Dissonance (41 page)

I missed Logan, more than I could say. I missed him constantly, like his absence from my life was one of those cartoon clouds that floats above your head, raining down on only you. His absence was palpable, even when I did everything I could to ignore it.

What certainly did not help was staying with Alex and Eli. I knew they were talking to Logan still. I would never ask them not to. What made it hard was the fact that the two of them seemed incapable of accepting the simple truth of the fact that Logan and I could never have worked in the long run. Even I had let myself be blinded by the good things we had together long enough to forget how impossible it was. Logan was incredible, he deserved someone whole. That was not me.

I could excuse Eli trying to fix things. He didn’t know better. He had no idea what I kept hidden. Alex, however, I couldn’t understand why she kept holding on to this. She may not know it all, but she knew I was shattered. Did she think that was what Logan deserved? Because I knew it was not true.

The fact that the holidays were quickly approaching did not help, either. Everything was bright and cheery. Shops and homes were strung with lights, whimsical decorations were adorning every surface. Alex, always a fan of Christmas, had left no nook or cranny without a smattering of Christmas cheer. The overwhelming decorations were stifling. Every night, as I lay on the couch and saw the tree she’d forced me to help decorate, I would stare at the shiny ornaments and imagine how far they would fly if I chucked them out of the window. Yeah, just call me the Grinch because I wanted none of the whole Christmas cheer bit.

A few days ago, Leo stopped by the bookstore near the end of my shift. I had been talking to him a bit. He would text me almost daily, checking in. He felt safe, because he never once brought up Logan’s name. He never once asked me if I was sure about what I was doing. No, he just asked about me. It was him who suggested the volunteer hours at the library when I mentioned that the part-time work was not keeping me busy enough.

When he walked in the store, I actually felt a little lighter for the first time in weeks. He’d asked if I wanted to go get something to eat after my shift ended. Part of me wondered if this wasn’t Alex still interfering, since she had been on my case a few times about not eating enough, but I gave Leo the benefit of the doubt. He was my friend, and friends went to dinner all the time. He took me to a little bistro. I tried to eat enough to not raise questions, but it was hard. I hadn’t had an appetite for a while.

“How are things going at your brother’s?” Leo asked.

“Honestly?” He gave me a nod. “I just feel like I’m suffocating. I know they want to help, but there’s nothing they can do to fix this. I just want to let it go, to move on, but being there with them all the time is making that impossible.”

He nodded as if he understood. I went back to pushing the pasta in front of me around, hoping it somehow looked like eating.

“I have an idea,” he offered. I looked up at him, unsure where this was going. “Justin pretty much just stays at my place at this point. He’s planning to not renew his lease and move in permanently, but we figured we’d wait the few months until it ends. You can stay there, if you want.”

I didn’t know what to say. I hated to impose, but I would only be able to find a new apartment so quickly, and staying with Eli and Alex was not working.

“That would be amazing, Leo,” I admitted. “I don’t want to inconvenience either of you, though.”

“Honestly, Charlotte, it isn’t a problem at all. I can’t even remember the last time Justin actually slept there. We’ll have to actually start moving some of his things out, but that will just make things easier for us in the long run,” he explained. “I already talked to him about it, that was part of why I wanted to see you today. I figured sleeping on your brother’s couch couldn’t be all that great, even without these other issues.”

“I really appreciate it,” I said, offering him one of the first smiles I had felt on my face in weeks.

“Anything for you, dollface.”

“How about you don’t call me that again?”

His laughter made me feel better than I had in days. The pain was still lingering around the edges, but I felt a little brighter.

I was moving in to Justin’s apartment just a few days later. There wasn’t much to do, really. I still had not gone back to Logan’s to get the rest of my things. I was not ready to face that. All I had to move was the one suitcase Alex had packed for me just after I started staying with them, and a small duffle bag of things I had asked Eli to get for me.

Eli and Alex seemed less than thrilled by this latest plan, but it was not their decision. Even if I weren’t desperate to get out from under their overly-watchful eyes, I would have wanted to take up this opportunity. For one thing, Leo was right, sleeping on a couch all the time is terrible. For another, Eli and Alex deserved to have their own space back. I hated intruding on them.

Justin’s apartment was small, but it had obviously been redone somewhat recently. I was not surprised at all that the place was impeccably furnished. The living room had a white leather couch, and was highlighted with red accents throughout. The kitchen had decorative jars for just about everything, he even had one of those glass carafes for orange juice. It was one of the most put together apartments I had ever been in, until I went into the bathroom. There we bottles of hair care products everywhere. Clearly, Justin was bringing work home with him… all the time.

Leo came up behind me while I stood in the doorway, staring at the myriad of bottles. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about all of these,” he said with a chuckle. “You can pack those all away in the hall closet to get them out of the way.”

I just laughed. “Thanks for doing this for me,” I told him.

“Anything for you, baby girl.”

