Tailspin (Better Than You) (21 page)

              He points an accusatory finger at me. “That’s fucked up and you know it. I was trying to help. I
did
help.”

              With a sigh, I set the water down on the counter and run my now cool hands over my scorching face. “I know. What do you want me to say? Thank you? Do you want me to wipe your feet with my hair, too?”

              Crowley jerks his head back. “What the-” He puts a hand up. “You know what? I don’t even wanna know. A thank you would be nice, but it’s unnecessary.” A pause, and then: “Do you wanna go grab a beer?”

              It doesn’t sound so bad, drinking a cold beer with my partner, who I suddenly realize I know almost nothing about. When I look at him,
really
look at him, I start to wonder things. Does he speak Spanish? Most of the guys do. Why did he want to be a cop? Are his parents still alive?

              “Would you quit that shit, man? It’s just a beer,” Crowley says, snapping me back to the here and now.

              “Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. Let me shower first.” I dart past him, up the stairs and into my room, closing the door and leaning against it for just a second. It’s funny how things change. Before Logan, I couldn’t be in this room without remembering Mom and Dad, and now I can’t be in here without remembering her. I have a feeling it will always be that way, that every step I take will bring me out of one memory and through another.

25

November 26, 2009

              Since I can’t cook, we ordered Thanksgiving dinner from Boston Market the night before and reheated everything. Amelia tried to insist that she could take care of it all, but she’s already doing so much. This is all I have left, so I set out the flimsy, disposable platters and tell everyone it’s ready.

              It’s been years since the table was this full, surrounded by warm bodies and people that I could easily call family, despite the fact that they’re not. Amelia and Ralph sit on my right, Emily and Joshua on my left, and Crowley straight across from me. A full house.

              “Shall we say grace?” Amelia says, placing both hands palms up on the table. I stare until I realize what she’s expecting and place my hand in hers. The gesture is passed all around the table until we’re all linked, one hand in another’s.
Mom and Dad would love this
. The thought burns the back of my throat.

              Amelia’s prayer is short and simple, a thank you for the food, a thank you for the people surrounding us, a thank you for saving Logan. She doesn’t ask for anything in return, just tells God that he is good and we are thankful. In shame, I duck my head, stubbornly thinking that here we are, and Mom, Dad, and Logan are not. It’s not that simple, I know, but it doesn’t matter.

              The conversation picks up and it’s as if we’ve always been here, sitting next to each other and sharing our lives. Oblivious to the fact, I watch each person individually, and then as pairs- Amelia and Ralph, Joshua and Emily, Emily and Crowley- and then as a whole, each one of us connected in different ways.

              I’d say that my heart is full, that on this Thanksgiving I am grateful to have everyone I need in my life, but it’s not true. Despite the rightness of this moment, there’s wrongness spreading through my chest like poison, because Logan is not here. She’s alone in a place where she should have never been and there’s nothing I can do but sit back and let her navigate through that loneliness.

              Why does the right thing always feel so wrong?

26

December 25, 2009

              It’s Christmas today.

              Again our dinner table is full, and it hits me suddenly, a punch to the chest, that there isn’t even a spot for Logan if she were here.

              Later, when I’m in my room, staring at the blades of the fan as it spins around and around and around, I wonder if she would chose to be here if she could.

27

January 13, 2010

              “Did you know?” he asks me again.

              Looking him in the eyes, I wonder if I should tell him the truth. I know that I can, that he wouldn’t say anything, but it’s just another mark against me in the
I’ve-done-nothing-right
department. “Yeah,” I finally admit. “I did.”

              Derek, who refuses to respond to Crowley any longer, nods. “I figured as much.”

              “Does Chief know that I know?”

              His head seesaws back and forth. “I’m sure he suspects, but he didn’t come right out and say it.”

Derek scratches his head and then sighs. There’s something else he wants to say. “Spit it out,” I tell him.

“Logan confessed to a murder.”

