Chapter 11

Chapter

Eleven

R ain slices like knives forged from ice. I shiver, but not from cold; I bleed. I taste blood in my mouth, feel it spill warm and wet from my head and my hip, dribble down my cheek and drip off my chin. Darkness. All is dark. A pale rectangle of light from a window illuminates a portion of sidewalk and some of the street, the curb between them.

I hear sirens. They sound like the warbles of prehistoric birds, echoing off cliff faces.

I want only to be warm.

I want to not hurt.

My stomach shudders, and I hear a sound. A sob. A scream.

My throat aches, and I realize the sobs and screams emit from me.

I am alone.

I cannot lift my head.

I can stare sideways at the pale scrap of light and wish I could reach it, crawl to it, lie in its warmth. Anything must be warmer than here, where the rain batters me and the cold cracks open my bones, freezes my marrow.

Why am I here? I don't remember.

I have an idea of horror, dreamed remnants of terror. Smashing glass, twisting metal. Razors splitting open my skull. Hammers bashing my body. Weightlessness. Darkness.

Blood.

So much blood.

A face appears. An angel?

No, too dark, the eyes like glinting shards of night betray too many devoured dreams, speak of nightmares feasted upon.

An incubus.

I fancy I can see his wings spread to either side of his wet, muscular body, thick coiled whipping things like feathered serpents. I blink, and he is only a man.

I blink, and I know his face.

I scream, or perhaps I only try to. He is lifting me, and I see blood on his hand as he brushes my hair away from my eyes.

The world tilts and darkens, and a hole attempts to swallow me from inside out, and then I see the flames. I want to be in those flames, where it is warm. I want to be in those flames. I want to be with those in the flames.

I strain, and iron bands hold me back. I reach for the flames. I peer into them, and I can see a hand, blackening. A shirtsleeve crisping, curling. Perhaps I imagine it all. Perhaps I imagine the flames.

I don't know. I know I am cold.

So cold.

I know pain is all.

I know the iron bands strapped around me are warm and breath smelling of whisky bathes my face.

I look up, and eyes pierce mine. "Sssshhhh. You'll be okay. I'll get you help." The voice is the texture of a blacked-out room, smooth as velvet, powerful and deep.

I am falling. I fight against gravity, because that way lies darkness, and in the darkness lurks obscurity. I don't know what that thought means, but I know I must fight.

I lose.

I fall.

Through depthless dark, I fall.

I wake with a start. My voice is hoarse. My throat hurts.

You brush away a flyaway strand of hair. Shush me.

I taste the dream, still.

I push you away. Your touch holds no comfort, your voice no respite from the images haunting my brain. "Get away."

"It's me, it's Caleb."

"I know." I struggle for a single deep breath. "Don't—don't touch me."

I sit up, curl the blanket tighter around my shoulders, hunch in on myself, eyes clenched shut so hard I see stars and my eyes hurt. I do not want to share this with you, but I must speak it out into the world so it doesn't die the death of dreams, lost somewhere between brain and tongue.

"I remember how wet it was," I whisper. "I remember the darkness. I remember hurting. I remember being so cold. I remember being on the sidewalk and seeing this patch of light and wishing I could just make it to the light, because maybe it would be warmer there. And then you... and flames. I feel like—I feel like there was more in the dream, but I can't remember it. I can't see it now."

"But you're safe now. You're okay."

I shake my head. "No. I'm not safe. Not with you. You do not tell me all of the truth. There is no truth. And I'm not okay. I'm a splintered ghost of a person. And I don't know how to put the pieces together. I don't even have all the pieces."

"Isabel—" you begin.

I chop out with my hand to silence you, and make contact with your leg. "No. Shut up. You are an incubus. You lie."

A moment of silence. And then your voice, cold and distant as you stand up. "Dr. Frankel is here. There's a clinic a few floors down. He's setting up there."

I stand up, let the blanket fall to the floor at my feet. "I'm ready. Let's go."

"Do you want anything to eat?" you ask.

"Do not suddenly begin pretending as if you care, Caleb." I breeze past you.

You seize me in a vise grip. Spun around. Fingers pinch my jaw, as if to pry the mandibles apart. "You will never comprehend how deeply I care." You release me.

"No, I will not." I stare up at you. Your eyes are blazing, hot, open, wild, glinting with fury and agony. "Nor do I wish to." This is a lie.

You stare down at me, jaw muscles clenching and pulsing, eyes darting, seeking something in my gaze. Not finding it, I do not think. "I do not know how—I don't know how to make you understand. I am not that man."

