He thinks you should be okay, and you agree. But you're not. It's not the lung-crushing pain of waking up alone with the phantom pressure of someone lying on your chest, not anymore. Now you only feel a slight tug in your windpipe when something reminds you. A girl with shaved hair tells you she was raped and you want to say, "Me too." But you weren't raped, you consented. Apparently.
Logan would be pissed because you have never, ever taken anything he said on faith. It's easier, you think, but it doesn't make things better and you knew that with him. Pretending that other people are right never makes you feel better, not when they're wrong, wrong, wrong and you inadvertently saved Madison from a night of fuzzy, insubstantial sex.
The thing about forgiveness is you never give it. You say you do, you pretend you have, but you never really feel it in your clenching gut. Logan still sends shivers of hateful anticipation down your spine from the days he used to let down your tires. The days he used to let you down. Maybe, if you want to be honest, that's what gets you off about him.
No matter how it happened, Duncan had been there before, and you conscious had to be better than you unconscious so you were pretty sure he'd be satisfied. Logan was your equal on every other ground and you didn't like being that unbalanced, even if it was only in bed, even if he would have looked after you. It didn't matter. He tipped you in a way you didn't want to go.
He's wearing brown plaid and it matches a pair of pants you have at home. Recently you've only worn jeans, all your other pants and skirts festering at the back of your wardrobe. There are probably moths setting up home in your 'outsider' collection. Soon there will be moths in your 'girlfriend' section too. T-shirts and jeans are the only thing you're seen in anymore. Your curling tongs are hidden somewhere in your bottom drawer next to some tacky plastic bracelets you used to wear.
But Logan is wearing brown plaid and it makes you feel at home. When he looks at you from the corner of his eye you're sure that you could walk up to him, put your hands on his chest, and everything would be okay again. He wouldn't fight it; he's never been good at fighting you. You're a winner and he's a loser—that's how the world sees it. The sad thing is, you think that if you were able to swallow your pride and say out loud that you missed him that might actually make you the winner. But you can't. Being that vulnerable has never been your style. You might be ever-changing, but that's your constant.
He chokes on your name, too many syllables for the breath left in his lungs. Your thighs burn a heavy rhythm into his hips and everything is tight and hot like a headache you don't want to get rid of. The discomfort is good and if you can just hold out a little longer hold your breath a little harder, move your hips a little faster you know he'll break it all down for you. "Fuck," falls off his lips and into your mouth.
He's not saying anything but those two words and you don't think you're saying words at all (just gasps and pants and kitteny moans) but his hands scream fuck don't leave me I'm in love with you. You think yours might be too.
When your muscles strain and strain and a buck ripples through your body he collapses on you, taking all your air. He's not wearing anything anymore and you don't know where to look to feel at home. Sweat and sex and lip gloss on his abdomen don't make you feel safe. But the discomfort is gone and his fingers are trailing through the soft irregular curls between your legs. You want to fall asleep because you're so warm and so soft and it feels as though the bones have fallen through your skin onto the floor.
He keeps talking into your neck like you're a couple. It doesn't make things better, pretending people are right when they're wrong, but you let him pretend anyway.
Your stomach is inside out. It's nothing new being afraid of Logan's rejection, just another day of junior year redux, but this time it's different. This time he has real ammo and you would rather not have the whole senior year hear about how hot and wet and tight you were for an ice bitch. You would rather not become a joke that he can highlight with those shiny penny eyes and glinting teeth.
The thing is you're just as bad sometimes. Only this time you're at the disadvantage and you're glad that you're not Logan because you couldn't take being at your own mercy the way he does.
There are no secret naked pictures of you on your locker. There are no whispers of what a freak you are in the sack. There's no message passed around the hallways. No lunch-time tannoy announcement. No jocks drooling down their lettermans at you.
There is a note in your locker. And you think it's from him but it only says, I've missed you. I still miss you. You don't know what to say to that. And you used to be so good with schmoopy boyfriends who wrote you love notes and told you you were beautiful.
Maybe you don't feel so beautiful anymore.
Twelve minutes out of fourth period and he has you pressed up against a wall, but it's not threatening. The cold paintwork presses chills into your skin, his mouth is counteracting that, and when you think you're sure that there are cameras. That gives you a time limit and you pull him by the shirt into a bathroom, any bathroom, before administration comes to cold-shower you with detention or suspension.
You think that maybe you could spend it doing this. You think your dad is going to be pissed. Logan's lifting your shirt for his mouth and you think you don't care.
The pink and green stripes of cotton remind you of last year, of candy, of sweet things coming from his mouth. They echo these sweet feelings and you forget that the polo shirt is pushed up over your breasts, caught between your arms. His head is ducked but when the door swings open you're both looking over.
And he recognizes the girl. You think he knows her, in more of a Biblical sense. And she's so pastel she'd fading into the worn green tiles but you feel guilty anyway.
"Oh God," escapes your lips so quietly. It echoes hers, though that one's harsher.
"Fuck," falls from his lips but not onto yours.
When the paper, pastel girl gets sent to boarding school because her father doesn't have a permit for a handgun there's no evidence left. Nobody knows but you and the boy whose mouth was on your breasts in school. Everyone thinks your enemies or maybe casual acquaintances. You think that maybe you should be.
But he keeps coming over when your dad's still home and you might get caught. He knocks on the door; he knows you'll run to answer. You keep your headphones off and your iPod low and he knows just what time he won't catch you eating dinner. It's beautiful this arrangement because your dad's not blind and he's not like other dads but he's not saying anything anyway. You appreciate it but you think it'll cost you later.
**
You think that you should be okay, and he agrees. But you're not. Neither of you are. And it's not the lung-crushing pressure of someone fucking you to sleep or someone framing you to death but there's still that tug, in your windpipe, every time something reminds you.