A More Deserving Blackness (5 page)

             
Oddly, I think it would.

             
Tentatively, I twist my fingers around the soft cotton of his shirt in the middle of his chest, gripping the fabric tightly.  He feels it and his breathing changes for a second – a pause, and then a deep breath – before returning to his natural rhythm.

             
He looks down at my hands.  “Are you afraid to go home?”

             
I shake my head.  No.  I’m not afraid to go home.  I’m afraid of everything.  Most especially what I’m doing just that second, touching someone, letting them touch me.  Except I’m not.  Not with him.

             
“Okay.  Next question.  Did Dylan hurt you?  Did he -”

             
I shake my head.  No.  Dylan didn’t hurt me.

             
My response doesn’t seem to satisfy him; he’s staring at me intently, his eyes roving over my face as if searching for an injury, which I suppose makes sense.  He was too close behind me not to have heard my puking, and he’d witnessed my falling apart firsthand.  It would’ve made more sense if there was some reason for it all, some visible wound he could place blame on, but there had never been any visible scars.  He watches me carefully, but leaves it at that.

             
I want to ask him why he cares.  Why he’s going to so much trouble, trying to figure out what I need when I won’t do the simple thing and just open my mouth and tell him.  I want to ask him why his voice sounds so familiar to me.  And I want to ask him why he looked so tortured that first day, standing slumped over in the hall, but the words can never come.

             
He glances behind him, back the way we’d just come, and then back to me.  “Can you walk?”

             
I nod. 

             
Logan accepts this, removing my hands from his shirt and pushing fluidly to his feet.  He watches me carefully as he helps pull me to mine, bending at the knees slightly to study my face between the fall of my hair.  He’s taller than me by a few inches and I tilt my head, letting him look.  When he’s apparently satisfied he releases one hand only to loosely cup my elbow, slowly guiding me back.  We find his car easily, the lights from the party reflecting off a colorless, glossy exterior, and he unlocks it with the button, opening the passenger door for me. 

             
I stop.  Stare at it, mentally preparing myself for letting go of his hand.                There is no reason to fall apart without the touch of him, this boy I’d only just met.  There
isn’t.

             
Just as I’m trying to convince the death grip of my hand over his to relax he surprises me by ducking into the car, crawling awkwardly over the gear shift and plopping into the drivers’ seat, the movement pulling me down a little as he still hadn’t let go.  He leans across the seat, peering up at me standing outside. 

             
“You coming in, or are you planning on dislocating my shoulder?”

             
And I can’t help it.  I laugh.  Out loud.  I can’t remember the last time I’d laughed out loud.

             
His face freezes in surprise at the sound and then melts into an easy, pleasant smile.  “Glad I amuse you,” he says quietly, and it doesn’t sound sarcastic at all.

             
As soon as I lower myself into the seat next to him he braces one boot on the floor of the car and hikes up a hip, digging in the pocket of his jeans, tapping the screen a few times and then sliding a sleek looking smartphone into my free hand.

             
I just look at him, suddenly noticing how clean the inside of his car is, the black interior appearing almost new, in stark contrast with his well-worn jeans and boots.  He’s still watching me holding his phone.

             
“Type your address into the GPS,” he prompts, and I do, grateful for the easy out he’d just given me.  I rest it on my leg and poke the screen with one hand, then pass it back to him.

             
He takes one look at the screen and laughs heartily, dumping it into the cup holder and backing out onto the road.  “Well, this is my lucky day,” he says, amused.  “We’re practically neighbors.”

              The ride home is silent but not awkwardly so.  At some point I realize he’s intertwined his fingers with mine where they sit on the console between us, and somehow that feels safer, more secure than the other way.  I steal quick glances at his face as he drives – straight nose, slightly scruffy jaw, dark lashes – and wish I could thank him for that small thing.

             
When we pull into my drive I take a deep, shaky breath.  I feel better.  Not nearly as fragile, like the ground beneath my feet is crumbling away, but that doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to letting go of him, either.  There’s something calm about him, calm and confident, and it grounds me.

             
I realize he’s stopped the car already and I’m just sitting here, unmoving, staring at our linked hands.  I glance up at him apologetically from behind the mess of my hair and find him watching me.

             
I see anger simmering there, and that’s all it takes.  That bubble of comforting warmth pops and I snatch my hand from his, the other fumbling around in the dark for the door handle.  I don’t want to be in the car anymore, stuck in that close, black space with an angry stranger.

             
“Bree.”

             
His voice stops me.  Then he reaches over, taking my hand gently back into his, waiting until I turn to look at him.  The anger I thought I saw is completely gone.

             
“Are you safe here?  Really?”

             
I nod.  I’m not safe anywhere, but I can’t explain that to him.  My sister means well, and she’d never hurt me.  But he just sits there staring at me so I nod again, forcing a little more emotion into my face.

             
“Do you have a phone?”

             
The question surprises me, but before I even think about why he would ask I nod.  He reaches over my knees and it’s only after he’s flipped open the glove box and rifled around in it, his hand emerging with a black pen that he clicks with his thumb, that I realize I should’ve jumped at the motion.  I should’ve been startled by the closeness, by his body angled across the car with only the dim blue glow from the dash and the one light above my sister’s front door illuminating us, but I wasn’t.  He turns our entwined hands over on the armrest and quickly jots something on the back of my hand, careful to be gentle.