"You have not tried."

"I have. For so long, for—"

"How long, Caleb? How long?" My understanding of my own life's time frame doesn't make sense.

The years, the dates, how long I was in a coma, how many years of memory I have, how reliable the memories I do have are... all of this is in doubt. Nothing I know, nothing I think I know, is necessarily true.

"How old am I?" I ask.

"They weren't sure exactly how old you were when the accident happened," you say.

"And what year did the accident happen in?"

"In 2009," you say, immediately.

"And I was in a coma for how long?"

"Six months."

I push past you. "I think you are a liar."

"Isabel—"

"Take me to Dr. Frankel."

Your teeth click together, your head tilts back, your eyes narrow. "Very well, Ms. de la Vega. As you wish."

We wait for the elevator in tense silence. As the doors open, I turn to you. "Tell me the truth, Caleb."

"About what?"

"About me. About what happened. About everything."

You twist the key. "Dr. Frankel is waiting."

Not another word is spoken. We transfer elevators one floor down, and go from there to the thirty-second floor. Bare hallways, featureless, identical doors differentiated by alphanumeric designations. A sparse white room, a bed with white paper laid over hard, plasticky leather. Dr. Frankel is a short, pudgy man at the unforgiving end of middle age, a man to whom time and gravity have not been kind. Jowls hang and sway, a pendulous belly covers a belt buckle, khaki pants are tight around thighs and loose around calves. Brown eyes reflect a quick mind, with hands that are small and quick and nimble and gentle and sure.

"Ah. The patient. Very good." A pat of a hand invites me to sit on the paper, which crinkles and shifts under my weight. "Yes, yes. I remember you. A rather remarkable work I did, if I say so myself. Not a trace of your old injuries remains. Very good, very good. This will be quick and easy. A local anesthetic, a quick incision, and it'll be done. No pain, no mess."

I lie down on the bed. "Let us proceed then."

A clearing of the throat. "Well, the incision is in your hip, you see. So I'll, ah, need you to disrobe. From the waist down, at least."

Without hesitation, I hike my dress up to my waist, staring at the wall, and work my underwear off. "Better?"

"Um. Yes. I would have left the room, you know."

"I want this over with. I want the chip out."

"I didn't think you knew."

"I didn't," I say. "I do now."

A bob of a heavy head. "I see. I see. Well. I'll just spread this over you..." Dr. Frankel drapes a large square of blue tissue over my waist, a square in the middle left open.

The square encloses the scar on my hip, and the doctor use medical tape to make sure the tissue remains in place. Dr. Frankel dons a pair of blue exam gloves from a packet, very carefully not touching any of the glove except the very ends near the wrists as he slides them on.

Lifting a syringe, the doctor casts a glance to me. "A little pinch now." There is a brief sharp poke, coldness against my skin, and then nothing. "Some iodine to sterilize your skin..." A small white carton has its lid torn off, revealing a brown liquid and a sponge.

The iodine is cold and turns my skin orange.

Another packet is opened, revealing a scalpel and a pair of forceps. Dr. Frankel lifts the scalpel and prods my scar with it. "Can you feel that?"

I shake my head. "No."

"Very good. I'll begin. Look away, perhaps? And if the anesthetic wears off, let me know right away and I'll administer some more. I don't want you to feel a thing."

"All right. Carry on then."

I watch in curiosity as Dr. Frankel presses the tip of the scalpel directly over my scar, free hand keeping my skin taut. After a glance at me to make sure I'm not experiencing any pain, the incision is lengthened, precisely to the size of the previous one. Blood wells after a moment, and a cloth smears it away, and then forceps delve into the opening of my skin. I am morbidly fascinated, watching as my skin is parted. The scar isn't actually directly on my hip, but nearer to my buttock, just behind the bone, which explains how something like a chip could be inserted subcutaneously without leaving a bump. A moment of searching with the forceps, and then Dr. Frankel withdraws them, pincering a tiny red-dripping square of plastic. The chip is so small I wouldn't have suspected anything amiss even if it had been placed where it would leave a bump. It clatters in a bowl, and then Dr. Frankel deftly sews the incision shut with a few quick loops of black thread and tapes a bandage over the area.

The entire procedure took perhaps five minutes from start to finish.

"Wonderful. That's that." Snapping the gloves off, Dr. Frankel wraps up the entire mess, sans surgical instruments and syringe, and discards it in the trash, and the instruments are deposited in a box on the wall labeled sharps .

