ONE
Six
LOGAN
We sharedroof access with one other apartment, but I’d never seen anyone else up there until the day I met the girl who stole my soul and kept it locked somewhere inside her heart.
Our parents never used the roof, so it became a playground of sorts for my brothers and me. In truth, it was our escape from the constant fighting between our parents. I was only six, and already knew what it meant that my father was having an affair. It wasn’t his first and wouldn’t be his last.
My mom stayed.
They fought.
At first, he swore he’d never do it again. Then we came home one day last week and there was a woman hopping up and down on my dad’s lap. They were both naked on our couch. Dad wasn’t supposed to get naked with other women. He promised Mom that he wouldn’t, but we all saw it this time.
Mom screamed so loudly, but there weren’t any words. She sounded kind of like the people being tortured in the movie my dad let us watch. She yelled about that, too, but she used words then. It felt like everything broke when she screamed. The naked woman jumped up and ran to grab her clothes. My dad sat therewith a look on his face that I didn’t understand. It was almost like he enjoyed seeing my mom upset.
The last fight had been so loud my brothers had taken me to the roof and we camped out there all night. I don’t think either of our parents even knew where we were or that we never made it to our beds. Truthfully, Mom wasn’t in any shape to care and Dad simply didn’t. To him, we were heirs and nothing more.
Mom was gone when we got back from our rooftop campout. Gideon told me she’d return soon, but so far that wasn’t true.
“Dad told me she’s not coming back,” Lucian said as we opened the door and walked out onto the roof of our apartment building.
“She will. Moms don’t leave their kids behind,” Adrian told him.
Lucian shook his head like he didn’t believe that and when I turned to see Gideon’s reaction, he looked angry. I wasn’t sure why. No one really bothered to explain much to me since I was the youngest. Lucian didn’t know much more than me. He was only eight. Adrian was eleven and Gideon was thirteen. They both knew a lot more, but they also hid things from us. I wasn’t stupid. I noticed the looks they shared, the ones that said they had secrets between them.
I had secrets with Lucian, too. We had a hiding spot for our candy stash. I thought about how we hadn’t been able to get more since Mom wasn’t around to hand us money before school since she left. Maybe our secret candy stash would run out until she got back. Our dad didn’t get us candy or money. I threw a panicked glance at Lucian, but he didn’t understand. I promised myself to tell him when the other boys weren’t around later.
I walked away as the three of them argued over whether Mom would be back. Well, Lucian and Adrian argued. Gideon just told them to shut the fuck up. I wanted to hide in the corner so they wouldn’t see me cry because I knew, just like my olderbrother, that our mom wasn’t coming back. She didn’t like Dad anymore and that meant she didn’t like us either.
I heard something and stopped in my tracks because it wasn’t from back where I’d left my brothers. When I looked across the roof, to where the other penthouse had its own rooftop access, I noticed a girl who was standing too close to the edge. The wind whipped at her frilly pink dress just as her curly hair was caught up and spun into the air, too. Those curls that blew around in the wind were a weird color. She almost looked like she had yellow hair and then it moved in the light and appeared more like the color of a peach, maybe pink. I couldn’t be sure because it seemed to change as the sun hit in spots as it fluttered around her head.
“Hey!” I called out. She jumped back a step, obviously scared by someone else being on the roof. Her big eyes met mine as she turned to face me with her back to the edge of the building. Tears streamed down her face. It was red and blotchy in spots, and in others it was pale like the statues in our apartment.
“What are you doing? Get away from there!” I yelled as I moved closer.
She backed up another step. Unfortunately, that put her closer to the edge, since she was facing me. The wind lifted her curly pink hair off her shoulders again, and my heart started to beat like it was a wild animal trying to escape a cage.
“No! Don’t move!” I yelled and ran for her.
“Logan!” I heard Gideon call out to me and then the noisy rush of my brothers’ footsteps as they all tried to get to us.
“Please, you’ll fall. It’s too windy to be that close,” I explained. She looked down to see the hand I held out for her and then she grabbed it. I yanked her to me and wrapped my arms around her like she might fly away and disappear if I didn’t hold on tight enough.
“You’re squishing me!” The girl complained and wiggled around, but I refused to let go. She could have fallen and then she would have been gone like our mom before I even knew her name.
“Aww, little brother’s in love!”
Adrian could tease all he wanted. The girl was safe and that was all that mattered. I couldn’t make our mom stay, but I could hang on to the girl so she didn’t fall and disappear, too.
“Why are you so sad?” I asked as her hair caught in the breeze again and tickled against my nose.
“Faye is dead,” she whispered into my shoulder.
“Who is Faye?”
“My sister. My big sister is dead.” Her little body shook in my arms and slowly I lowered down to sit on the ground and brought the girl with me.
