I woke up in the biggest, softest, whitest bed I'd ever set eyes on. The duvet was downy, plush, like a giant meringue, whipped up in peaks around me. My head was buried under a few oversized pillows, and it was a miracle I was breathing. Only when I sat up to stretch did I realize I was butt naked.
"Mornin', sunshine," came a gruff voice from across the room.
I let out a small scream before yanking the covers back over myself.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
"S'my house?"
Heart rate returning somewhat to normal, I flipped the edge of the duvet back down so I could stare him out. The unspoken threat in my glare probably majorly offset by the beet-red flush that had overtaken my face.
"What am I doing in your house like…"
"Naked? You tell me. You're the one who stripped off last night."
I tried to think around the cloud that fogged my sleep-addled brain. Okay, not just sleep. I'd had more than my fair share of whiskey. And tequila. And sambuca. Ugh. That's probably what that bad taste in my mouth was.
"Look, showers' that way," he pointed across the room to an ajar door, "fresh clothes there," again to a dresser, "meet me downstairs when you've freshened up."
Once he left, I threw the covers back and rushed into the shower, where I promptly vomited, and the water was mercilessly hot and wonderful. There was even a new toothbrush laid out for me, which I took full advantage of twice. I had a nose around in the cupboards too, instantly regretting it when I found a bumper box of latex-free condoms. Not noting the size (extra large) or the depletion of the box's contents.
Once thoroughly clean and dressed in oversized pajamas and socks, I ventured out of the bedroom.
Pine-paneled walls blended perfectly with sweeping views of fog-covered forest outside the plate glass window. I tip-toed down the floating stairs, hoping to catch him unaware, but when I finally made it down to the open plan kitchen/ dining/ living space, he was sitting cross-legged at a low table. He'd set an assortment of dishes out over the space, and a steaming pot of tea sat on a miniature tripod over a low flaming candle.
I raised an eyebrow in mimicking fashion before sitting before him on the waiting pillow.
"Tea?" he offered, taking a sip from his own tiny, non-handled cup, which looked ridiculous in his sizable hand. "It's green ginseng."
"There is more than one type of tea?"
I took a quick sniff of the piss-colored hot water he poured for me, and passed.
"You have coffee?"
While it brewed, I sneaked a look at the food he'd laid out. Folded eggs? Cube soup? Fish… for breakfast? That was enough to turn my stomach again. Also, small bowls of weird-looking green stuff.
He caught me surveying his breakfast spread.
"Not a fan of oriental breakfast?"
I glowered, "You have anything plainer?"
He frowned but brought over a bowl, sans milk. How did he remember I didn't have milk in my cereal?
"Thanks. Where are we?"
"I said already. This is my place," he sat again and started taking food from the dishes with chopsticks.
"But where? Are we in Canada?"
"Do you remember crossing the border last night? You clearly don't remember much else." He shot a glance over to where a pile of familiar-looking clothes sat neatly folded on a nearby chair.
I reddened but didn't give him the satisfaction of an answer, instead taking a mouthful of the dry cereal that resembled small knitted squares of wheat. It was like chewing shrapnel. Instantly, the very spiky corners of the cereal shredded the top of my mouth, and I detected blood mixed in with the not-altogether-bad taste of malt.
"What the hell is this?"
"Shreddies…"
How aptly named. Finally, a small smirk cracked through his gruff demeanor. Even if his amusement was at my pain, I was glad he wasn't pissed enough with me to ignore it completely.
I took the milk he slid across the table and submerged the squares.
"We gotta have that talk now, Marie."
I wiggled my spoon in the bowl, carefully avoiding his gaze.
"Why?"
"Because you've been avoiding me and I wanna know why?"
"I told you, I'm different now. I grew up."
"The kid I knew would have noticed that I moved back a while ago and built a house on the property she did that growing up on."
That stopped me dead in my tracks. He'd built this house? When? When did he have the time? Also, how did I not even notice? I came back once a week. Probably drove past the structure a hundred times.
The house was not what I'd expected from him. It was clean. Light. Nicely furnished. All warm-toned wood and soft fabrics. Not that I'd thought about what his house must have been like before. When he was away, did he stay in motels? Did he have another camper? Or else sleep on couches or in other women's beds? If he had his own space, then I guessed it would have been small. Functional.
Not even my wildest dreams would place him here. In comfort. And close to the school.
"You really wanna talk?" I was ready to let him have a piece of my mind.
His jaw tightened and then he nodded, once.
"How about you tell me what your deal is? You take off whenever you feel like it and turn up again out of the blue and decide to pick up where we left off? Things change, Logan. I'm not the same as I once was."
"Clearly."
His one-word answer infuriated me. I was sharing. He wasn't. It didn't seem fair. He as good as abandoned me, and didn't get to butt back in whenever he felt like it.
"You know, I don't owe you a damn thing!"
"Do you even remember what happened last night?" he interrupted.
I flushed cold. Suddenly acutely aware I had a lot of missing time from the night before.
"We didn't… did we…?" my voice died like I wish I could have in my shame. I couldn't fathom a world where my wildest dreams came true and I was too smashed to even comprehend they were being granted.
He eyed me steadily, "Real classy, Marie."
"Let me fill you in," he ticked them off on his fingers, "you threw up all over the couch, then stripped off, and then sang Coldplay songs in the bathtub until you passed out."