I’m pretty sure the floor collapses underneath me, sends the pit of my stomach into a free fall that threatens to reveal my recently eaten lunch. Nothing comes out when I open my mouth.

“Mom’s boyfriend, back in April,” he tells me. “The guys are investigating it but haven’t found much.”

April
. After
us
.

It could have been avoided. If I hadn’t lied to her in the first place, had been honest about my knowing her and my job, she would have trusted me. She would have stayed with me.

Details. I need details. “Tell me what you know,” I demand. Derek sighs, looks at his beer, shakes his head. “Derek, fucking tell me what you know.”

“It isn’t going to help or change anything, man. Just let it go.”

“Don’t make me ask again.”

“Fine. Be a stubborn bastard.” He takes a deep breath, chugs the rest of his beer, and then looks me in the eyes. His are so dark, all pupil and no color. It’s unnerving, not being able to identify where one ends and the other begins. “She told Luis and Gabriel that he was trying to rape her. She panicked, stabbed him in the neck with her car keys, and then when that didn’t work, stabbed him in the temple with a rusty knife. You know what’s sick?”

I can’t breathe. Closing my eyes, I imagine Logan in that tiny house, that fucking bastard with his hands on her, what Logan had to do. How can so much shit happen to one person?

“She
apologized
. Luis said she just kept telling them she was sorry. Broke his heart, you know, cause he’s got two daughters of his own. One’s Logan’s age, I think.”

But I’ve stopped listening to Derek. The imaginary scene runs through my head, my mind filling in the little details, like the fear pumping through her veins or the adrenaline fueling her fight. And suddenly I’m feeling so damn proud of her for fighting.

“Emily’s worried about you,” Derek says.

I open my eyes and level him with a look. “She’s too young, Derek.”

His eyes narrow in confusion, and then he understands what I’m implying. “She’s twenty-one, Nathan. She’s not a baby.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter, dude.”
Deep breath
. “You’re a cop, for chrissake. Your job is dangerous. She doesn’t need to be pulled into that shit.”

He sits back in his chair, lets out a loud sigh. “I know. You’re right.”

“I’m sorry, man. You’re my friend. It’s just- she’s had a hard life. She doesn’t need anything else to worry about.”

Derek waves his hand in the air, dismissing my apology. “Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s fine.” A moment of awkward silence, and then: “Logan gets out of that place soon.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like she’s…locked up or something.”

“Jesus you’re sensitive today. Fine,
she comes home soon
. Better?”

He’s right. Ever since the day they found Logan half dead, I’m edgy. Taking comments personally. The guys at the station have taken to calling me a vagina. I’ve been tempted to junk punch a few, but it would only make things worse. And put me on probation, which would take away my excuse to leave the house and the bar.

“I know you care about her, man, but maybe you need to let her go. She’s gunna have a lot of shit going on when she gets out, ya know?” The waitress comes over and Derek orders another beer. I pass. “New family, new city, no friends. You’ll just- you’ll remind her of the past, whether you like it or not.”

I start to interrupt him, to stick up for myself-
I’m a good part of her past,
I want to say, but he holds a hand up before I’ve got the first word out. “I know what you’re going to say, and yeah, you were probably like her Prince Charming or whatever through all of this, but don’t you think she should get the chance to start over? A clean slate and all?”

When did Derek get smart? But God I want to punch him in the face right now because he’s so damn right. And it hurts to know that I’ll have to do that for her, that I’m a part of something she shouldn’t have to remember or deal with. How did I never think about it like that?

“I’m just sayin. But what the hell do I know, right?” he adds, a sarcastic laugh following.

The waitress drops off his beer, bends low and slides a napkin on the table. “I’m Ainsley, if you need anything. And there’s my number, just in case.” She smiles at him one more time before walking away, her ass swinging side to side the entire time.

When she’s gone, I shift my eyes to Derek, who’s crumbling up the napkin. “That happen a lot?”

Looking embarrassed, he shrugs his shoulders. “Nah. Just every once in a while.”

