Another Little Piece (13 page)

TOTALLY HOPELESS

Annaliese—

Yesterday at the pool was amazing. Or mucho bueno, as Mr. Fields would say
.

I need to see you again. Not just see. I need to do much more than see you. Please say you want to do more than just see me too.

Same time, same place today?

Logan

FOR ANNALIESE

Gwen hunted me down at lunch, and I spent the entire time convincing her not to tell her mom, my mom, or her rabbi about our earlier discussion. I argued about my right to privacy, patient/doctor confidentiality, and how it would freak everyone out for nothing. But the one thing that finally swayed her was a simple declaration.

“If you tell anyone, I will never trust you again.”

Gwen looked for a moment like she would cry, and then very softly promised that she would keep my secrets—at least until I was ready to share them.

I could see her remembering the fight she’d had with Annaliese, and I wanted to say something comforting, but the bell rang, and once again it was for the best because I hadn’t been able to think of a single thing.

Coming out of the lunchroom, we almost collided with Logan. This was the first day I’d gone through without the protection of his hoodie. I could see him noting its absence.

“I waited for you,” he said, completely ignoring Gwen. “I have something that I thought you’d like.”

“Oh, I’m—” My apology never came, as Gwen linked arms with me.

“C’mon, Annaliese, we’ll be late for class.”

She dragged me away, all the while glaring at Logan as if he were responsible for all the evils in the world, including forcing piano lessons on the unwilling. Even after we turned down several hallways, she held on to me.

“What a doofus,” she said at last, and instead of defending Logan, I giggled. Looking like I had given her an unexpected present, Gwen giggled back at me.

For a moment, life was so simple. And sweet. To be seventeen and walking the crowded halls of a high school, clutching your best friend’s arm while you giggled over stupid boys.

Sometimes it was just so fucking wonderful to be alive.

Then from behind me I heard someone muffle a cough. I glanced over my shoulder, and there was Logan. He’d been following us the whole time, and the look on his face . . . My cheeks flamed and I ducked my head, unable to meet his eyes.

Then I was Anna again. A girl in borrowed skin that hurt like hell.

Gwen had noticed Logan too, and she whirled to face him. “Can’t you take a hint and leave her alone already?”

I tried to tug Gwen back toward me and away from Logan. Away from this whole scene. Gwen shook me off, and when I caught sight of the look on her face I could see the hard and angry words bubbling up inside her. I knew then that she wasn’t going to stop until she told Logan exactly what she thought of him. And those words would cut him to ribbons.

“Gwen,” I said, trying to stall her.

She didn’t even hear me, because Logan spoke at the same moment. His voice was low and ragged where mine had been high and squeaky. Even though he stood a foot taller than Gwen, with his shoulders sagging and his chin against his chest, he had to almost look up at her beneath hooded eyelids.

“No, I can’t,” he said. “I can’t leave her alone. I left her alone once. It was the wrong thing to do and I won’t do it again.”

Gwen blinked at him. Once. Twice. Uncertain.

Before she could regroup, I stepped forward, inserting myself between them. “I’m sorry about lunch,” I said, going back to what he’d said outside the cafeteria, trying to pretend that this whole little confrontation had never happened. “I didn’t know you were waiting. I have study hall right now, if you want to talk or something.”

“No, no, it’s okay.” Logan shook his head, sending his shaggy hair flying. “I don’t want you skipping for me.”

I shrugged. “It’s just study hall. Anyway, I’m tragedy girl. I can get away with pretty much anything right now.” It was a joke. Logan winced. Clearly he was nowhere near the someday-we’ll-all-laugh-about-this stage. I wasn’t either, but I forced a smile anyway. “But if
you’re
worried about cutting class . . .”

“Oh please,” Gwen said, pushing her way back into the conversation. “He’s a jock. That means he’s practically required to cut.” Gwen linked her arm with mine, marched us forward, and grabbed hold of Logan’s bicep with her other hand. “And I can talk myself out of anything. So where are we going?”

Over Gwen’s head, Logan’s eyes met mine. He looked confused but no longer stricken. It was a good change. I shrugged and smiled encouragingly. After a long moment Logan smiled back.

“Outside,” he said. “The storage shed by the bus lot.”

