The Lies He Spoke

SIXTEEN

LOGAN

Logan sat in the living room on the couch, his laptop balanced on the armrest of the sofa, his calculator on one knee and his notebook on the other. It was well past midnight but he had a chemistry exam the next morning and he had put off studying until the last minute, again. He knew it was no excuse but he'd been so angry with Elijah he could barely do anything but stare at the words in his books, not comprehending anything.

He rubbed his itching eyes and glanced at the digital clock on his laptop. 1:39. He'd better go to sleep soon if he wanted to be awake during his eight am exam.

As he flipped the page in his textbook and began the next problem, there was a creaking noise down the hall.

He stilled, his heartbeat steadily rising until it was slamming into his ribcage. He squinted, trying to see anything down the darkened hallway, but the light from the living room only reached a little bit of the way in.

The creaking got louder and louder and his heartbeat roared so loud in his ears he was sure he would go deaf, when he saw the short outline of a girl teetering on uncertain feet. He relaxed back into the couch.

When Olivia stepped fully into the light, she blinked in its glare. "Logan?" she murmured.

"Hm," he grunted, pulling his calculator closer and tapping away on it.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?"

"Do you have a test?"

"Yes."

She silently went to the kitchen and the tap squeaked on as she filled half a glass of water. Logan finished his question and moved on to the next one. She still didn't go back to her room. He turned to a new page in his notebook and tried to focus.

Olivia set the glass back down and hovered a few feet from him, hands behind her back like she always did when she wanted to say something she was afraid of saying. Logan cringed inwardly at the mess he just knew he was about to make out of this situation.

Hesitantly, she said, "Can I...sit here?"

Logan looked up. It wasn't like her to ask something like that of him. She'd gradually warmed to sitting next to Elijah or Blake since she'd come to live with them, but not him. He was almost sure that despite their promise not to fight so much anymore, she still avoided him as much as possible.

Then he noticed that her hands were slightly trembling and her face was pinched. He glanced down the hall and in the kitchen for what had frightened her, but he could see nothing. Maybe it was nothing.

"Sure," he finally relented, "just as long as you don't bother me."

She sat down stiffly on the couch, one sofa square between them, her bare knees drawn to her chest. Logan turned his attention back to his work, but he kept getting the feeling that she was staring into the side of his skull. But every time the feeling became too much and he glanced at her, she was staring off into space, not looking near him at all.

He spent a painstaking five minutes trying to ignore her presence, all the while cursing his impulsive decision to tell her she could sit there. It wouldn't have been so bad if she just laid down and went to sleep or at the very least closed her eyes, but no. She was wide awake and despite the heat, she was shaking slightly.

Fuck. Was he supposed to have asked her if she was okay? Wasn't that what Elijah was always doing? Fucking always sticking his nose in people's lives no matter what they wanted and asking them if they were okay?