“It’s not a prison, Logan.” I say this because something inside me insists I do, even though his words yet again strike hard and accurate.
“I want you to leave him and be with me,” he murmurs. “I have absolutely no problem saying it in so many words, right here, right now. That’s what I want. I want you. I want us. But I also want you to have a choice. I want you to be able to decide what you want out of life. Even if that isn’t me. Which means I’ll help you find what you want, regardless of the outcome for me.”
We’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk not ten feet from the front door of Caleb’s tower. This feels dangerous, somehow.
“Logan . . . why?” I really do not understand. “Why do you care so much?”
He shrugs. “I honestly don’t know, X. I wish I did. It’d be a fuck of a lot easier for me if I could just walk away, if I could stay away. But I can’t. I’ve tried.” He gestures up at the tower. “He’s not what you think, X. You have to see that much, at least.”
“Then what is he, Logan?”
A frustrated groan. “Not a good person. Not who you think.”
“What proof do you have, Logan?” I hear myself ask.
Do I need proof? More than the evidence of the third floor? Yet still I persist. I do not know why.
I do, though. Don’t I?
Because Logan scares me. He challenges my conceptions, my worldview. Makes me want things I’m not sure I can have. Things I never thought I could have. He makes me feel like choices I never even knew existed are suddenly possible.
Logan turns away, stares into nothingness, scrubs his hand through his hair. “None. Not yet, at least.”
A long, low, sleek, white vehicle slides up to the curb. It is a Maybach Landaulet 62. Worth somewhere between half a million and a million dollars. I’ve ridden in that exact vehicle. I know who is about to emerge.
“Shit,” Logan murmurs. He glances at me, eyes searching mine. Whatever he finds leaves him unhappy. “I’ll find proof, X. I’ll show you.”
I have no words; there is nothing to say. I can only watch him turn away, and feel a pang of sadness, a spear of distress. Something in him calls to me, speaks to my soul. The intensity of it frightens me. I do not know how to handle the power of what merely being near Logan does to me.
The rear passenger-side door of the Maybach opens, disgorging a god of the tall, dark, and handsome variety.
A displeased god. “Logan.” This, in a deep, cold voice. “She made her choice.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t mean it was the right one, though.” Logan walks away then. Doesn’t turn back.
Something in me fractures.
? ? ?
Why were you speaking to him, X? And what are you doing out here?” Your voice is low and calm. Too low, too calm.
“He was passing by. I ran into him.”
“What are you doing out here, X?” You repeat the question.
I find a seed of courage. “Am I not allowed outside, Caleb?”
Your eyes narrow. “Of course you are. You’re not a prisoner. I just worry for you. The streets are unsafe, and you’re prone to panic attacks.”
Prone to panic attacks. Yes. I am. But something about Logan soothes me. Makes me forget my panic. Makes it all okay.
I do not say this, of course.
“Sometimes I wonder if perhaps you don’t want me to really get over them, though,” I find myself saying. Unwisely. Foolishly. Courageously—the seed has germinated, perhaps. “I wonder if perhaps you just want me to stay up there in your tower, at your disposal.”
Your hand closes around my arm. “I’m not having this discussion with you out here.”
You pull me through the revolving door, back across the expansive marble lobby, and for some reason, I let you. I am outside myself, watching as I allow you to haul me into the private elevator, up and up and up back to the penthouse. Watching as you release my arm and pace in circles around me. You are, suddenly, a lion pacing in its cage, feral and furious, and I am a little lamb somehow stuck in the cage with the predator.
“I worry for you, X,” you repeat.
“I know you do.” I stand my ground, watch you pace. “Perhaps you don’t need to. Not as much.”
“Of course I do,” you insist. “Your understanding of the world beyond these walls is . . . limited.”
“And perhaps that is something I wish to rectify.”
“Why?” you ask. You cease pacing, stand inches from me, staring down at me, dark eyes icy with suspicion. “Why the sudden change?”
“It’s not sudden, Caleb—”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” This from you sounds almost . . . petulant.
Jealousy? It is unbecoming, Caleb. It does not suit you.
“It isn’t about Logan.” I pause, blink, thinking, and then take a breath to nudge the seedling of courage to grow a little stronger. “Or, not entirely.”
“What does that mean, X? ‘Not entirely’?”