So then the dumbest thing happened. Dumb, dumb, dumb. It started at breakfast, it ran to the end of breakfast, and came to a point-of-no-return when I saw Vera again.
I cried. I actually cried...in front of him. I freaking cried.
Logan and I went over to Pucket’s. As the clock ticked by, and as it got closer to him leaving, my eyes began to water. Damn it. I looked away, I tried to force the tears down but, urgh, I wept. I frickin wept. And it was mortifying. Totally mortifying.
He asked me to text him, but there was something in his eyes that made me feel he didn’t want me to. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing, it’s cool.”
“Tell me.”
“Nothing. It’s nothing, Kyla.”
A lead weight settled in my stomach, and Logan noticed. “Jesus,” he said, wrapping his arms around my neck. “Would you relax? It’s just... The fight on Friday. I...” He looked away. “I...” He looked down, shook his head. “I went through a bad patch once,” he said, “with another women. She made me...soft. And my fighting suffered.” He looked into my eyes again, nothing but honesty burning in his own. But he didn’t say anything more.
“You did lose because of me, didn’t you?”
He looked away.
“Logan, tell me.”
“Yes,” he said, regret filling his voice. “It wasn’t because of you but... When I saw you...” And then he fixed his gaze firmly on me. “It’s not you, Kyla. If I didn’t have to win every bout just to breathe, I’d love to think about the easy life. You give me a feeling in my heart like such a life could exist. I can’t believe in that life if I’m going to continue to win. So if I don’t hear from you, I’ll be aching. I need to ache when I get into that cage. I need to think you’re not interested. I need to stay focused.”
“Otherwise you’ll end up getting your head cracked.”
He didn’t answer, but I knew it was the truth.
“OK, I won’t text you, or call you.”
He looked me in the eyes. “Unless it’s over, Kyla. If you get sick of me, tell me. I don’t want to be on the end of a string for nothing.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
His eyes closed. “Just...tell me. If you decide, for whatever reason, that you’re not interested, at least tell me.”
“I won’t decide that.”
“Just promise me that you’ll tell me, at least.”
“I promise, but it’s not gonna happen.”
He gave me a list of places to hang out at in Denver, two or three spots he likes. “I can’t see you before the fight,” he said. “I have to stay focused. I can’t lose this next one.”
Like I made you lose the last one.
Logan held me on the street, and I wept some more. I mean...come on. “See you in a few days,” he said.
“Yeah.” Sniff sniff sniff. “Yeah, sure.”
He cupped my cheeks in his hands (bad move, because his blue eyes made me sad and his sexy body made me sad and his complete honesty made me sad.) “I’m so embarrassed,” I said.
Then he kissed me. Holy mother of mercy did he kiss me, out on the street, deep and passionate, and my legs almost buckled. “This is real, isn’t it?” I mumbled, not realizing what a toss (his word, already I was using his slang) I was being by saying it.
“Looks like it.”
Don’t break my heart, a voice in my head kept saying, and is still saying it. Don’t break my heart.
I nodded, gritted my teeth, and watched him walk away into his red truck. The engine roared, he honked, and I started walking away.
I walked up Fifth, past Jimmy Johns, past the Dollar General, past Walgreens. I was fine, I was OK, until I realized I was going the wrong way, which was good, because I kept walking, and the walking helped. I walked for a good hour before I found the Renaissance. I strolled into the lobby, the expensive and rich lobby, up the escalators, to our suite. And I didn’t care for any of it. None of it. I didn’t care about money, influence, power, none of it.
I cared about Logan.
I cared about his honesty.
I cared about how he treated me.
Logan is real.
I made it to outside the room door. I was fine. I was.
And then Vera opened it up, and it was a torrent of tears when I saw her. I wailed and whined and cried and wept and Vera grabbed me, pulled me toward her and held me and she said, “He’s a fucking asshole, Ky. He doesn’t know what he’s throwing away. What a prick!”
She had jumped to a conclusion. I tried to explain that she had it wrong, so wrong, but I couldn’t. “He—he—he—”
“He’s a fucking loser, Ky. Damn it. Do you and lose you. Screw him. There’s plenty of other cowboys in this town.”
