Porn Star(96)

Separate.

He says it so easily, so matter-of-factly, that I feel like a jerk for not being able to comply. Or like I’m naive. It’s the same way I felt when Raven confronted me. Am I really that ignorant?

Maybe we’re both that ignorant. Because this solution of his is not a solution I can get on board with.

Maybe this relationship isn’t one I can get on board with either.

Don’t jump to conclusions, Devi. Talk it out. “Is this really what you want, Logan?”

He shrugs. “I think it’s what’s best. For us. It will make things easier. It will make it possible for us to keep seeing each other.”

I run both of my hands over my forehead, as if I could sort out my thoughts if I just rubbed hard enough.

Logan drops his hands and bends down to meet my eyes. “Devi? Tell me what you’re thinking, will you?”

I can’t. Because the air suddenly feels heavy and the walls seem like they’re pressing down, and what I’m thinking is that I need to run. Which isn’t like me at all.

“Air,” I say. “I just…I need some fresh air.”

Before he can stop me, I bolt through the patio doors to the backyard and stand at the edge of his pool, drinking the night air in deep gulps.

I’m so mixed up about what’s happened. When I came over today, I’d been wary, but then I saw him. I saw the way he looked at me, and everything wrong was right again. He’d taken me roughly, yet it was, in every way, making love. We’d been normal. We’d been us. And when he’d held me in his arms and told me about his poetry love, all my worries about us disappeared.

Then came the scene. And everything was different, and part of me wants to tell him that his idea is stupid and ridiculous and can’t possibly work, but another part of me realizes that I have no other option to give him in return. Because how things were wasn’t working either.

Tears burn at the corners of my eyes. I know Logan’s trying to guide me through this. Maybe he’s even the North Star my mother suggested I look for. I mean, I hope he is. I love him, and I want to be with him. So maybe I just need to do what he suggests. But how can I, when everything he’s suggesting makes me feel even worse than before?

I hug my arms around my chest and look skyward. It’s smoggy. Typical for this part of L.A., and it’s barely worth looking up. Except just as I do, a meteor shoots across the darkness. It’s beautiful and blazing and not unlike how my heart feels at the moment. Like it’s on fire, and, even as it burns down to nothing, there’s something incredibly exquisite about it’s final fall into nothingness.

Like the fool stepping off a cliff.

“Did you make a wish?” Logan asks from behind me. He wraps his arms around me, his body warm and inviting against mine. Not for the first time, I’m aware of how the world around us dims when I’m in his embrace. If only we could live that way always.

I turn my head slightly toward him then look back at the sky. “You know, that tradition started back in ancient Greek times. Ptolemy used to say that it meant the gods were looking down on us, and that when they peeked through the spheres, star matter would slip through and that’s what we’d see fall through the sky. Since they were already paying attention to us, it was presumably a good time to ask for whatever our heart most desired.”

He brushes his lips against my temple. “I thought I had what my heart most desired. But twice now you’ve walked away from me, and I can’t help but think I should be wishing on that star right now for you.”

It hurts to hear him say it because in that one line I can tell both how much he loves me, and how much it’s going to hurt when I say the things I’m just beginning to realize I need to say.

So I stall. “They aren’t even stars.” I casually slip from his hold, needing distance from him to keep my mind in focus. “They’re particles of rock burning as they enter the earth’s atmosphere. Some of them so small, we’d refer to them as dust. Isn’t that funny how we put so much faith and trust into something so common and everyday?”

“Is it really so everyday, though? Dust might be, but catching it at just the moment that it burns up…I bet most people don’t look up enough to notice. Maybe the magic is in us taking the time to see it. And then taking the time to voice what it is we really want.”

His words strike a melancholy chord, and I turn to face him. Isn’t it kind of magic that I get to see Logan as I do? In common ways that burn brightly when caught in the right moment. Isn’t that what I have of him that no one else does?

It’s almost enough to send me back into his arms, but then he locks eyes with me and whispers, “Devi…” and, just like I know he’s voicing what it is he really wants, I know I have to voice what I really want.

“I can’t make pornographic films anymore,” I say.

He tenses. “Why? Because of LaRue? Because of Madden?”

“They’re a little bit a part of it, yes. But mostly because of—” you. That’s the word first in my mind, but I think of my heart and that falling star and know the real answer is, “me. It’s because of me.”

“I don’t understand. You don’t want to do het porn? Maybe you could go back to girl-girl shoots.” There’s concern in his tone, but underneath it I sense optimism. He’s relieved to hear this isn’t a problem with us, and now he’s probably assuming this conversation is going to be focused on my career.