Breaking Bedlam (Beautiful Bedlam Book 2) Page 21

  “Ah to be seventeen again.” Howie muttered under his breath as his wife droned on about the filth of this generation and how she blamed it on reality TV. Oddly Sienna agreed with her.

  “How’d it go with Nichols?” Logan asked sweetly as he drove. His one hand remained on hers whenever it wasn’t busy shifting gear. He knew how much she hated therapy, how much she hated to be reminded that she wasn’t ‘normal’, that she had to abide and follow a certain set of rules and follow a strict routine out of fear of another mood swing or worse a severely depressed episode and they all knew what happened to Sienna the last time she went through that phase.

  “You know the usual, lying down against a long uncomfortable futon trying to recollect any repressed childhood memories I have whilst the breeze blows the wind chimes and the incense around me infiltrates my inner soul and I’m suddenly reawakened as a new person.” She said sardonically with ease. Sarcasm was like second nature to her these days. Logan repressed his sigh and looked ahead without moving his hand. The summer hadn’t been perfect but in his mind their relationship had come pretty darn near close. After his sister Amber’s lost her battle with cancer, they’d been closer than ever, talking and laughing all day. They had never been more in love. He literally couldn’t take his hands or eyes off her. She was so stunning. She still was but it seemed as though their luck had worn out as her depression started kicking in again a couple of weeks ago and no matter how hard he tried to make her laugh or how hard she tried to pretend like it was okay, nothing worked.

  “So basically you gave old man Nichols a run for his money and talked to him about random crap again didn’t you?”

  “Yup!” she replied with a smile that he hoped was genuine.

  “How are you? I mean, really?” he asked gently stealing glances from the road to look at her.

  “I’m good.” She replied swiftly averting his gaze by looking out of the window at the green trees that all blurred to one due to Logan’s lead foot on the gas pedal and the two white and black birds that flew over them throughout the entirety of their journey. Sienna’s mind flickered back to the start of the summer. It had been an eventful summer to say the least. Logan hadn’t exactly taken Amber’s death too well especially since he wasn’t allowed to go to her funeral but attended anyway with Sienna in tow.

  They stood at the back of the church as strangers in black attire, listening to and watching as various aunts and uncles who barely knew Amber stood on the podium and eulogized a dead teenaged girl they hadn’t seen since she was five years old. Logan was furious and angry at the small turn out believing his little sister deserved more, as she did. Senator Jackson was away at a press conference in Harrisburg; Mrs. Jackson refused to believe that her husband’s secret illegitimate child had ever existed and Jake didn’t even have the guts to pick up the phone and let Logan know that he wouldn’t be there for their sister’s burial so it was pretty safe to say that Logan was pretty messed up over this.

  “Logan! Stop it!” Sienna yelled as he unscrewed the lid of a vodka bottle and took a swig from it before pouring the remaining liquor all over the roses and flowers left on Amber’s grave along with her small brown teddy bear soaked in it all. Even the bear seemed to cry along with him. He had a wild feral look in his dark unfathomable eyes as he took out his lighter. The flame flickered in the breeze illuminating his wet tear stricken face. The wind flapped around Sienna’s hair as she pled with him. She was grateful it was past midnight so the cemetery was empty with no onlookers to witness this bizarre turn of events.

  “Stop what? You want me to stop grieving? You want me to stop crying? Isn’t this what you always wanted? Isn’t this what all you girls like? You’ve been dying to see my sensitive side! So here you are! I’m vulnerable!” he exhaled with a wicked grin on his face with his arms extended out as he looked around manically.

  “Are you happy now? Look I’m a real man now. I cry.” He said dryly and dropped the silver lighter igniting the flowers beneath in blue and yellow flame that bristled and swayed bright against the dark that enveloped their surroundings.

  “Of course I’m not happy! Logan, please let’s just go home.”

  “I don’t want to go home. What is home? Is that supposed to mean something to me?” he asked quietly as he kneeled down near the fire, his knees on the dirt, his eyes on the slab of rock on the ground denoting the only thing he had left of his sister in this godforsaken world. He let his fingers graze over the tips of the flames.

