What the fuck is she talking about? The motherfucker left me with nothing.
“Every time I look in the mirror I see what that fucker left me.”
“I’m not talking about the scar, honey. He left you with way more than that.”
Lauren wasn’t wrong. My dick of a father had left me with way more than a scar. I had a headful of trauma.
“You’d never hit me or any other woman.”
“Lauren—”
“And you’d never in a million years hit a child.”
“Stop—”
“He left you with that, Logan. That’s what you can’t see. You’re denying yourself a life because of the pain he caused.”
“No, Ren, I’m living my life in the absolute refusal to become what he was. I will never take the chance of losing my temper and lashing out at the people I love.”
“You were pretty angry with me earlier when you found out I didn’t tell you about what happened with Guy at the grocery store. Did it cross your mind to lash out and smack me?”
Was she insane? I’d never smack her.
“Fuck no!”
“Right. And just now, having to relive something painful, something that caused you great harm, was your first thought to beat me to shut me up? Did you want to inflict pain on me to detract from yours? Did you want to take your anger about your dad out on me?”
“I would never hit you, Lauren. For any reason.”
“Are you listening to yourself, Logan?”
I clamped my mouth shut and shook my head. She didn’t understand. It was there, in me, and one day it might escape. One day I might not be able to contain it.
“I will never take that chance.”
“I’m not saying you should. I’m just asking if you’re hearing what you’re saying. You said you wouldn’t take the chance of lashing out and hurting the people you love. You said you’d never hit me for any reason. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am, when I conclude that your father wouldn’t have thought twice about using his fists to get himself out of a situation he felt was uncomfortable. And I’d venture to say, he didn’t love a single person, including himself.”
“Wife beaters always say they’ll never do it again.”
“Logan, I’m not trying to talk you out of feeling how you feel. You have to live your life how you see fit. Do what makes you comfortable. Only you can decide if the way you’ve been living makes you happy. You didn’t ask my opinion so I’ll keep it to myself and not tell you how wrong I think you are.”
That was a backhanded way of giving an opinion if I’d ever heard one.
I needed to leave.
“I should go home.”
“Okay.”
What the fuck?
“Okay?”
“What do you want me to say, Logan? Beg you to stay? Tell you, you can’t leave? That’s not what we have.”
Jesus Christ, that fucking hurt.
“So you’re fine with me coming over, fucking you, then leaving?”
What the hell was wrong with me asking such a stupid question? She couldn’t win; either answer was going to piss me off.
“This is what we are. This is how it should’ve been all along. I’ve thought a lot about what you said and I still think you’re right. Love and relationships aren’t for me. I feel too much and I’m the one who’s left hurt when the relationship ends. I’ll take the sex, maybe even some companionship, but I don’t believe in love. Not for me.”
This is what we are?
“What are we exactly, Ren?”
I needed to hear her say it, to pour more salt into my wounds. Remind me I was useless.
“We’re friends who enjoy each other’s company.”
“Bed, baby. And before you get in, lose the shirt.”
“Thought you were leaving.”
“I changed my mind. I feel like enjoying my friend’s company a little more.”
Lauren didn’t hesitate when she pulled my tee over her head and tossed it aside. She didn’t dally getting back into bed. And she didn’t protest when I slid inside of her and took my time making love to her.
12
If there were ever a time when I wished I wasn’t an only child it was now. I wished I had a sister to confide in. Or better yet, I wished I had the kind of relationship with my mom that Addy, Hadley, Delaney, and Quinn had with Emily or Liberty had with Blake. I knew my mom loved me but she wasn’t the kind of mom who became your friend when you became an adult. But right then I needed a sister or Emily/Blake/Lily/Reagan-type mom. There were so many thoughts battling in my mind I couldn’t organize them in an orderly fashion. I was so confused I actually had a headache.
Logan was a contradiction.
He said one thing then did another. He said something then in the same conversation he’d contradict himself. The inconsistency would’ve been more confusing if I didn’t understand why he was the way he was.
Logan was a liar.
I didn’t think he even knew he was lying. He believed what he said, not realizing his actions and sometimes his words were not jibing with the persona he presented. The Love Is Bullshit façade was just that. He loved people, he knew it was real, he saw it all around him. He simply wouldn’t let himself have it. And I’d be a hypocrite if I ridiculed him for that.
His father had literally beat something out of him—it was the ‘what’ that was in question. What exactly did the asshole beat out of Logan? It wasn’t the capacity to love, it wasn’t his strength or his honor. It wasn’t his compassion or his morality. No, it was Logan’s faith in himself. He had zero self-worth. He didn’t believe in himself.
Logan actually thought that one day he would hit a woman and he’d accepted this as fact. I mean, why wouldn’t he? Plenty of people say abused children turn into abusers. I wasn’t one of those people. At least not in Logan’s case. I was not afraid of him and that wasn’t naïveté. Last night, Logan had been wrecked. He was right back to a time when he got the shit beat out of him. I saw it come over him, I witnessed the pain that leaked out, and I knew there was more that was buried but he’d worked hard not to let me see. A man who feels that kind of pain then spends his life actively thinking about the possibility that he could turn out the same way does not inflict pain on others. He doesn’t see how self-aware he is. He doesn’t understand that a man who is going to beat his wife and children doesn’t think and worry about it every day. And I’d venture to say there had not been a day in Logan’s life when he hadn’t dwelled on the what-could-happens or the what-ifs.
Confused and exhausted. That was what I was. And for the first time in all the years I’d worked at TC I was looking at the clock, counting down the minutes until I could go home and go to bed.
“Are you busy Monday night?” Quinn asked, pulling me from my musings.
“I don’t think so.”
“Addy wants—”
“No way! I’m not working out two days a week. My ass muscles are so sore I can barely sit.”
“Halt!” Brady said, joining Quinn at my desk. “There is not enough ear bleach in the world for you to finish whatever you were talking about.”