“He—he—he—” Sob. Sob. Sob.
She pushed me back, held me at arm’s length. “How did he do it? Text? Goodbye fuck? Did that prick—”
“He wants to see me again!”
“—try and... What?”
“He...sob....wants to see me...hiccup...again.”
Vera’s face changes drastically. It’s taking all the power inside her, all the power in the entire universe for her not to laugh, but she can’t do it. She smiles. “He...wants to see you?”
“Yes.”
Her smile grows wider.
“And you want to...see...him?”
Sob. “Yes!”
And now the smile breaks into a small, suppressed chuckle. “And you’re crying...why?”
“Because I think I love him!”
Vera tilts her head, looks at me like she’s a mom and clucks her tongue affectionately. “Ah, baby, that’s so sweet.”
We hit up the Starbucks before hitting the road. I got the feeling there was something Logan wasn’t telling me when he said he needed to leave early. Something that didn’t affect us, but like he needed to clear his head.
Or maybe he just wanted some time alone to finally say goodbye to his ghosts.
I won’t push him. I’ll leave him alone. I’ll go to Derby with Vera in a few days, after Memphis, and we’ll watch the fight. And we’ll see what happens.
Yeah, yeah, it sounds so goddamn easy, doesn’t it?
Missing him hurts my chest.
Besides, he’s right, we need to be real about this. If we can survive the little steps of being apart (which we’ll end up being a lot if we continue ‘us’ and I have to go back to college in two months) then the chances of us surviving the long-term is higher.
Did I just get one-upped on relationship advice by a dude?
“So, tell me,” I say to Vera. “Jake.”
Vera’s eyes flick away, then back to me. “Jake?”
Uh-oh. “Yeah,” I say, stretching the word, “Jake.”
She sucks on her drink, doesn’t meet my gaze. “Uhm, he was cool.” She’s trying to sound blasé. She catches herself quick and changes her tune. “I mean, well, the dude was more interested in your man than he was in me. I think he was getting off on him in the bathroom. Debt Collector this and Debt Collector that. Damn, he couldn’t even bring himself to call him Logan. Sexy name, by the way. Oh, sorry, hon, I didn’t mean to remind you...”
I wave my hand, longing for the graze of Logan’s stubble against my cheek. “Why do I think you’re holding something back?”
“Hmm?” She looks up at me, straw in her hand.
“Vera, are you OK? You didn’t fall in love with the guy, did you?”
“Nah, no ways. I don’t do love.” She looks away. “Logan,” she says abruptly. “I wanna hear about Logan.”
I wait a second before answering. I can tell she’s trying to change the subject. But I’ll get it out of her, just like she’ll get everything out of me about Logan. We’re terrible at lying to each other.
Vera leans forward, takes a long suck of her Frappuccino (extra cream, extra coffee.) “He’s a frickin animal in bed, isn’t he?” she says.
I feel myself blush, look away, sip my own drink.
“Hey, c’mon, Ky. You always tell me everything.”
I bow my head, feeling the heat on my face like a flame. “He, uhm...he... It’s not the sex that has me reeling, Vera.”
Vera sits back, her eyes wide. “No shit.”
“No shit.”
“Damn. You’re frickin in love. I mean...for real.”
Tears prick my eyes. “It’s insane. It’s ridiculous.”
“How did this happen?”
“I don’t know.” I feel my lip trembling. Man, not again.
Vera sucks her drink, still stunned. “I’m amazed.”
“So am I.”
“Like, what, he told you his deepest secret and it melted you?”
“No.”
“He sucked your pussy so good—”
“Vera!”
“What? Pussy is a nice word.”
I look around, seriously hoping no one heard her. Never mind that the Presbyterian church is right across the road...
I shake my head. “It was a rush, Vera. I can’t explain it. We didn’t click, we...merged.”
“Oh, I know you two were doing some serious merging.”
“No, not like that. Like... I can’t even believe I’m saying this. I can’t believe I’m frickin emotional about this. He unlocked something in me, something that was closed and kept all the emotions inside and then, when they came out, when I finally let them out, there was no stopping them. He...he made me trust him, Vera. And I do, I frickin do.”
Vera stays silent, her drink paused midair. “You’re for real, aren’t you?”