The warning bell rang. We ignored it. Gwen dropped our arms so we weren’t blocking our scurrying classmates actually trying to make it to class, but we still stayed in the same three-across formation with Gwen at the center.

Once outside, Logan took the lead. We wound through the parking lot until we reached the chain-link fence with the buses lined up in neat rows on the other side. A worn path in the grass led us to a gaping hole. We wriggled through one by one and made our way toward a long, squat building. The path looped past the tightly padlocked front doors and around to the back, where a smaller door that didn’t quite seem to fit in its frame swung open easily beneath Logan’s fingertips.

“Wait here a minute, okay?” Logan asked, and then he stepped into the dark interior and closed the door behind him.

We stood silently, stamping our feet and shivering against the breeze that came whipping around the shed. My previous sleep-impaired nights made my eyes ache, and I rubbed them with the backs of my fists. A small sigh escaped me.

“What’s wrong?” Gwen immediately asked. “You’re annoyed that I’m here. That’s it, isn’t it? You wanted to be alone with him.”

“Gwen, no. I’m glad you’re here.” Glancing toward the closed door, I lowered my voice. “I’m trying to be nice.”

Gwen’s head tilted to the side. She peered at me so intently it looked like she was working on her X-ray-vision skills. “You really don’t like him anymore, do you?”

“I really don’t.”

“And it’s not because you’re secretly in love with your kidnapper?”

I grinned. “No, it’s not. Although if I was secretly in love I’d probably say that anyway.”

“You know what? I don’t even care.” Gwen smiled back. “I think I would rather you be in the grip of a terrible case of Stockholm syndrome than have a crush on Logan. It was awful. You were awful. Sorry, but you were. You dropped out of Advanced Placement Spanish so you could be in class with him. You switched to art from music ’cause he took art, but then you didn’t even get into his same art class. You kept a tally every day of the number of times you passed him in the hallway. You didn’t think I knew that one, but I did. And I kept thinking it would stop, you would get tired of stalking him, but you never did. And then I thought, please don’t ever let him like her back. I know that sounds mean and selfish. I guess it was, because I thought if you were with him I would lose my friend. And not lose you like we wouldn’t hang out anymore, but lose you like you would cease to exist. You would have become one of those girls who has no thoughts or opinions or ideas that didn’t come directly from her boyfriend.”

Ceased to exist. I almost choked. It was amazing how Gwen could trip right over the truth and not even notice it. Luckily, I didn’t have to find a reply because the shed door opened and Logan stepped back outside. He had an old suit jacket on over his T-shirt and a bouquet of red carnations clutched in his fist. His face went a little red as he thrust the flowers toward me. Before I could reach out to take them, he jerked them away. Glancing toward Gwen, he looked like he had just remembered she was there. Quickly, he pulled the intertwined carnation stems apart into two bunches.

“Flowers,” he said simply, this time holding one bouquet out to me and the other to Gwen. As if realizing his presentation was a little graceless, Logan cleared his throat and tried again. With a rough smile this time. “Beautiful flowers, for two beautiful ladies.”

I expected a snort of disgust from Gwen, but instead her face turned pink and she murmured a quiet, “Thanks.”

For an instant I had an idea of playing matchmaker between the two, but then Logan’s gaze turned toward me and I knew it would never work. His dark eyes drank me up, like he’d been walking through a desert looking for water and I was a shining lake that might also be a mirage.

“I’m sorry about the other day, by the pool,” he said softly. “I didn’t want to make you feel . . .” Logan shook his head and started again. “I wanted to give you something. So I’ve been trying to think of something I could give you, trying to think of what you’d want. And I remembered Homecoming. You missed it. Every year. You told me. Freshman year you were too nervous to go. Sophomore year you had strep throat. And last year . . .”

Logan stopped, swallowed, glanced toward Gwen and then back to me.

“Last year you were excited to go. You’d bought a dress, and even though I was going with Kayla, I promised you a dance. It was stupid. I couldn’t dance with you at Homecoming. Everybody would think it was a pity dance. But I couldn’t tell you we wouldn’t dance, ’cause I could see you were all excited about it. Really I kinda hoped you would forget I’d promised it or maybe get sick again or something—anything—that would get me out of that dance.”

“Oh boy,” Gwen murmured. “So that explains why you walked offstage when they were trying to crown you Homecoming king.”

