain the whole mic night thing without going into our history together. I don’t think Reese would be too thrilled in knowing exactly how far back—and how deeply—our history intertwines last semester.
“Well, I guess I should tell you a little backstory,” I start, not knowing how much to say.
“I, um, I used to sing a lot. I loved it. I had stupid dreams about making it big and all that, which I think most kids do, one way or another. I stopped singing after I broke up with my ex, and I didn’t sing again until the night of the accident. ”
As if reminding me of how that particular night went, my arm aches with a ghostly sensation, a phantom of pain.
It’s like the nerves in my arm remember that night all too well.
The shock numbed the initial impact, and the drugs at the hospital sure helped a lot, but there were times when I thought the pain in my arm would never go away.
Reese doesn’t say a word, waiting for me to continue.
“I sang with Logan on stage,” I say with a shrug. “He was avoiding the stage, too. He’s a singer. He has… a really, really good voice. It was supposed to be part of the project, or at least that’s what I told myself.”
“The psychology of avoidance, I remember.”
“I didn’t exactly tell him we’d be on stage together.
He wasn’t happy. He agreed to do one song with me, but he stormed off right after, and that’s when…
you know.” I got hit by a freaking car, by what I assume was a drunk driver, probably another student who goes to MSU, who was never caught by police because stuff like that happens a lot around here.
“Yes,” Reese says with a sagely nod, “I remember all this. Why bring up Logan now?”
“He reached out to me the other day, wanting to see me. He didn’t take no for an answer. He came over and… he invited me to a mic night. I guess he’s going to sing again, this time by himself. He wants me to come, but I don’t know if I want to.”
The way he looks at me, I can’t tell what he’s thinking. It’s a while before he says, “You do know, you just don’t want to admit it to anybody, especially yourself.”
I scoff. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you want to go to this mic night and see why he invited you in the first place.” He leans forward, resting his arms on his desk. “I bet you came here hoping I’d have some words of wisdom for you, maybe even convince you not to go.”
That’s exactly what I was hoping for, but as I sit there under his stare, I start to wonder if I’m not going to get any of that here. I thought Reese would be jealous, that he’d get prickly or something, especially after our little date in the cemetery the other weekend.
This is not going how I thought it would.
Cocking his head, he asks quietly, “Do you want me to convince you not to, or do you want me to give you permission to go?”
My heart beats wildly in my chest, and I mutter, “I don’t know what I want. Logan is… last semester, it really hurt when he ghosted, especially after the accident. I know he didn’t owe me anything—it’s not like we were together when it happened—but it would have been nice if…”
“If he would’ve acted differently,” Reese finishes for me.
“Yeah. But he didn’t. He went silent, and I thought I’d never see him again. The last thing I thought would ever happen is an invite to a mic night. For someone who was so against getting on that stage with me that night, why would he want to do it alone this time?”
“Could be he’s doing it for you.” The look I give Reese when he says that makes him chuckle. “Is that really so out there, that he could be doing it for you?”
I shift in my seat. “If you know Logan, then you know he pretty much only ever does things for himself. He’s not the kind of guy who goes out on a limb for anybody, especially girls. He made that very clear last semester.”
“And yet he invited you to this mic night. You, not any other girl.”
“That I know of.”
“That you know of,” he agrees with me, “but I can’t imagine why he’d go out on a limb and invite you while also inviting other girls. To an objective third party, it seems as though he’s signaling you out. He wants you there. You. So, I guess the real question is, do you want to go?”
I’m silent. I don’t know what to say or even how to say it. Things are strangely simple when it comes to Reese, but Logan? Things were never simple. They weren’t easy. Even if I wasn’t seeing Reese, I don’t know that I’d want to step back into the chaos again with him.
I decide to switch things around on him, seeing as how he’s remarkably calm during this conversation: “I thought you’d tell me not to go.”
“Wren, I won’t tell you not to do anything. If you want to go, you should go.”
“But… it doesn’t make you—” I pause and glance around, as if there are other people in the room that can overhear what I’m about to say. But that’s dumb, because it’s just us, and the door is closed. “—jealous? After everything, I thought you would be.”
“You potentially going to this mic night doesn’t change the fact that you’re mine.
” The way he says it, so confidently, is ridiculously attractive to me, for some reason.
Like he’s not worried at all. “I could see it from the beginning, the first day of class last semester. There was something between you two. Whether or not there still is something there is ultimately up to you to decide. I can’t and won’t tell you what to do when it comes to Logan, but for the record, you are still mine.
