A More Deserving Blackness (20 page)

             
The sun is slanting across the evening sky once we’re back in his car, bouncing off the windshield in a spray of brilliant white and sparking brightly against the changing leaves outside.

             
I use my free hand to type into my phone.

             
“You gonna show me that or am I just supposed to guess?” Logan asks dryly, shifting his hand on the wheel, and I take in the play of muscle in his forearm beneath the rolled sleeve of his shirt.  He’s distracting as hell in that shirt, hugging the shape of his chest, his dark jeans pulled tight over his thighs from how he’s sitting.

             
I tilt the screen toward him and watch his eyes flick back and forth between it and the road.

             
“What, leave town?”

             
I nod.

             
“Because I thought I could change their minds.  There’re a hell of a lot of people I didn’t give a shit about, but a few I did.”

             
Dylan and his dad, I realize.  The last of the makeshift family he and his mother had made.  I ache for him.

             
“Plus, my mom had lived in that house since before I was born so I was able to pay it off with the insurance money.  It was ours.  Back before, when it was just me and her.”

             
Logan looks over at me as he slows the car, turning down a dirt road.  “But my shrink says I’m punishing myself because of the guilt I feel over the circumstances of my mother’s death.”

             
That wasn’t your fault.

             
“Yeah, that’s what she tells me.”  He pulls the car off onto a long, bumpy drive, maneuvering slowly through the deep, cracking dirt ruts.  At the top of a hill we reach an oblong unpaved parking area occupied with only two other vehicles and he stops the car and kills the engine.  “That’s where I went last Saturday.  After I asked you to have breakfast with me?  One of the stipulations of my acquittal was periodic psychiatric evaluations by a court approved psychiatrist.  The first year was required but after that . . .” he shrugs, and I can tell that even though he brought it up, the topic is making him uncomfortable.  “She’s a friend, I guess.”

             
I can relate, thinking of my own experiences, the revolving door of counselors my mother had set me up with, hoping that maybe the next one would be able to help.  The parade of women – they were always women, my mother made sure of that - with kind smiles and nylon-covered legs, crossed at the knee.  I wanted them to help me.  I wanted them to fix me.  But they couldn’t.  The more they tapped at the wall in my head, the harder it was for me to breathe.  And my parents couldn’t stand to see me suffer any more than I already had. 

             
It was one of the reasons I’d had to leave.  To save them that.

             
So I really don’t care if he sees a psychiatrist or an acupuncturist or a damn voodoo priest if it helps.

             
“We’re here.”

             
I look out the windows, scanning what I can see.  A few weathered picnic tables scattered here and there.  Two quaint older buildings surrounded in squat bales of golden hay, white paint chipping away from their wooden exteriors.  And apple trees, stretching down in row after weaving row.

             
An orchard.

             
Logan laughs at the animated grin on my face.  “I guess that means I did all right.”

             
We do it all.  My hand in his, Logan leads me leisurely up and down the lanes of trees, dotted with white, hand painted signs denoting the selected varieties of apple.  With the sun sinking slowly at our backs we sample different apples straight from the branches, buffing them on Logan’s jeans and passing them back and forth, debating which are our favorites.  Then he leads me down to a small patch of raspberry bushes and the juice stains our fingers red.  Inside one of the buildings the spicy smell is incredible and he buys cider and two donuts, still warm.  He sits down on a bale of hay to eat, pulling me down onto his lap with one hand over my hip in that dress.  I let him finish mine, and then we’re both licking our fingers and sharing a cup of cider, stealing kisses that taste like cinnamon and sugar. 

             
Just before the sun is slipping away Logan pulls me around to the other side of the orchard, where I can just make out a path cut into the tall, golden stalks of corn.  A maze.

             
“You ever done one of these before?” he asks, and I shake my head.  “Good,” he says, and he takes off running like crazy, tugging me along behind him by the hand.

             
We’re racing breakneck through the maze, choosing paths at random, skidding around corners to the rustling of huge leaves on stalks higher than my head and my hair is flying out behind me and I’m clinging to his hand with both of mine and laughing out loud.

             
As suddenly as he started Logan stops, breathing hard.  We’re somewhere in the middle, secluded by the tall stalks of corn.  I tumble into the side of his arm and he steadies me with his hands on my waist under the sweater, pulling me up onto my toes against him.  My breasts press against his chest and he hungrily claims my mouth, sliding his tongue over mine, and then yanks away, grinning.  I sway toward him, still trying to catch my breath, and he slowly backs away, his smile turning devious.

             
I step after him but he evades me with a wide step to the left, and then again, holding my gaze as he avoids my touch.  On my third attempt he meets me halfway, catching me against him and kissing me eagerly.  But two can play at that game so I fist my hands in his hair and bite down on his lower lip, sucking it into my mouth and reveling at his groan before I release him.  I slip into a path at my right, walking backward like he had, and his eyes are burning as he follows me.  He reaches and I skirt away, my heart pounding as he stalks me.  Again he reaches for me and I turn and run, laughing.  I can hear him chasing me so I move even faster, the hem of my dress flying up, my heart pounding at the game.

             
When I glance over my shoulder he isn’t behind me anymore. 