  “Stop!” she rebuked immediately and held his hands in hers and looked up at him terrified.

  “I don’t feel a thing.” He said numbly without so much as glancing her way.

  “Here lies Amber Vale, beloved daughter and friend. Well for starters you weren’t that beloved, friend, if your own daddy couldn’t miss screwing his secretary in between press conferences to make it in time for your funeral. And friend? What friends did you have?” he said bitingly.

  “All you had was me…even though you deserved so much more.” His voice broke on the last of his words as his throat closed up with choking emotion that smothered his soul and stifled his broken heart. Sienna immediately pulled him to her. Logan buried his head in the nook of her neck. She cried along with him unable to watch him in so much pain.

  “Its not fair.” He whispered. His voice came out muffled against her chest.

  “Shhhh.” She cooed, her chin against his head, her tears streaking those luscious dark locks of his that she loved so dearly as she ran her fingers through them gently.

  “It should have been me.” He whispered. Sienna’s hand stilled in its caress almost as if she was unsure of what she had just heard.

  “It should have been me.” He said again with greater conviction.

  Sienna ended up driving him to her home and let him sleep on her couch. She thought it best not to take him home drunk to his disapproving parents who already hated her so she just texted his mother on his phone to let him know he was safe and at a friend’s home. Sienna covered him with a blanket and sighed as she found her mother passed out drunk on the kitchen counter. She also found a number of her own pills missing from her bottle. Sienna half carried, half dragged her mother over to the remaining chair in the living room and covered her with another blanket leaving the room wondering if her entire life she’d have to take care of people whose lives were governed by poison.

  “Sienna!” a voice called to her loudly snapping her out of her thoughts and back to the present. She saw that they were parked outside her home.

  “You totally zoned out on me there. You haven’t been so quiet for so long since you re-watched the red wedding episode last week. You okay?” Logan asked with a quizzical look on his handsome face.

  “Yeah, sorry. My mind just wanders sometimes.” She apologized diffidently and got out of the car. “Dream girl.” He teased wryly as he walked her to her front door.

  “You want me to stay over tonight? It’s a pretty clear sky tonight. Do you want me to bring some frozen yogurt?” he asked, as this was their usual routine. Somehow even in the dead of the night Logan always managed to find one frozen yogurt store open in town. It made no sense. Sienna always wondered how far he travelled just for her guilty pleasures.

  “No, Annie’s home. I don’t want to weird her out.”

  “Right, gotcha. Watching your brother and sister making out and gazing up at the stars is enough to mess with any kid’s mind. Not that she knows I’m her brother.”

  “We’ll tell her. One day. She’s too young to understand now. I mean she’s barely just buried our dad.” She said quickly more because she was worried it would be too soon for Logan than for Annie to suddenly discover Phil Rivers wasn’t her biological father.

  “Yeah you’re right.” Logan agreed with her begrudgingly.

  “So first day of senior year tomorrow.” He told her with a smirk.

  “Oh god, don’t remind me.” She groaned.

  “Come on, it’ll be fun. It won�
�t be anything like last year. This year you’ve got me.” He said sweetly and put his arms around her dainty waist pulling her to him effortlessly.

  “Yeah you’re right. Goodnight, Logan.” she sighed and looked up at those enchantingly dark smoldering eyes that she found herself far too easily lost in.

  “’Night.” He murmured and tucked her loose silken dark strands of hair behind her ear before pressing his lips on to hers and kissing her. God, he loved kissing her. He loved the way she always seemed to let out a small surprised gas before he kissed her as if it were a genuine shock to her that anyone would want to kiss such a beautiful girl. He loved the way she tasted like strawberries and the way she still blushed and couldn’t quite look him right in the eyes afterwards. She pulled back from him and did just that. “I’ll see you tomorrow Logan.” she told him shyly as she opened her front door her heart hammering against her chest cavity as it always did whenever he kissed her.

