The next morning, he awoke to the sound of "You and I Both" floating through the air from his phone across the room. But even the tune of one of his favorite songs couldn't bring a smile to his face. For what seemed like the thousandth night in a row, Logan had barely slept over an hour. The song was still playing from his cellphone on the dresser across the room, but he was not ready to leave the bed yet. Situating himself on his elbows, he removed his sleep shirt, balled it up tightly, and hurled it at the small, silver gadget. He made his target, and the phone fell to the floor with a loud thud that would have been unbearable if the crash hadn't disabled the alarm. He lay in bed, listening to the sounds of university life: leaves rustling in the trees outside the window, showers from the suites next door, whatever techno/house/darkstep song was currently the shit pouring out of twenty open windows across the campus, all out of sync with each other.

He took a deep breath through his nose, ran his fingers roughly through his hair, and swung his feet out of from under the sheet and onto the scoffed, splintered, faded wooden floor of his dorm room. His roommate, James, was gone already, although he has all afternoon classes. Probably with that Latin kid across the hall, again, he thought to himself. He rubbed his eyes, scratched his balls, and stretched like a kitten waking from a nap - shaking head to toe as he wrestled off the sleep his body was begging him for. He checked the time on his phone:

"Shit! Shit shit shit…"

It was 10:30, and he'd planned to be at Dr. Knight's by 11. He sped through his shower, cleaning his body only to the bare minimum. Brushed his teeth, threw on a t-shirt and some raggedy Levi's, shoved his feet in his boots (sans socks), grabbed his knapsack and headed out.

He looked over the email from Dr. Knight for what must have been the hundredth time, unsure why he was so nervous. He soon remembered where his nerves had come from – he was spending the day at his professor's house: something that otherwise doesn't happen unless you're fucking your teacher to get your grade bumped up. It was all very new to him, but he knew he shouldn't have been making such a big deal about it.

Following the directions in the email, he pulled into the Knight estate at around 11, give or take a few minutes. The house was pretty nice from the front, with small a cute little patio in the front, complete with rocking chair and that two-person swing thing you see in every Southern-set family drama film. The back, however, was breathtaking. A grand expanse of open green land, almost too much to be considered a "yard" or "lawn". The back of the house was lined with her rows of plants, which he fascinated to see, not only because he had worried earlier that he wouldn't be able to find her garden and would encounter her son while searching for it, but also because the plants in the garden were nothing too scary or too tough to work with. Lots of sunflowers, daffodils, lilac, and mint. All generally manageable, actually. He wondered how anybody could have fucked them up, thinking again of her son.

After a second of thinking about what the Knight family life must be like, with Dr. Knight and her little tyke running around trying to take care of the flowers, he decided to get to work, opting to stay long enough for Dr. Knight to see him working, but not so long as to be too far from "just finishing up". If he had to make small talk with the doctor, he would probably stab himself with the hoe and dig himself a grave. Something about that woman was so intimidating to him…Jesus.

He got to work, donning his gloves and ripping the weeds from the soil and tossing them into the wheelbarrow he'd taken from her garden shed a few yards away. He found gardening to be therapeutic, enjoying the feel of the moist soil as bits of it fell into his gloves and rubbed across his hands while he worked. The smell of mint and lilacs was so sweet and light, it brought him a much-needed peace. Even though he'd prefer sleeping to anything else, this was nice, too. He began humming to himself, quietly at first, then a bit louder, occasionally singing aloud when it came time for his favorite verses.

Logan finished weeding the garden, and put his singing on pause to push the wheelbarrow over to the compost station Dr. Knight had all set up. As he did so, he heard a hum in the background, a light reverberation buzzing through the air, seemingly coming from nowhere. He turned behind him and saw, on the balcony outside the second story window, a man, playing guitar. He was in all black, but his hair was in an interesting cut and a gorgeous dirty blonde. Gorgeous? Really, Logan? C'mon. He was tall and could've been seen as being skinny if he hadn't been holding the guitar the way he was – toned arms supporting the instrument while the fingers of one hand flicker across the frets and those of the other hand strung rhythmically.

Logan finds himself lost in what this boy is doing, despite how commonplace it is to play guitar. However, the boy has just switched from playing slow, sleepy notes to the opening chords of "You and I Both", at which point Logan realizes this kid is the shit. He hasn't had it in his mind to ask himself who the boy is until now, and after thinking for a second, he realizes.

…Is this her son? I could've sworn he was younger that this. Ten, twelve max. But – what – nineteen, twenty? I would've never guessed. I wonder wh –

The boy starts singing. Beautifully. Logan is now completely taken with this kid, never realizing how mesmerizing music can be when performed live like that, and with the passion that this kid had.

He must have been staring, because just as Logan's favorite lines came up – If nothing else, I'll think the bells inside have finally found you someone else, and that's okay – the music stopped abruptly, guitar and vocals discontinued without a warning and a loud, unwanted silence filling the air. Logan snapped out of his daze and saw the boy on the balcony, stand up, drop his guitar to the floor without a care for it, and glare at him. All the soft, romanticized passion that had been in him while he was with his music had transformed into something dark and cruel, and Logan could tell from the way he stared with his bright green irises that the boy was seeing red. Logan gasped subconsciously, and stared back, not knowing what else to do. The boy then scoffed loudly, turned on his heal, released a string of profanities that were probably directed at Logan – though he couldn't be sure – and stormed inside the house, slamming the doors to the balcony with a force that shook the glass windows violently and a sound that stung Logan's ears, for it was the undeniable sound of the thunder of loathing and disgust.