"You should have just left me to drown," I muttered, sourly. I was so glad I didn't embarrass myself further by doing something I'd really regret. Like throw myself at him.
So many things were left unsaid because I didn't have the energy to deal with the fallout. Everything I was desperate to know but too much of a coward to ask. If I was such a damn kid, then why did I catch him looking at me in that way. Why did he draw me in close only to pull back at the last second? Why did he bother 'saving' me if I just got myself back into the same, if not worse mess than before?
"You wanna know why Ieft? I left because I have a life too. I can't stay glued to your side forever."
"You promised…"
"I'm not the superhero you seem to think I am, Marie. I'm just an old, grouchy man who's tired of playing games."
"Well, I'm tired too. I'm tired of your selfish ways…"
He flared at that.
"I'm selfish? Maybe if you weren't so wrapped up in yourself, you would have noticed I've been waiting for you to sort your shit out!"
I've been trying to unpick him since the first time he bailed on me. Distance gave me space to think. Time to work him out; In sore need of redemption. He needed to get some credit on his scorecard. Kid hitching a ride in the back of his trailer. Runaway. Vulnerable. Weak. An obligation he didn't need but perhaps offer a little solace so he can tell himself at least he tried to help. That was all I was. A fucking ego boost.
Nothing lecherous. Nothing untoward. Maybe a nod to the family he'd once thought of having. Fatherly even.
"I know what you get up to on the weekends and I wish you wouldn't."
The shock of that revelation brought me right out of those dark thoughts. How did.. He couldn't.. Unless he'd…
"Yyou… I-it- It's my life," I stammered, caught off guard, "and I'll decide how to live it, thanks!" I went for another mouthful of shreddies but ended up pointing the dripping spoon in his face, "Plus, you're a hypocrite. You whore yourself out nightly!"
"Yeah, well I can take care of myself! What you're doing is dangerous. You don't know what kind of sickos are out there."
Dangerous for which party?
I snorted, "Are you trying to protect my innocence?"
"If I thought you had any innocence to protect, Kid."
"Save me the lecture, pops. Besides, I can take em."
He shook his head sadly, "No. Not like that you can't."
It suddenly felt like all the air had been sucked out of the space, that wild, untamed, high-voltage buzz between us. Things were starting to get too real for comfort. And I found myself asking just to hear him say it. Goading, really. Pouring gasoline onto the flames just for the impulsive pleasure of watching them flare.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Means it looks like a puff of wind would blow you over."
"…I've been… stressed," I mumbled, unconvincing even to my own ears.
"Yeah, and off your face every night."
"Fuck you, Wolverine. You wouldn't understand."
"Wouldn't I?"
I turned, quickly and automatically. So fast I didn't even realize I did it. Dizzying. A defense mechanism. He would not see me cry!
"I don't owe you a single thing!"
But I did. I owed him everything.
I felt him behind me then, close enough that the strange, familiar energy crackled between us, and I was left just as confused as ever.
"Maybe not. But I know talking about it will help."
He turned me to face him, raised a hand to wipe the tear from my cheek. His thumb uncalloused and smooth. It must be so strange to go through life like that. Unchanging. Stagnant. Maybe that's why he could be so distant. He was of another time.
Every movement. Every action. Underscored by an awareness that we both knew how I used to feel about him. How I so desperately didn't want to feel anymore. It gave everything meaning. Reason.
My eyes flick to his, pushing past the physical, searching for his soul. My momma always said the soul lies behind the eyes. I thought I knew him. Thought there was only that dimension which I'd taken in before. But what I didn't realize until later, is that there is only what a person would let you see.
He shifted closer, so close I could feel both the power and heat radiating from his physicality. Almost as close as the night where he'd sacrificed his mental anonymity, and very nearly, his own life. He'd poured that power and heat into me, until that desire for freedom that burned within him illuminated every shadowed recess of my lifeless body.
The move pushed the boundaries on 'friendly' to the limit. Making me start to believe in all the things I told myself weren't, couldn't be true.
Until his lip curled. And I saw in that look all the things that made me inadequate. Eyes flaming like coals, daring me to question it.
I grasped hold of his hand, the pull of my skin on his as intense as it had always been. A life-sucking force that could drain a mortal in mere seconds. He tried to loosen my grasp, but I weakened him quickly.
I was so mad. Mad at the way he got under my skin, tried to worm his way into my mind. Interfering. Pressuring. But not caring. Nothing past self-satisfaction.
Sensation came over me in waves, at first small, but then a tidal wave of emotion and thought. It was overwhelming in intensity. It had been five years since the last time. Five years was enough to dull the memory of what taking a feral could be like. The absolute rush, wildness thrumming through my veins. The need to run, feel the wind pushing against his being. To be unrestrained, free to wander where he needed. I'd never taken him in when we were both lucid, and the difference was night and day. The complete, raw power of him was astonishing. So much more than I could have even imagined.
Memories, both recent and half-formed remembrances of a life before. Dominate feelings pulsed through me with each of his heartbeats. Need. Both mine and his mingled until I didn't understand where his started and mine began. And it hurt. It hurt because he'd never think of me like that. I was never going to live up to his estimation of a woman. I'd always be a stupid kid to him.
I wanted to stop. To pull away and purge all his thoughts from my brain and possibly my own too. I knew I'd taken too much when his face became mottled and started to grey under my own hot hand. Only then, did I let go.