I have to blink to see around the double-wide, Mom keeps it so dark in here. I can immediately tell she hasn’t been out to look for a job like she promised.
She’s stuck in the same place on the couch where I left her this morning when I took off for school, nestled with about a thousand blankets over her, zoned out to what’s on TV.
“Have you eaten?” I start to ask when I notice a new addition to the discarded packages of chips and TV dinners.
“Mom,” I say slowly. “Why are all your pills out on the table like that?” There are dozens of bottles all grouped together, beside a tall glass of water.
It’s like for the first time since I banged into house she even realizes I’m home. “Oh, Logan. I didn’t hear you come in.”
It’s then that I really take in my mom. She used to be really pretty. I’ve seen pictures. But now she just looks…old and tired. Her eyes are sunken and barely open. Her hair is kind of papery and fried from being bleached too many times.
She was doing okay last year when she had this boyfriend, Rog, but he was a loser like every other guy she chooses and after they broke up, she’s just never really recovered.
When my dad left when I was little, she tried to kill herself. She wears bracelets on her wrists to cover the marks, but I never forget they’re there.
I eye all the little bottles again, wanting to grab them all up and pour them down the kitchen sink.
“Mom,” I insist. “What are you doing?”
Her eyes drift back towards me. “I don’t really understand the point of it all anymore. Why we’re all trying so hard. For what?”
For me! I want to grab her shoulders and scream. For your fucking son!
Why can she find the point in living for all those boyfriends but never for me? I guess I’m not enough. Was never enough.
I clench my jaw and stubbornly move past her to the coffee table and start gathering up all the little pill bottles.
“Wait, what are you doing?” It’s the first time all afternoon I’ve heard any life in her. “Stop that. Logan, I need those.”
I spin on her. “For what? So you can kill yourself and leave me all alone?”
She looks hurt, like I’ve wounded her, but then her eyes drop guiltily. Because we both know I’ve just spoken the truth. “It’s not like that, Logan. It’s not about you. These are grown-up problems. You can’t underst—”
“And if you die and leave me alone? You think that’s not some grown-up shit I’ll have to deal with?”
“Logan,” she gasps. “Language.”
“See?” I take her hands. “I need my mom to get on my case about language. I need you, Mom. I love you. It’s us against the world, right?”
She nods wobbly and squeezes my hands back.
“So you won’t leave me?”
She shakes her head. “I won’t leave you. I promise. Just trust me.”
“I trust you, mama.” And I do, I trust her more than anyone else, she’s all I’ve got in the whole entire world.
She starts pulling the pill bottles out of my hands. “I’m sorry I scared you. Let me just go put these back in the medicine cabinet.”
Reluctantly, I let go, but only after she gave me another long hug, and whispered in my ear, “You’re becoming such a good man, Logan. I’m so proud of you.”
I hugged her back, hard. Maybe we’d make it after all…
Except that the next morning I found her dead in her bathtub, bottles of empty pills strewn on the ground.
Thirty
Present Day
Daphne
When I finally make it back to my apartment yet again, still hauling my stupid suitcases around with me, I’m exhausted. Emotionally. Physically. The world is tilted upside down and all I want is to crash for about a hundred years.
Except that there’s Logan, pacing back and forth in front of my building like a stalking predator. His hair is wild and he’s not even wearing his mask. People are crossing to the other side of the street just to stay away from him.
But all I can think is Beautiful man. Beautiful beast.
I needed him and here he is.
I wave at him as soon as I get out of my taxi. “Logan, help me with my stuff.”
His face darkens as soon as he sees me. But I hold up a hand. “Don’t even start with me. You don’t know the day I’ve had. At least come into my place so we can talk things out.”
I can’t imagine a shouting match on a street corner in front of my townhouse.
Please just let him be reasonable and hear me out for once, I pray as we ascend the steps to my apartment. That’s all I need from him. I’m making so many sacrifices here and I need to see that he can do the same. That he can sacrifice his pride and listen.
He grabs the bags from me roughly and follows, a hulking, furious black cloud huffing behind me as we go up the stairs. He’s silent as I pull out my keys and push open the door to my empty apartment.
If he’s surprised by it’s emptied out state, he doesn’t say a word. Then again, not saying anything is becoming a theme with him. Though, maybe that’s a good thing. If I can say my piece, and if he’ll actually listen—
But as the door slams shut behind him, he barks, “On your knees. Beg for my forgiveness.”
I immediately start shaking my head. “Logan, I didn’t do what they said. Those pictures aren’t—”
“On your knees!” he roars. “Your Master has given you an order!”
Which just pisses me off. I love what he does to my body. I love the way he commands my pleasure and all that I’ve discovered in that space. But that’s not what this is. He’s pissed. He thinks I betrayed him. Again. And he won’t fucking listen.
I peel off my shirt. When he sees the bra I’m wearing—the same one from the pictures—his eyes go as dark as the clouds in the blackest storm.
“Did you enjoy being his whore?”
I fly at him but he catches my wrist before I can slap him. “I hate you,” I hiss in his face. “Nobody hurts me the way you do.”
“And you fucking love it,” he growls, face still furious as he drags me towards him, slapping my ass hard as soon as he can get his hands on me.
I’m instantly wet. He’s right. I’m addicted to him.
He grabs my face and kisses me hard. It’s a dominating, devouring kiss. Staking his claim as he slides a huge hand into my panties and pinches my clit within an inch of its life.
I squeal and twist beneath him, but when he releases his hold, the flood of pleasure that hits me like a wave has me buckling under him so that it’s only him who’s holding me up.
Not for long, though, because soon he’s dragging me to the ground, bunching his sweater underneath my head, and shoving my jeans all the way off.
“Please,” I can’t help begging. “I need you inside me.” Maybe if we can connect in this way, then we can start—
“I thought you hated me,” he sneers.
I twist underneath him to face him even as I kick off my pants the rest of the way. I search his eyes, so tumultuous with emotion, and I grab the sides of his face, the ruined and the whole, with my hands.