Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 109038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
But then he holds the door open for me after he walks in.
CHAPTER 22
CHASE
In my mind, I’m holding a paintbrush to a colossal, razor-thin piece of glass, holding my breath with every brushstroke as I watch a spiderweb pattern of cracks appear on the surface. Every shred of my focus is being spent on one thing and only one thing. I can’t let the glass break. A heavy brushstroke could splinter it to pieces, but I can’t stop painting, and painting, like there’s a pack of hungry, wild dogs pawing at the inside of me and I have no chance of taming them.
That’s how it feels, inside, as I slowly walk up the steps with Logan.
Is that how everyone feels when they realize they’re falling in love?
Or that they’ve already fallen in love, long ago, and it only came to land on their head like a brick out of nowhere?
When Logan put his hand on my back, I thought it, clear and bright in my mind.
I love you.
I almost said it.
Offhandedly, like it was nothing.
And then when he kissed me in public, it shot through my mind in more vivid color, screaming out of me, in every cell of my body.
I’m so, so fucking in love with you.
I shoved the words back in my mouth because I felt crazy, but everything with Logan feels a little bit like that.
“It’s too dark in here,” I say as we head up to the third-floor. Oh, and also, I love you. “My landlord George is a very sweet, kind old comic book nerd who lives on the top-floor apartment, but he never remembers to replace the lightbulb for the landing.”
I’m saying more words about my landlord now than I’ve spoken to Logan in the past half an hour, practically.
But there’s that glass, between us, in my mind.
This time, it’s one that I put up, instead of him. The one that’s already threatening to break.
Because I love him, and I have no idea if it’s okay to, yet.
We take the wooden stairs to the third-floor landing. There's at least a little wall sconce hanging beside each of the doors up here, and I no longer feel like I’m taking Logan up into a dark, dilapidated shack.
“This building is amazing,” Logan says. “So much original wood. They didn’t get rid of all of it when they did the remodel.”
I grab my keys and get us in, swinging open the door.
“This place is going to make you crazy. My brother is the only person who’s sometimes neat and organized like you, but my roommates and I are… well. You know how I am.”
I turn on the lamp on the entryway table and cast the room in its glow.
“Holy shit, the art,” Logan says.
He’s gawking at the massive mural I painted along the far wall of the living room. Two of the walls are red brick, but on one of the inner walls, I painted a giant raven perched on the edge of a cherry tree, with a sweeping view of hills below it.
“Oh. Right. I forget that’s there,” I tell him. “That’s another reason I’m lucky my landlord is a comic book nerd. He loves shit like this. He told me I have to paint it white again whenever we move out, but he appreciated the art.”
“It’s incredible.”
Logan’s looking everywhere now, and through his eyes, I see our apartment in a completely different light.
It couldn’t be more different from Logan’s pristine, organized hotel room. It occurs to me that I’ve never seen what Logan’s actual house in LA looks like, and something rattles in my heart, like I’m behind that glass in my mind again.
He looks at the tall bookshelves on the other wall, which are full of art books and my roommates’ huge collection of fantasy novels.
He stares at the couch, which my friend and I made a colorful slipcover for last year, and then gazes for a while at the massive collection of Polaroids that we’ve tacked up onto the wall for the past few years.
“Don’t look too closely at any of those pictures,” I tell him. “They’re from my past life, to say the least.”
He points to one where I’m wearing a lacy pink dress with combat boots. “Explain?”
“Halloween,” I tell him. “I looked pretty, didn’t I?”
The corner of his mouth comes up in a smile, and he points at another, where I’m on the balcony with a cigarette in my hand, opening my mouth to show a tiny green pill and blue pill on my tongue. “And this one?”
I take a slow breath. “I don’t remember that night. One of my roommates took that picture, I think.”
Logan’s expression drops. “Why do you keep it up, then?”
“I don’t spend a lot of time looking at those pictures, to be honest.”
I reach over and unpin it from the wall, tossing that one into the trash.