After several minutes, Logan interrupts the silence. “I’ve never really had it in me to believe.”
It’s not much of a confession. I think I’ve always known that about him.
I glance sidelong at him. Logan’s always moved fluidly through life, sidestepping what annoys him. A refusal to be second in command, to answer to a power higher than himself. The way to be more powerful than god is to be a nonbeliever.
I can see the way the wedding is frustrating him. It’s not something he can just dip out of. There’s a tension in his jaw that has been there since he was a kid.He must have some serious TMJ,I muse to myself, and roll my jaw in sympathy.
“You know what it’s like to be married, right?” Logan asks, as if his thoughts can’t help but wander in the same places as mine. The normally defiant edge in his voice is gone for something almost casual. “For however long it lasted.”
I sigh and put my back to the wall opposite the confessional window. “Two years, for the record.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Impressive.”
“Shut up.”
“You’re not going to tell me about it?”
“Getting divorced?”
“No, when you got married. Famously, I was not there.”
“Oh, you know. We went down to the courthouse in a couple of tie-dye T-shirts. There’s some terrible photobooth strips that are almost too dark to see anything, we got those from walking around the boardwalk after.”
That night was a new moon, I remember because I’d specifically planned that out. I vaguely remember some half-baked intent to keep her up all night and then waking up at noon, not sure when holding her close became sleep.
The memory makes me smile, and then wince as my claws push a little further out.
Through the latticed opening, Logan looks thoughtful. Then he asks, “How’d you do it, knowing you were making a mistake?”
Yeesh, rude.
“I didn’t think it was a mistake. It was the best day of my life. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
He doesn’t reply.
Maybe he just wants reassurance he’s making the right decision. It must feel like a big leap, and he’s too much of a cynic to believe in himself.
He always has been. I remember him being too frightened to bike without the training wheels. Also picking him up after hefell off my bike, putting Band-Aids on his knees while he sniffled and promised not to tell Mom.
“She had a lot of money to pay in taxes,” I tell him, weaving this little story for him. It makes me miss being a big brother. Just a little.
“It was uh...self-employment tax stuff. Anyway, she couldn’t cover it all, and I was already in love with her. It started out as a joke. Filing as a married couple would save her the difference in what she owed, and a marriage license was like, less than thirty bucks. We were already married by the time I told Mom about her.”
Maybe it’s going over fond memories, or that it feels like coming home for the first time in ages, even though I’ve been here all week.
He doesn’t add anything else for a long moment. I think he’s done talking to me at all when he says, “I hope the pain was worth it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Getting divorced.”
“You know, you’re so much fun to talk to. I don’t know why we didn’t catch up earlier.”
He rolls his eyes in response, like I’m the asshole for not accepting his condolences when they were presented with such careful and empathetic tact.
Whatever. I’m just going to keep ignoring his attitude. There’s not much else I can do while sitting penitent.
I put my head between my knees, my claws raking through my scalp. The shift feels oddly suffocating this time, like I can’t breathe in deeply enough.