"Thank you very much, Dr. Frankel," you say. "Your balance should reflect your payment by the end of business today."

"I have no doubt." A quick glance at Caleb. "And this evening?"

"A limo will be waiting for you at your hotel, with your companion for the evening already in attendance." You pause. "I must remind you of the rules regarding my employees. They are companionship for the evening only . And, of course, your complete discretion regarding the procedure you just performed is expected."

"Don't have to remind me on either score, Mr. Indigo. I know the rules. I signed an NDA years ago, and besides, I didn't get where I am by having loose lips."

"Of course not," you say.

A glance at me. "Take it easy on those stitches. There aren't many, and they'll come out on their own in time. But try not to get them wet for forty-eight hours at least."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, Doctor."

"Pleasure. Next time, try to give me more than a couple hours' notice, will you?"

"Hopefully there won't be a next time," you say.

Dr. Frankel laughs. "Ah yes, the plight of the doctor. Happy to see us show up, happier yet to see us leave. And happiest of all to never have to see us in the first place." With that last quip, Dr. Frankel is out the door.

When the good doctor is gone, you glance at your watch, and then at me. "A rather expensive seven minutes, I'd say."

"If you hadn't put it there in the first place, you wouldn't have had to spend three million dollars to have it removed." I frown. "Why did you have him put a tracking chip in me, Caleb?"

A breath that isn't quite a sigh. "A last-minute quirk, you could say. A means of ensuring I could protect—"

"Your investment?"

"Are you so determined to believe the worst?"

"Yes." I step into my underwear and allow my dress to fall back into place as I stand up. I wobble, as my hip is still numb. "With reason."

"You misunderstand me, and the situation."

"Because you do not tell me the truth. Thus, I have no way of truly understanding the situation." I prop myself on the bed in an attempt to find my balance. "Or of understanding you. You, most of all."

You merely stare at me. At a loss for words, perhaps? I wait, but you say nothing.

I shake my head and walk away, or try to. I have to cling to one surface or another, have to surf from bed to door post, door post to wall, wall to elevator. I have to lean against the elevator wall and focus on breathing. The local anesthetic is beginning to wear off, and my body is now reminding me that I just had my skin sliced open and sewn shut. It isn't a pleasant sensation. At no point do I stop to wonder if you'll follow me, because you won't. This isn't new.

I had a cell phone, at one point. But I am unaccustomed to carrying any possessions with me, and I've misplaced it. At Logan's home, perhaps? I don't know. I wish I had it now. I would call him. Beg him to come get me.

I make it outside, where the world is bright and loud and chaotic. I feel panic creeping at the edges of my mind, lurking at the bottom of my lungs, stealing my breath. I focus on walking, clinging to the wall of the building. It is a laborious process, made all the harder when I run out of building and must totter to the intersection and pretend I am not about to collapse. The light turns, the crowd around me surges forward, and I am swept off balance. I nearly fall several times but rebound off those around me and manage to stay upright. Reaching the far side of the intersection feels like a miraculous accomplishment. I still cannot breathe, and the edge of my vision darkens, narrows, but each step requires such focus and determination that I cannot allow myself to falter, or I will fall.

And then I feel peace wash over me. I look around, and there he is. Tall, golden-haired, golden-skinned, eyes gleaming indigo. Striding toward me, arms swinging freely, the smile on his face a tender one, calm joy at merely seeing me. He's wearing the same tight dark blue jeans as the first time I saw him, this time with a red T-shirt, on which is written in large black letters: VOTE "NO" ON DALEKS, STOP EXTERMINATION TODAY , with a picture of some kind of robot covered in black knobs and armed with a gun. I do not understand many of his T-shirts. References to pop culture, I believe, things I've not seen either pre- or postamnesia.

He wraps me up in his arms, pulls me to his chest. He is warm and solid and comforting, his scent now familiar, cinnamon gum and cigarette smoke. I rest my ear over his heart and listen to his heartbeat, and I merely breathe for long moments. He doesn't speak, as if understanding without needing to be told that I am fragile right now.

His palm skates down my waist and comes to rest over my hip, over the stitches. I gasp in pain, and his hand flies away.

"Shit, are you hurt?" He holds me by the shoulder and examines me for signs of injury.

I shake my head. "No. Well, yes. I just had the microchip removed from my hip. No more tracking me. Not that way, at least."

"When did this happen?"

I shrug. "Ten minutes ago, perhaps?"

"Damn it, Isabel," he sighs. "You shouldn't be on your feet." He suits action to words, scooping me up in his arms and cradling me against his chest.