Eyeing the piece of paper, I push down the guilt I’m feeling for telling him to stay away from Emily. I know he’s a good guy; he is my partner, after all, and I trust him with my life, but he’s too old for her and she’s my baby sister and isn’t this something that I’m supposed to do? Protect her? Screen the guys that make their way towards her? It doesn’t matter that he’s respectful and has a steady job- she’s still too good for him. For anyone.

“Why don’t you call her, since you seem so interested in that napkin,” Derek says.

I shake my head. “Definitely not interested.”

“You’ll have to move on eventually.”

“Eventually, maybe. Not right this minute, though.”

Not ever
, is what I’m really thinking. It sounds cheesy but what happened between Logan and I was so much more than the sum of its parts. It wasn’t a
boy meets girl and falls in love
scenario, but more like a
boy meets girl and falls.
End of story. I fell for Logan, hard, in the kind of way that a star falls through the sky- bright and blinding, and then gone and dead.

The only difference is that this shooting star’s wish has expired.

To change the subject, I bring up Danny and Brody. “Brody’s only getting a year, tops, but Danny’s doing five to seven. You were right, you know.”

“About what?” I ask, holding the glass of water to my lips.

“About Danny being the head of it all. It was always him. Brody didn’t even touch the shit.”

“So why were we so hell bent on taking Brody down?”

Derek shrugs his shoulders. “He’s smarter than we thought, I guess. Danny probably had it all planned out since god knows when.”

“Do you think his brother was in on it?”

“Miguel?” Derek shakes his head, spins the now empty beer bottle on the table. “Nah. He seems like a half-way decent guy. From what I’m hearing, their dad is pretty high up in that world.”

“Didn’t even know there was a dad.” I never thought to look much farther than what was in front of my face. I guess that was the problem the whole time.

“Nobody did. Different last names. The guy’s like a ghost.” He sighs and sits forward in his chair. “What I’m saying is that you did the right thing. You did well. Danny and Brody are just the tip of an iceberg that you found.”

“What you’re trying to do is convince me that all of this was worth it,” I say, reading between the lines.

Derek half smiles. “Basically.”

“I don’t know, man. Do you really think that?”

“Honestly? Yeah, I do. Look at this way; Logan may never have gotten the help she needed if it wasn’t for you. They would still be living together, Danny would still be dealing. He may not have hurt her too badly yet, but who knows what could have happened. People like that don’t get nicer- they get more power hungry, more ruthless. It’s a downward spiral.”

Shaking my head, I look around the small bar, watching as people talk and laugh, so oblivious to us and danger in general. “I put so many people in danger, including my own family. That doesn’t make me much better than him.”

“You’ve got a weird way of seeing it. If that’s what you want to think, than yeah, maybe your job put your family in danger. But the difference between you and him is that you did it for the right reasons. Your motives are pure, even if the outcome wasn’t. Can’t say the same about Danny.”

We sit there for a while longer, drinking beer and talking about less heavy topics. But in the back of my head, the doubt lingers. The thin line separating good from bad blurs and shifts, and I’m trying desperately to stay on one side. It’s hard, though, when a part of you wants nothing more than to say fuck the line and take matters into your own hands. Derek thinks my motives are pure, but I’m starting to think they never were in the first place.

28

February 1, 2010

              Another sleepless night passes by in a blur of half-awake dreams and half-asleep fears. Flashes of Logan, bloody and deranged, mingle with memories of us together, in this bed, skin against skin. One minute she’s curling around me, begging for more, and the next minute she’s pushing away, screaming at the top of her lungs.

              When I’m finally able to pull myself out of the haze of sleep, I’m shaking and drenched in sweat. It hits me that at this very moment, as the sun rises above the resting world, Logan is walking away from her prison and into the freedom of a new life. Sitting up in bed, I close my eyes, the orange light of the new morning making it look as if the world is on fire. I try to imagine what a healthier, happier Logan looks like, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen her as anything but almost dead that I can’t immediately picture it. Slowly, though, the blanks fill in.