A More Deserving Blackness (30 page)

             
How the hell am I going to live through that again?

             
“I’m scared,” I whisper, and my mom rubs my leg.

             
“I know, Honey.  I am too.”

             
Logan’s hand squeezes over mine.  “I’ll go with you.”

             
I balk at the suggestion but my dad is already speaking.  “The station’s over an hour’s drive.  We can take her.”

             
Slowly, Logan looks up from his seat beside me, meeting my father’s gaze. 
“With all due respect, Sir, if Bree wants me there, I’m going.”

             
My skin is clammy with panic, revolted by the thought of saying those things out loud, in front of Logan.

             
But he just turns to face me, gently cupping my chin and tilting my face up to his.  “Do you want me to come with you?”

             
I blink and send another tear trailing down to bead in the center of his palm.  He’s waiting, studying me, but it isn’t even really a question.  I could never do it without him.

             
“Yes.”

              My father drives us to the police station, back in my home town.  I sit directly behind him with Logan’s coat over my t-shirt, the armpits already damp with cold sweat.  I’d quickly changed out of my blood-stained sweatshirt back at the house, and Logan had helped me into the jacket when I’d brought it out from my room.  He’d held it out for me to thread my arms through, his back to my family, and as he had, his eyes had zeroed in on the pattern of small circular bruises that were already forming on my arm from Dylan’s fingers. 

             
In less than a second, Logan was tense and furious. 

             
“I’m okay,” I’d said blandly, so only he could hear.

             
His eyes had just flashed up to mine, glinting with mute rage.  He’d stared at me like that for a moment, and then he’d blinked smoothly and reached around to scoop my braid from the collar.  I’d shivered at his touch.

             
In silence that might’ve felt awkward if only I wasn’t so terrified, we’d walked out of the house in a line, pausing only when Trish had run up to squeeze me in a quick hug.

             
“I love you,” she’d whispered in my ear.  “You’ll do fine.”

             
I’d just pulled back and wrapped Logan’s coat tighter around me, giving her a lax smile.

             
Logan had held the truck door open for me, waiting and watching as I’d missed twice with the buckle before finally hearing the snap of it locking into place.  My dad had climbed behind the wheel of my mother’s SUV and adjusted the rearview mirror while Mom had hauled herself up into the seat next to him, sending me a tremulous smile over her shoulder.

             
“I’m so proud of you,” she’d told me with a bittersweet smile.

             
I’d nodded because anything more would’ve broken the fragile glass shell around me.  I was shaking and I’d wrung my hands together as Logan had rounded the vehicle, climbing in on the other side and considering me carefully as he’d settled into the seat. 

             
My heart squeezed at his nearness.

             
The hour drive is a torturous warp of time, my stomach writhing in painful knots as I stare mutely out the window.  Trees and signs and cars all bleed together in a dizzying blur, and I want to reach my hand out the window and grab onto something, anything, just cling to whatever my fingers can grasp, wrap myself around it and never, ever let go.  As the landmarks grow more and more familiar, places I’d known since I was a little girl, the dread in my stomach twists, tangling in on itself, a snake swallowing its tail.

             
I feel a warm hand slip between mine and I clutch at it automatically, waves of pain and fear and relief washing over me in turns.

             
When my dad pulls in behind the small brick police station I’m concentrating almost entirely on not vomiting all over the spotless beige upholstery of my mother’s car.

             
Dad slides it into park and everyone waits for just a second, not moving, until my mom takes a deep breath.  “You ready, Honey?”

             
They’re waiting for me.  I glance at the bland brown brick of the station and nod, not trusting my voice.

             
I’m reaching for the door handle with a trembling hand when my dad says, gently, “Bree.”  He catches my gaze in the rearview mirror, his light gold-brown eyes worried and aged and heartbroken.  “Are you sure?”

             
No.  But I take a breath and nod again, forcing a smile that shudders and dies on my lips.  My dad frowns.

             
Before they can ask me anything else I yank the handle and slip from my seat, landing on the pavement on legs that are numb.  Logan is there in an instant, faster than I would’ve thought possible, standing as close as he can without touching me.  I barely move my hand to reach for him and he takes it without hesitation, taking a little of my weight too as I lean on him.

             
My lungs aren’t cooperating but I ignore them, meeting my dad’s eyes and nodding before following him into the building.

             
Detective Mollard must’ve been waiting for us, because he greets us in the small, unceremonious lobby.  There’s a cluttered receptionist’s desk with a bespectacled middle-aged woman behind it, a few chairs against the wall next to a stand with a coffee pot and two overturned white ceramic mugs, and a long, thin table pushed against the wall covered in fliers and pamphlets.  Above it is a plaque with the photographs and names of the policemen and –women of the station.  There are seven.

             
The sight of the detective is blunt and uncomfortable, a solid reminder of a time in my life I don’t ever want to remember.  Tall and thick, the officer is imposing in his crisp navy uniform, thick black belt at his hips heavy with pockets and equipment and, of course, his gun.  He’d never coddled me during the admittedly stilted investigation two years ago, interacting with me in a way that I would describe only as professional, and I can’t help but appreciate that he treated me like a human being, and not like a casualty.

