The Haunting of Secrets (9 page)

~ The Road Less Traveled
~

“Earth to Logan. Logan? Dude!” exclaims a
very frustrated Tyler. “I asked you a question. Do you think that
Coach Kutter will still let you play point guard on the basketball
team if we make the baseball playoffs too?”

Logan is sitting by a tree out in the
courtyard, eating his sandwich and chatting with friends, but his
mind isn’t on his lunch. He tries his best to concentrate on what
his best friend, Tyler, is saying.

“I’m sorry, man, just a bit out of it today,”
explains Logan. “I guess we’ll just have to see if we make the
playoffs first, then deal with Coach Kutter when the time comes.”
He says knowing full well that Tyler will worry about it until then
anyway. Even though Tyler is a top-notch player and practically the
best pitcher this school has ever seen, he still pushes himself to
be better, to outdo anything he had achieved in prior years. He’s
the epitome of obsessive compulsive. Yet despite his many quirks,
he’s a good friend to Logan and has always been there for him no
matter what.

“And it doesn’t matter anyway, you know I
would never choose basketball over baseball, so stop worrying or
I’ll declare you a girl and banish you to the softball fields.”

“Ha! I’d like to see you try!” teases Tyler,
lightly punching Logan in the shoulder for emphasis. Lightly
scuffing with Tyler and not eating his lunch is exactly what
Logan’s doing when he sees Aimee run out the side door of the new
school and head for the parking lot. Without needing to look at her
face, he knows there’s something wrong. The way she’s running;
she’s definitely running away from something or someone. There is a
desperate edge to her movements. Without a thought, he drops his
sandwich and runs after her. Behind him, he can hear Tyler hurling
questions at him, wondering why he’s sprinting away, but Logan
ignores Tyler’s protests. There is something more important at
hand.

Logan yells Aimee’s name, but she doesn’t
seem to hear him; she never turns back to see who’s pleading for
her to stop. Aimee runs through the parking lot and up the hill to
the outer perimeter of the school. She’s heading straight for the
trees that surround the back of the building. Logan’s worry
increases ten-fold as she nears the edge of the forest. Those trees
extend for miles and are so thick the sun barely breaks through. If
she gets lost in there, she may never come out.

Logan’s watches as Aimee runs without
abandon, seemingly caught within her own mind with no escape from
whatever haunts her. Logan knows she just got out of the hospital
and considering her current errant behavior, there’s no way to
predict what she’ll do. He picks up the pace, suddenly thankful for
the incessant baseball conditioning he endures. He can see her
black hair billowing out behind her; he’s close enough to almost
touch it. Pushing himself to the brink of his speed, he’s finally
close enough to grab her shirt. He pulls her towards him forcefully
and is happy to see that his action momentarily disorients her. She
finally slows down just enough for Logan to tackle her to the
ground. Aware of her aversion to touch, Logan carefully avoids
landing on top of her when they both hit the ground hard. He rolls
to the left, mindful not to let go of her shirt, but quick enough
to be the first on his feet. He turns to face Aimee, ready to run
again if necessary, but he sees that she has stopped. For a girl
who was running like a bat out of hell just a few seconds ago, it’s
eerie to see her lying so still on a pile of leaves. He has his
arms out, palms down in preparation if she decides to bolt again.
Her dark clothes blend in with the brown leaves that surround her.
She’s lying face down in the leaves, but he can hear her breathing
heavily into the earth. As gently as possible Logan turns Aimee
over so that he can see her face and assess any injuries. He’s
careful not to touch anything, but her clothing. When she is fully
on her back, Logan leans in close to her face, fear etched in his
every feature.

“Aim, can you hear me?” he asks, tentatively
wondering how to proceed. “Please, answer me. You’re really
freaking me out here,” he adds, hoping to somehow get through to
her. But he doesn’t. Logan stares into her sea blue eyes, searching
for some kind of life, but all he sees is her vacant stare, mocking
him. Afraid to touch her, he realizes that he has no idea what to
do next. He toys with the idea of picking her up and carrying her
back to school to find the nurse, but he’s certain she’d be pissed
if he touched her like that. If she’s going be his, he has to
respect it. Besides, he actually likes her. Hell, he more than
likes her. He adores her. Ever since the first day she walked into
his third period freshman English class, she has intrigued him.

