If Fire Was A Lover

January 6th, 2021

The next morning didn't feel real, everything around me seemed wrong. Even when my family talked to me, it was as if all of our conversations were rehearsed. I didn't know what to do with myself, all I knew was him. I didn't even know my family, they had suddenly shifted around me. I understand why, I wasn't upset with them for it. But the only thing I could be sure of staying the same was Logan. My family walked on eggshells around me, but he wouldn't. He didn't know how to be gentle, even if it was for the better. He was aggressive and hurtful and that's exactly what I deserved after putting my family through everything that I did. It was a difficult feeling knowing that the one thing I could be sure of in my life was the same thing that made me want to end it. I would call him a person and not a thing, but he never seemed human enough for that. Even with his inhuman being, I still saw beauty in him. I didn't just desire him because I wanted to hurt myself, I desired him because he touched me. He connected himself to me, a tie was made, and there was no breaking that. Whether or not he cared, I did. And I'm nothing if not a lover, I'd stop at nothing trying to love him.

School went by much too slowly for my liking. I sat in each class and kept my eyes on the clock for the entire day. My classmates walk past me in the halls just like they always do, and I release that everything at school that morning would've been just the same if those pills had worked. The world just keeps moving, people just keep working and teaching and living. It's my life but it doesn't revolve around me, it would've all been exactly the same. It's strange to think about, how death seems like such a huge thing but when it comes, a funeral is held and everything just seems to go back to normal. At least for some people. Elaine wasn't at school, so I sat by myself for the majority of the day with my headphones in. I kept my eyes down so that nobody would try to talk to me. I didn't have the energy to make conversation with anyone and tell them how my weekend went. Most likely they didn't have the energy to hear about it either.

After school I found myself at Logan's house again. I stood in the snow and let it cover me. I was freezing but I didn't know if I should go to the door or not. Would he even want me there? I told myself that he did, of course he wanted me there. I walked up to the door and opened it. He was waiting for me in the living room, he knew he'd be the first person I'd run to. From the look on his face I knew he had spoken to Connor. I should've guessed that he would find out, he and Connor were close. That made me feel even worse for being there. He hugged me. He just held me for a while. We didn't speak to each other, there was nothing to say. He just held me tight and I let him. And then he started to cry. I was shocked, people like him weren't supposed to cry. That had to have meant something. He never cried about anything, but when it came to me he did. I was different. I wasn't like the other girls, he actually cared about me, he loved me. I knew he did. At that moment I stopped seeing him as a villain, as the problem. Those were two things he just was not. Bad people didn't cry when someone else was hurt, but Logan did. Therefore, he couldn't be bad. I didn't want him to be bad.

I took in his smell and the way it felt to be held by him. He was about a foot taller than me, so my head rested just below his chest when he hugged me. I closed my eyes and tried to wish myself out of his house, but it didn't work. He fell back onto his couch and rested his hands in his head. I knelt down in front of him trying to get him to look at me. When he finally did, I could see guilt in his eyes, heartbreak on his face. There was a numbness in the way that he looked at me. I was nothing, he was nothing, we were nothing. His eyes were portals to a world of melancholy. I hated looking at them, but at the same time I could never stop myself. He was dark in a beautiful way, he was mean in a captivating way. He hurt me but each time he did it felt more like a blessing than a curse. Something was horribly wrong with me. He chose not to see all that was wrong with me, and I think that's why I kept going back to him. He knew he couldn't point out my flaws, not when his almost got me killed.

"Logan, I'm okay. It's okay." I whispered.

He looked down at me and cupped my face in his hands. I felt his lips press against my forehead and a tear of his dripped onto my face. He stood and picked me up, carrying me to his room. It kind of scared me how easy it was for him to grab me, but it also felt sweet. I always wanted to be carried by somebody, not necessarily in that context though. I didn't say anything, neither did he. He laid me down on his bed and tucked me in, and then sat beside me staring at his wall until I fell asleep. I dreamt that I was in a lavender field. I was wearing a white dress, it was made of lace. The sun was bright and I couldn't see anything, and then a dark figure came to me and held my face in its hands. I squinted my eyes just enough to make out the face, it was Logan. I jolted back from him, scrambled to my feet and ran. He was right behind me, I knew I wouldn't make it. But I just kept running. Then I woke up a mess, unable to breathe and threw my arms around Logan who had fallen asleep next to me.

"Liz, it's okay, it's okay," he held me back and kissed the top of my head. "You're okay, you're safe." As he spoke, smoke came out of his mouth and clouded my eyes. I hated when he did that. It was just another way he suffocated me, another way he showed his power over me. I took his vape from his lap and threw it on the ground. "God Liz, you don't have to be a cunt. I'm trying to be nice." He said. His words were harsh, I hated that word. Why did I hate him so much? And why did I sometimes think I loved him? What in god's name was my problem?

I rolled my eyes and got out of bed and locked myself in his bathroom. I waited about ten minutes for him to calm down and then came out and sat on the bed. He turned on Wanda Vision and held me as we watched. The show made me cry, he looked at me like I was stupid for getting emotional over a show. It wasn't just the show, and I think he knew that. Wanda loved Vision so much that she made a whole new world in which he existed, I wanted to be loved like that. Instead I was loved aggressively, sometimes harshly, and every time he made love to me I felt sick. I felt bad for feeling that way, I knew that I was supposed to like it. I knew he thought I liked it, at least sometimes. I saw the naked girls he'd look at on his phone and on his T.V. I knew what sounds they made and what faces they made, what they wore that turned him on. I copied them because I figured if I did that much for him, eventually he'd start caring about me the way boys do in movies. I really didn't want to be wrong about that. We got through about four episodes. His sister brought home pizza from work and we all ate together. Then I left and went home. I cried in my bed until I couldn't breathe. I didn't know why it hurt so much to spend time with him. It just did. Being in the same room as him, let alone the same bed, it tore me apart a little more each time it happened.