Two Roads (14 page)

It doesn’t take long for my mind to drift back to my conversation with Ruby. She was right with her advice. I do want to go to the convention. I do want to experience poetry with other fanatics. I do want closure, and as hard as it may be to go there without Ben, this may be the first step. It doesn’t really matter if Logan comes or not, but I just… I feel like I need to go. For me.

I glance over to the stack of crepes beside me. We’re up to 216 total now, and I know it’s not long before they start rotting, but I can’t bring myself to throw them away. I reach for his latest ransom note at the top of the stack.

Cali Monroe,

This is your final warning. You must agree to come with me to the NPC by tomorrow night, or you will be forever flooded with crepes. And trust me, you do
not
want to be flooded with crepes. Because really, they’re all snooty and stuck-up and they freaking suck, so if you can’t handle the cocky nature of my eyelashes, you are almost certainly no match for the power these crepes can harness.

Anyway.

Please come with me. You have until tomorrow night, or the hostage dies. (The hostage being my heart)

(Yeah. I went there.)

P.S. Come.

P.P.S. Remember: until tomorrow night.

That was sent yesterday.

Have I mentioned that I freaking hate Logan Waters? Anyone this persistent really does deserve to die a painful death. Or in Logan’s case, death by crepes. Yes. That could work. If only there was a way to make the crepes come to life and strangle him in his sleep for me.

He’s right, of course. I
should
go to the convention with him. I want to and I need the closure, and I love poetry so it’s not like it could hurt. But at the same time, I know that going with Logan could be toxic. I love our rivalry, I really do, and I don’t want to ruin it by getting too close to him. All getting close to people has ever gotten me is loneliness--I mean, look where Ben and my parents are now, all thanks to me--and I can’t have that happen to Logan.

I can’t stop hating him. I can’t lose him too.

So I have to keep pushing him away.

I go back to skimming through the blog archive, telling myself I’m not ready to risk it with Logan, when a poem catches my eye. I stop scrolling and read it, holding my breath. It’s called
Happenings
, and it was published almost exactly six months ago.

It was her smile that did me in.

She always had a beautiful smile.

I remember when I first saw her, standing there,

smiling like her smile unlocked a whole new world

a world I wanted to see

a world I wanted to be a part of

a world I wanted to share with her.

Meeting her was not just another happening;

it was a sign,

an opportunity,

and I took it

and I held fast.

Because there are always choices in life

there is always a leap of faith.

And life brought me to her

and then life put me in front of that intersection

and I didn’t even have to think about where the other road led

because I already made my choice.

I already knew what I wanted.

So I chose her.

One moment I’m sitting here reading the poem and thinking about life and choices and how I have to take some risks if I ever want to be happy, and then the next I’m unable to stop thinking about Logan, his laugh, his smile, the convention and how badly I want to go, and then, finally, I know what I have to do.

I shoot up out of bed, grab the suitcase of stuff I’ve had pre-packed forever in case my parents piss me off enough that I have to flee the country, write Ruby a quick note--”I’m doing it”--and I stumble across the floor, which is covered in dirty clothes, and head toward the door.

I’m wearing some way-too-small t-shirt and a two year-old pair of shorts, but I don’t have time to change. I grab a handful of chocolate bars off of the table by the door as “to go” snacks because really, why not, and then I glance at myself in the mirror and adjust my hair just a little bit. When I reach the door, I put my hand on the knob and take one last look around the room. It’s empty, bleak, closed off, an embodiment of what my life has been like for the last four years.

And now I’m ready to change that.

“I’m coming for you, Benjamin Monroe,” I say to myself. The words are quiet, slipping off my tongue, and even though I know no one can hear me, it doesn’t matter. Deep down, I’m certain of one thing: these words are for me.

And with that, I turn the knob, slip through the door, and close it behind me, leaving my room to complete silence. I race across the hallway, duffle bag slung over my back, hurry down a few stairs and past some of my giggling “friends” until I reach the bottom floor. From there, I sprint across the line of rooms, my arms pumping at my side, my stomach clenching and unclenching and clenching all over again. I run past piles of clothes in the hallway, jump over random shoes strewn in front of me, until I finally skid, panting, to the room that can only belong to the one person I hate more than anything in the world.