             
I stop, waiting for him to catch up, but he doesn’t and I feel the smile fade from my lips.  I retrace the two turns to where I’d last seen him, but he isn’t there.  And it looks different.  The paths are laid out different than I remember and I spin around, squinting down the rapidly darkening trails, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.  I’m not sure which way to go, or if I should just stay put, but losing him suddenly like this with Erik’s warning still rolling around in my head spooks me.  There’s too much resentment boiling around him for it not to break eventually. 

             
I want him back. 
Now.

             
“Bree?”

             
I whip around at his voice, jogging along the passageway, sure I’ll find him at the turn at the end, but when I reach it all I see is another empty length of corn.

             
“Bree!”

             
This time the sound is from closer to where I’d just been, but there’s no junctures there, it’s just an unbroken line of corn.  He’s one, maybe even two pathways away from me.  I’m grabbing for my phone before I realize I’m not wearing my usual jeans, and without any pockets to carry it in I’d left it in the car.               

             
I’m starting to wonder if I should just try to squeeze right through the stalks – I can’t remember how thick the walls were when it was still light out enough to see - but he’s moving again, I can hear him calling for me, his voice getting further and further away.

             
“Bree?  Bree!” 

             
I follow, paralleling him until I can find a branch leading off in his direction, travelling slower and more carefully now as the light is almost gone and I can’t see where I’m stepping on the uneven ground.

             
“Bree!”
  Logan’s voice changes as he continues to call for me, sounding worried at first and then almost panicked when the minutes continue to crawl by in silence, the near total black of night settling over the field.  “Breeee!”

             
The alarm in his voice stops me dead.  My heart is hammering loudly and goosebumps skitter over my flesh because I know how to stop this.  I know exactly what I need to do for him to find me, easily, and it’s so simple it’s pathetic. 

             
I take a deep breath, but that doesn’t work so I take a few more, pulling air into my lungs like I’m drowning in the middle of a corn field.  But when I pry my lips apart my throat closes off and tears spring to my eyes because I
can’t.
  I can hear Logan calling for me, running through the maze, searching, and I can’t call out to him.  I can’t make a single sound.

             
My breathing is completely out of control. I’m sucking air with an open mouth, trying to fight past the sheer terror choking off my throat, just trying to make One.  Single.  Fucking.  Sound.

             
  When Logan finally follows the horrible gasping noises I’m making, skidding around one of the shadowed corners nearby, he finds me there crying, clutching my stomach and heaving for air.

             
“Fuck. 
Bree!”

             
He tears across the patchy ground, crushing me in a tight hug.

             
“Okay, you’re okay,” he murmurs in my ear as my chest hitches and jerks.  “It’s okay.”

             
But it isn’t okay.  I’m not okay.  I’m broken and ruined and hollow and I can’t even do something so simple as call out to this guy who had become everything to me; this guy who is, without question, the most important thing in my life.  Not without asphyxiating myself.

             
“Hey, come on, let go,” Logan softly says, pulling at my arms that are smashed between our bodies.  “Bree.  Let
go.
”

             
I realize I’m holding my left wrist against my stomach in a claw-like grip and I let him drag my arms apart, let him flatten my hands against his chest instead.  I can feel his slow, steady breaths beneath my palms and focus on matching them, pulling air in and out of my damaged lungs in time with him. 

             
I’m in his arms and it’s safe and it’s
him
and it helps, just like it always helps.

             
Logan rubs my back, swaying with me in his arms.  I drop my face to the middle of his chest.  He’s solid and strong and I close my eyes, wishing I could just disappear, melt into him, under his skin.

             
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, but I shake my head.  It isn’t his fault.  It’s mine. 

             
He cups my face in his hands and lifts it, pushing my hair back from where it’s stuck to my lips.  “Hey.”  Hunched slightly in front of me, his face is inches from mine in the dark.  “Okay?”

             
I take another deep breath and nod, wiping at the mess on my cheeks.  My hands come away wet and smudged with mascara and I just stare at them until Logan chuckles softly and pulls out one end of his shirt.

             
“Here.”  He wipes my hands off on the dark fabric.

             
It’s so sweet, cleaning my fingers off on the tail of his shirt.  I lean in, leaving my hands there, tangled in the fabric, while I push up onto my toes and kiss him on the cheek.

             
I can hear his smile in his soft exhale.  “You’re welcome.”

             
And then he freezes as the backs of my fingers brush against the warm skin of his stomach under his shirt. 

             
He’s standing there motionless and I turn my hands over, pressing my palms against his flat stomach.  I hear his shaky exhale into my hair as I slide them over the slight dip of his belly button, down over the line of warm hair.              

             
When my fingers dip under the top edge of his jeans Logan stiffens with a quick, indrawn breath, and then he crushes his mouth down over mine.  His tongue sweeps over my lower lip and I slide my hands around to his back, his skin smooth and hot and mine.  When I open for him he licks his tongue into my mouth in slow motion, savoring each sensation.

             
I feel his hands slip down to the small of my back, his fingers lying against the very top of my butt over the thin fabric of the dress.  He bends at the knees and then slowly, ever so slowly pushes back up, sliding the hard length of him against me, never breaking the kiss.  A second time; his hands dropping, tightening over my butt and pulling me firmly against him as he pushes, hard, with his hips.

             
His eyes flicking between mine, Logan pulls back slowly, breathing shakily with just a sliver of cool night air between our lips.