He used to think the reason she shuns all
contact is because she hates other people, but since he’s gotten to
know her better, he has discarded that notion. He has watched her
from afar for years, gauging her potential. As much as she tries to
hide it, Logan sees the small acts of kindness she does every day
for others, who either don’t notice or just don’t care. Once, he
saw her sneak a five-dollar bill into the locker of a fellow
student. Later on in the lunchroom, Logan saw the same girl happily
eating pizza and explaining to her friends how lucky she was to
have found some money at the bottom of her locker. She must have
simply forgotten she put it in there. That’s just how Aimee worked,
under the radar and invisible so no credit could ever be attributed
to her.

The Aimee the world knows is a girl slumped
down in her desk in class with her arms crossed over her chest,
clearly at odds with the world. She wears all black, including
gloves, to appear contrary. But, Logan sees past all of this. He
sees the heart she hides behind the black. All he has to do is look
into her striking blue eyes that shine like beacons amongst the
darkness she clouds around herself. Logan was drawn in immediately
and would have said, ‘hello’ if he had known how to back then. He’s
since come into his own style of coming onto girls, but back then,
he was just Logan, a newbie freshman who still needed to prove
himself. Luckily, he was pretty good with a bat and a basketball,
which earned him his place within the upper ranks of school
popularity rather quickly. He didn’t have to be clever anymore, he
just had to make baskets and hit the hell out of a baseball. All he
had to do was keep winning state championships. That was easy for
Logan. Dealing with Aimee, that was hard. It didn’t matter how much
confidence he gained over the past two years, he still can’t seem
to get things right with Aimee. Well, it definitely wasn’t for lack
of trying.

Aimee’s moan brings him back to their current
predicament. He kneels beside her in the leaves and leans closer to
her face.

“
Are you alright, Aim? I don’t know
what to do. You need the nurse. Should I carry you back to school?”
he asks, quietly treating her like he would a frightened
animal.

Aimee blinks and her eyes go from vacant to
terrified in an instant. She turns her head right and left, taking
in her surroundings in a confounded way. “Where am I?” she asks,
her hands coming up to grab his shirt. “How the hell did I get
here?” she continues, her voice rising in panic with every
word.

Logan isn’t quite sure how to answer. Did she
have some kind of blackout? Why can’t she remember running from the
school and into the woods? Something has Aimee spooked and Logan is
determined to find out what.

“You ran from the school. I was in the
courtyard eating my lunch when I saw you come out the side door.
You bolted straight for the trees. I tried to call out to you, but
you wouldn’t answer. I only just now caught up to you in the woods.
Do you really not remember any of that?” asks Logan hoping his
voice doesn’t betray his worry.

“No,” Aimee says simply. “But, I remember
what made me run. I need to find Dejana and I can’t go back to
school, it isn’t safe.”

Logan watches Aimee take out her cell phone
from her pocket and text Dejana. Fleetingly, he wonders why she
didn’t use the darn thing in the first place. Why did she run when
all she had to do was call for help? Logan sighs. It seems that
with Aimee, nothing can be simple. Logan waits while she completes
her text and puts her phone back into her pocket. The minute those
crystal blue eyes meet his, all he can think about is kissing her.
Despite the completely insane circumstances, all Logan wants to do
is grab her and see what she tastes like. He can’t take his eyes
off her lips; which is probably why Aimee started yelling at him.
Damn, why does she have this effect on him?

“Earth to Logan. Can you help me or not?”
Aimee asks in a clipped tone.

“Sure, I’ll even drive you to her house,” he
says. “But, are you okay to move? I kind of had to tackle you to
the ground. Sorry about that,” he says sheepishly. Aimee smiles and
waves her hand in an absent gesture as she mumbles something close
to the words ‘forget it’ before grabbing his arm with her gloved
hand and slowly starts to sit up, using Logan as an anchor.
Immediately, Logan sees all the color drain from her face and
wonders for a split second if she’s going to puke on him.
Selfishly, Logan hopes she doesn’t ruin his favorite blue shirt,
the one he got for winning the championship last year. Yet
stupidly, he finds himself moving closer to her, ready to catch her
again if she needs him. She seems to get control of herself right
away, because she lets go of Logan’s hand and stands up by
herself.