I don’t even have to knock because he is already waiting for me. The door swings open the instant I arrive, and I stop, freeze, locking eyes with Logan Waters. Time seems to slow in that moment, and I swear we get sucked away into a limbo, into another dimension, where it’s just the two of us and the darkening sky and our eyes on each other’s. He doesn’t breathe as he looks at me, and I don’t breathe as I look at him. It’s like all the air has been sucked out of the room, like someone is pushing on the space between us until we collapse, head over heels, into each other. But my lungs don’t feel crushed. My heart does not skip a beat. In fact, I feel better than I ever have before, because, for once, as I lay eyes on Logan in all of his nerdy splendor, I know I have to go with him.

Even if at the same time, I have to keep him away.

“Logan,” I finally say, my voice hoarse and my eyes transfixed on his. I can barely say the words I want to say, I need to say, so instead I don’t speak more than the one.

“Cali,” he says back, watching me intently. I swear I see him hold back a smile. I think he knows exactly why I’ve come and is amused by my epic awkwardness, which in turn makes me want to kick him at the same time.
Asshole
.

I take a deep breath and open my mouth to say something entirely romantic and poetic but instead, the wrong words slip out. “I don’t like you,” I blurt out.

He raises his eyebrow and laughs lightly. “You came all the way here to tell me this?”

I shrug.

“Well, I don’t like you, either. So let’s call it even.” He flashes me a smile, and I feel my heart race. I have no idea how or when his smile and eyelashes went from totally annoying to incredibly gorgeous, but apparently it happened because now, I cannot stop staring at him.

“I mean.” I shake my head. Squeeze my eyes shut. I am an idiot. Literally an idiot. The biggest idiot of all idiots in all of the idiot worlds. I breathe in deeply, step closer to Logan, keeping my eyes trained on his deep blue eyes, and I whisper, “
I mean
, I still hate you.”

Logan is wearing an old white t-shirt, baggy shorts, and socks, but I can’t help but notice the sliver of lightly tanned skin his dress shirt reveals at his chest or the hardness in his bicep as he props his body up against the door. “So you hate me. Got it. And the but?”

I glare at him, hating his ability to see right through me. I try to look disgusted as my eyes dart over him. He’s looking back at me too, and we both seem like we’re going to burst into flames from the tension between us. God. He just ruins everything, doesn’t he? “
But
,” I say, “I’ve decided to go to the convention on my own, and since I pity you and your nerdiness, I will
let
you come with me.” My throat is tight as the words leave my mouth, but I can’t help but wonder if they’re a mistake. Sure, I want to go with him to the convention, want to escape everything for a little while and genuinely enjoy myself and Logan is the perfect companion for that, but I know deep down that I can’t let him get too close.

Logan’s face lights up immediately, so I add, “
on one condition
.”

“Which is?”

“You agree to continue hating me, no matter what happens, because I know I’m already going to hate you no matter what,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “I’m just well aware of the effect I have on boys, and I don’t need you falling head over heels for me and my complete amazingness. Not that I could blame you.”

A smile flickers across his lips. “Tell me straight out that you want to go to the conference with me and I’ll agree.”

I turn around, rolling my eyes. “No deal,” I say.

“Okay okay wait!” he says, and I turn back around just to amuse him. He is too predictable. “Deal. It’s a deal.”

“Fine, fine. Then are you ready to do this thing?”

“California Monroe--” he starts to say.

I roll my eyes. “--That’s not even my name--”

He pulls a suitcase from somewhere behind him, all fully packed and ready to go. “I thought you’d never ask.”

I think my mouth is hanging open now. “You had that packed?” I breathe out.

“Ever since I first heard of the conference,” he says. Then, he taps it with his fingers, and he winks at me, just to seal the deal. “I always knew you would come around.”

I shoot him a dirty look and he holds his hands up in surrender.

Then, Logan closes the door behind him and steps forward so that his stomach is only inches from mine. I hold my breath, look into his eyes, and he returns the favor. We’re so close together that I can feel his warmth, the heat from his body wrapping around mine, the muscles working in his arms and stomach. It hits me all of a sudden that I’m really doing this, that I’m getting closure, that I’m doing something I’ve always wanted to do--go to this convention--and it’s with Logan Waters, the personality-less nerd who ruined my life, no less.

“Then, Logan Waters,” I say, unable to take my eyes off of him, “let’s rock that poetry convention’s world.”

