There is physicality to the past. The warm flush of remembered pleasures, the steady breathing that accompanies calm reflections, the tightness of tear-tracked skin. The sudden choke of a retrospective humiliation so strong that the eyes pinch shut, teeth bite into tongue, fingernails sink into flesh. Or the relentless gut gnawing that compresses the lungs and constricts the arteries to the heart. The hollowness of not knowing.
That Logan and I had decided on a forward trajectory only increased my desire to look into our past. Over the next few days, everything reminded me of a past incident that I needed to drag up, examine, and explain.
When Scott came back, seeing the two of them together inevitably reminded me of the woman I pretty much owed my entire inglorious journey into self-discovery to. Jean Grey was and would always will be the specter standing with Scott just as assuredly as she will always be the woman who made Logan want to be an honorable man.
Sunday night, watching them sniff and circle each other warily, I remember, vividly, the day I’d forgiven Logan for loving Jean instead of me. I’d been looking around the Mansion for him because I’d needed his help again, perpetually, for anything and everything. I’d found him on the second floor, standing in the small balcony overlooking the enclosed garden where Jean had her memorial.
He’d had his fingers stuffed in his tight jeans pocket and his elbows held out at stiff angles. He’d tucked them in when I’d come to stand beside him.
Stuffing the folded paper I had with me in my back pocket, I’d leaned my forearms against the iron railing and titled my head up at his profile.
“Does it feel all of a sudden like we’ve moved on?”
“All of sudden?” I’d asked, really wanting to question the “we” part.
“We did without for four months and now…”
“Now we have a new doctor in the med lab.” I’d squinted one eye against the bright afternoon sun. “And Cyclops has started shaving again.”
Logan snorted.
I’d dropped my neck so my eyes were on my white gloves. “I don’t know. Aren’t we supposed to move on?” I hadn’t been able to stop myself from placing a little emphasis on the “we,” so I’d had to cover it up by placing too much on the “supposed.”
He’d given me a sharp glance. “I’m not saying we aren’t.”
I’d chewed on my lip, not understanding why he’d would chose to dwell on it then. I’d waited for him to stop looking at me before I’d asked, “Do you think you could have made her happy?”
That question had been a slight variant on, “Why did you love Dr. Grey?” to which he had responded a few weeks ago, “Hard to say,” before giving my ankle a pat and leaving the lounge.
This time, he hadn’t even answered.
My heart had gone out to him. “I think you could have. In a different way than Cyclops, but I definitely think you could have.” It had cost me something to say that, because it’d felt equal parts disloyalty to myself and loyalty to him.
“It stopped being about that when she died.” There’d been a closed-lipped smile on his face for me when he’d put his hand between my covered shoulder blades and directed me back into the hallway. “Did you want something?”
“Kind of. There’s a big March Madness tournament going on, two hundred dollar prize, and, anyway, I really want to beat Bobby. Well, I want to beat everyone, but especially Bobby.” I’d taken out my brackets from my pocket and handed it over to Logan. He’d looked over my picks as we walked.
“Why so concerned with beating Bobby?”
“I want him to think that I know all about sports.”
Make that needed Bobby to think that, because when he’d asked what I did with Logan, I’d told him that we watched TV, including ESPN. He’d jumped on that, asking me if I even liked sports. Of course I’d replied that I was a huge fan and concocted a couple of kernel-of-truth stories set in my Uncle Nuts’ sports bar back in Meridian to prove it. Anything to cover up the fact that I’d been willing to watch anything, so long as I got my Logan time.
“You can’t make people think something about you. You can fool them awhile, but it always comes out. So why bother?”
“I’m greedy. Will you please evaluate my picks?”
“Okay. Tennessee, all right. George Mason, good. But what makes you think Illinois has a chance in hell at taking it?”
“Kitty said – ”
“Wishful thinking never won anybody two hundred bucks.”
I’d thought, And wishful thinking never won Logan Jean’s heart anymore than it had won me Logan’s. But I at least had Bobby. All Logan had was rejection buried under gallons and gallons of water. It wasn’t a fair deal, so I’d forgiven them both.
How generous of me, right? I really thought I’d been such a kind, caring selfless person at that moment. Thinking about it just made me want to pat my old self condescendingly on the head. Oh, me.
