There's a drumming noise inside my head that starts when you're around
This is something I've been working on for quite awhile. These two characters, selfishly, are based on actual people and actual events. I've written and rewritten it a million and one times but every time, it seems cheesy as I read. I don't have a problem with "cheesy" but it was not my intent with this particular story to go in that direction. This is basically the "set up" and if you don't care about my characters, why would you want to read more? I guess that is the problem I am having with this right now. I know these two and I know their conversations go, well.....pretty much like this but I am not sure I translated it to word in a correct way that shows their absolute devotion to each other.
So that's why I am posting it. I need some concrit on it, if you please. I can tell you that this is the fluffiest part of their journey. Things are not easy for them but they take things in stride because they have each other. I hope that helps and like I said, any concrit would be stellar because I need to retool this until it is perfect. (OH! and it "ends" rather abruptly because I have the other portion written on paper and have not converted it yet. If anyone wants to read more? I'll totally do that.)
Love, love and more love.
Bella ♥
I didn't bother knocking. I toe my shoes off by the door as I yell across the quietness.
"Lo? Logan? Seriously...."
I hear him chuckle in the the other room, "Bring wine ya big baby."
I get on tip toes to reach two fancy glasses hidden in the recesses of the upper cabinet. This was a definite downside of having a best friend that's 6'2" when you're 5'3", stuff on the top shelf. I let the door fall shut, which ends up slamming with a whoosh. I can picture the grimace on Logan's face.
"Sorry." I'm muttering. I hate when I mutter. Muttering is for 3 year olds that get caught jumping on the couch by an overprotective mother. It's so childlike, the muttering, that I am fuming with myself even more than I was when I walked through the door. Damnit. I stomp over to the fridge and pluck a bottle from the door. I kick at the fridge door like it's harmed me in some way and it doesn't make me feel any better. Stupid door. I fucking hate you.
I'm still sulking as I round the corner to the living room. As usual, Logan's apartment is in pristine condition with not a thing out of place. It all looks like it belongs in a magazine, him right along with it. I fight the urge to yell at him for being perfect when I spy what he has in his hands.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh Lo, you got my sweats. What would I do without you?"
He grinned his 1000 watt smile, "You would have died a thousand horrid deaths by now, sweetie."
I quickly shuck out of my stuffy dress clothes and make a grab for my ratty sweats and tee. As I pull my sweats over my too round hips, I'm suddenly tripping over my own stupid feet. How'd they get there? I'm stumbling forward.....typical, fucking just typical me. With his usual well timed grace, Logan steps forward in just enough time to wrap his long arms around my waist and keep me from face planting right into the fancy coffee table.
"Jesus El, I'm gonna have a heart attack one of these times over you. Seriously. How do you make it through a whole work day with me not there to catch your goofy ass?"
I snuggle into his broad chest to try and hide a smirk. After a minute, I risk a teeny tiny glance up at him only to see his blue eyes peering down at my green ones. He gives me a quick squeeze and pivots to plant me onto the sofa.
"So how bad was it? Bad? It was bad...I knew it would be bad." He's searching my face for clues while pouring me a glass of wine. "I knew I should have gone....it was horrible, right?.....God,she's such a bitch...she's always been a bitch."
I give a sideways grin at the way he made all that one huge run on sentence. I curl into his side once he sits and immediately his long fingers are in my messy hair, massaging my scalp with care.
"Seriously Ella. Let's just go and TP her big fancy house! Put sugar in the gas tank of her Lexus. Feed the kids twinkies!" We sigh in unison. It's no good and we know it. We're just going to sit here and bitch...bitch and moan and drink.
"Logan, she's my sister. It's her birthday and the bitch is my sister. What was I supposed to do? I had to go. Al-thoough, I can happily report that the whole time I wanted to poke my eyes out with the end of the cute little umbrellas she used for the drinks."
He lets out a side splitting laugh with a snort mixed in for whimsy. "Oh my god. She's awful. I would demand a DNA test. You, so, can not be related to those people. So how long did they give you this time?"
I can feel my cheeks burning under the blush that has crept up. Why was I born with this stupid pale skin with the ugly freckles that just....give me away about...well, everything. I pull my knees to my chest and hide my face as best as I can from Logan, not that it will make a bit of difference.
I intentionally muffle my voice against my thigh. "Fifteen..."
