says after a minute, “I may be a nerd, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have secret problems of my own.” He pauses. “It’s like how sometimes in math when you try to solve an equation and it ends up not working out immediately because there’s more to it than meets eye,” he continues, and I know I’ve triggered another Logan Tangent, “…and so I’m like an equation because you can never tell whether I’m simple or whether there’s a lot more to me you have to figure out and so you’re being stupid by assuming and you have to pay closer attention you asshole and--”
I raise an eyebrow. “Logan?” I say, cutting him off.
He pauses, takes a breath. “Yeah?”
“Please shut up.”
I can see him working not to blush, and I can’t help but let it amuse me. Reason three billion to hate Logan Waters: he rambles. A lot.
“So you’re trying to tell me that you-- you --have secrets?” I could seriously laugh.
He nods.
“Like what?”
“If I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets, now would they?” he retorts.
I roll my eyes. This is all just a joke, right? Logan--freaking mega-geek Logan --does not have secrets. There is no way. He’s a pretty badass liar, though, I’ll give him that, because I’m seriously believing him right now. “Fair enough,” I say, purely to amuse myself.
A minute passes. Logan is still in front of me, watching me with those deep blue eyes of his, and I have to bite my lip to keep from insulting him some more. I run my hand through my hair instead, and I’m about to turn away and walk right back to my apartment when I notice that Logan’s eyes are locked on my arm. We’re still so close, and I can feel the tension in his body, the slight arch of his chest, the way his hands are hovering just by my side. “Cali,” Logan says quietly, “I know this is none of my business, but should I be concerned?” It takes me a minute to realize he’s talking about the bruise on my arm that Creeper Boy left. I flinch almost immediately and step back from him, but the genuine concern in Logan’s eyes almost makes me regret it. Almost.
“It’s nothing,” I say, and when he opens his mouth to argue, I just shake my head. He doesn’t press me.
We’re silent for a few minutes after that. I breathe in slowly, doing my best to look away from him, to stop wondering why he of all people seems to care about what happened to me. A breeze whistles past us, ruffling my hair, and I just sigh.
“Do you ever miss him?” I say after a while, eyes on my feet. The question comes out of nowhere, and it rolls off my tongue before I can stop it. But I know what it means and so does he, because I think we’ve both been thinking about it a lot since our rivalry began.
Logan pauses, shifts on his feet. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I miss him a lot.”
“Me too,” I say. The distant burn of guilt returns, but I try to ignore it. “I wish we could know why it happened.”
Logan flinches as soon as the words leave my mouth. “Maybe, someday, we will,” he says. His voice is quiet and sad, and it almost makes me think he knows more about Ben’s death than he is letting on.
But before I have time to ask anything more, he starts walking away from me, until he turns the corner and disappears out of sight.
~
I don’t think the confusion leaves me for a second as I make my way up the stairs to my room. Yeah, I’ve had weird conversations with Logan before, but this one takes the cake. We’ve never talked about Ben before, especially not in such a heartfelt way, and it feels inexplicably relieving to have admitted to him just how much I miss Ben. A part of me wonders if Logan feels guilty too, if he blames me as much as I blame him--he sure has reason to--and I wonder if I’ll ever get past what happened. But I don’t even know why it happened, and that’s the worst part: that I don’t have closure.
That I won’t ever have closure.
But then I think about what Logan said, and I
I raise an eyebrow. “Logan?” I say, cutting him off.
He pauses, takes a breath. “Yeah?”
“Please shut up.”
I can see him working not to blush, and I can’t help but let it amuse me. Reason three billion to hate Logan Waters: he rambles. A lot.
“So you’re trying to tell me that you-- you --have secrets?” I could seriously laugh.
He nods.
“Like what?”
“If I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets, now would they?” he retorts.
I roll my eyes. This is all just a joke, right? Logan--freaking mega-geek Logan --does not have secrets. There is no way. He’s a pretty badass liar, though, I’ll give him that, because I’m seriously believing him right now. “Fair enough,” I say, purely to amuse myself.
A minute passes. Logan is still in front of me, watching me with those deep blue eyes of his, and I have to bite my lip to keep from insulting him some more. I run my hand through my hair instead, and I’m about to turn away and walk right back to my apartment when I notice that Logan’s eyes are locked on my arm. We’re still so close, and I can feel the tension in his body, the slight arch of his chest, the way his hands are hovering just by my side. “Cali,” Logan says quietly, “I know this is none of my business, but should I be concerned?” It takes me a minute to realize he’s talking about the bruise on my arm that Creeper Boy left. I flinch almost immediately and step back from him, but the genuine concern in Logan’s eyes almost makes me regret it. Almost.
“It’s nothing,” I say, and when he opens his mouth to argue, I just shake my head. He doesn’t press me.
We’re silent for a few minutes after that. I breathe in slowly, doing my best to look away from him, to stop wondering why he of all people seems to care about what happened to me. A breeze whistles past us, ruffling my hair, and I just sigh.
“Do you ever miss him?” I say after a while, eyes on my feet. The question comes out of nowhere, and it rolls off my tongue before I can stop it. But I know what it means and so does he, because I think we’ve both been thinking about it a lot since our rivalry began.
Logan pauses, shifts on his feet. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I miss him a lot.”
“Me too,” I say. The distant burn of guilt returns, but I try to ignore it. “I wish we could know why it happened.”
Logan flinches as soon as the words leave my mouth. “Maybe, someday, we will,” he says. His voice is quiet and sad, and it almost makes me think he knows more about Ben’s death than he is letting on.
But before I have time to ask anything more, he starts walking away from me, until he turns the corner and disappears out of sight.
~
I don’t think the confusion leaves me for a second as I make my way up the stairs to my room. Yeah, I’ve had weird conversations with Logan before, but this one takes the cake. We’ve never talked about Ben before, especially not in such a heartfelt way, and it feels inexplicably relieving to have admitted to him just how much I miss Ben. A part of me wonders if Logan feels guilty too, if he blames me as much as I blame him--he sure has reason to--and I wonder if I’ll ever get past what happened. But I don’t even know why it happened, and that’s the worst part: that I don’t have closure.
That I won’t ever have closure.
But then I think about what Logan said, and I
Similar Books