  “Hey, we’re okay right? Me and you?” he asked tentatively as he that anxious uneasy feeling gnawed away at him from the inside. Sienna was acting slightly stranger than usual…and that was saying a lot.

  “Yeah of course,” she replied softly confused by his questions and smiled at him reassuringly.

  “I love you.” He said sincerely as he walked backwards down the steps of her porch towards his mustang, unable to take his eyes off her alluring green ones.

  “Thank you.” She gulped looking unsure of how to reply before quickly retreating inside and slamming the door shut so she wouldn’t have to see the look of pure unadulterated shock mixed with a twinge of dismay on Logan’s gorgeous face.

  2.

  “Wake up! Sienna, time for school.” Someone called as they shook her shoulder. Sienna mumbled in her sleep something along the lines of “go away”.

  “Sienna.” That eerily chilling childlike voice called again causing Sienna to sit up and take notice.

  “Amber?” she gasped as she saw a small thin pale faced raven-haired pretty girl standing by her bedside with glazed black eyes.

  “Its time to wake up.” she whispered, her tiny frail hand moving slowly towards Sienna’s trembling shoulder.

  Sienna jolted up in bed just as her hand made contact with her body. Her heart pounded ruthlessly against her ribcage making it hard for her to catch her breath and her pajamas clinging on to her cold damp back.

  “Who the hell’s Amber?” Candice asked bewilderedly as she stared at her cousin unblinkingly before shrugging and muttering “whatever” under her breath.

  “Logan is waiting for you downstairs.” She told her airily as she brushed her unruly ginger curls.

  “What?” Sienna asked and sighed when she looked at the time.

  “Yeah, hurry up and get dressed. He’s been waiting a while.”

  When Sienna did finally make it downstairs fully dressed in a black top and chic cream and black-buttoned skirt and black boots, she hadn’t exactly expected people to drop their jaws on to the floor gasping ‘my oh my who is this fair lady?’ but she had expected at least somewhat of a flirty smile for Logan. Instead she found him in the middle of an intense hushed conversation with her mother who was surprisingly awake and sober today. They were whispering fervently about something, neither of the two looked happy.

  “What’s going on?” Sienna asked as she walked in.

  “Nothing.” Maria Rivers quickly said and looked guiltily at her pretty daughter who only grew more and more beautiful every day. She had her father’s striking green eyes. They were always the first things you noticed about Sienna when you met her, always the feral feline cat eyes. She had her mother’s exotic beautiful creamy dewy olive skin, razor sharp high cheekbones, full pouty lips and a glossy silken mane of her hair that cascaded and shimmied down past her shoulders and back.

  Logan didn’t tell her she looked beautiful simply because he didn’t need to, his eyes did all the talking. She blushed slightly and looked away coyly. Maria Rivers sighed and felt as if she had walked straight in to the past. They were their parents’ children. Fate had a funny way of repeating itself. This wasn’t lost on Maria as she marveled at how identical Logan looked to his handsome father from the tall broad shouldered frame to the mischievous dark eyes to the dimpled crooked smile.

  “You ready to go?” he asked her and gave her that crooked smile that let her know that her outfit didn’t go amiss.

  “Logan I have something to tell you.” She told him once they got outside out of earshot from her mother.

  “I knew it. I knew something was wrong when yesterday after I kissed you I told you that I loved you and you-“

  “I saw Amber today.” She blurted out suddenly unable to contain it any longer. Logan just stared at her for a few short seconds blankly.

  “What?” he asked again disconcertedly.

  “I saw her this morning. When I woke up standing next to my bed.” Sienna exhaled anxiously and ran her fingers through her hair.

  “In…a dream? ‘Cos I see her all the time.” Logan told her worriedly.

  “No. I’m not sure. It felt real.”

  “Well, what did she say?”

  “To wake up.” Sienna told him anxiously.

  “Sienna, it was probably just a dream. I mean you have been taking your medication haven’t you?”

  “Of course.” She gulped and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.

  “And you haven’t seen her since?”

  “Nope.” Sienna replied a little too quickly her eyes fixed on something behind him.