"Excuse me? Ella, honey....did you just say FIF-TEEN?" He says the last word like it is the worst curse word on the planet, like it can come alive and murder us both in our sleep. Sometimes he's a little dramatic.
I uncurl in a flash and hop to my feet, whirling to face him. "God! Yes, Logan. Fifteen minutes before they started on why I wasn't married, on why I insist on living my life in the shadows of my GAY BOYFRIEND....." I'm shouting and I know he doesn't deserve that but I can't stop. He is the only one I can fall apart to. He takes the punishment and never complains. Stupid Logan, always being my stupid rock. I pause in my rant to breathe. Hmmph. At least I remembered to breathe this time.
"Ella, sit down. You know better than to listen to them." He has perfected this look, the look he wears now. It's calm and calculated. He can't show emotion or I will use it to fuel myself. We are utterly symbiotic.
"NO! I won't sit. I'm not a child, Logan." As if to disprove my declaration, I stomp my foot and cross my arms over my chest. I can feel my bottom lip pulling into a pout. I disgust myself sometimes.
He stands and puts his hands on my brooding shoulders. My strawberry blond curls have flopped into my eyes but I am too stubborn to uncross my hands to fix it. I tell myself I don't care. I don't care about the hair in my eyes, the way my mother and sister pity me, the way Logan will never love me the way I've always loved him. That's precisely the moment rogue tears decide to poke their septors, or whatever it is that tears carry....because I know they have something that causes that awful sick poking in the back of your eyeballs until you have to release the tears to stop the pain. I don't want to cry. Crying is for weak people or people that are born as a cyclops or my Aunt Mildred. I'm not going to cry, nu-uh.
Logan is wiping away a few stray tears that somehow managed to get past what I had thought was an impenetrable fortress behind my eyes. He glares at the tears on his finger tips with mock fury.
"No more tears, Ella."
My resolve to be angry was crumbling looking into his blue eyes.
"I hate you Lo." I give him a half hearted smile.
"I know you do, sweetie. That's why we're soul mates, tortured soul mates. How about we just watch a movie?"
I nod numbly. I always feel like a prize fighter who's gone five rounds with a grizzly bear after dealing with my family. I will the fight to leave my bones and suddenly all I want is to cuddle into Logan's ridiculously fluffy down comforter. Logan hooks his arm through mine and shuffles me down the hall.
He says, "How about you just stay here tonight?" which sounds like a stellar plan since I hadn't planned on going home anyhow. I mean, I'm so upset I could forget to eat and I'd starve to death, right? At least here, Lo would feed me.
"Can I eat popcorn in the bed?" I sound pathetic and I give a lost little puppy dog look to Logan.
"Of course. Now hope up here." Logan waits patiently while I make a huge production of climbing into the tall antique four poster bed. I had told him a million and one times that I need stairs so I wouldn't look like an Oompa-Loompa trying to scale a mountain.
"Do you know what she said, Lo? She said I look sad. Who says that to their own sister? She said I'm getting too old to keep playing high school with you. Who says the only way to grow up is to have a wedding and kids and a mortgage and debt? Nu-uh. I dont wanna do it Lo."
"Scoot." He playfully pushes my leg and then sits cross legged next to me. He takes my hands in his and bent his head to look me full in the eyes. "Ella, listen to me. There is not one single thing wrong with your life. We shouldn't even have to have this conversation and you know it. The real problem is that Marissa and your mother can't stand that you won't follow their rules for a happy life. They can't believe that you can really be happy if you're not a carbon copy of them."
I took my hands from his and put one on each of his cheeks. "Why do you love me so much, Lo?" I was grinning from ear to ear because this was by far my favorite "Logan and Ella" game. We'd been playing this silly game since high school. Whenever I feel sad or angry, it never fails to cheer me up.
"Your button nose and sparkling personality of course. Why do you love me so much, El?" He winks at me.
"No way Logan Adams! I know you can do better than that. What else?"
"Your good penmanship?" He chuckles. I smack his hand playfully.
"Lo!" I whine, "Be serious. This is serious. Now why do you love me?"
"Ok. Ok. I love you because when we were 9 and I knocked out my front tooth falling off my bike, you pushed both our bikes home. I love you because you went back once I was home and looked until you found that stupid tooth. I love you because even though you were terrified of dentists, you went with me and made them bring a chair for you so you could hold my hand the whole time."
