She heard the words. They came softly, floating through the air like so many bubbles, fragile and ready to burst.
It was past midnight when she'd finally decided to turn the light off in her room. Not because she was tired. She'd been in bed all day and felt like a caged animal. Her body had been at rest so long she wondered what would happen when she regained use of it. If she did.
In fact, she had attempted a daring escape. She thought how pathetic she must have looked, crawling out of her bed and towards the door. Reaching for the doorknob, she realized she wouldn't exactly get very far on her hands and knees. And anyway, where would she go?
She'd tried reading to pass the time but had given up and tossed her books in disgust when she saw that all of their heroines were tortured and doomed to a life of misery.
She must've fallen asleep sometime after that because the next thing she remembered was being awakened by the light streaming in through her open door.
She knew it was him because no one else ever came to her room at night. No one else would be brazen enough to walk in without knocking, or want to disturb her sleep. But he was oblivious of those things. He sauntered in like it was his room too and she watched through almost closed eyes as he walked around her bed. She feigned sleep, partly because she didn't want to talk to him, partly because she wanted to see what he would do.
She felt the bed tip under his weight. She felt it. And just like that, the curse was lifted. It was so easy it almost seemed almost funny. She wanted to laugh at the magnitude of this joke that had been played on her. But she was still waiting for the punch line. Was this it?
Then she felt his arm around her, felt his lips on her neck, and heard the words he whispered. Felt them on her ear as his hot breath carried them. And that, she realized, was the punch line. That strange and wild confession coming from the mouth of a madman was the rim shot. But it wasn't funny.
She moved back into him - still pretending to sleep - and felt him stiffen. She wondered briefly if this was the key. If the physical realm was the way into Logan's mind and heart. She turned around in his arms and opened her eyes, watched as his grew wide with the knowledge she was awake. But that was all he knew. So she showed him.
The palm of her hand slid up to his face and settled. She left it there, feeling the prickly stubble of his beard. She moved her other hand to his mouth, pressing it in, feeling his teeth against it.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Feeling," she replied easily.
He backed away with the new information but she kept him close by placing a hand against the back of his neck.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, tightening her grip on his neck.
"I thought you were asleep," he responded.
"Well I'm not." She sighed. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you."
"Why?"
"To say good-bye." As soon as he said the words they became fact.
"You're leaving?" She hoped her voice didn't betray the tightening in her chest.
"Yes."
"When did you decide that? Just now?"
"Yes."
She let him go as she whispered, "Fuck you."
"Marie - " He took a step forward, as if to comfort her and she saw that to him, she was just a wounded little girl.
She didn't move back. She let him come towards her and when she knew he was going to open his mouth to apologize, she slapped him
It was like slapping steel and it hurt. Her hand stung from the impact and she was glad of it. It seemed appropriate. He looked pained and she was glad of that too. "Fuck you, Logan," she repeated, this time shouting out. "You're leaving?" she asked again, driving a clenched fist into his chest.
"Yes." The word was squeezed from between his clenched teeth.
"You're leaving? You're leaving?" She was hitting him full-force, landing punches on his chest and shoulders, punctuating each word with a physical assault.
For a while, he let her vent her rage, taking her abuse, trying not to flinch at her words. Then, he grabbed her wrists and stopped her, pinning her arms to her side. "I have to go," he said. "I didn't want this." He let her go and turned to leave.
She watched as he made his way to the door. When he put his hand on the knob she bit out, "I thought I was everything?"
That stopped him and he realized his mistake. It was in the dreaming.
What to do, he thought, still holding the doorknob. Would he have to explain himself? Could he possibly just leave, hope that she would get over it and that he could somehow accustom himself to the sickness brewing inside of him? Did he have it in him to tell her the truth?
"You're a coward, Logan." Her voice was hard and unforgiving.
She had the key, he knew. She was right. He was a coward. He had been hiding behind his own body, hoping that it's ability to punish others, to heal itself without exception, would keep him shielded. Twenty years of running and hiding had made him especially good. Practice makes perfect. His heart, encased in unbreakable ribs, had been impenetrable until she had somehow breached its defenses. She was right. He was a coward. He was afraid - not of being shot, or maimed, or beaten to within an inch of his life. He was afraid of her. He was afraid of the power she possessed over him. He was afraid that if he didn't run, she would use it.
"Shouldn't you put your boots on?" he heard her ask. She had crossed the room and was sitting on her bed, facing away from him and staring out her window.
His boots were lying next to her feet. He would have to move next to her to get them.
All the alarms in his head sounded at once as he placed one foot in front of the other, walking slowly but surely towards his boots - and her.
Bootsbootsbootsboots. It was his mantra. It was his mission.
It was his Achilles' heel.
He meant to do it quickly, efficiently. He bent over to pick up one boot, then the other. Each time, his eyes traversed the expanse of her long legs. He was so close his nose almost grazed her thigh.
On his way back up he heard her say it again, quietly, "Coward."
His cage fighting opponents had called him that, and worse, in order to rile him, anger him to the point of distraction. He'd always complied, beating them into a bloody pulp in his berserker rage. Hearing her say it a second time - softly, like a caress - produced the one moment of perfect clarity of the night. It was crystalline, the way he saw it. She wanted him, despite his refusals and rejections. This woman, he thought as he looked up her white leg to the cuff of her blue shorts, wanted him. Of course it was frightening. His gaze traveled upward, over her thighs and stomach and breasts and neck and mouth and nose and landed on her unsettling eyes. They were as bewildered as his probably were. In his enlightened state he saw it all and drank it in and wondered how he'd lived without the knowledge. Of course it was frightening. Everyone was scared. It was all too easy to step off the ledge and let yourself fall. He looked into her deep eyes and wondered how many times he'd taken the plunge. It was addictive, he saw. It was a rush of pleasure and fear and complete exhilaration when he saw that she was falling with him; he could see and hear and feel and smell it coming off of her.
"Are you leaving?" She brushed her leg against him. He knew he was hers. He wondered if she saw it: his surrender to the fall, a fall propelled by a force as pervasive as gravity itself.
He grabbed her leg and felt the muscles twitch and jump beneath his hand. The anger was still present in her eyes, but it was beginning to fade. "I make for a lousy boyfriend," he said, dragging his hand further up her leg.
"I'm not looking for a boyfriend," she said, leaning into him, sliding off the bed and onto the floor. "What are you looking for?" he asked, not quite looking in her eyes.
"You bastard," she hissed. "You want me to say it? I'll say it. You're all I'm looking for Logan, all I want."
Flesh met flesh in a violent collision of will and passion and anger and despair. She grabbed at his hair, pulling it so that he thought it would tear from his scalp. He grabbed her by the arms and hauled her against his chest, letting himself enjoy what he never thought he wanted. What he had always wanted.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked, tearing his mouth away from hers, dragging it down her neck.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I don't know." Her hands had loosened in his hair and she was rubbing slow circles into his head.
"I don't think I can stop," he warned, moving calloused fingertips underneath her top, over the skin beneath.
"I know," she gasped. "Don't."
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to Donna for all the great suggestions. You will see her evil genius at work when I post the next part. :)