” The corners of his mouth quirk upward, and I find myself blushing in response.
This man’s smirk does something to me, I swear. It makes me feel all giddy and warm inside.
Eventually, I say, “You are no help.”
“Aren’t I? I think you needed to talk about it with someone who wouldn’t judge you either way. You don’t feel better after this talk?”
I open my mouth, my first instinct to say that I do not feel better, but before I get the chance, I realize that would be a lie.
I do feel better, strangely enough. Reese isn’t upset or jealous.
He will understand my decision either way, and he’s not telling me what to do.
It’s not how I imagined this talk going, but I also can’t complain.
So, instead I say, “Maybe I do, but I still don’t know what to do. If I should go or not.”
“If you do go, what are you worried about?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. That we’ll fall into old habits. That I’ll get sucked into his vortex again. Logan is…” I can’t exactly say he’s an ex-rockstar who’s used to getting his way when it comes to girls and such. “…we’re just very different people. Incompatible, some would probably say.”
“Are you one of those people who say that? Do you think you’re incompatible with Logan?” The way he watches me, waiting, there is no judgment in his stare, none at all, and it’s almost like he already knows what my answer will be.
“The person he was… yeah. We’re not compatible. I don’t know if someone like him can change. Before he came to MSU, his life was different. He probably still wants that life back. It’s not a life I would ever want to be a part of.”
There’s a difference between singing for your silly channel and actually being a rockstar. I don’t party. I don’t drink. I don’t touch drugs of any kind. The wildest I’ve been was hooking up with Logan and Reese. That’s the extent of my crazy activities.
Reese debates this. “Well, I suppose there’s only one way to tell for certain.”
He means go. Going to this mic night, giving Logan a chance, is the only way to tell whether he’s different or not. If he’s changed.
“I don’t want to get hurt again,” I whisper.
“You won’t. And if, by some chance, you do, then you’ll still have me. I’m not going anywhere. If Logan tries to wrong you again, I can handle him for you, if you want me to.”
If anyone else said something like that, I might laugh, but when it comes to Reese… well, he’s not exactly the most normal guy around. It doesn’t surprise me to hear him say he could deal with Logan for me, and it actually does make me feel better about the whole situation.
When I don’t say anything, Reese gives me a gentle smile. “I hope you feel better about whatever you decide to do. I think, deep down, you already know what you have to do.”
I return the soft smile. “Thank you. This isn’t how I thought this talk would go, but… but I’m kind of glad it went this way. When it comes to Logan, sometimes I don’t think clearly.” In a much quieter voice, I whisper, “He, um, he was actually my first.”
Crap. Probably shouldn’t have said that.
Reese doesn’t say anything, so I feel the need to explain, “We hooked up before the semester started last fall. I didn’t know I’d be seeing a lot more of him when it happened.
I was—” This is kind of embarrassing to admit.
“—spiraling from breaking up with my ex after finding out he’d been cheating on me for nearly two years.
I was hurting, and I thought it’d make me feel better.
It did, but not for long.” I let out a harsh sigh and force out a chuckle.
“I’m sorry. That’s probably too much information, huh? ”
“Not at all.”
Though that’s all he says, I believe him.
Reese just has this way about him that makes me feel so…
so good. Like everything will be okay. Like he’ll take care of me, no matter what.
Maybe it’s leftover from him helping me out so much last semester after the accident, or maybe it’s because I’m falling for him.
I’m falling for him while also struggling with resurfacing feelings for Logan. Is it really possible to love two people at once? In the past, I would’ve said no, but now… now I really do wonder. Love isn’t finite.
Reese says, “There is something I want to show you. Can I pick you up tonight?”
The abrupt change of subject is welcome, and yet I’m caught off-guard, because it’s a weekday, and so far he’s proven that he prefers to see each other on the weekends, something I can agree with, since weeknights are usually full of either studying or actually doing the textbook readings.
Yeah, I’m still one of those students.
“Sure,” I say.
“Great. How about eight? I won’t keep you up too late, I promise.” He flashes me his pearly whites, and I respond by chuckling.
Well, came to talk to Reese to see if he could persuade me one way or another, and somehow I’m walking out of here with another date. Can’t lie, it’s not something I can complain about.
And as for the advice about Logan and his mic night…
I feel a little better about it, but at the same time, I’m still torn. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, if I should go.
What if I go and my heart breaks all over again?