Aiden snorts and leans into my side conspiratorially. He takes in a breath, clearly about to explain something else to me, probably about how he likes to freak out hikers with this little talent, when his head jerks towards the woods.
I turn my head too, and after a moment, spot Logan coming out of the woods. His clothes are pretty torn and dirty. He looks a little dazed and vacant as he approaches and stops at the edge of the party.
“Hey, man, what happened?” Laura calls out, pretty much the same time as Aiden yells, “DUDE, YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE WHO GOT REMARRIED!”
“Well, when you phrase it like that, there’s not that many options present,” Laura huffs, giving Aiden a shove. “Also, maybe we don’tleadwith that.”
Shawn lets go of me, pausing only to press a kiss to my temple. “I’ll be right back,” he murmurs, and I squeeze his hand before he jogs over to where Logan stands, under the shadow of the woods.
–
Logan barely registers my presence until I get close to him, and he glances up. He’s always had a little bit of a gaunt look to him, but it used to be because he wore eyeliner in high school and dyed his hair. Now it looks like it’s natural to him.
“You were gone a long while,” I say, dropping a hand on his shoulder, and he sways with the impact. Executive decision to not lead with the wedding thing. I’m just glad he came back.We can figure out our differences after the full moon is a little further away in the calendar.
“I...couldn’t figure out how to turn back. I just kept running, and then it’s hazy,” he mutters. His words lance through me. I put an arm around his back and try not to show too much of the panic and concern they inspire.
“It’s over, the worst of it’s passed,” I say, scratching his back in a way that probably betrays my frantic thoughts more than it is comforting. “Hey, man. I’m sorry. Things were heated.”
It’s not the apology he deserves, but it’s a start. We have a lot to work on.
“I’m tired. I don’t care about it anymore.” He sighs, defeated. I know he doesn’t mean it. But I know what it is to be so tired you feel like giving up.
It’s been an extremely long day and night. I hate to think that he’s in for another one.
I bite my tongue on any further comment about our argument. It’s too raw right now. We don’t need to open that up right away. It’s probably best to wait till the moon wanes some more.
I start to lead him back to the house, when he stumbles. Logan puts a hand to his temple, wincing. There’s some pretty gnarly bruising on his ribcage too, I notice through the tatters of his shirt.
“Jeez, you pick a fight with someone else?”
“Not that I remember,” he says, but as we step into the light and he looks at me, I can see there’s blood in his teeth.
I stop abruptly, immediately inspecting and pulling back his cheek. I half-expect to find he’s broken a tooth or got a scrap of fur from chewing on a squirrel, but all I see is the blood, the way it coats his teeth in red.
“Dude, stop, stop,” he tries to say, but doesn’t resist more than that.
“I think you’re bleeding in your mouth,” I tell him, and he frowns at me.
“It doesn’t hurt,” he says, batting my hands away. I watch as he massages the other side of his jaw, wincing again. He reaches in and after a moment, pulls a scrap of something out. He holds it out in his palm, staring blankly.
It’s one of those little corsage things, or what’s left of it. It’s really just a knotted bit of bloody lace and a couple leaves still tied together, and another piece of fabric skewered through the pin. I vaguely remember Laura’s friend carrying a box of those around, asking if anyone in the wedding party didn’t have one yet.
My hand reaches up and pats over my shirt, finding the one I got before. I still have mine, so he must have bitten that off someone else.
“Is that yours?”
He’s not wearing one, but I’m not sure if he ever was. He shakes his head a little. He tries at first to put it in his pocket, before realizing that his pockets are pretty slashed up and not great for storage. He shrugs and pins it through part of his sleeve, twisting the end closed, like that’s not gross as hell.
“Guess it is now,” he mutters, and levels me with that look of, “We’re not going to talk about this.”
I grit my teeth, but don’t push it. Sooner rather than later, we’re going to have to confront that Logan definitely bit someone last night.