What’d been worse, at that point I hadn’t even considered Scott’s feelings on the matter. He was completely off my radar. Whereas now I looked at him with such a swell of admiration and fond exasperation. As much as I’m like Logan, I’m like Scott, too. Same desire for control, same need to prove myself a hero, same jealous tenacity when it comes to the ones we love.
I remembered, too, that day so long ago when I’d laid on my bed and tried to figure out where I fit in with the personalities that dominated my world – the ones, for the most part, I hadn’t touched. I’d been fearless that day and hadn’t even realized it. I hadn’t been afraid that turning to others would negate my own sense of self.
I’d missed a step, though. My willingness to mimic my friend’s strength hadn’t made it outside of my shell. Instead of drawing them closer, I pushed them as far away from me as possible.
The second night Logan was back, when we were settled in my bed to sleep, I apologized for pushing him away all those years ago. “I thought I was being strong,” I explained.
“You did what you thought you had to,” Logan replied. His hold on me was tight.
“Maybe in a way. But in another way, I was also running. You were being too good a friend.” He’d tried to get me to face aspects of myself that I just wasn’t ready to see.
“Not the friend you needed. That’s when you picked up the elf. You gotta thing for guys who’ve saved your life.”
The touch of wryness in his voice made me smile in the partial darkness. “Kurt thinks I’m perfect. You know, the paternal unconditional sort of deal. I needed that.”
“I get the difference. I’m not your father, I’m your friend.”
Grinning now, I snuggled in deeper. “Exactly. Despite what you may have heard about the South…”
“Point taken.” He shifted his lower body away from the curve of my hips almost imperceptivity, a movement that was at odds with the way his fingers caressed my skin where the tank top I wore had ridden up.
Maddened by it, I rolled onto my other side so I was half-lying on his chest. “More skin this way,” I said by way of explanation, trailing my hands down his arms and rubbing my cheek against the sprinkle of hair on his chest where his beater didn’t cover.
After a long hesitation, Logan caressed my spine underneath my tank top. I would have purred, if I wasn’t too afraid that he’d stop. I pressed my lips to his collarbone, my fingertips to the twin pulses at his wrist. Skin to skin. No touch sensation in the world was more gratifying.
“Go to sleep,” he told me, betraying how much I affected him with his gruffness.
I pushed myself up so I could give him my best doe eyes. “Whatever you want, Logan.”
“Marie…”
An instant later, Logan’s fingers were tangled in my hair and his mouth was clamped under mine. My only coherent thought as I draped my arms about his neck was, Finally! That, and a moment of gratitude to Jubilee for buying me the tiny pair of shorts that Logan’s hand was inching up.
My own hands dipped lower to his shoulders and his back to knead the skin and muscles there. He pushed me more fully on top of him. I pressed my knees on either side of his firm waist. I cupped the sides of his face, my mouth now clamped on top of his, my tongue pressing deeper. I couldn’t breathe very well through my nose and it was beginning to make me dizzy.
Logan readjusted his me in his arms, causing me to slip lower. A groan escaped his throat. For a long moment, we remained still – clutching each other, breathing into each other’s mouths, utterly aware of the pressure of my body against his erection. I opened my eyes slowly and saw that his were shut tight.
The reversal and the tenseness on his face told me that this wasn’t the time. Carefully, I slid from his loosening grip so that was on lying at his side. I watched his eyes open and his face relax slightly.
“Can’t do anything halfway with you, can I?” His tone was gruff, but there was a wistful quality behind it.
“No,” I replied, smiling a little nervously. “I guess not.”
Logan gave me a squeeze and then rolled off the bed.
I didn’t begrudge him his retreat. “Tease,” I mumbled, burying my grinning face into the pillow he’d just been using.
“Go to sleep, Marie,” he said again, but in a way that made me stifle a giggle.
Even though, for all intents and purposes, Logan had pretty much rejected me just now, I didn’t feel any of the shame I would’ve felt two years ago. What’s more, the kiss had been a natural and mutual evolution of the moment. How absolutely gratifying. Why the hell had I thought just days ago that forcing whatever Logan and I had was the best way to go? Spontaneity was so much sexier.
Hope ached in my like a bruise; we’d made progress.