Redeeming Logan

Chapter Twenty- Six

Taliah

I awake cocooned in soft, downy warmth; my body aches in a few places, but aside from that, I’m the most comfortable I’ve been during my time at Harmony Heights. Not wanting to ruin my new found comfort, I relish in it for a few minutes longer until my bladder starts to protest. Groaning, I open my eyes and sit up in the soft bed I’ve been laid in. The surrounding black sheets, pillows, and walls are unrecognizable to me until last night's events trickle back into my mind. The realization that I’m in Logan’s bedroom has a sense of triumph coursing through my body, but then its deflated when I notice I’m alone. Stretching my limbs out, I climb out of bed and find the bathroom in the back corner of the room. I do my business and come back out to snoop around. Logan’s room is all black everything, with accents of dark mahogany wood throughout. The window seat in the corner over looks the same forest that I stare into every single night.

A shiver courses through my body, taking notice that I’m still naked. Seeing a door in the opposite corner of the room, I try the doorknob and it twists open with ease. A dark room greets me, feeling around the wall beside the door, I find the light switch and switch it on. The room is bathed in a warm light, revealing racks full of clothing within. Mostly dress clothes, the same button down shirts and slacks on rack after rack. As I travel further into the closet, I find a shelf in the back full of shirts and other loungewear. Selecting a black shirt, I toss it over my head and throw my arms through the holes. The shirt swamps me, hitting below my knees. Logan’s musky smell assaults my senses as I bury my nose in the collar of his shirt. Turning around to head out of the closet, an ornate wooden box catches my eye on the shelf above the clothes.

Running my fingers along the gold filigree over the box, my curiosity peaks. I know I shouldn’t, but I grab the box down from the shelf anyway, holding it in my palms before carrying it out of the closet. Taking a seat on the plush gray carpet beside the bed, I set the box down in front of me. It’s made of mahogany wood with the initials LCM in cursive on the top. Assuming those are Logan’s initials, I crack the lid open, determine it’s not boobie trapped, then flip the lid open all the way. Folded papers and photos lie in a stack inside, some colored yellow from age while others have deep creases from being folded and unfolded so many times. Sorting through the many old photographs of Logan as a child, I find one in particular that pulls at my heartstrings. Logan is young, maybe five, and a young woman holds his hand as they walk through a meadow. Her honey blond hair sways in the wind, a smile plastered on her face and his. I set the photo on the floor beside me and pick up the crumpled paper shoved into one corner of the box. Carefully I spread it out on the floor in front of me, reading the aged handwriting, a gasp leaving me.

Dear Logan,

I’m sorry it had to come to this. I loved you with everything in me, but you don’t know what love is. Your twisted version of love is what drove me away. I told you that she was yours, but I lied. I was a fool for thinking that you would change if you thought I was pregnant with your child. But, your love hurts, and I don’t want any part of it anymore. I’m not your little lamb, and neither is she.

–Shannon

By the time I finish the letter, my anger has peaked, rolling off of me in waves. This has to be the reason Logan wouldn’t let me in; he wouldn’t let himself feel anything for me. Whoever Shannon is, I hope she’s dead in a ditch somewhere. The thought makes me frown and my stomach roll with how much of a jealous girlfriend I sound like. Intent on reburying the past, I go to shove the letter back into the box when the sound of someone clearing their throat startles me, “Well, don’t stop on my account.” Logan looks down at me with amusement as I stare up at him with wide eyes, being caught red handed. My emotions were so high that I didn’t even hear him enter the room. Logan leans down to sit on the floor in front of me, the wooden box between us on the floor, reaching over and grabbing the photo that I placed next to me. He holds it in front of him, a faint smile spreading across his face. “This was my mother; she was beautiful. So happy and carefree, the day we lost her was the day I stopped caring about anything, about anyone.” I stay silent as he continues to speak of her with fondness. “Her name was Lucille. This box used to be hers—the only thing I have left of her, actually. Shortly after this photo was taken, we found out that she had cancer. It started as just a spot on the skin of her shoulder and spread, destroying her body in it’s wake. Watching her die was the worst thing I ever experienced, and from then on I vowed to not care for someone like that again.” He sets the photo gently back in the box and reaches for the crumpled letter still sitting in front of me.

The look of love in his eyes transforms to hate almost instantly as he scans the letter. “Shannon was my step sister.” He looks up at me at my shocked gasp. Before I can say anything at all, he continues on, “My father married her mother when I was eighteen. She was thirteen, a tiny, shy little thing. My father ordered me to be the ‘ best big brother ’ to her, and to say I took that just a bit too literally is an understatement. I became obsessed with her, and not in a good way. I thought she loved me, but now I know it was all a lie. She was just biding her time until the day she could be rid of me. My genius plan to get back at her was to hurt the one thing she actually cared about, her daughter, but in truth, I don’t think she ever really cared about her either.” When he finishes, he tosses the paper aside, and we sit in comfortable silence while I digest what he told me. So many questions and emotions whirl around inside of me, and I’m not sure where to start.

“Fuck Shannon, she didn’t deserve you.” Spewing the hateful words out of my lips as I get to my feet and walk over to the window seat. Pulling my knees to my chest and leaning my head against them, staring out the window at the swaying trees. “You just wanted what everyone in the world wants—to be loved, to be cherished.”

“You say that like you know this from experience.”

“Well, isn’t that what everyone wants, Logan? To be the center of someone else's world? Your mother loved you, and you just wanted to replace that love after you lost her. There’s no crime in wanting something like that.” I finish off softly with wishes of having a mother like Logan had.

“Tell me about your mother, Taliah. What is she like?” I hear the shuffle of Logan’s feet as he crosses the carpet to sit on the other side of the window seat. He grabs my feet and places them in his lap, smoothing his hands up my legs, rubbing at my sore muscles, careful not to touch the deep wound on my right calf.

“There’s not much to tell. She loved her pills more than me; they both did. Sold me to a stranger to pay off their drug debt. I can’t even tell you the last time my mother looked at me with anything but hate and disgust. She used to call me a cockroach, an unwanted pest in her home she just couldn’t get rid of. My father wanted me though, but not in a way that's acceptable by society, let alone a way that I reciprocated.” His grip on my leg tightens painfully as I tell him about my parents. Tilting my head to look up at him the anger in his eyes is palpable, and if I were anyone else, I would be scared of him. “It’s okay, Logan; I won’t ever see them again, so it doesn’t matter anymore.” Reaching down, I grip his hand in mine, holding on for dear life in a comfortable bubble of silence.