"Put me down, Logan," I murmur, hiding my face in his neck. "I'm fine. And besides, you can't carry me down the streets of Manhattan."

"The hell I will, the hell you are, and the hell I can't." He moves through the crowd with me in his arms as if I weigh nothing, and he is careful to make sure my head doesn't bump into anyone. "If a man carrying a woman down the street is the strangest thing these people see today, then they're not paying attention."

I don't want him to put me down. Not really. So I let him carry me. I enjoy his presence, his heat, his strength. Being taken care of. Cared for. Cared about .

"So... you and Caleb." It's a gentle prod, a hesitant inquisition.

My throat seizes. "I can't, Logan. Not just yet."

His lips touch my cheek. My forehead. "When you're ready. Or not at all. I'm here, okay? That's all you need to worry about. I'm here, and I've got you."

His big boxy silver SUV is parked a couple of blocks away, and he carries me all the way to it, never faltering or shifting his grip or acting for even a moment as if my not-insignificant weight is a burden. He sets me on my feet, opens the passenger-side door, and helps me in, closes the door after me.

Slides in behind the wheel, touches a button to start the engine. Immediately, loud, wild, raucous music fills the cabin. The music is chugging yet melodic, the singer a woman, her voice sweet yet full of rage, moving easily from singing to screaming— I am the dark you created, I am your sin, I am your whore. Logan moves to turn it off, but I stop him.

"Wait." There is something in the way she sings, the way she screams. Something in the lyrics. Something visceral in the madness of the instruments. "What is this?"

"The band is In This Moment. The song is called ‘Whore.'"

"It could be about me."

We sit and listen. I am moved, deeply. The rage she so obviously feels, her ownership of the darkness within her, the demand for an answer to a question that has none... I empathize in some vulnerable corner of my soul.

And then the next song comes on. Are you sick like me?... Am I beautiful? There is more ire in this song, more deeply felt hatred and self-loathing and understanding of one's own filth.

It is all too close to the state of my existence, too near to who I am. I could devolve into a creature carved from fire and rage. I have been lied to and possessed and forced into molds that do not fit me; I have been brainwashed and made to be a thing I am not. My past has been hidden from me. The truth of all that is me has been kept buried. Even still, my desires are used against me. My needs made into weapons, forged into blades slicing open my own flesh.

I tremble, like a dry leaf in a long wind.

"I think that's enough," Logan says, when the song ends.

"No. One more."

He turns on a song called "Blood," and I focus in on the lyrics. Dirty dirty girl... everything you ever took from me... dominate and you violate me...

I close my eyes and fall into it. Give in to it. Scream with her. Sing with her. Lose myself to it.

He plays another one, "The Promise," and this one has a male voice added, and the promise of the title is that they will hurt each other.

I know that feeling. I feel it now. I risk a look at Logan, and I know it's true. I'll hurt him. I have hurt him. He just doesn't know it yet.

He drives, and I let him play whatever he wants. He tells me what each song and band is as they come on, one by one. He plays Halestorm, Flyleaf, Amaranthe, Skillet, Five Finger Death Punch—how do they come up with these names?

The one constant is rage.

This . . . this I understand.

We reach his house, and I've had a brief introduction to music that can reach the secrets in your soul and turn them real and give them voice. It turns out my voice is angry.

"My girl likes metal," Logan says, as he shuts off his truck.

"I'm not your girl." I hate how harsh I sound when I say this, and a look at Logan tells me I've hurt him. "That came out wrong. I'm sorry."

"No, it's true."

"But it's not what I meant. Or—it is, but not the way it sounded. I can't be your girl. I want to be, I wish I were. But... I can't. Logan, I just... can't ."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm broken. I'm all sharp edges and fragments. I'll just cut you to pieces if you try to keep hold of me."

"I don't mind bleeding for you."

"You shouldn't have to." I swallow bitterness in my throat. "Not for me. I'm not worth it."

"Not worth—?" He seems to choke, but I can't look at him. "Not worth it? God, that bastard's really done a number on you, hasn't he?"

"I did it to myself."

"I was right, wasn't I?"

"Yes." I step out of his vehicle, and he follows. He takes a seat on the bottom step of the stairs leading up to his home. "Why were you there, Logan? Just now, I mean. How are you always just... there ... when I need you most?"

