The Lies He Spoke

THIRTEEN

LOGAN

Logan spent the entire morning attempting to forget his morning by sitting in the very front of his lecture halls and forcing himself to scribble down every single thing the professor said, even if it was common sense. The constant mush of words and facts crowded his brain, leaving no room for any other thoughts.

It worked. For a while.

During his break, he climbed the library steps to the fourth floor, where students only sat if they wanted complete silence. Ordinarily, he enjoyed the chance to do his work in peace, but today, it was only making the chaos in his head louder.

Olivia had heard him. Of course she had heard him. With his luck, how could he have expected her not to hear him? He'd closed his door but shit, that hadn't stopped her. He knew she hadn't exactly had a normal life the past two years and she wasn't going to let go of old habits so soon, but her snooping still made him pissed.

Logan ended up leaving the library earlier than he intended and going to the university gym. He was no bodybuilder - he hardly knew how to use the machines - but after randomly wandering through the equipment and weights for an hour, at least his mind was exhausted.

By the time he got to her school, one hour later as usual because she always seemed to be having detention these days, his mind was a little quieter and he felt like he could face his sister. So what if she yelled at him again? So what if he could hardly express happiness to his siblings, much less have a conversation about deeper feelings?

He had put himself back together more times than he could count, more times than he cared to remember. Whatever happened, in the end, he would make himself come out the other side this time too because he had started this. He had been the one with the unkind words.

He sat on his bike in the parking lot, glaring at kids who stopped to stare. One of the braver girls actually waved at him, and he pulled out his phone and pressed it to his ear to avoid giving her any sort of wrong signals.

When the crowd cleared a bit, he saw Olivia sitting on the curb, her arms folded up across her knees and her head against her arms. Her backpack lay limp by her side.

"Olivia!" he called, but she didn't look up, too far for his voice to reach her. Logan cursed under his breath, kicked the stand down for his bike, and prayed he wouldn't have to talk to anyone as he walked over to her. Thankfully, the few kids who did pass him gave him a wide berth.

Olivia didn't look up until he reached the curb and called her name again. She suddenly jumped up at his voice and stumbled in her haste. 

Logan had to grab her to stop her from tripping over the curb. "Olivia, I've literally been waiting for so long and - what the hell?"

He stopped ranting when he saw that her face was red and tears were threatening to spill down her cheeks. His whole body went rigid and numb. "What - why are you crying?"

When she didn't answer, he whipped his head around, looking for the source of her misery. He couldn't see the boy that usually did detention with her. Logan's grip tightened on Olivia and he unconsciously pulled her a little closer as he considered that it was that boy's fault that she was crying. He should've warned him to stay from his little sister.

"Did someone say something? Was it that guy who's always smoking? I'll hurt him-"

Olivia shook her head. "It's no one," she said tearily. "It's nothing."

"How the fuck is this nothing?" he said angrily.

Her expression crumpled. "I just didn't know if you would come to pick me up," she said, her voice breaking.