  “Then you’re fine. It was probably just a dream.” Logan said casually and opened the car door for her, ever the gentleman.

  “Yeah, just a dream.” She muttered as she saw Amber’s small frail figure still dressed in her white hospital gown hiding behind the tree spying on them shy then sat in the car. Sienna couldn’t believe her hallucinations were back but they looked so damn real. She felt Amber’s tiny bony hand on her shoulder. That had to be real! She could feel another one of her migraines coming on and she knew they were usually followed by a nosebleed. Great.

  “Hey can I have a tissue?” she asked just as Logan drove in to the high school parking lot. “Yeah sure it’s in the glove compartment.” He said casually.

  “Wait!” he yelled half a second later and clamped his hand over hers shutting it.

  “What’s this?” she asked holding a small plastic bag containing white powder. Let’s just say she was pretty sure it was not milkshake powder.

  “That’s not mine if that’s what you’re thinking.” He said immediately, his eyes the size of saucers. ‘Liar,’ that familiar gruff but distinctively feminine voice hissed. Sienna’s head instantly jerked to her right and looked through her window but no one was there. ‘Oh no, not again,’ she thought miserably to herself but kept her worries off her face so Logan wouldn’t catch on the state of her deteriorating sanity.

  “That’s why you almost jumped me for it?” Sienna asked skeptically with her eyebrow arched at him and held the bag up.

  “Oh come on I didn’t jump you for it. It’s Trent’s.” Logan said airily as if that explained everything. Well, it sort of did.

  “What is it? Weed?” she asked curiously her voice coming across slightly childlike. Logan couldn’t help but laugh a little at her naïve and innocent she was even at seventeen. “Weed doesn’t come in white powder, Sienna.” He said almost apologetically and bit lower lip at attempt not to grin like he so badly wanted to.

  “I know.” She lied trying to come off nonchalantly but he knew she was slightly embarrassed.

  “Sienna, look at me. Trust me, its not mine.” Logan told her earnestly.

  “I believe you.” She answered gently and handed it to him not sure of what to think.

  “And just FYI, marijuana looks like tobacco.” He added as they got out of the car.

  “Ohhh.” She whispered finally putting a picture to the ‘pot’ all her friends were smoking. Oh crap, Candice was right. Sienn
a really was wasting her life away inside the library. Actually, even the nerds in the library knew what pot looked like.

  “You have no idea what tobacco looks like do you?” Logan asked wryly with a smirk on his face that he tried to hide with his hand.

  “I know what tobacco looks like! I’ve seen it in the movies!” She exclaimed and smacked him playfully on the shoulder. He laughed and pulled her to him.

  “You. Are. Adorable.” He said in between hungry kisses.

  “Cuter than that cat on that vine we saw the other day playing the piano?” she asked delectably and stared up at him with her spectacular big emerald eyes that looked like they belonged to a certain ginger cat in boots.

  “Cuter than that little white Scottish fold kitten sleeping in a teacup.” He told her and kissed her forehead.

  “Awww.” She cried out in delight, her heart seconds away from exploding from all the gushy overwhelming feelings of love and emotion she was experiencing just then.

  “Urgh. I think I’m going to barf. Ooh look drugs!” Trent O’Connell, Logan’s long time friend exclaimed as he jumped on them suddenly as if appearing from thin air or that’s how it felt to the lovebirds so enthralled with each other they’d forgotten about the rest of the world.

  “Shut up, you idiot!” Logan hissed under his breath and looked around as he fisted the small bag of drugs.

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t leave your personal items including your narcotics in my boyfriend’s vehicle.” Sienna told Trent sternly and quickly slipped the bag in to the front pocket of his jeans.

  “Whoa, did you seriously just put your hand down my pants? See, Logan, watch and learn. She’s with me for all of three seconds and I’m already getting more action than you have in three months.” He smirked cockily. His blue eyes gleamed appreciatively. Sienna wondered how so many girls flocked to this moron then took another look at his ridiculously good looks straight from his slick blond locks to the footballer build and understood.