AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That sounds like an excuse,” he says quietly, “for both of us.”
“That’s how it felt, though. You’re right.”
He smirks. “I’m right? You said it, Emma. A spell. Why don’t you stop here?”
I follow his gesturing hand to a rock face on the side of the road, the shadow almost completely black. Just past it, there’s a tree. I slow the car, drive over the gravel, and stop near the tree. When I kill the engine, I leave the lights off. We sit in darkness together.
When he finally speaks, it feels so intimate. “Explain what happened with the baby.”
“I don’t get it.”
“From start to finish. Learning you were pregnant.”
I almost snap again, but his voice is too fierce, too certain. He needs this. There’s a strange energy emanating from him. The atmosphere of the car changes to something somehow primal.
“Well, at first, I realized I missed my period.”
“More detail,” he says. “I want to be there with you. When I think of it, I want it to feel like I’m remembering it.”
I swallow. This is a bigger challenge than most creative writing teachers give me. “I was sitting at my desk, working on a story about a fantasy princess who becomes a warrior. It was an old one. I started it when I was a kid. I return to it now and then, sharpen it up. I don’t know if it’s any good.”
“I’m sure it is,” he says, with complete confidence, though he can’t possibly know.
“Then it just hit me. I felt like such an idiot. I rushed to the store. Well, first, I walked down the stairs, one step at a time, one step, one step…”
He chuckles. “Okay, smartass. As much detail as you want, then.”
“I drove to the store, called Chrissy… Uh, Logan, Chrissy knows about us, too.”
I say this before I can chicken out. When he hung up last night, I never dreamed he’d rush here to be with me. I never dreamed he’d… what, follow me? He must have done just that, followed me to the party. Should I feel violated? I don’t.
“I don’t care if the whole world knows about you and me,” he says.
Light flutters through me. So maybe that means I’m not just another quick lay, another fan, another notch in his belt. He said he wasn’t a playboy, but then I think about… “But not Dad,” I reply.
“He’s going to find out. You’re going to grow soon.”
I swallow. “I can’t even think about how he’ll react, especially after how you two left things. Or would it be better if you were still friends?”
“We are friends,” Logan growls. “Just because I handled this thing like a jackass doesn’t mean we’re not friends. It’s just… complicated.”
“Yeah, that’s an understatement.”
“He shouldn’t have told you anything about my childhood,” Logan goes on, voice cold. “But… yeah, I consider him a friend. As odd as it may sound, he’s my best friend. The closest one I’ve ever had.”
It’s also odd that we’re sitting like this, me in the front seat, Logan behind, in complete darkness. I want to feel his body, his security. I want to feel arms wrapped around me so that I never have to question if he will be there for me, for us, the baby, but he’s right. We’ll have to tell Dad eventually.
“Has Dad ever told you about his sister?” I ask.
“He didn’t have to. It happened while we lived in the same village—that poor girl. She thought that teacher loved her. She really believed it, and when he got arrested, she walked into the ice. The kids used to say she haunted the area. That was whyMicheland his family moved. Yes, I remember her.”
“He said she used to get this look in her eye,” I say, a chilly feeling creeping over me as I think of the aunt I never met. “Haunted, distant, and…”
“And I get that same look,” Logan says. “Is that it?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “You have it now.”
“It’s too dark for you to say that.”
