{ prologue }
"—don't touch me, Logan!"
Shoving his hand off her arm may as well have been shaking off the weight of the sun. To his credit, his hand lifted away at just the moment she spun away, chest heaving as the burn for oxygen seemed to almost bleed from between her ribs. Tripping over her own feet she stumbled against the rear fender of her Jeep, grounded by the steel. Cool to the average touch, but inferno fire to her flaming skin.
"Listen, kid, I–" reaching for her again, his eyes are hard. Deep. Pleading as his hand extends to her, bridges the gap hanging between them like an endless abyss. It would take a lifetime for him to cross it, she knew—a lifetime he couldn't give. Wouldn't.
"Don't call me that, Logan—I am not a child. I am not one of Charles' students you get to lecture, to correct," her voice cracks under the effort of containing a sob, but tears were a giveaway long before the rage in her voice. Betrayal—it bites like a whip. "I'm not on your damn grading curve, Logan!"
"I don't—"
"Shut the hell up!"
A single finger flung his direction pulls him up, to a stop. Brows raise in surprise, at her language no doubt. Akimbo, his chin levels with the floor. Hands find his pockets, lost for a moment as they sink low into the leathers. A six foot frame always meant he was peering down at her, but it was more than that—Logan had been looking down his nose at her from the first moments, the heartbeat of their relationship. From the jump, the gap between them had always been galactically broad—two surviving suns, revolving around the other. Fighting for gravity. For purchase. For life.
Charles had only made it worse.
"Mare," he hesitates, she can almost feel him breathe. "You're gonna regret leavin' things like this, bub."
Her name, soft and considerate from his lips like it never had been—it…it makes it worse. Slap of reality that cuts like a knife. The sting of what wasn't, couldn't ever be. Churning like a tidal wave in the base of her gut, it simmers low. Systolic in her chest, it spikes up to kiss the base of her ribs only when he takes half a step forward to her.
An effort to meet her halfway—halfway to somewhere. Halfway to anywhere that wasn't here.
Her phone buzzes. It's Stark.
The notification blurs as fresh tears threaten her eyes, stinging hot. Her chest burns with the effort not to cry.
Her sigh is broken as she tosses the phone to the front seat.
"There's a lot of things I regret."
Heart ricocheting off the bones in her chest, her eyes moved beyond him—beyond him, the mansion. Xavier. Jean, Scott, Hank, all of them. Beyond them, to the darkness; midnight abyss that seemed to spin in and out of itself in a way that sent shivers down her spine. The river of sweat racing down her spine was cold, raising gooseflesh to her skin even beneath her jacket. Jeans and boots—see-ya-later, hit-the-road clothes.
Ironically enough, the same ones she'd arrived at the mansion wearing.
Turning to throw her purse over the side of the open-air Jeep door, it hits the seat with a muffled thud as she all but rips the door open. Eyes not moving from him, she takes his frame in, head to toe. Toe to head and back again—and he looks so good, standing in the growing darkness. Under stars cut in the sky, maybe just for her. This moment. Maybe just for right now, to lock this in the vault of her memories she know she won't be able to shake here to eternity.
Heel of her boot grinding into the gravel of the drive, she hesitates. Hand on the frame of the Wrangler, they curl around the cool steel, already slick with evening dew. It cuts right to the bones in her hand, the ache in her joints that burns like volcanic poison. Waiting to explode, to corrode the rest of her time had all but forgotten. Gnawing at the inside of her cheek, she swears to God any moment she'll taste the spring of copper on her tongue, the blood she wills into her own mouth with every inhalation of life-preserving oxygen.
Pushing her weight off the frame of the Jeep, she turns to face him. Shoulders back, chin squared. Breathing hard, breathing slow—any kind of breathing to keep her two feet under her on earthquake sands. The lump forming in the back of her throat threatens to throttle the steel will dropping into her spine like an eye beam, and before she can even recalculate, think it through—she's crossing the night between them. Grabbing the front of his flannel shirt, she'll never forget how the brush of her fingers against the peek of hair on his chest feels for all the rest of her living nights.
Kissing him—quickly, roughly, hard—has never felt so wrong. Or so right. It solidifies every thing. Shatters every other. Unable to think straight, unable to breathe beyond the taste of him, she releases. Let's go when that thing that everyone talks about—when he breaks, when that every-so-little shift of his jaw—tells her, for the first time, that he's hungry. Hungry for this, for her—
—for what can't be.
The arch of his hand from the corner of her eye is possessive, wanting—she ducks, backstepping away before he can reach her. She's already flicking the keys of the Jeep forward, feet planted on the brake and clutch, when he comes to a stop at her door, hands on the frame.
Her name from him, a second time. "Stay." Stay, stay, stay.
I can't, Logan. "No."
It's painful between the mesh of her ribs, the one she's missing. The one that belongs to him, had belonged to him since the beginning. God's design.
Damn him for being so stubborn, so—Logan.
"I'll see you around, Logan. Take care of yourself."
He won't.
And, a faraway part of her knows that. Another part wills that it won't be–can't be–her problem anymore. She has to stop caring about him, about his life. Where he goes and what he does, whom he decides to love and where he decides to stay.
She has to stop loving the Wolverine.