Dissonance (43 page)

The footsteps stopped, but were instantly replaced with a large body dropping down next to me. Arms wrapped around me, and I tried with all I had to clear my head. I never wanted Eli to see me like this. I didn’t want him to think I was unstable.

“Charlotte,” he called to me. “Charlotte, just breathe.”

His voice… it did not sound right.

“Just focus on the sound of my voice.”

I did as he repeated his instruction to breathe. It was deep, rougher than my brother’s.

“Angel, please relax for me.”

My attention was entirely on that voice then. The panic that held me moments before meant nothing as the reality of whose arms were around me became clear.

Logan.

Logan was there with me.

Gaining some control back, I released my head and turned to look at him. Seeing his gorgeous face again, meeting those aquamarine eyes that had captivated me since I had met him, it felt like a knife in the chest.

“What? How?” I stuttered. Taking a breath, I tried again. “How did you get in here?”

“Are you alright?” he asked instead of answering me.

“How did you get in here?” I asked again.

“Alex. She gave me the key.”

All of the guilt I had been feeling about fighting with Alex earlier disappeared. I could not believe she would interfere like that. I should never have told her how I felt. Having Logan so close was bad, very bad. He was going to try to convince me to come back, but I couldn’t. Just thinking about changing my mind had triggered everything and broken me down.

“You need to leave.”

I expected him to be shocked, to be pissed, to react somehow. Instead, he answered me evenly. “No.”

“No?”

“No,” he repeated. “I’m not leaving.”

“You don’t get to decide.”

“Seeing as I have a key, and I doubt you would be able to physically force me out, I would say I do get to decide.”

The audacity of his statement and the matter-of-fact way that he said it had me dumbstruck.

“I…” Nope. Nothing. What was I supposed to say to that? “Why are you here?”

“Why am I here? That’s your question?” When I didn’t retract it, he sighed. “I’m here for you, Charlotte. And I won’t leave alone.”

“Logan–”

He cut me off before I could shut him down. “No. I’m not hearing any of your bullshit reasons why I shouldn’t be here. I’m not sitting around in our apartment, waiting to get the girl I love back anymore. You love me, and I won’t let you keep denying it.”

Anger started to surge at him, and I embraced it. Anger was better than giving in. It was better than relaxing into the warmth of his body and admitting that he was right.

I pulled away from him and jumped to my feet. “You can’t come here and tell me what I feel! What gives you the right?”

He rose as well, staring me down with a determination that startled me. “How long, Charlotte? How long are you going to stand there and try to deny what we both feel? How long are you going to run scared over nothing?”

“You don’t know anything!”

“I know more than you think,” he answered calmly, firing me up all the more.

“No, you don’t!”

He stepped towards me. “I know that you’ve always been secluded. You’ve always kept your emotions to yourself. I know that your mom worried about it constantly. I know something happened to you when you were seventeen that you still refuse to deal with. I know it had to do with the asshole you were dating, and that it led to your scar. I know the support group you met Alex in was for survivors of abuse. I know that you wake up constantly in the middle of the night because of whatever is in your dreams, but if I have my arms around you, you sleep through the night. I know that your confidence has been shattered, and that is why you are so afraid to let me in. But most importantly, I know that I love you with all that I have, and nothing could ever change that.”

He thought he knew so much, but bits and pieces from Eli and Alex were hardly scratching the surface. “You know nothing.”

“Then tell me,” he pleaded. “Give me a real chance, here. Tell me what it is you try so hard to keep buried inside you. Let me help you carry that weight. Let me in.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“No, I can’t! I can’t fucking tell you!”

“Why not?” he was finally starting to get worked up.

I didn’t answer him.

“Why not? Because you think I won’t be able to look at you and see the same person I fell in love with?”

“Stop,” I begged in a whisper.

“Do you not believe it when I tell you how I feel about you? Or do you think I am just too fucking shallow to accept all of you?”

“Please,” I pleaded.

“Or maybe you’re so tired of hurting and you just want to destroy me, too.”

That unfamiliar choking feeling was taking hold again. My eyes felt heavy and swollen. They stung, burned.

“No,” I whimpered.

“Or maybe I’m not worth it. Maybe you don’t love me, so there’s no point.”

“No.”

He silenced at my quiet admission.

“No,” I repeated. My tears were coming in full force now, my body shaking from the force of them.

Logan approached me slowly. “‘No’ what, Charlotte?”

I just shook my head frantically, staring at the ground. There was no controlling my emotions anymore. He had the power to break through every wall.

His large, warm hands cupped my cheeks, his thumbs gently brushing away my still-flowing tears. He lifted my face to his. “Why are you saying ‘no,’ angel?”

Unable to keep it in anymore, I gave him the truth. “You said that I don’t love you.”

His brilliant eyes flashed before his mouth slammed down on mine. My brain wanted to fight, to keep him away, but it was useless. My body sang at the contact with his. My answering kiss was frantic, needing to feel everything I had been missing in the past weeks. The slight stumble that had gathered on his face abraded my skin, but I couldn’t care less. His soft lips molding mine, and his tongue stroking my own was worth it. The feeling of his hard body pressed against me had every nerve sparking to life. Then, he was pulling back. His hands never left my face, but he held me still when I tried to chase his lips with mine.