"I just... knew. I don't know. I can't explain it without sounding like a whacko. I just... knew I should be there. I knew you'd need me. I couldn't sit around and do nothing. We finished the acquisition and now we're off for a week, and I just... I was going crazy without you. And I knew you needed me." He digs in a pocket of his jeans and pulls out my cell phone. "Also, you left this at my place, so I was going to return it."

"Thank you."

A shrug. "What happened, Is?" He lights a cigarette and inhales deeply.

I take it from him, smoke with him. It tastes horrible, but the lightheaded dizziness is worth it, the sense of floating above it all, the momentary sensation of freedom. And it binds me to him in some way.

"More stories, more half truths, more lies." I stare at the concrete under my feet. "More of my weakness. More of all the things I've always known."

Logan is silent for a very long time, the cigarette pinched between forefinger and thumb, lazy tendrils of smoke curling up around his face. "But I was right."

"Do not mince words, Logan. Not to spare my feelings." I take the cigarette from him, inhale, watch the cherry glow brighter. Hand it back. "Or your own, for that matter."

He just blinks at me, takes one last drag, and with a violent flick of his hand sends the butt flying a dozen feet into the street, where it lands with an explosion of sparks. "Did you fuck him?"

I can barely manage a whisper. "Short answer... yes."

A silence, short and brutal. "Fuck. I knew it." He rises, paces away, tugs his hair free of the ponytail with a jerk, and shakes it out, spears his fingers through the wavy blond locks. Looks at me from ten feet away. "What's the long answer?"

"I hate myself for it. I knew it wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't change him. It wouldn't change me. It wouldn't bring answers. But... I'm weak, Logan. He mixes me up. I... don't even know how to explain it. But this time... I felt... empty. I realized if he does care at all, he just can't show it. Or he has a very bizarre way of showing it. I don't know. I'm no closer to knowing anything about myself or my past than when I left here, and now..."

"And now what, Isabel?"

"You, and me. How can you look at me?"

He touches my chin with a finger. I didn't know he was there in front of me, so absorbed in myself am I. "Why do you think I let you leave in the first place? Why do you think I wouldn't let us actually have sex?"

"I don't know."

"Well, that's bullshit, because you do." He sits beside me again. "I told you why."

I think back. "You said that there couldn't be a beginning to you and me until there was end to Caleb and me."

"Right." A pause. "And? Was that the end?"

"I don't know. I know you're hoping for a decisive answer here, but... I can't give it to you. It was an end to his hold on me, physically. But emotionally? I don't know. There are still so many questions I need the answers to. I—I'm tangled up, still, Logan. He knows things, but he's not telling me. You were also right about that. But I don't know why he's keeping things from me. What is there to be so secretive about? I just... I need to know more. And until I do, until I feel complete, I won't ever be totally free of Caleb."

"Can't fault you for that, I guess."

"And I don't know if this means anything to you, but... I didn't fuck him. He fucked me, and I let him. It's the way it's always been. I was complicit, I have to be honest about that. I allowed it, the way I've always allowed it. In the moment, when he's there, I just... I lose myself. I lose myself." I want to take his hand, but I am afraid to; I suffer a moment of bravery, slide my fingers under his. "Where does this leave us, Logan?"

He threads our fingers together. "I'm hurt. I'm upset. I mean, I knew it was going to happen, which is why I held us back. But it still sucks." He stands up, leads me inside. "I just need some time, you know? Put some space between you and him and... you and me."

I'm in no state to think about him and me. I can barely function. My mind is whirling like an orbital model of our galaxy, a million thoughts each spinning and all of them revolving in complicated, heliocentric patterns around the twin suns of Logan and Caleb. They are both supermassive entities, each possessing their own gravitational pulls on me.

Or maybe Caleb is a black hole, sucking in light and matter and all things in inexorable destruction, and Logan is a sun, giving life, giving heat, permitting growth.

Logan leads me to his living room, nudges me toward the couch. I sit. He lets out Cocoa, who welcomes me with exuberant puppy kisses and then lies on the floor and watches us. Logan vanishes into the kitchen and returns with two open bottles of beer and a half-empty bottle of Jameson. "A caveat, before we start drinking: This doesn't fix anything. But sometimes you need to just get hammered and not worry about the fucked-up mess that is your life. It gives you some space from everything. And I've discovered that I do my clearest thinking about problems when I've got a wicked hangover. Something about the pounding headache and roiling stomach just makes me more brutally honest with myself."

He hands me the bottle of whisky and one of the beers.

I just stare at him. "Where are the glasses?"

A laugh. "No glasses for this kind of drinking, sweetheart. Just pull right off the bottle."

"How much?"