A couple of days passed before I had my first visitor at my sublet home. When Alex showed without warning, I was in no mood to have her over. I had been woken that morning from a dream of Logan lying in bed with me by my alarm reminding me that it was time to get up and get across town for my volunteer shift. All I had wanted all day was to fall back asleep, to go back to Logan’s arms around me. My time at the library consisted of reshelving books. Usually, I liked that particular job because it allowed me to keep to myself, but with thoughts of Logan taking an even stronger hold on my mind, it was just more time to be dragged back into the memories.

I did not even get a say in the matter when she knocked twice, and then began unlocking the door herself. I was at the door by the time she had let herself in, demanding to know where she had gotten a key from.

“I got it from Justin,” she explained indignantly. “I’ve had it since he moved in here.”

I would need to remember to thank him and Leo for letting me in on that piece of information. I left Alex’s apartment so that I wouldn’t have to have her and Eli on me all the time. I would have figured out something else if I had known she still had complete access to me.

Having Alex trying to force me to talk about all the things in my head that I just wanted to push down was the last thing I needed. She was grilling me almost immediately, asking how I was doing, if I had reconsidered talking to someone. I loved her, but she really needed to give it a rest. When I told as much, she was less than pleased.

“Excuse me for caring about you,” she snapped. “I’m tired of sitting by watching while you push your own well being aside, isolate yourself from everyone that cares about you, and push away the man that loves you!”

“Don’t you get it?” I yelled back. “He won’t anymore if he knows everything. He’ll finally see me for who I am and he’ll leave!”

“Is that really what you think?” she asked, much quieter all of a sudden. “You think that our pasts make us unworthy of love? That because someone hurt us, we’re disgusting now?”

“What? I never said anything about you. Eli loves you, more than anything.”

She shook her head sadly. “Why does my past get to be excused, but yours can’t?”

“Because you weren’t to blame for any part of what happened to you,” I muttered.

“Wasn’t I? Did I ever report him? I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it until I had Eli to take care of me. Charlotte, they always make you think that it’s your fault, but you have to realize that it wasn’t. I may not know what happened to you, but you were a victim. You have to remember that,” she implored. “I never believed it, not until Eli came into my life. If you would just let Logan in, you might be able to move on.”

“I don’t think I can, Alex,” I told her.

“Do you love him?”

I wanted to lie, but somehow I knew she was seeing right through me. "Of course, I do.”

“Then love him enough to give him a chance.”

My mom’s visit really did kick me in the ass. I got everything cleaned up, including myself. I stopped drinking, even if it made the evenings feel impossibly long. As much as it killed me, I just reminded myself each day that Charlotte needed time. I waited for Alex to give me the green light, even when my instincts were screaming for me to go after her and make her listen. I had no idea where her head was at, since it was now going on three weeks since I had seen her beautiful face. Alex was able to see her, to know what I couldn’t. I just had to trust her.

Part of cleaning up my life was coming to grips with where I saw it going. Losing Charlotte was the motivation I needed to make some serious decisions. Music would always be my passion, but I was hardly even pursuing a place in that business anymore. Was a lifetime of working during the day and going to practices with a band that had stopped even sending out demos really worth it? Somewhere along the way, my priorities had changed, and that did not scare me anymore. With all of that clearing up in my mind, I went to talk to Dad.

Jeany did not greet me as brightly as usual, but that wasn’t surprising. Most of the office had caught onto the fact that I was less than cheerful at the moment. The only thing worse than losing Charlotte was everyone staring at me with sorrow over it, particularly when that pity was conveniently located next to the little six-inch tall Christmas tree Jeanine always adorned her desk with this time of year. It just made the sight that much more pitiful.

“Buck up, Jeany,” I lightly chastised. “You’ll make me think I’m going to the gallows with that expression.”

“Boy, I’ve told you enough times how I loathe that nickname. You better start being nice to me before you come to regret it,” she shot back, smirking now.

“There’s my girl.” I got an eye roll for that one. “And I am always nice to you, Jeany.”

I started walking to my father’s door when she called my name to stop me.

“You’ll get her back,” she told my sincerely.

“I sure hope so, Jeanine.”

Dad was waiting for me. He looked grim, but apparently that was just the Westfield demeanor at the moment. Well, no one really knew what Caleb was like at the moment. I had not seen or heard from him since the incident. Dad had mentioned that he was trying to get back in contact with Caleb a few days ago, but had been having no luck at it, last I had heard.

“I have news,” Dad said.

“What’s up?”

“Your mom finally got to Caleb. He’s agreed to go to a rehab facility in Colorado.”

That should have felt great, right? It should be a cause for celebration that he had agreed to get help. It didn’t feel great, though. Despite everything, I loved Caleb and wanted to see him get clean, but knowing he was off to rehab was just disheartening. It was the undeniable confirmation that we had failed him already. Somehow, he had developed a drug problem without any of us noticing. The moment that should have been exciting really just felt like a kick in the stomach.