Aimee takes a deep breath and turns to look
at Logan. “Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened if you
hadn’t come after me. I owe you one,” she finishes, her tone
serious.

“No worries. I’ll take you up on that one
day,” replies Logan with a sly smile.

Together, they make their way back to the new
school and head straight for Logan’s car. Despite Logan’s best
attempts to try to convince Aimee to go to the nurse to be checked
out, she flatly refuses. She stumbled once on the way back and fell
to the ground holding her stomach, but as before, she refuses
Logan’s help.

Once they reach Logan’s car, he pushes the
button to unlock the doors and runs to open Aimee’s door for her.
She mumbles a soft ‘thank you’ before climbing into the seat,
quickly drawing her knees up to her stomach, and wrapping her arms
around her. Logan stands there for a second, wondering why she
always does her best to keep herself bound, out of reach of every
other person around her. It may keep the demons out, but it also
repels anyone that could possibly care about her. Sighing, Logan
closes the door and makes his way to the driver’s seat.

As he starts the car, he turns to Aimee and
says, “It’s going to be alright. I promise.” And he means it. He
pulls out of the school’s parking lot and drives Aimee to Dejana’s
house thinking the whole time how utterly and completely, he will
never understand girls.

Chapter
Fifteen

~ No Rest For The Weary
~

I sit in the car next to Logan, the sound of
his breathing calms me. Contemplating Logan’s words as I look out
the window and watch the midday sun reflect off the cars that we
pass. I blacked out. No idea how or why, but for some reason my
mind just shut down and my body did what it does best; it fled. I
count myself very lucky that Logan saw me run from the building. If
he hadn’t stopped me when he did, there’s no telling what could
have happened. Best case scenario: I would have kept running until
I came to my senses and found my way back to civilization. The
scariest and worst case scenario: the killer would have had the
perfect opportunity to silence me forever. Whether I like it or
not, I am in Logan’s debt. I cradle the note in my fist; the note
that Logan does not know about nor can ever know about. It burns
like a fireball within my fingers. I long to throw it out the
window, but I can’t. He’s coming for me and I have to be ready.

Thankfully, it isn’t long before we make it
to Dejana’s house. She must have gotten the text I sent, because
her blue Prius is already in the driveway of her perfect house,
made for her picturesque family. Dejana’s parents have money, so
there is a three-car garage, large screen televisions in every
room, and the furniture is so nice I feel bad even sitting on it. I
have only been to Dejana’s house a few times. I tend to avoid her
parents since it’s painfully obvious that they don’t like me. If I
were wearing a cheerleader outfit versus my usual black ensemble,
they probably would have warmed up to me by now. On second thought,
nope, not even then. I sealed the deal on her father’s hatred of me
when I refused to shake his hand the first time we met. It was seen
as an obvious, albeit unintentional, lack of manners. That meeting
(and every other one since) has not gone over well at all.

I get out of the car and practically run to
the front door, hoping the entire time that Dejana, not her
parents, open the door. Behind me, I hear a noise and realize that
Logan has followed me. I’m about to tell him to leave, but I’m
suddenly assaulted by a cold gust of air as the front door opens
and a worried Dejana fills the doorway.

“What the hell happened? Why did you text me
and tell me to meet you here immediately? You wrote ‘
something
awful has happened,’
but didn’t elaborate. For all I knew,
another bomb had gone off!”

Before I could answer any of her questions,
she turns to Logan, her eyes practically spitting fire at him.

“What did you do to her, Logan Roberts?” she
asks, giving neither of us any chance to answer. “I mean look at
her! She is as white as a ghost and covered in leaves!” spits
Dejana as she steps out of the doorway and turns me around to
assess any damage. Seeing the leaves in my hair, she gasps and puts
her hand over her mouth. Still reeling from her assault of
questions, I don’t realize the direction her thoughts are going in
until it is too late. She advances on us with her hands on her hip
and hell in her eyes. “If you made me come all the way home just to
tell me that you two did it behind the school in a pile of leaves,
I swear I will throttle you both with my bare hands and I’ll enjoy
it.”