"Two good swallows is about one decent-sized shot. But under the circumstances, I'd say just keep drinking until you can't handle anymore."

This strikes me as very bad advice. But then, maybe that is the point: to get me very drunk very quickly.

I lift the bottle of whisky to my lips and take a tentative sip. It burns, but not the same way exactly as scotch. It's easier to drink, actually. I let the burn slide down my throat and breathe past it. And then I do as he suggested: I tilt the bottle up and take one swallow, a second, a third, and then it burns too badly and I'm gasping for oxygen and my throat is on fire. I drain half my beer in an attempt to assuage my protesting throat, after which my head is spinning.

Logan takes the bottle and does the same, drinking the same amount as me and chasing it with beer. And then he does something truly strange. He lowers himself to the couch, sets the whisky and his beer on a side table, and drapes my feet onto his lap, tossing my shoes to the floor. Lifting one of my feet and cupping it in his palms, he digs his thumbs into the arch of my foot, immediately eliciting a moan from me.

"What are you doing, Logan?" I ask.

"Giving you one of life's greatest pleasures: a foot rub."

It is incredible. I don't want it to ever stop. It is intimate, so pleasurable it is nearly sexual. His thumbs press firmly in sliding circles over my arch, into my heel, the ball of my foot, and then his fingers crease between each of my toes and I giggle at the tickling touch. After a brief pause to sip beer, he gives my other foot the same treatment.

And then his fingers dimple into the muscle of my calf, kneading it in circles and from one side of my leg to the other. Higher, higher, near to my knee, and the massage becomes all the more intimate with every upward inch. The stretchy cotton of my dress is draped over his hands, one of which is holding my leg at the ankle, the other massaging my calf.

I've forgotten my beer; I take a pull, then peer at him. "This feels amazing."

"Good. You need some amazing things in your life."

"There's you." I didn't mean to say that; whisky loosens my tongue, it would seem.

Logan doesn't laugh at my faux pas. "One might say I'm a bad influence on you." He hands me the whisky, and I take it, down two swallows, and immediately chase it. "Case in point: I've got you chasing whisky with beer."

"That is true," I say. "Very true, indeed. But I don't mind. Mainly because your brand of bad is always so good."

This earns me a laugh. "I'm glad you think so."

His touch shifts from right leg to left, and it's impossible to think of anything but his hands on my leg, the way his fingers dig into the muscle and the smooth skin just beneath the back of my knee. The intimacy of it, the way I wish and want, in the dirty places of my mind for his touch to slide upward, even though I know that's the worst thing that could happen right now.

"Hungry?" He asks.

I nod sloppily. "Yes. Very. Veryvery."

"You're drunk," he says, laughing.

"I am. Yes indeed, I am drunk. Aaaaaand I like it."

I also like this spot on the couch. It's comfortable, cozy. The couch has swallowed me, sucked me in.

"Good. That was the point. Didn't take much, though, did it?"

"I don't really drink very much, or very frequently. Caleb kept me... healthy ."

"Well I've got something unhealthy and delicious for you. Just hang tight." I hear plastic crinkling, silence, and then the microwave door open and close, the gentle hum of the microwave heating something. I'm curious, but far too pleasantly and comfortably drunk to make the effort of looking to see what he made. I smell it after a moment, but can't identify it.

He plops himself down on the couch beside me, a ceramic plate in one hand, two more beers in the other. He takes the bottle out of my hand—I hadn't realized it was empty, nor do I remember finishing it—and replaces it with the full one. I take a sip, and it is, like every sip before it, delicious. But then I smell the food. I don't remember the last time I ate. The plate holds chips, yellow corn chips with cheese melted on them, liberal glops and strings and pools of orange cheese piled high on triangular white-yellow chips.

I try one; oh. Oh my. OH MY GOD.

"Wha-is-this?" I ask, my mouth full of chip and cheese.

He laughs. "It's like feeding an alien. I swear you've never had any good food. It's nachos, man. Cheesy chips. Best drunk or stoned food there is."

"Except pizza," I add, "and chicken shawarma."

"And potato chips."

"And beer."

"Beer is very, very important," Logan agrees. He reaches for a chip, but then stops and laughs. Apparently I've eaten them all. "You are hungry, aren't you?"

I stare at him, embarrassed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to pig out."

Logan just shook his head, laughing. "Don't be ridiculous, and don't apologize." He reaches up and tugs a lock of my hair. "You want something else?"

I just nod. I can't believe I ate all that already. It was a big plate full of chips. "Yes, please."

