Free Dangerous Boy by Mandy Hubbard

stare down at it, the words blurring together. Just as the first chairs screech on the tile floors, I shoot out of my seat, walking straight to Mr. Patricks.
     
    “May I use the hall pass?”
     
    He nods and waves at the big wooden G IRLS pass hanging by the door. I slip it from the hook and step into the hall, taking in a big gulp of air.
     
    How am I supposed to sit next to Logan all day, all week, all year? I really thought we had something special, but after what happened on Friday…
     
    I slip into the girls’ bathroom around the corner and thenlean against the cold cinder-block wall, my eyes closed, taking in deep breaths. It hurts to be so close to him. Hurts to think of the way he smiled at me, kissed me, held me.
     
    It hurts because I want him so much, despite the way he treated me at his house.
     
    The door creaks and I open my eyes just in time to see Logan step in.
     
    “This is the girls’ bathroom,” I say, stepping away from the wall.
     
    “I know, but I have to talk to you.”
     
    “I don’t want to talk.”
     
    As he stands in front of me, it’s hard to reconcile this guy and the one who laughed at me at his house. He’s defeated. Like he knows he’s lost no matter what happens next. “There’s something you need to know, Harper. You can still hate me but you deserve to know.”
     
    I walk to the bathroom sink and wash my hands, ignoring his reflection behind me. The last time I stood in here, I was trying to forget the image of those birds as he was putting a rose in my locker.
     
    And now it’s my own boyfriend I want to disappear. “I told you. I don’t want to talk to you. Why can’t you understand that? We’re done.”
     
    “No, Harper…let me explain.” He reaches out to touch my shoulder.
     
    I jerk away. “I don’t need your explanation. I can’t believe I told you about how I have all these fears, things that I’ve been afraid of since my mother died, and you bring me downto your unbelievably creepy basement and taunt me with a murdered family’s mementos.”
     
    Logan pales. “It wasn’t me.”
     
    “I’m not an idiot. Of course it was you.”
     
    “I have a twin brother,” he says all in one breath, the words landing on top of one another.
     
    They ring in my ears as I go still, my hands under the running water. I look up at him in the mirror, taking in the light reflecting in his eyes, the stiffness in his shoulders. “No you don’t.”
     
    He meets my eyes in the mirror. They look so different than they did on Friday. They’re a warm chocolate shade, filled with such strong emotion it’s hard to imagine him as the cruel boy from the basement, eyes as dark as the storm clouds outside his house. “Yes, I do,” he says, his voice strangled,
wrong.
Like it’s hard to say the words.
     
    I shake my head, my hair slipping into my eyes. “Then why haven’t I seen him at school?”
     
    His shoulders deflate. “Daemon was expelled from Cedar Cove. We all decided it would be better for him if he were homeschooled.”
     
    Daemon.
A name he’s never spoken. How could he have kept this hidden from me? I swallow. “What did he do?”
     
    “Will you just face me, please?” He wraps his hand around my shoulder, and I turn away from him, away from the sink. We’re only a foot apart as I look up, take in the pain in his eyes. I could get lost in them…in it. He swallows. “A lot of things. We might look alike, but…we’re completely different people.He’s not a very nice person. He’s angry all the time, and bitter. I never wanted you to meet him. I didn’t think you needed to.”
     
    I can’t believe this. I can’t believe he’d lie to me this way. Not just once, but over and over and over again.
     
    “So it was him at your house?”
     
    He nods. “Yeah. God, I am so sorry. I know what he’s like, and when we first got together, I kind of talked myself into thinking you didn’t need to know about him. I had no idea you’d come