“Oh, like hell we will,” he replies and brushes a warm finger along my cheek as he slips past me, motioning for me to follow him. I hate how much it makes me shiver.

Logan leads me down the stairs, and so I follow him past the hallway, past the boys in the common room, past the front door, until we reach my car. I get in the driver’s seat and he climbs into the passenger.

As I put my hands on the steering wheel, I can’t stop myself from feeling nervous. This is really happening. Logan is really next to me, and we’re about to run away to the conference I’ve always wanted to go to.

“I hate you, you know,” I say as I start the engine, meaning it.

He smiles. “I hate you, too, Cali Monroe,” he says, his voice smooth and clean through mine. “I hate you too.”

~

Everyone gets a chance in their life.

Everyone gets a choice.

And she may not have made hers yet

but something is starting

and she can feel it.

Something is happening to her life

something is changing

and Logan Waters is in the goddamn center of it.

~

When
I was thirteen, Ben and Logan and I used to joke about taking an epic roadtrip together somewhere in the country. It didn’t matter where we’d go or why, didn’t even matter if we went anywhere interesting, because all we really wanted was to spend time together. Ben always said we would be playing weird hillbilly music as we drove, doing pointless license plate games and making fun of each other as much as humanly possible and everything. He said it would be awesome, said it would make my whole life complete. I always rolled my eyes at that, telling myself what a horrible idea it was and how I, if it ever happened, would devote all of my time to making him and Logan regret bringing me along, even though I secretly thought Ben’s idea was kind of brilliant.

It’s funny how, seven years later, two out of the three of us are following his plan.

Logan and I drive in silence for an hour or so, and I spend it recounting all of the reasons why he pisses me the hell off, just to make sure I still really do hate him. When my list of reasons reaches thirty-eight, all ranging from his math pick-up line t-shirts to his self-important eyelashes, I can safely say I still do loathe him, thank the lord.

“Do you even know what this convention is?” Logan asks after a while. Sunlight streams in through the car window, making a light sheen of sweat form on my arm, and the highway is almost empty at this time of day. The sky above is darkening but still totally cloudless--a sign, perhaps, that this is not going to end well.

I grip the steering wheel. “Other than that it’s about poetry? Not really.”

“Me neither. I know it’s for three days and at some hotel and there are critiques and readings and discussions, but that’s about it.”

“Yeah. I think there are going to be some famous poets, too… Just not E.E. Cummings or Frost because, spoiler warning, they’re both dead. Anyway,” I add, “hopefully it will make up for the poor company.” I wink at him.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, Cali,” he says after a while. “I’ve had far worse company.” He pauses. “See, that’s funny, because you were talking about me.”

“You know if you have to explain a joke, it wasn’t funny in the first place?”

“Just making sure you caught my cleverness,” he says.

I let out a loud, fake laugh. “You? Clever? Yeah. Right.”

He shrugs. “You know what they say: don’t feed the trolls.”

“I’m a troll now?”

“Yes. You’re a troll with a dress made up of blue crepes, which is not a compliment because you know how awful crepes are. But after all, it’s only fair, since I’m a footrest with bad eyelashes in your mind.” I roll my eyes. After another minute, he asks, “So why are you going to the convention if you know nothing about it, then? Does someone want an excuse to get away with a certain tall, dark, and handsome stranger?”

“First of all, I’m only bringing you along because I pity you and because you’re also the only person I know who loves poetry as much as I do. Don’t feel special, because you aren’t. Second of all and probably more importantly, please, for the love of all that is holy, never call yourself that ever again.”

He raises an eyebrow. “So you want me to lie about my own tall dark and handsomeness, is what you’re saying.”

“No. What I’m saying is, you’re lucky to be coming along in the first place so don’t screw it up, nerdhole. See that’s funny, because it’s a combination of nerd and asshole,” I add, mimicking him just to annoy him.

He makes a face. “Us nerds are a very misunderstood species, you know. We have the potential to be a lot of things, cute and cocky are just a few of the many. I am of the drop-dead sexy type. And we, yours truly especially, know a thing or two about a thing or two, if you know what I mean.” He quirks his glasses to the side in a way he seems to think is provocative.

“You piss me off sometimes, you know that?” I mutter, and he just nods and turns his gaze back to the window.