             
“Ms. McCaffrey,” he says evenly, squarely meeting my eyes.  “Thank you for doing this, I know it can’t be easy for you.”  Then he nods at my parents.  “Mr. and Mrs. McCaffrey.”

             
There’s an awkward pause and then my mom steps forward, gesturing at my side.  “This is Logan, a friend of Bree’s.”

             
The detective shakes his hand, absorbing Logan’s battered face without comment.  “Logan.”

             
Logan just nods, remaining silently at my side.

             
And then we’re all just standing there, a small huddle of people, and the coffee pot makes a low hissing noise and I jump.  I can feel all of their eyes and attention on me, a thick blanket of expectation smothering me.

             
With a judicious evaluation of the four of us, Detective Mollard settles his knowing gaze on me.  “I’ll be in my office, right down the hall here, whenever you’re ready.  Take your time.”

             
We all watch him leave, his black boots thumping on the discolored linoleum, and no one else seems to notice that all the oxygen has just left the room with him, and I’m going to pass out if I can’t get any air into my lungs soon.

             
That hallway doesn’t lead to an office, it leads to the edge of an eighty-foot drop straight down to a thick slab of cement, and I have to jump. 

             
“Bree, Honey?”  My mother.  “Do you want us to come back with you?”

             
I shake my head adamantly, still staring after him, and while my parents’ expressions don’t change at all, I think I can see hurt in my mom’s and relief in my dad’s.

             
I can’t even look at Logan, I’m just staring down the hall where the detective disappeared, and now he’s in his office waiting for me to follow him, waiting for me to willfully carve out my own skin, to disembowel myself, let all that foul, stinking ugliness splash out onto the desk in front of him.  He’d nod and he’d scribble on a ruled writing pad, respectfully silent as my blood would soak into the fibers of that paper, smearing the black ink.

             
I need air.

             
“I think – I’m -” I break off, the words smashing in my throat.  Then I almost scream the rest, talking too fast and too loud at their alarmed faces.  “I need to use the bathroom first!”

             
And I turn and lunge for the door, pushing it open and spewing out into the parking lot.  I stumble to the side of the building where there’s a wooden, weather-worn picnic table chained to the ground by the metal frame but I don’t sit at it.  I brace one hand against the rough face of the brick and wrap the other arm around my punctured chest and gasp loudly for air that won’t come.

             
“Bree.”

             
I barely hear Logan’s voice behind me over my rasping for air.  I feel sticky and clammy and faint.  Folding at the waist, I bow in half and then drop, hunched in a ball, still clinging to the building at my side.  Black spots bleed over the bright grass lawn, the graying pavement, the wood of the table, the red-brown of the bricks, staining everything.  I can’t see.

             
My hands are suddenly, forcefully torn away from me, slapped flat over a broad, solid chest covered in cool leather.  His hands overlap mine and he breathes in exaggerated motions, inhale and exhale, pushing his chest against my palms in a slow, steady rhythm.

             
Logan.

             
“I – I can’t -” I wheeze but then just hang my head, hauling a shaky breath of air down my throat. 

             
Though I don’t have the right, I slide my hands under the plackets of his coat, over the warm cotton shirt, feeling the angles of his chest, the ridges of his collarbones beneath.  He lets me.  I pull in another breath, and another, each of them going down just the least bit easier than the last, each of them bittersweet with the warm, wrenching smell of Logan, of home. 

             
Finally I look up at him, doing the impossible thing and meeting his eyes.

             
“You don’t have to,” Logan tells me, his voice low.

             
“Yes I do!”  The words come out with more force than I’d intended, all but yelling at him, inches from his face.

             
He doesn’t even blink.

             
“I – I have to –” I gasp, my chest still jerking, hopelessly flawed.  “They never – never caught him and he could’ve – all this time -” I’m hysterical, not making sense – “I should’ve done it two years ago but I was too freaking scared!”

             
With the sun behind him Logan’s eyes are pools of ink, untouched by either light or color.  They flick between mine, searching.

             
“Then you don’t have to do it alone.”

             
No.  No, I don’t want that.  I drop my hands from his chest to my lap, staring down at them and slumping onto my hip, leaning back against the wall, suddenly exhausted. 

             
“Why did you come here with me?” I ask my lap, my voice small.

             
“Because you needed me to.” 

             
I close my eyes against a rage of love like a mortar round to the chest. 

             
“Logan, I can’t -” I stop, shake my head.  Swallow down the bile that licks up the back of my throat.  “I don’t want you to hear that.”

             
  Ever.

             
“But I can’t - I don’t think I can do it without you.”

             
He’s silent for a long time, but I can’t bring myself to lift my eyes to his face.

             
Finally he speaks, his voice measured and calm.  “Love, look at me.”

             
I falter, but he waits, patiently, until I do.

             
“You’re going to go back in there, and you’re going to tell them everything you remember, because the man that raped you is still out there somewhere, and he could do it again, to someone else.  More than that he deserves to pay for what he did to you.”

             
My eyes fill with tears.  He waits until I’m focused on him again, his face shivering and watery, before continuing.

             
“And I’m going to go in with you, and hold your hand, because there is absolutely nothing you could tell that detective that would make me want to be anywhere else.”