He leaned forward and kissed the top of my head then glanced at me with a look that said "That good?" I grinned.
"I love you because in the 5th grade you were the only kid that was worst than me at baseball."
I raised an eyebrow at him then laughed as I scrambled to the other end of the bed. Of course, Logan was across the massive bed in a flash, grabbing my ankles to flip me. He proceeded to blow stupid wet raspberries all over my cheeks and tickled my ribs mercilessly.
"Ok. Ok!" I choked out between laughs. "Uncle!"
Logan stopped and looked down at me with a look of utter satisfaction. "Why do you love me?"
"Logan....I love you....for how awesome that perm turned out in 10th grade...."
I saw the patented Logan twinkle in his eyes. "You really loved it?" I saw him moving his hands towards my side out of the corner of my eye, sneaky bastard.
"No. No, actually it was when I knew for sure you were super gay, Lo." I tried to roll away from him before he could tickle me again but I was too slow. "Wait...wait. Ok. LO!" He stopped tickling long enough for me to catch my breath then started again. By this time, we were both laughing so hard that we were wiping away tears. Just when I thought I couldn't handle anymore, couldn't catch my breath....Logan stopped suddenly and looked at me with a very serious look.
"Move in here Ella."
"What?" I half laughed as I propped myself up on my elbows. I really wasn't sure if he was serious or not. I raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Move in here. Seriously El, you already live three buildings away and you spend all your time here anyways. I have two bedrooms and it's silly that we both are paying rent when we could just share a place. It makes sense right?"
I tried to blow a curl out of my eye to no avail. Logan reached over and tucked the stray curl behind my ear gently. I grinned. My silly clueless Logan, who had no idea how much I loved him in a way that he would never love me. I'd dreamed endlessly about him asking me this very question for so long but in a very different way. I knew I had to carefully phrase my answer.
"Logan, dear. I am a messy and very unorganized person, you know this." I was praying silently that this would appease him and the subject would be dropped but I knew it wouldn't be. This was the part of being in love with your clueless gay best friend that really wasn't pleasant.
He made a move towards me and I made myself move away from the touch in an obvious manor. I could tell by the look on his face that I had hurt him. I decided for a more direct approach.
"What brought this on?" I leaned forward and looked at him.
"Nothing, just forget it. You're right. You'd probably drive me crazy." He never looked at me and hopped off the bed, heading for the doorway. "I'm gonna go and get some popcorn. I left the movies on top of the dresser."
So that's why I am posting it. I need some concrit on it, if you please. I can tell you that this is the fluffiest part of their journey. Things are not easy for them but they take things in stride because they have each other. I hope that helps and like I said, any concrit would be stellar because I need to retool this until it is perfect. (OH! and it "ends" rather abruptly because I have the other portion written on paper and have not converted it yet. If anyone wants to read more? I'll totally do that.)
Love, love and more love.
Bella ♥
I didn't bother knocking. I toe my shoes off by the door as I yell across the quietness.
"Lo? Logan? Seriously...."
I hear him chuckle in the the other room, "Bring wine ya big baby."
I get on tip toes to reach two fancy glasses hidden in the recesses of the upper cabinet. This was a definite downside of having a best friend that's 6'2" when you're 5'3", stuff on the top shelf. I let the door fall shut, which ends up slamming with a whoosh. I can picture the grimace on Logan's face.
"Sorry." I'm muttering. I hate when I mutter. Muttering is for 3 year olds that get caught jumping on the couch by an overprotective mother. It's so childlike, the muttering, that I am fuming with myself even more than I was when I walked through the door. Damnit. I stomp over to the fridge and pluck a bottle from the door. I kick at the fridge door like it's harmed me in some way and it doesn't make me feel any better. Stupid door. I fucking hate you.
I'm still sulking as I round the corner to the living room. As usual, Logan's apartment is in pristine condition with not a thing out of place. It all looks like it belongs in a magazine, him right along with it. I fight the urge to yell at him for being perfect when I spy what he has in his hands.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh Lo, you got my sweats. What would I do without you?"
He grinned his 1000 watt smile, "You would have died a thousand horrid deaths by now, sweetie."
I quickly shuck out of my stuffy dress clothes and make a grab for my ratty sweats and tee. As I pull my sweats over my too round hips, I'm suddenly tripping over my own stupid feet. How'd they get there? I'm stumbling forward.....typical, fucking just typical me. With his usual well timed grace, Logan steps forward in just enough time to wrap his long arms around my waist and keep me from face planting right into the fancy coffee table.
