For a while, I wondered if Logan was dead. He was gone for months, and I was terrified those men had killed him. If he wasn’t dead, surely he would have contacted me, no? Nothing I’d done to him had ever kept him away before.
Hadn’t he stood up for me time and time again when all he’d ever gotten were insults in return?
Hadn’t he saved me that day when I got jumped in seventhgrade?
Maybe he hadn’t saved me from his friend. But I could tell how miserable he was. I could tell how hard he tried to say something. He tried a lot harder than any of the other kids in class.
And all he got as a thank you was a whole lot more abuse.
After a while, I found out that Logan wasn’t dead, after all. And I couldn’t tell what was worse. The idea that he’d died because of me, or that he’d lived, in spite of me, and wanted nothing more to do with me.
I heard rumors that he’d dropped out. That he was working for the Morettis now. Going around with a new crew… and the don’s son.
Not even my virginity being stolen by Carmelo Moretti could have prepared me for that pain.
Did Logan know what had happened? Did he simply… not care?
Why the hellwouldhe care, anyway? What had I ever done to make him care?
And yet, he did care, once.
It feels awfully lonely not to be cared about anymore.
It feels awfully lonely, too, to remember his words. The words he shouted at me just as I entered the bar, and right before the first punch landed.
The words I can’t help but believe, now.
In fact, the longer I go without seeing him, the more I hear about how he’s living the high life with my rapist, the more I believe them.
Until it gets to the point that they become gospel.
I’ll never fucking forgive you! Lia! I’m going to fucking kill you if you walk into that bar! You know I don’t fucking lie! Turn around, Lia, or you’re dead!
I guess it’s a good thing he hasn’t come near me, because ifhe had, I have no doubt he’d put that threat to execution.
But sometimes, I wish hewould. Ever since I got the test results back, life has gotten pretty fucking intolerable.
It took only a few short months for the proof of what Carmelo Moretti did to me to appear, and I had to drop out.
Dad was too much of a traditionalist to let me get rid of that proof, so here I am, pushing out the monstrous creation that I know I will despise for the rest of my life.
But my life is already over, anyway, so who cares?
A tear of self-pity bubbles up into my eye just as I eject the creature with a final push.
Finally excised of the demon. Finally free.
No, not that. I don’t think I’ll ever be free again.
The nurse whips the creature away to clean it, weigh it and check its vitals. She returns moments later, holding it in her arms, wrapped in a white cloth.
“What a sweet, sweet baby! She looks exactly like you.”
I really fucking doubt it.
“Want to hold her, mom?”
No! And don’t call me mom! I’m not a fucking mom!