I nod.
“Like, this shit really does happen.”
I nod again, not sure if I believe it myself.
“And him?”
I look away. That little evil elf of doubt whispers something in my ear again. He’ll break your heart, but I ignore it. “I think...well...I think he feels the same way. He wants to see me.” I tell her what Logan said. Everything he said, about him not being good for my future, but how he wants to see me as long as I want to see him.
“So, basically, you’re telling me he was warning you about himself so you don’t get hurt.”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck me, does he have a twin brother?”
“A sister.”
“I’ll take her. Is she hot?”
I laugh. “She’s nineteen, in college in England. Oxford. He pays for it, Vera. All of it. That’s why he fights. Her frickin fees are over twenty-five thousand dollars a year, and he keeps her there, taking on more than he can handle. Fighting almost every week, every week.”
Vera’s hand goes to her heart. She sighs. “I think I’m also in love,” she says.
I tell her more, I tell her all of it. I tell her how he read me bottom to top.
We sit there silently for a while. I try think of a smart way to bring the conversation back to Jake. “I’m sorry I left you in the lurch,” I say, “being with Logan all the time.” Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
“Aw, hell, Ky, the amount of times I’ve left you hanging in a bar while I go off to powder some dude’s cock? Forget it. We’re even. Besides, Jake isn’t that bad. I mean, in a weird sort of way, I like him.”
See? I knew it would work. “You like him...or you like him...”
There’s a moment’s hesitation before her answer, just a moment. “No, no, just like. Nothing serious.” She looks at the table.
“I see.”
She doesn’t say anything more, and the subject is dropped.
“I had a dream last night,” I say. “A nightmare. About...about my mother.”
The dream started coming back to me when Logan left and I went for that walk.
Vera’s face turns serious.
“She was drowning. And there was blood in the lake. And I found her... But I remembered something about it later. I remembered something about it from when I was four or five, maybe even younger.”
“Some people believe memory exists as far back as when you’re in momma’s womb.”
I shrug, I don’t care what people believe. I know part of this memory is real. “I think it’s real, Vera. I think... I think it really happened.”
She swallows, leans forward, moves her hand over to mine. “Are you OK?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve never looked for my mother. It’s not like I miss her or anything. I never knew her. But it’s the mystery of it all, y’know? Why didn’t my dad ever tell me anything about her? It bothers me.”
“Maybe she hurt him.”
“And he in turn hurts me?”
I look to the floor, thinking of the fights dad and I had when I said I wanted to go to WRU, all the way in Florida where he couldn’t see me and Boob Job Clarissa also couldn’t see me. WRU has a hot accounting program and I used that as an excuse. Then I threw my mother in his face, I told him he was never honest with me, that all I wanted were answers about her and he denied me those answers. Dad got pissed, real pissed, and for a second I thought he would strike me. I saw his fist clench up.
Instead, he told me to fuck off, to go and do whatever the fuck I wanted, see if he cared.
I walked out.
Dad paid for college.
And I sit all the way down in Florida trying to get good grades, hoping that’ll make him happy, hoping something about me will make him happy. If it weren’t for Amelia, I wouldn’t even go home for Christmases.
I can’t shake the feeling that I was a mistake, and that La Maribelle Beaudin left him saddled with me, left him in the lurch and he never really wanted me.
And then, back of that thought, there’s the fact that he has provided for me. Financially, I’ve had everything I needed. My car. My education. My clothes. I had it all.
I love my dad, I do. Sometimes, I’m just not certain if he loves me back, or if I’m just a burden he took on because it was ‘the right thing to do.’
Anyway, whatever, I hate freaking moping about this. Hate it. A lot of girls out there are worse off, far worse off than me. Hell, look at Ailee. Damn, she had a rough life.
“What do you wanna do about it?” Vera asks.
“Huh?”
“The dream, or the memory, or...”
“Nothing.” My answer is quick, as if I’m trying to convince myself.
“Maybe more will come back to you.”
“Or maybe I’ll realize it really was just a dream.”
“Was it?” she repeats, more firmly this time. “Only you can tell, Ky.”
That floating hair, that smile... “No, it wasn’t.”