"Jesus El, I'm gonna have a heart attack one of these times over you. Seriously. How do you make it through a whole work day with me not there to catch your goofy ass?"
I snuggle into his broad chest to try and hide a smirk. After a minute, I risk a teeny tiny glance up at him only to see his blue eyes peering down at my green ones. He gives me a quick squeeze and pivots to plant me onto the sofa.
"So how bad was it? Bad? It was bad...I knew it would be bad." He's searching my face for clues while pouring me a glass of wine. "I knew I should have gone....it was horrible, right?.....God,she's such a bitch...she's always been a bitch."
I give a sideways grin at the way he made all that one huge run on sentence. I curl into his side once he sits and immediately his long fingers are in my messy hair, massaging my scalp with care.
"Seriously Ella. Let's just go and TP her big fancy house! Put sugar in the gas tank of her Lexus. Feed the kids twinkies!" We sigh in unison. It's no good and we know it. We're just going to sit here and bitch...bitch and moan and drink.
"Logan, she's my sister. It's her birthday and the bitch is my sister. What was I supposed to do? I had to go. Al-thoough, I can happily report that the whole time I wanted to poke my eyes out with the end of the cute little umbrellas she used for the drinks."
He lets out a side splitting laugh with a snort mixed in for whimsy. "Oh my god. She's awful. I would demand a DNA test. You, so, can not be related to those people. So how long did they give you this time?"
I can feel my cheeks burning under the blush that has crept up. Why was I born with this stupid pale skin with the ugly freckles that just....give me away about...well, everything. I pull my knees to my chest and hide my face as best as I can from Logan, not that it will make a bit of difference.
I intentionally muffle my voice against my thigh. "Fifteen..."
"Excuse me? Ella, honey....did you just say FIF-TEEN?" He says the last word like it is the worst curse word on the planet, like it can come alive and murder us both in our sleep. Sometimes he's a little dramatic.
I uncurl in a flash and hop to my feet, whirling to face him. "God! Yes, Logan. Fifteen minutes before they started on why I wasn't married, on why I insist on living my life in the shadows of my GAY BOYFRIEND....." I'm shouting and I know he doesn't deserve that but I can't stop. He is the only one I can fall apart to. He takes the punishment and never complains. Stupid Logan, always being my stupid rock. I pause in my rant to breathe. Hmmph. At least I remembered to breathe this time.
"Ella, sit down. You know better than to listen to them." He has perfected this look, the look he wears now. It's calm and calculated. He can't show emotion or I will use it to fuel myself. We are utterly symbiotic.
"NO! I won't sit. I'm not a child, Logan." As if to disprove my declaration, I stomp my foot and cross my arms over my chest. I can feel my bottom lip pulling into a pout. I disgust myself sometimes.
He stands and puts his hands on my brooding shoulders. My strawberry blond curls have flopped into my eyes but I am too stubborn to uncross my hands to fix it. I tell myself I don't care. I don't care about the hair in my eyes, the way my mother and sister pity me, the way Logan will never love me the way I've always loved him. That's precisely the moment rogue tears decide to poke their septors, or whatever it is that tears carry....because I know they have something that causes that awful sick poking in the back of your eyeballs until you have to release the tears to stop the pain. I don't want to cry. Crying is for weak people or people that are born as a cyclops or my Aunt Mildred. I'm not going to cry, nu-uh.
Logan is wiping away a few stray tears that somehow managed to get past what I had thought was an impenetrable fortress behind my eyes. He glares at the tears on his finger tips with mock fury.
"No more tears, Ella."
My resolve to be angry was crumbling looking into his blue eyes.
"I hate you Lo." I give him a half hearted smile.
"I know you do, sweetie. That's why we're soul mates, tortured soul mates. How about we just watch a movie?"
I nod numbly. I always feel like a prize fighter who's gone five rounds with a grizzly bear after dealing with my family. I will the fight to leave my bones and suddenly all I want is to cuddle into Logan's ridiculously fluffy down comforter. Logan hooks his arm through mine and shuffles me down the hall.
He says, "How about you just stay here tonight?" which sounds like a stellar plan since I hadn't planned on going home anyhow. I mean, I'm so upset I could forget to eat and I'd starve to death, right? At least here, Lo would feed me.