He heads toward the kitchen but then stops and leans over the back of the couch, resting his chin on my shoulder. I want very badly to kiss him, his cheek, his mouth, his temple, his anything. I don't dare.

"You ever have a P-B-and-J?" he asks.

"A what?"

"I'm guessing that's a no. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

I shrug. "Not that I remember."

"Comin' up then. You'll love it. Another staple food. I lived on P-B-and-J growing up. Still a go-to when I don't know what else to have."

He returns in a few minutes with four sandwiches, two for me, two for him. The first bite is... delectable. Crunchy peanuts, cool fruit jelly, soft white bread. I finish the first one in moments. I'm halfway through the second when it hits me.

The sun is bright. Blinding. Shining in my eyes as I sit at a table. I can feel the wood under my hands, rough, thick-grain wood, deep cracks and grooves, yet polished smooth by ages of wear. There is a groove under the index finger of my right hand, and I run my fingernail back and forth in it. I've done this a million times. Sat here, rubbing a fingernail in this groove, waiting. I smell... the sea. Brine. Ocean waves crash somewhere far away. A seagull caws, another answers.

Silhouetted by the sun is a woman, tall, willowy. Long black hair hanging loose down nearly to her waist. Her hips sway to music only she can hear as she stands at the counter, doing something. She is making a sandwich. Spreading grape jelly, thickly. Peanut butter, with lots of peanuts in it. Cuts it in half diagonally, sets it in front of me. On a white porcelain plate traced around the rim with delicate blue flowers.

She leans down, and the sun is blocked out by her body, allowing me to see her. I see her smile, spreading across her face like sunrise. Her eyes twinkle. "Coma, mi amor." Her voice is music.

She touches her lips to my cheek, and I smell garlic and perfume.

"...Isabel? Isabel!" Logan's voice filters through to my awareness.

"My... my mother used to make me these sandwiches. When I was a girl. I think. I just... I saw her. I was sitting at a table. It was by the ocean, I think. That's all—that's all I remember. But I could... feel it."

Logan is at a loss for words, but I don't need his words. He wraps an arm around me, tugs me close. "I'm here, baby."

It's all I need. There is nothing he can say, nothing to be said.

His heartbeat is a steady thump, a reassuring soft drumming under my ear. I have no idea what time it is, and I don't care. The world is spinning, and I feel disconnected from it. As if I could fly away at any moment, cast loose by centrifugal force.

"At Caleb's... I had a dream. A memory, I think. M'not sure. A car crash. But only maybe. All I knew was that I was hurt, and it was raining, and I was cold, and it was dark. So much pain... I was alone. But then he was there, but it felt like I'd seen him before. And it wasn't a mugging. That's what he always told me. A mugging gone wrong. But that's not what happened. It's not. He lied to me. But why? Why lie about that?"

"Because maybe the truth of what happened is something he doesn't want you to know."

That makes far too much sense. And it makes my heart hurt. What could Caleb be hiding? There are simply too many possibilities, and I'm too dizzy to sort through them all.

I still have half a sandwich in my hand. I set it aside. I feel a cold canine nose nudge my hand, and I open my eyes to see a pair of Cocoas, blurred and overlapping, staring up at me hopefully. I barely manage to knock the remnant of my sandwich—just a small corner—on the floor at her feet.

She doesn't pounce on it, though, but rather looks at Logan pleadingly. "You're not supposed to have people food, but I guess it's okay this once." He scratches her affectionately behind her ear. "Go ahead, girl."

Cocoa devours it in one bite, licks her lips, and then returns to her place on the rug near the doorway between the living room and the hallway. Her tail taps the floor rhythmically— thump, thump, thump, thump .

"I like Cocoa. She's a good doggy."

A laugh from Logan. "I know. She's my girl."

"I thought I was your girl." I say, sounding a bit too petulant for even my own taste.

"Are you for real jealous of my dog right now, Isabel?" Logan asks, a laugh in his voice.

"No. Shut up." I can't hide the smile in my voice or on my face. Don't try.

The silence between us then is easy. I am content to let the world spin around me and beneath me, to lie against Logan and listen to his heart beating under my ear, and not think about Caleb or the lies or the mysteries or myself or anything.

"I have a confession to make," Logan says.

I wobble my head on his chest, a gesture meant to be a negative, but which ends up being more of a sloppy flopping of my head. "I can't handle anything serious right now."

"Nothing like that. It's just that I had an ulterior motive behind getting you drunk."

