Page 86 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
“Turn it back on me. You do it all the time. I ask you a question and you don’t answer. You flip it back to me, and I keep talking. You never answer my questions.”
“That’s not true?—”
“Then what do you want to do after high school?”
“I don’t know.” Logan’s voice was more emphatic than irritated, stress pinching his face. “I—I don’t know.”
And that was it. The atmosphere of the car felt thick, and though I watched him, he didn’t crack underneath the pressure of my stare.You don’t know me, Madison, he’d told me that day in the alley, and I could still see the flat look in his eyes as he’d said it.You just liked the idea of me.
And here I was, after having decided to date him, still feeling as though he was a stranger.
“You have this whole life,” I whispered, the words coming out of me in a rush. “This whole life that I feel like I know nothing about. I’ve talked about myself and my issues and my problems, but when I ask you things, you don’t answer me. Not about big things. Not about things that matter.”
Logan had sat patiently listening to my rambles and rants, responding with nothing but careful advice. But he’d never reciprocated. He never complained, never rambled or ranted. I didn’t do anything but bleed him dry, never getting the chance to pour into him, too.
My pinch of a grip on my jacket turned into the fabric wrapped up in my fist. “Is this one-sided?”
“Is what?”
“Us.” I couldn’t look at him; I wouldn’t be able to handle it if his expression shifted. “Are you really… chalant about me?”
Logan turned into my driveway then, but slowly, flicking off his headlights as he slid the car into park. He turned to me in his seat, eyes seeming to glow in the low light. It was the first time that I looked at them and wasn’t immediately swept up in their color. “I’m sochalant about you, Madison,” he said seriously. “You have no idea.”
The words should’ve soothed me, but they only made my stomach twist tighter. “Then why don’t you tell me things? Is it because you feel like I won’t hear you if you said it, then?” My stomach twisted. “That I’m too busy wrapped up in myself to hear you?”
Logan closed his eyes, his jaw flexing. “Of course not?—”
“Then what?” My voice cracked before I could catch it. “You didn’t even tell me about your play. You talk about it with everyone else, but you didn’t tell me. Why not me?”
Even though it’d only been a few weeks, Logan had quickly become one of my closest confidants. It was as if he could reach inside me and warm something that’d been frozen, could ease the fears and nerves that hid themselves in a corner. I wanted to be the warmth that thawed him from the inside out, too.
Instead, I was someone too focused with themselves to be that person for him. “Is it because you think I’ll judge you for it?”
His eyes were still closed. “No, Madison, that’s not?—”
“Thenwhy?”
“Because I shouldn’t be—” Logan broke off with a hard sigh, sinking back into his seat, hands falling limp to the bottom of the steering wheel. His face was screwed up, and his chest rose and fell quickly, as if he couldn’t quite catch his breath. “I shouldn’t be getting attached.”
Getting attached. The phrase slammed into me, and the wind knocked out of my sails.Getting attached—likea dog he was only fostering, not adopting. I was suddenly cold all over. “Why not?”
This time, he couldn’t bring himself to answer.
“Because you don’t think this will last?”
Logan’s voice was quiet. “No.”
I flinched back from the quick answer; he hadn’t even hesitated. It was suddenly so clear—he thought we wouldn’t last because ofme, because he couldn’t fully trust that I’d chosen him. And, really, how could he? I’d come to Logan after the Most Likely To list practically telling him to his face I was only going to date him to prove my friends wrong. I fought him at every turn, from mini golf to arcades to even dancing in the rain.
It wasn’t just that he didn’t trust me. It was that I hadn’t given him a reason to. I’d mocked what he cared about, treated his world like it was a joke. And the worst part was, I hadn’t even seen how much it could hurt him—how it kept him from letting me in at all.
What is wrong with me?I thought, despair curling tight in the darkness of his car.
Maybe Jade and the Top Tier and the Most Likely To list were all right. I really was going to peak in high school.
The silence was buzzing so loud in my head that I almost missed Logan’s voice. “Madison?—”
“I should go inside before my mom comes out,” I murmured, popping open the passenger’s door almost blindly. My legs were stiff, unwilling, but I forced myself out anyway. “Drive home safe.”
