Page 72 of Tortured Eyes
Twenty-Six
Ineed the reprieve on the plane. It gives us both space, or rather it gives me the strength I need to rebuild the walls that Logan seems hell-bent on knocking down. And he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.
Trapped in a confined space with only him and a few cabin crew should send me up the wall, clamouring for revenge to draw blood and pain from his very skin, but that’s not what’s running through my head. I want him to look at me like he did on the street, longing for me to permit him. It was everything the twisted part of my soul wanted to see. Him wanting something from me, and me denying him and playing with his emotions. But it hurts a part of me to deny him because I can’t escape from the growing feelings I have for him. Morphed and contorted, they're as messed up and as sick as what Logan did to me in the first place, but they are here, rooted deep inside of me, buried under layers of confusion.
The glass of wine thrums through my blood as I sit and try to relax on the flight, but even the alcohol is adding to the anxiety around this whole situation. It would be helpful if I could go back to looking at things through a black and white lens—good and bad—but that lens is now cracked. The filter's broken, showing a grey and murky world that seems to have no end.
I close my eyes and recount the words Father Cleary said to me during our meeting, looking for alternative meanings and explanations. Logan’s manipulative nature, his cunning and power could all go towards why a man of God would fall for him, but I already know it’s not that side of Logan that Samuel Cleary sees.
The only good in his life. That’s what Logan sees Samuel as. Maybe it’s the same for Samuel. Or maybe Samuel gets to see something that is buried beneath this cold man the world sees when they're alone. A few brief glimpses over dinner was all I saw, a few quieter words and smiles, but it's enough for me to know that Logan is far from just the man he portrays.
Far from just a criminal.
My eyes snap open, and I stand from my seat, unable to even think of sleep while all of this is in my head. Four steps and I drop into a seat in front of him, not at all bothered with his conversation.
“I’ll call you back.” He ends the call and looks at me.
“Help me understand where I fit into your little world?”
“You don’t.” The look he gives me is all the Logan Cane we all see. Harsh, dismissive. But I know better.
“Bullshit. What happened to wanting what you can’t have?”
“I already have that. You’re just a complication.” He lowers his eyes to his phone and stabs at the screen.
“You should get your story straight. One minute you want me, the next you don’t?” I lean forward, desperate for him to stop with the tough-guy routine.
“Take your own fucking advice, Red.” He wags his finger back and forth between us. “This goes both ways. It’s not all me.”
“Jesus, Logan. I’m trying to figure this mess out. Make sense of it. For once, can't you just be honest? Do you even know how to have an honest conversation? No pretence, no agenda, no games. Just you telling the other person what you think or feel?”
He chucks his phone on the small strip of table between us. “What do you want me to answer first?”
His change of mood has me on the back foot, and I have to find the courage to ask the questions that are at the heart of this fuck-up.
“We don’t make sense.”
“No, we don’t. Neither do Samuel and I.”
“How can you do what you did with me while having feelings for him?”
“It’s hardly a traditional relationship, is it? Consider me open-minded and free-willed. I can be with him, but that doesn't stop me from fucking whoever else I want.”
“Including me?”
“Most definitely you.”
“Were you with him over the last few weeks?” The thought of it awakens something inside of me, something I have no right to feel.
His lips twitch, seeming to understand why I’m asking. "You feeling jealous, Red?”
“And if I said yes?” I make my statement bold. I asked for honesty. Logan needs to see I’m serious.
“I’d be pleased. Aroused. Honest enough?”
The air charges with his words, like we’ve come around to accept the fact that we are both in the same position, stuck, without a clear route forward. But just as it grows and feels like it could take us both over, his phone buzzes across the table. His eyes hold mine, and he ignores the vibration. Seconds stretch between us, as we wait to see if we’ll succumb to the unspoken feelings between us. The phone stills, but we keep our eyes locked.
He eventually pulls out a card, breaking the spell. “Take my number,” he says softly. I watch his hand scribble the digits down, my eyes focused on the veins along his knuckles, and I picture everything his hands have done to me. Both pain and pleasure.