Logan’s shoulders lifted in a half-shrug, half-sigh gesture. “Yeah, I guess.” With another shrug/sigh, he focused on me once more. “So maybe this is lame, but I thought I could give you that Homecoming dance. I mean, if you still want it.”

He was so sincere and there was something in his face that was almost little-boy sweet. Any other girl’s heart would’ve been going pitter-patter, but mine only felt wrung out and small. Still, I offered my hand to Logan, accepting his offer for the girl who had once counted how many times she passed him in the hallway.

His hand swallowed mine, and then with a tug I was carried along into the storage shed. As soon as Gwen stepped in behind me, Logan reached back to close the door, sealing out the one wedge of sunlight and leaving us in darkness.

“Stay there,” Logan said as he dropped my hand. I heard his footsteps moving through the darkness; just as my eyes had adjusted enough to let me pick up his outline a few feet away, the lights came on. Not the bright fluorescents I’d expected but white Christmas lights strung in a crisscross pattern, blinking and twinkling across a small cleared space at the center of the room. Long strips of green-and-white streamers twirled gently between the strands of light, creating an almost seaweed, under-the-sea effect. The towering boxes stacked to the ceiling everywhere else made it feel secret and hidden, like we’d stumbled into some alternate world where high school dances lived on in between prom and Homecoming and Christmas balls. Logan pressed Play on his iPod and the tinny sound of “Lady in Red” filled the room, completing the scene.

Gwen gave me a little push, and it was enough to send me stumbling forward into the seaweed streamers and into Logan’s arms.

When he drew me in close, instead of pulling back I let my head rest against his chest so that the thump of his heart mixed with the song and little points of light pulsed against my closed eyelids. We didn’t actually dance so much as sway in time, making the tiniest rotations through space.

As the song began to fade, I opened my eyes and blinked away the tears that filled them. I didn’t want to explain them. I couldn’t explain why this kind and thoughtful gesture had opened up a deep well of longing and sadness and despair that truly made me feel undersea.

The song ended, and I hesitated a moment before pulling away, trying to find the best way to tell Logan that this would be our last dance.

I still hadn’t found it when Logan’s arms gripped me a little tighter, and the whole world went sideways. A streamer tickled my forehead and Logan grinned at me dipped low in his arms.

“My mom taught me that,” he said, slowly tilting me back up.

“Do it again,” I said. Not because I enjoyed being swept off my feet, but because I could picture him with his mom, practicing that dip. And because he was so proud of his smooth move. But mostly because I could tell in the way he was smiling at me that there was nothing I could say to let him off the hook. I was the hook, and as long as I existed, he was hung.

The world spun once more, with Logan dipping me faster and lower this time. His jacket came flopping open at the end, and a bit of white paper drifted to the floor. Logan didn’t even notice. Eyes closed and lips pursed, he was focused on obtaining something else. The paper was the perfect excuse to deny him. As I leaned sideways to snatch it up, Logan’s kiss found my left ear. Startled, his eyes flew open and he straightened abruptly, pulling me with him.

Quickly, I held the small card I’d retrieved up between us.

“Some sort of praise Jesus reminder?” I asked, staring at the picture of a glowing guy in a robe. It was a lame joke that came out snarkier than I’d intended. I’d meant to lighten the mood and instead I’d deflated it.

“No, it’s a prayer card.” Logan grabbed it from my hand. “It was my gran’s. It’s a prayer she used to say hoping my dad would come back after he left.”

“Oh.” I felt even worse. “Did it work?”

Logan shook his head. “No. He walked out on us when I was three, and then when I was nine we found out he was dead. So by then it was pretty certain he wasn’t coming back—ya know? Gran, though, she kept right on saying this prayer as if he were still alive.” Logan held it out to me, and I took it once more, this time flipping it over to see the prayer on the backside.

“So why did she keep saying the prayer?”

Logan shrugged. “Well, it’s Saint Jude and he’s the saint of hopeless causes. Gran said that Dad was as hopeless as they came, and she thought Saint Jude would appreciate that fact. It would be a miracle, she said, but that was okay ’cause she believed in miracles and she was gonna keep on praying for him.”

I held the card out, and Logan tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. Our eyes met for a long moment. Too long. I could feel Logan gearing up to say something big.

“Annaliese,” he said.

I cut him off. “We should go.”