I wonder about Ben for a while after that, wonder what he’d say if he saw me and Logan now, whether he’d be smiling or frowning or flat-out angry at me. I wonder whether he’d be holding a grudge against me for not helping him four years ago, whether he’d agree that I can’t possibly let myself get too close to Logan. Then, I wonder if I’ll ever know what he’s thinking for sure. As much as I tell myself that I know my brother, sometimes I think I don’t after all. I mean, I couldn’t understand him enough to be able to tell he was on the verge of killing himself, so what if I didn’t understand other things about him too? And that thought hurts. It hurts to have loved someone for so long and then realize that maybe, in the end, you didn’t know them at all.

“So Logan,” I say, turning to him after a few minutes of driving to distract myself. He is more interesting than this long stretch of road, I’ve decided, although it was definitely a close tie between the two. “Do you like games?”

“Is that a serious question?”

“Yes.”

He sits up in his seat and gives me the most serious look in the world as he says, “Bitch, games are my spirit animal” without missing a beat.

I bite back a laugh. “Then let’s play one. I challenge you to a poetry dual,” I say, staring out at the road in front of me, at the miles and miles of asphalt stretching ahead and wishing I could be looking into Logan’s eyes instead.

Goddammit, self.
Keep it together.
You hate Logan.

“Your challenge has been accepted,” Logan says. “What do we do?”

“There are two parts,” I say, totally making this up on the spot. But it’s not like we have anything better to do, so why not go crazy? “For the first part, you have to guess a quote either by a poet or in a poem, chosen off the top of the other person’s head. You get one point if you guess it right, but the other person gets the point if you get it wrong. And then for the second part… you have to write your own poem. The better poem gets five points. Whoever has fewer points by the end buys the winner lunch.”

“Deal,” Logan says. “I’m totally ordering the best damn cheeseburger you’ve ever seen, and you will have the wonderful opportunity of paying for it. Prepare for the ass-kicking of a lifetime.”

“Sure thing,” I say, turning back to the road before he can see me blushing. “You first. Quote quiz me. And no cheating.”

He doesn’t even take a second to think it over. “’We love the things we love for what they are,’” he says, blue eyes sparkling.

“Robert Frost.” I don’t hesitate. “That was too easy.”

“And what poem is it from?”

“Hyla Brook.”

He smiles at me. “Good girl. My turn.”

“Okay.” I think for a second before saying, “’Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final.’”

He stops for a second, taps his finger to his chin.

“Stumped you?” I say, shooting him a winning smile.

“Rainer Maria Rilke and it’s from Go To The Limits of Your Longing,” he says. “I was just trying to keep it interesting,” he adds.

“You’re such a prick.”

“Your favorite prick.”

“In your dreams.”

He smiles as he gives me his next quote. “’To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.’”

“E.E. Cummings,” I say. “Your favorite poet.”

“Similar quote?”

I think for a second. “’It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.’ Also by E.E. Cummings.”

“I’m impressed,” Logan says, and I can tell he means it.

“I guess I’m just a naturally impressive person.”

“Clearly.”

I pull the car off this highway, through an intersection, and onto another. Vibrant pine trees line either side of the road as we go. Cool air wafts in through the crack in my window, and I smell mintiness and sap and hear the constant white noise of air buffeting the glass.

“Now it’s your turn again,” I say to him. “My quote is ‘I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.’”

Logan does not wait even half a second before responding, “Edgar Allen Poe.”

“And one trivia fact about him?”

“He never in his life signed the full name ‘Edgar Allan Poe’ to any document.”

“Good. Okay, okay. Last question. You quiz me.”

“The quote: ‘Everything is okay in the end. If it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.’”

Now I have to stop. Frown. My smile totally fades. “I… don’t know who that is?”

He looks amused and pretends to drop his jaw. “
What
? Does that mean the mighty Cali Monroe gives up?”

“Oh, fuck you.” I adjust the overhead mirror so it’s pointing at his face just so I can glare at him. He holds up his hands in surrender.

“Probably because it’s a trick question,” he says after a minute. “It isn’t by a poet. It’s Paolo Coelho, and it’s one of my favorite quotes ever.”

“Leave it to you to ask that. It doesn’t count, then.”