I twist and gaze up at him, but I have to shut one eye so there's only one of him. "Oh really? And what would that be?"

"So I'd be less tempted by you. I won't take advantage of you when you're wasted, especially not when you're as vulnerable as you are right now."

"That isn't what I expected you to say."

"I know." He rubs my arm. "I want it to be right. When it happens with us, I want it to be right. And you're just not there yet."

I shake my head. "No. I wish I were, but I'm not. He has answers I need, and until I get them, he has a hold on me I just can't break. It's not fair to you."

"Life isn't fair," Logan says. "It never has been and never will be. If it were, my best friend wouldn't have died, and I wouldn't have gone to prison. If life were fair, Caleb would have gotten arrested instead of me, and you wouldn't have amnesia. If life was fair, we'd be able to be together and there wouldn't be anything standing in the way."

"But life isn't fair."

"Not even close." A sigh. "I'm not saying I regret what we did together, but I just... it makes it all the harder for me right now. Because I've tasted you. I've gotten a little glimpse of what it'll be like when we can be together with nothing between us."

"But I'm weak, so there is something between us." I choke on my next words. "Caleb is between us."

Once again, Logan is left with nothing to say. It's true, and we both know it.

"What time is it?" I ask.

"Why?"

"Because I have no idea, and I'm curious."

Logan tilts his wrist to glance at his watch. "It's two thirty in the afternoon."

"I'm tired." I want to open my eyes, but I can't. They won't cooperate. "I'm sorry. I'm no fun right now. I'm just... so tired."

"I'm here, Isabel. Just relax. Let go. I've got you."

I'm always falling asleep around Logan. Maybe because I feel safe with him.

I dream of Logan. Of being naked with him. Nothing between us. And then I dream of shattering glass and twisting metal, and darkness and rain. And then Logan is in the darkness with me, in the rain with me, standing just out of reach.

Just out of reach. In the dream, as in life.

I wake alone, terrified. Sweating. Crying. Dream residue coats my mind with fear, fragments of nightmares flapping in the spaces of my soul like bats in a belfry. Hungry eyes, red in the darkness. Bright lights blinding me. Ice in my veins. Loss. Confusion. It's all there, in my mind, disordered and wild and jumbled and visceral but meaningless.

I try to breathe through it, but I can't. I can't breathe. My chest is compressed by iron bands, preventing me from breathing. My hands shake. Tears track down my cheeks, flowing freely, unstoppable. I ache to breathe, but I cannot. Terror batters at the inside of my skull and squeezes my heart so it beats like fluttering sparrow wings.

Where is Logan?

Where am I?

I'm in his bed. The mattress is wide, and empty but for me. The blankets are kicked back to the foot-end of the bed, the sheet tangled around my thighs. I'm drenched with sweat. It's dark outside. A digital clock on the bedside table near to hand reads 1:28 a.m. All is dark. Lights are off. Moonlight streams in through the window, a river of light silvering the floor and my skin. I am naked but for bra and underwear. I don't remember undressing.

I manage a thready gasp. Another. My voice rasps. "Logan?"

Nothing.

"Logan?" A little louder.

I tumble out of the bed, feet hitting the floor. The hardwood is cold under my bare feet. The bra is too tight, constricting me. I can't breathe. I fumble at the clasps and rip the garment off, toss it aside.

I'm still dizzy. My mouth is dry. My head aches. Pounds.

I can't breathe.

I can't breathe without Logan.

I find him asleep on the couch, clad in a pair of loose shorts and nothing else. A laptop computer is on the coffee table, open, screen dark, and his cell phone is near it, along with a pad of paper and a pen. There are several phone numbers written down, all local New York numbers, 212 area codes. Scribbles, things crossed out, doodles. Abstract designs, swirls of ink, squares merging with triangles, becoming trees of curlicues and arcs. He's written something at the bottom of the page, underlined it several times.

Jakob Kasparek.

Underneath that are two more words, connected to the name above by a darkly inked arrow: Signed out.

What does all this mean?

Just seeing him calms me. But he's restless, tossing and turning. I lower myself to the couch near his head, feather my fingers through his hair. He murmurs something unintelligible, shifts forward, closer to me. I pull his head onto my lap, and he makes a small, boyish sound of contentment that melts something in me. His hand rests on my thigh, and I scoot lower on the couch and prop my feet on the coffee table, and his arm wraps around my waist, between my back and the couch.

I do not fall back asleep, but I am able to rest, to close my eyes and relax and let a sense of peace permeate me.

I need this man so much it hurts.