Page 22 of Some Kind of Haunted

Then he proceeds to grab a ridiculous number of bags as if to prove he can handle it all on his own.

I decide to let him. Men like to prove themselves with unnecessary feats of boring strength, so they should.

“I . . . I’m halfway through digitizing the inventory,” Nora continues, her gaze darting between Logan and me. “I can email it to you when I’m done.”

“Email it to your lawyer. He’ll email it to me,” Logan replies, though he sounds strained since he’s attempting to carry something like a hundred pounds of groceries all on his own.

I roll my eyes toward Nora and mouth, men. She smiles a little, but I can tell Logan’s curtness hurts her feelings. I guess that’s going around. Oddly enough, that makes me feel better.

I offer her a smile and wave goodbye before closing the trunk and following Logan down the alley. I make a point to examine the alley as we go, since it’s still light. It’s just an alley, and much nicer than many alleys back home. There are weeds poking through the bricks and muck in the cracks—mud, I correct myself, and think of floodwaters—and no beady-eyed monsters of any kind.

Back at the little house, Logan grunts at me and I understand this as an order to dig the house keys from his pocket. I fish them out, then struggle with them, jiggling the knob and muttering until I manage to get it open.

I don’t look back into the yard, because my neck prickles and I don’t actually want to know if something’s watching us.

Once inside, Logan slings all the bags onto the small table in the kitchen.

“Feel manly?” I ask him.

He glares at me like he’s actually pissed, which is weird. “Since I did everything, why don’t you put the groceries away?”

“Since you’re acting like a prick, I think you should put the groceries away. What is your problem with her? She’s perfectly nice and—”

He cuts me off. “Look, Lexi, if you want me to handle things—all the things, all the time—you don’t get to have everything be your way.”

He might as well have thrown one of those grocery bags at me.

And I know it hurts because there’s a kernel of truth in there. I do let him do all the things. It’s how we work. It’s always how we’ve worked. But he’s never used it against me like it’s been bothering him our whole lives. He’s never lashed out at me like it was a bad thing. Not without some teasing. Not without that Logan-ness to make it okay.

The fact that I have decided to stay here in all this small-town menace for him makes it worse.

I feel martyred and unjustly attacked, and not in a fun way that I could turn into a little drama or two. I swallow at the unexpected lump in my throat. I don’t have any sharp words in return. I don’t have anything. I’m too exhausted, this is all too much, and he wants to stay here so we can continue to not act like ourselves.

Worse, I am going to have to stay with him, because apparently it’s only my neck that prickles in warning.

So I turn on a heel and go into the tiny bedroom that is mine. He doesn’t need a bed. He can sleep on the couch forever.

I take a shower in the tiny bath with its plastic shower curtain that feels better suited to an insane asylum as I pull it closed. There is a tidy line of shampoo and soap, all Mary Kay brand in the scent apple and almond, which isn’t quite as offensive as I expect it to be. Though no one would confuse it for La Prairie, either.

The water is nice and hot, but the pressure leaves a lot to be desired. When I get out I try to read. I pull out my latest knitting project. I am not going back out into the main part of the house until Logan apologizes.

But he doesn’t.

The afternoon wears on. Bright and gold outside, then the light begins to fade.

When it feels like a socially acceptable time to go to sleep—if I were geriatric—I go through my careful skin and sleep routine, step by centering step.

The more you remind yourself of how real you are, by touching your face and looking in the mirror and truly grounding yourself in your body, my therapist liked to say, then you can carry that into your bad dreams with you and remind yourself of the same thing there.

I make sure to take a sleeping pill, because last night was enough of a lesson in what happens when I don’t. I lock the bedroom door in an attempt to keep myself from wandering out again. But even if I do, and even if Logan is mad at me, I know he won’t let me get out of the house. He’ll protect me from myself and whatever keeps me from being normal, despite himself.

Just like I decided to stay here to protect him, no matter how irritating he can be.

But even as I think that, I’m suddenly cold.

And it’s dark.

Freakishly dark, when it was barely dusk outside just seconds ago.