Where the Staircase Ends(31)

I had no idea what it meant, or why in the world snow would be falling out here in the middle of nowhere. But one thing was clear: someone was listening to me after all.





CHAPTER ELEVEN


THE FIELDS




I was never in love with Logan, but I wanted to be. I at least wanted to know what it was like to love someone who saw me the way Logan did, so I tried hard to see the best in him.

He had this floppy hair that fell in his eyes, and there was something sweet about the way he had to tip his head back to look at me through the mop. My mom used to say he was a “total Beatle,” which was stupid because the Beatles were like a billion years old. Plus it grossed me out because she was trying to tell me she thought he was cute. Who wanted their mom to think their boyfriend was cute? But he was cute in this boyish way, as if his face tried to hold on to its innocence even though the rest of him was grown up.

He was also an incredible artist. He could draw pretty much anything he saw, even me. That was how he finally won me over. He drew this amazing pencil sketch in Spanish class with the words “Want to grab a bite sometime?” scrawled on the bottom of the page in his scratchy all-caps handwriting. I remember looking at the picture and thinking, is that me? Because the way he drew it made me look like so much more than I really was. In it, my chin rested on my hand and my head leaned to the side in this thoughtful way, making my neck look long and graceful and my ponytail smooth and polished. My lips were pressed together in a smile, like I was holding in a secret, and there was something about the way he drew my eyes that made them look both pensive and alluring all at the same time.

The girl in the drawing wasn’t me, but she was the girl I wanted to be—the kind of girl whose mother never needed to nitpick her flaws because she didn’t have any. I knew I didn’t look that way to the rest of the world, but the fact that he saw me that way made me feel pretty amazing. I still had the picture taped up to my bedroom mirror, and every now and then I used to try resting my chin on my hand and tipping my head in the same way to capture the pose, but I could never quite recreate it.

He liked to leave drawings of flowers in my locker: tulips, orchids, hydrangeas, roses, calla lilies, daisies, a whole botany exposition sketched out in perfect detail just for me. Sunny used to say they were cheap imitations, and I shouldn’t trust a guy who tried to pawn off drawings in place of the real things, but I preferred the drawings. Real flowers died, but I had a whole bouquet living inside my locker because of Logan.

His jealousy could be irritating—sometimes all it took was some guy looking at me one millisecond longer than Logan thought was necessary and he’d fly off the handle. But I secretly liked the way he would sling his arm protectively over my shoulder, and the way he’d glare defiantly at people, daring them to take him on. It felt good to be wanted; it was nice to have someone who cared enough to fight for me.

But there were things I didn’t like about him no matter how hard I tried. And man, did I try. Sometimes it took all my patience to put up with him. Like the way he openly farted around me instead of blaming it on a squeaky shoe or the dog. Or the fact that he laughed like someone squeezed him, making noises that sounded more like honk, honk, honk rather than ha, ha, ha. And there was the way he kissed. His lips were always too wet and his tongue a little too forceful, like he was only doing it because he had to in order to get to the other stuff.

Then there was the time in his car, when I told him to stop but he didn’t want to.

His hands were rough and wrong, and when I pushed him away he only pressed me more firmly against the reclined seat, digging my thigh into the seatbelt clasp hard enough to bruise it. I squirmed underneath his hot breath as his lips worked their way up and down my neck and his hands fiddled with my bra clasp.

“Come on, Taylor,” he crooned as I tried to wedge myself out from underneath him. “I thought you said you wanted to do this? Just relax.”

I had said I wanted to do it. For a moment I thought I wanted to get the whole first time thing out of the way. Sunny said it wasn’t that great; it was better to tick the task off my to-do list than let the anticipation build, only to be let down in the end.

Then I saw the green tree-shaped car freshener dangling from his rearview mirror, the edges brown from cigarette smoke and the pine fragrance long since evaporated from the cardboard. I watched it twist and spin against the air conditioner’s force, waving back at me from its noose.

Not like this.

“Stop,” I told him. “Logan, stop.”


He ran his hands up and down my body, inching my skirt higher and higher until it wrapped around my waist, the fabric twisting and bunching against my skin. The air conditioner blasted against my bare thighs, and I broke out in goose pimples. Despite the cold, the back of my legs were sweating and sticking to the faux leather seats. Logan shifted his weight so he could pull down my underwear, his grip on me loosening enough so I could wriggle an arm free. He was too distracted to notice, a soft groan escaping his lips as he worked to undo his jeans. He ignored the “stops” still spilling from my mouth, and right before he pressed himself against me, I wheeled my hand back and slapped him. The first time I only managed to tap the side of his head, but the second time I put my rage behind the swing, striking him sharply across the side of his face.

“God damn it, Taylor!” He climbed off me and into the driver’s seat. He touched his cheek and drew his hand back, like he expected to find blood. “Damn it,” he added more quietly.