But Logan isn’t listening this time. He shifts closer to me, so that his stomach is only inches from mine. His body is warm, so warm, and all I want is for him to move closer, closer, closer. I have to force myself to continue breathing and focus on the road, on anything but the way my heart keeps beating faster and faster when he’s this close to me. “You know why I love it?” he asks quietly.

“I have no freaking idea, my nerdy non-friend, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.” I say it casually, happily, but I can already feel my insides tighten--I know whatever he is about to say is going to get to me, because that quote, that whole freaking quote, reminds me of only one person: Ben.

“I love that quote,” he says, “because it says that no matter how hard things get, there is always a happy ending waiting for you. Because there always
is
a happy ending in life, Cali. Sometimes you just have to work to reach it.” My grip on the steering wheel tightens as he says it, his face so close to mine. “I know it’s been hard since… what happened… but you really can’t let it get to you like this. You have to find a way to--”

“To what?” I say, spinning around to face him, unable to control myself. “To forget him? To stop feeling so guilty? To live my life like he never existed like you and my parents do? Because I don’t want that, don’t you understand? I hate you for letting him go so easily, because I don’t want him to go. I want--”

“Cali,” he says, putting his hand on my shoulder, and I wait for him to give me some long speech about healing or whatever that’ll only end in him getting punched in the face, but he doesn’t say anything. He just keeps his hand on my shoulder and watches me closely while I breathe, breathe, breathe, and as much as I hate it, I don’t want him to let go.

After a while, once he brings his hand back to his lap, I turn back to the road in front of me. My heart burns and my insides twist and twist and twist, and I really don’t want this. I don’t need this. I just want Ben back, plain and simple. I want to go back in time to when I heard him crying all those nights, and I want to have done something, said something, to make it all better. I want to have saved him. And most of all, I just want him here right now, want him to brush my hair and tell me it’s all going to be okay like he used to do, want him to make everything else disappear.

But he isn’t, and he isn’t coming back, and that hurts more than anything in the world.

Logan and I are silent for a long time, and I just keep staring straight ahead of me, keeping my face hard and my features blank, hoping Logan won’t look at me, hoping he’ll just shut up and let me sink away into my guilty memories of my brother.

I can feel his gaze back on me after a few minutes, his eyes climbing up and down my body until they finally rest on my eyes. All of my muscles freeze up at once. I just want him to turn away, but also, at the same time… I don’t.

And I hate that I don’t.

“I’m sorry,” he finally whispers, and I also fucking hate how easily I can tell he means it. “I shouldn’t have said that. I care about you, Cali, believe it or not. I’ve always cared about you. Ever since… Ben did what he did… I’ve missed you. I’ve missed old times. But those old times aren’t coming back, and you have to face that fact sooner or later. I just want you to be happy,” he says, and then silence floods the car.

It hits me then that this is the first time Logan has said Ben’s name aloud to me since the suicide. It feels so strange to hear it now. The single word has such a hollow, almost morbid ring to it in the silence of this car:
Ben
. It sounds so final, so painfully done with, and I wish I could go back to when Logan and I used to laugh out the name: Ben. Back to when I was eight, Logan was ten, and Ben was eleven, back to the late spring when Logan and I used to race home from school early, hide in the bushes by my front porch, squirt guns in hand, and wait for Ben to arrive. When he did, we would always ambush him with the water guns, soaking his clothes and his backpack, and then he’d narrow his eyes and chase us around the front yard--he was always the fastest one--and we would just run and laugh and shoot at him and as soon as he confiscated our weapons, which was quickly, he would shoot us right back. “Beeeen!” I used to screech, laughing, as the cold water soaked me. “Beeeeen!”

I miss the way his name sounded then.

Because this sound is not the right sound. It’s too sad, too bleak, too heavy and final.

After a while, I turn back to face Logan, taking a deep breath. “Do you ever wonder… about him? About why he did it?” I ask. My voice is soft, so soft, and I keep my eyes trained on the road in front of me, not wanting the flashes of memories to return.

“Yeah,” Logan says. “I guess I do.”

He gets suspiciously quiet at that, though, so I press him. “Do you know anything?” I whisper. “Do you know why… why it happened?”

Logan sighs. “Some things are better left unsaid, Cali,” he says, but he doesn’t elaborate. And so the words just hang there, in front of us.

He does know why after all.