"Can I eat popcorn in the bed?" I sound pathetic and I give a lost little puppy dog look to Logan.
"Of course. Now hope up here." Logan waits patiently while I make a huge production of climbing into the tall antique four poster bed. I had told him a million and one times that I need stairs so I wouldn't look like an Oompa-Loompa trying to scale a mountain.
"Do you know what she said, Lo? She said I look sad. Who says that to their own sister? She said I'm getting too old to keep playing high school with you. Who says the only way to grow up is to have a wedding and kids and a mortgage and debt? Nu-uh. I dont wanna do it Lo."
"Scoot." He playfully pushes my leg and then sits cross legged next to me. He takes my hands in his and bent his head to look me full in the eyes. "Ella, listen to me. There is not one single thing wrong with your life. We shouldn't even have to have this conversation and you know it. The real problem is that Marissa and your mother can't stand that you won't follow their rules for a happy life. They can't believe that you can really be happy if you're not a carbon copy of them."
I took my hands from his and put one on each of his cheeks. "Why do you love me so much, Lo?" I was grinning from ear to ear because this was by far my favorite "Logan and Ella" game. We'd been playing this silly game since high school. Whenever I feel sad or angry, it never fails to cheer me up.
"Your button nose and sparkling personality of course. Why do you love me so much, El?" He winks at me.
"No way Logan Adams! I know you can do better than that. What else?"
"Your good penmanship?" He chuckles. I smack his hand playfully.
"Lo!" I whine, "Be serious. This is serious. Now why do you love me?"
"Ok. Ok. I love you because when we were 9 and I knocked out my front tooth falling off my bike, you pushed both our bikes home. I love you because you went back once I was home and looked until you found that stupid tooth. I love you because even though you were terrified of dentists, you went with me and made them bring a chair for you so you could hold my hand the whole time."
He leaned forward and kissed the top of my head then glanced at me with a look that said "That good?" I grinned.
"I love you because in the 5th grade you were the only kid that was worst than me at baseball."
I raised an eyebrow at him then laughed as I scrambled to the other end of the bed. Of course, Logan was across the massive bed in a flash, grabbing my ankles to flip me. He proceeded to blow stupid wet raspberries all over my cheeks and tickled my ribs mercilessly.
"Ok. Ok!" I choked out between laughs. "Uncle!"
Logan stopped and looked down at me with a look of utter satisfaction. "Why do you love me?"
"Logan....I love you....for how awesome that perm turned out in 10th grade...."
I saw the patented Logan twinkle in his eyes. "You really loved it?" I saw him moving his hands towards my side out of the corner of my eye, sneaky bastard.
"No. No, actually it was when I knew for sure you were super gay, Lo." I tried to roll away from him before he could tickle me again but I was too slow. "Wait...wait. Ok. LO!" He stopped tickling long enough for me to catch my breath then started again. By this time, we were both laughing so hard that we were wiping away tears. Just when I thought I couldn't handle anymore, couldn't catch my breath....Logan stopped suddenly and looked at me with a very serious look.
"Move in here Ella."
"What?" I half laughed as I propped myself up on my elbows. I really wasn't sure if he was serious or not. I raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Move in here. Seriously El, you already live three buildings away and you spend all your time here anyways. I have two bedrooms and it's silly that we both are paying rent when we could just share a place. It makes sense right?"
I tried to blow a curl out of my eye to no avail. Logan reached over and tucked the stray curl behind my ear gently. I grinned. My silly clueless Logan, who had no idea how much I loved him in a way that he would never love me. I'd dreamed endlessly about him asking me this very question for so long but in a very different way. I knew I had to carefully phrase my answer.
"Logan, dear. I am a messy and very unorganized person, you know this." I was praying silently that this would appease him and the subject would be dropped but I knew it wouldn't be. This was the part of being in love with your clueless gay best friend that really wasn't pleasant.
He made a move towards me and I made myself move away from the touch in an obvious manor. I could tell by the look on his face that I had hurt him. I decided for a more direct approach.
"What brought this on?" I leaned forward and looked at him.
"Nothing, just forget it. You're right. You'd probably drive me crazy." He never looked at me and hopped off the bed, heading for the doorway. "I'm gonna go and get some popcorn. I left the movies on top of the dresser."