“Let me in. There is still time, Charlotte. Let love be stronger than your fear.”

Those words. Those words that I had read a million times, trying to convince myself that they could be true.
There is still time.
Maybe this was my chance, maybe Logan was my chance to stop singing, to start healing.

“Okay.”

I convinced Charlotte to come back to the apartment. Despite the doubts she might have been having, I knew there was nothing she could say that could make me walk away from her. I loved her, I would stand by her side through anything. When she was finished telling me her story, I wanted to be in our space, in the place that had become home for both of us. I knew that no matter what she said, it was going to be hard for both of us to take, and I did not want to be tackling those emotions in another man’s home. And, if I am completely honest, I had just been craving the sight of Charlotte back in our apartment. I missed seeing her there.

She was quiet during the drive over, but I was not surprised. Her nerves were obvious. She was about to let me passed the walls she had never let another person beyond. I only hoped she would not talk herself out of it before we got back. I may have been speeding a little to try and prevent that.

Charlotte walked slowly behind me when we made it back to our building. As we rode the elevator up, I noticed her wringing her hands nervously, her knuckles turning white with the pressure she was exerting on them. I reached over, taking her abused hands in mine. I brought one up to my lips, placing a soft kiss to her palm.

“I love you, angel,” I told her. “Whatever you have to tell me, we can deal with it, together.”

She didn’t look wholly convinced, but it did not seem like she was backing out either. As much as I would have liked her to, I did not need her to believe my words so long as she gave me the opportunity to show her the truth through my actions.

She followed me into the apartment, and I led her over to the couch. She sat, and I brought my knee up onto the cushions so that I was facing her. Her eyes were drawn to the table. Sitting there, right where it had been since Eli had brought it back to me, was her bracelet. She made no move to pick it up, just stared at the small, engraved heart. I wanted to say something, hell I wanted to say a million things, but I waited for her to speak.

“I have a lot to say,” she started, quietly. “Most of it isn’t good, and I know there will be times when you want to react, but I need you to please just let me get it all out. If you stop me, I’m not sure I’ll be able to continue.”

“I promise,” I told her. “Whatever you need.”

She nodded a bit, still not looking at me. It took a few minutes before she was able to continue.

“You asked me once why my father finally left.” That was not where I had expected to start, and my nerves kicked up a notch. How much had she been hiding? “The truth is, he didn’t just suddenly leave of his own volition. Mom threw him out. Eli doesn’t know. I wanted to tell him sometimes, but it was better leaving him in the dark. I begged Mom to keep it a secret.”

She paused for a few moments before revealing something I had not expected. “He hit me. That was why Mom threw him out. It only happened the once, but it wasn’t the first time he had been cruel. He had been emotionally abusive to Mom for years. I don’t know if he ever hurt her, I like to hope he didn’t.

“He had started to put Eli down a few years before. Eli never really responded, just tried to brush it off and keep a level head. I hated the way he talked about Eli. He would say things like ‘that boy won’t ever amount to shit,’ and ‘he was a fucking mistake.’ My brother was my best friend, and I wanted to cry every time I heard our dad say those things about him. Then, I started getting the attention too. That was when everything really fell apart.

“He started saying that I was useless, that the best I could hope for was to find some stupid man that would take care of me. Eli would get so mad. I worried about what he would do, and I would have to talk him down once we were alone. He spent hours telling me that it was all lies, doing everything he could to keep me from believing a thing our father said. Then, one day, Dad called me a whore.

“I was eleven at the time, and he told me I was a ‘good-for-nothing, little whore” because I dropped a plate and it broke. Eli lost it. He started screaming at our father, saying he was a drunk, that he was fucking worthless, that he didn’t deserve to have me as his daughter. Dad stormed out during it. We all knew he was going to the bar where he spent all his time, but just knowing he was away from Eli was enough.

“Mom begged Eli to go stay at a friend’s house for the night. She was worried about how Dad would react when he got back. Eli didn’t want to. He said he didn’t want to leave me, but I convinced him to go. I promised I would lock my door and not come out if Dad came home. He wasn’t happy about it, but he left. Mom comforted me until it got late and I went to bed.

“I did as I promised; I locked my door when I got into bed. I never fell asleep, though. I just stayed awake in the dark room, waiting to hear my father come home. A few hours passed. I didn’t know what time it was anymore, just that it was well after midnight. I needed to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to leave my room, but since Dad hadn’t come home yet, I figured I could just be quick.”

She stopped again, seeming to replay that night in her head before telling me the rest. I hated it, waiting patiently just to hear her recount how her father hurt her. It was the most excruciating thing I had ever experienced.

“I barely made it to the bathroom when the front door opened. I froze. If I had just moved, I probably could have made it back to my room before he got all the way in the apartment, but I couldn’t. I just stood there like a target. He saw me almost immediately, came right for me. He was so drunk that he needed the wall for support to walk. He started telling me that it was all my fault, that I was the reason Eli was acting that way, that I had destroyed everything he had worked for. He kept his voice low, trying not to wake my mom, but he was so angry. He got progressively louder until he started yelling at me. Just when I heard Mom’s door open and I thought I was safe, he raised his arm and back-handed me across the face.”