I shrug. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
His brows crease then relax with understanding. “You relapsed.”
“I did. Ten months ago, when Brooke died. It was difficult for me. See, before I only suffered from hearing voices. But I had my first hallucination about a month after her death.”
“Of what?”
“Her.”
Logan pulls his head back. “Brooke?”
“Yeah.” I lower my head, ashamed. “My therapist said it had to do with the tragic loss. For most individuals, the loss of a loved one is an excruciating pain and they grieve, eventually moving on. But someone who already suffers from psychosis, someone like myself, tends to deal with things differently. Not everyone with my condition would have had the reaction I did. People with psychosis all have different triggers and such. But for me, I couldn’t accept the fact that she was gone.
“Brooke was everything to me. She was my rock. She kept me on my toes. She cared for me, and never once did she make me feel like I was different. She always encouraged me, told me I could be a famous artist or a politician or a teacher. Whatever I wanted to be in life, in her eyes I was capable of being it. When others saw the glass half empty, she saw it three quarters of the way full. She was one of those annoying people who was always quirky but happy.” I laugh, tears welling at the rim of my eyes.
“If you told her an image was ugly, she’d look at you as if you were nuts and show you how beautiful the picture truly was by pointing out details, the nuances in the color, the shading, the texture, the meaning behind it. Showing you that flaws could be stunning and intriguing and mind-blowing—that was Brooke. At the end, you’d be inspired by the portrait and even more by her. That’s just the person Brooke was. That’s the person who was taken away from me, and I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I hated myself and everyone around me because I couldn’t understand why she was taken away. Why wasn’t it me?” Logan thumbs over my moist cheeks, wiping away the tears as I force my next words out. “The world needs more of her and less of me.”
“Don’t say that, Jersey Girl. You deserve to be here. Whatever happened to Brooke was out of your control. There was nothing you could do. You hear me?”
I shudder, tightly clamping my eyelids closed. As much as my father and Charlie said it wasn’t my fault, there’s always something nudging at me that it was. Like maybe I could have saved her somehow. The thought reopens old wounds, and I burst into hard sobs. Logan pulls me into him, consoling me as I let it out.
And I do.
It’s past midnight. Logan fails at TV surfing as he nods off in bed. He’s seated up against the wooden headboard. I’m lying beside him, my head on his lap, looking up at him. His fingers gently comb through my hair, pausing midstride when he dozes off, then continuing when he comes to and flashes his eyes open.
After I cried my eyes out—when I thought there was no possible way I could shed another tear—Logan and I continued to sit by the lake. No words were spoken after that. None were needed. Logan had comforted me the only way he knew how: by holding me. His arms curled around me, his gesture silently reminding me that he wasn’t going anywhere.
We didn’t leave until it began to rain. Then we had dinner with the rest of the crew. It was a nice distraction from the haunted thoughts fighting for my attention.
When outside partiers began to trail indoors, Logan and I snuck into his room. For the past two hours, we’ve done nothing but lie here. Since Logan’s room is located by the front of the house, the music and noise from out back is very distant.
I watch him doze in and out as I continue to trace his features. My eyes scroll over his, admiring the thickness of his lashes. They’re not long, but they’re dark enough to bring out the metallic cerulean hidden behind his hooded eyelids. I suck in air as my stare drops to his stubble-covered jawline, which could quite possibly be chiseled directly from granite. My gaze dashes to his full, soft lips. As quickly as it came, the air dissipates from my lungs, as I think of exactly how those lips taste. Although I’ve only fully felt them twice against mine, I’d recognize the owner of those lips on any given day.
Immersed in every inch of his rugged aspect, I try to memorize all of it, imprinting each and every fine detail of his features, and vault it deep within my head. A place where I can lock away the perfect image of the man—
Suddenly it hits me all at once.
I hope that there’s a moment in everyone’s life when everything around them just stops. There’s no movement whatsoever, yet you feel…
Every. Single. Thing.
All of the emotions traveling through every cord, fiber, and thread of your existence—every muscle, aching. You want to cry. You want to laugh. You want to drop to your knees because you feel the weight deep within your chest. It’s too difficult to bear, but you won’t let it go.
You can’t let it go.
Because deep down you know without it you’re nothing.
Lifeless.
This is madly, passionately, and without a doubt falling in love.
With every part of me, I’m falling in love.
And now that I have it, I just want to grip on to it for dear life. Because I know once it’s gone, I’ll be back to where I started: in a tomb, feeling numb. Before Logan, I thought if I stripped away any chance of feeling at all, I could keep myself from getting hurt. But I’d rather feel every single emotion, where it pains me so much to love, than feel nothing at all.
Logan makes me feel alive.
I’ve fallen in love with this man, this man that looks past my imperfections and accepts me.
I want to give him all of me. I’m in love with him. I am truly, without a doubt, deeply in love with Logan. It’s a feeling I thought I had experienced before with Eric. A feeling I thought I knew. But I never really knew this feeling. What I have for Logan sits deep in my chest, rooted at the center of my heart, submerged and hidden for no one else but him. It’s within my soul.
If I die today, my soul will forever be his.
So many emotions twirl deep within me. Tears filled with the love I have for this man obscure my vision. I’m unable to control it any longer. Sitting up, I lean in, shutting my eyes as I kiss him. The tears collect along my lashes and drip down my cheeks. Logan sucks in a breath as he awakens. It doesn’t take him long before he registers what’s happening and his lips respond, perfectly united with mine.
It’s a kiss unlike any we’ve ever shared. It’s sensuous yet obsessive and urgent. Though he’s taken off guard, he doesn’t pull away. His lips naturally mold to my mouth as if kissing me is the most natural thing in the world. He tenderly sucks on my bottom lip, gently tugging my flesh between his teeth. I lose control. I need to be near him, closer. Never breaking contact, I position myself across his lap, straddling him.