Page 12 of Because of Logan

“This Saturday. I’ll be twenty-one.”

Skye looks at me and away again as she smiles her shy smile.

“What are you doing to celebrate it? A party?”

“I don’t know. River always comes up with something crazy, but I doubt it will be a party.”

“Books before parties, I remember.”

“Yeah, I’m boring like that.”

“Liking to read doesn’t make you boring. It makes you smart. Do you always celebrate together?”

She smiles at the compliment and takes another sip of her drink before answering me. I force myself to break eye contact and take a drink of my coffee, making a mental note not to come on too strong. I like this girl. I have no idea why, but I do.

“For the most part, yes. I’m sure River will have some big plan, being a milestone birthday and all, but I don’t know if I want to do anything she has in mind.”

“Why not?”

“Well, River can get a little crazy with our birthdays. She’s an all-or-nothing kind of girl and I’m more of a stay-out-of-trouble type.”

“What do you mean, a little crazy?”

“For our eighteenth birthday, we went skydiving. She dragged me to this small airport and made me jump off a perfectly good airplane.”

My eyebrows curve up and my mouth drops open. This surprises me.

“For our nineteenth birthday, we went on a hot air balloon trip. There’s nothing like seeing the fall colors from a hot air balloon in Vermont. That was cool. Still scary, but cool.”

“And last year?”

“Last year, we went bungee jumping. Off a bridge. It was terrifying. A thousand times worse than the hot air balloon and the skydiving.”

I wonder if she ever says no to anything her sister comes up with.

“I see a trend. Everything has to do with heights. Your sister must love the thrill of being up in the sky.”

“Nope. She’s afraid of heights and that’s why she does it. Confront your fears and all that.”

“She’s an interesting character. If this trend continues, rock climbing might be a possibility in your near future.”

“We did that when we turned sixteen. And whitewater rafting at seventeen. I didn’t see the connection until we got to the ten-foot drop in the middle of the river.”

“I think I’m scared of what twenty-one will bring.”

“Tell me about it. I just want to stay home and do nothing.”

“But you should do something. Twenty-one is a big milestone. You don’t want to look back on it when you’re ninety and regret not doing something special.”

“What did you do when you turned twenty-one?” she asks.

“Yeah—I don’t think you want to do that,” I reply, thinking of my last year in college when my friends took me to a strip club and bought me lap dances and enough alcohol to float a boat.

I’d never been so drunk and vowed to never be that drunk again. Stupid stuff happens when people get drunk, and I can’t afford for anything slightly unsavory to tarnish the family name. Even after years of being away from home and shunning my father altogether, his influence still reaches me. It pisses me off. Something must show on my face because she frowns at me.

“Was it something bad?”

“No, not at all, just not the wisest of decisions.”

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