             
A phone number.

             
“Can you text?”

             
I nod again.

             
“Will you?” he asks, knowing there’s a difference, and again I nod at him.  He seems relieved, tossing the pen back into the glove box.

             
Logan twists with a creak of the black leather seat and points out the back window, diagonally across the street.  “See that brown house with the white porch . . . and the porch light I forgot to turn on?”

             
I crane my neck to look.  Of course.  It’s there, one of the few dark houses on the street, not a single light on inside or out.  The newly painted garage door is shut and I don’t see any cars in the short drive.  Otherwise it looks the same, similar to my sister’s but a rich brown instead of the garish yellow. 

             
“That’s where I live.  I could be over here in a second -” he stops as if realizing how menacing that sounds.  “If you need me,” he adds softly.  “I could be here, if you needed me.”

             
I find myself staring at him, not sure what to think.  Why would he say that?  Why would he offer me anything?  He stays quiet, having said what he needed to say, sitting forward somewhat with his free arm braced on top of the steering wheel.  His arm is muscled but not overly so, not like he was so arrogant he worked at it, but just natural.  His hand is large and square and draped casually, his face neutral as always, patiently waiting, unthreatened by my eyes that are dissecting him.  Unperturbed by the fact that I still have yet to say a single word to him and never will.  Not even thank you.

             
Not even thank you.

             
Abruptly I lean onto one hip and dig my own phone out from my back pocket.  An older version, not even a touch screen, but I don’t care about something as trivial as that. It did what I needed it to do.  I’d only accepted the thing from my parents when I’d left in case of emergency, though I have no delusions that this rectangle of plastic and computer chips would somehow afford me any safety.  I know better than that. 

             
I can feel his probing eyes on me as I quickly move my thumb over the keys and hit send.  As I type I feel his thumb sweep over the skin on the back of my hand and wonder if it’s intentional or simply an unconscious gesture.

             
There’s a moment when I look up at him, his eyebrows lifted but no other change in his expression, before his phone vibrates in the cup holder by our hands.  He holds my gaze as he reaches for it, and I watch his eyes as he reads what I’ve typed.

             
“You’re welcome.”

             
With a touch of a button his phone blinks off, but not before I see the dark mark on the side of his face, a bruise I hadn’t noticed earlier.  I lean forward but he shifts so I can’t see it, saying nothing.

             
I know, somehow I just know that it’s my fault, that it’s from Dylan back at the party, and I’m surprised to feel the unsettling weight of guilt. 

             
He hasn’t moved to release his hand from mine, but it’s time.  I know it’s time.  My heart starts beating harder just thinking about it and he must hear something, some change in my breathing because he looks at me again, steadily.  I force myself to disentangle our fingers, seeing that my hand is shaking and resolving to ignore it.  I’m too dulled, too shaken to feel embarrassed.  I don’t have room for embarrassment.

             
When I start to shrug out of the jacket he stops me with a hand on my arm.  “Keep it.”

             
I shake my head. 

             
“Please,” he says.  “Please.  Just keep it.”

             
I can’t decide what to do.  I can’t take his jacket, I barely know him.  Regardless, he seems to really want me to, and it’s heavy and warm and smells surprisingly nice, and there’s a part of me that thinks I might be okay, if I could just have this small part of him, solid and warm. I might be okay.

             
Logan correctly reads my unease and covers my hands holding my phone with his, squeezing almost to the point of pain.  “Any time,” he says, leaning in so the meager light seeps over the angles of his face.  “
Any
time.  Fifteen seconds, give or take, and I’ll be here.”  A small, almost sad twitch of his lips.  “I don’t sleep much anyway.”

             
I want to send him another text, ask him why he doesn’t sleep, but I don’t.  Instead I take a deep breath, like a diver about to submerge, and send him a shaky smile over my shoulder.  My hand slips off the handle on my first try but then I get it and I force myself from the car, force myself away from him.  As I shut the door I see him still watching me.

             
Trish left the light on for me and I slip inside and lock the door, noting as I do that he’s waited to see me safely inside before backing down the drive.  I find myself pulling his jacket closer around me as I move through the house, trudging down the hall on unsteady legs, into my bedroom.  I close the door behind me, taking a few deep, steadying breaths, and when I close my eyes for once I don’t see black night or silver rain or spinning, swirling lights.  I see Logan.

             
Under the hot water of my shower I’m unconscious of the rhythm of my thumb over my opposite wrist until I notice a small thread of blood tricking down the drain and pry my hands apart, rinsing my hair, grateful for the sting of the conditioner in the abraded flesh.  I turn off the water and slip into an oversize t-shirt and soft shorts, brushing my teeth without looking too closely in the mirror.  When I lay down for bed it’s with pleas for a dreamless sleep, but not prayers.  I’d already learned that prayers don’t make one single bit of difference.

             
Just as I close my eyes a small series of beeps has me sitting straight up, snatching my phone off the top of the empty bookshelf by my bed.  It’s a text, the single word brilliant on the back-lit screen.

             
Okay?

             
I don’t have to wonder who it’s from.  I don’t receive texts from people.  Not since before.

             
Quickly, I type back
Yes,
and hit send.  It’s far from the truth, but it’s the only thing I can say.  Placing the phone back on the bookshelf, I lay my head back onto the pillow and stare at the shadowy shape of it for a long time, but no other messages beep through.