Free A More Deserving Blackness by Angela Wolbert

they’ll understand.”
                  I’m pretty sure they don’t understand any of this, couldn’t possibly understand any of this, but because she’s being incredibly sweet and she’s expecting it, I nod.
                  “You want me to leave you alone now, don’t you?”
                  Not knowing how to answer that, I just choose not to, but she already knows the answer.
                  “Well, I’ve got some work to do anyway.  It’ll get better, Bree.  I promise.  Just give it some time.”  She squeezes my shoulder and slips away, and despite those kind of meaningless words that she loves to overuse, I have a rush of gratitude for my sister. 
                  The rest of the weekend passes slowly, little difference between the days and the nights, and it feels like just one endless, sluggish moment until Trish and I are standing in the kitchen on Monday, her getting ready for work and me for school, both of us turning suddenly toward the sound of a knock on the front door.  Trish’s thin brows narrow in confusion, the click clack of her heels following her into the foyer.  Barely listening to the muted sounds of voices, I take a deep breath.  I scoop up my bag and Logan’s coat into a fist and turn to follow because it’s nearly time to leave – and then stop dead.
                  Logan is standing on my front porch, his dark hair still wet from a shower, in the same combination of boots, jeans, and t-shirt as I’d always seen him.  This time it’s blue.  Although it isn’t bad, there is definitely a slight bruise on the left side of his face, one I know he’d gotten last night when he’d stepped in at my defense.  Beside him Trish is holding open the door and staring with a thousand questions and a hopeful smile brimming in her brown eyes, but sometime in the few steps it takes me to reach them she’s disappeared.
                  Logan’s eyes travel slowly over my body, searching.  It isn’t sexual, and I don’t mind, I just wait.  When they return to mine he doesn’t smile but motions with his head to the car parked in the driveway behind him.  “Can I drive you to school?”
                  I hesitate, fidgeting with the strap of my bag over my shoulder.
                  “Your sister already gave her okay,” he tells me, as if that alone is the source of my concern.
                  I purse my lips, considering him, and he lets me, as unfazed by the scrutiny as before.  He doesn’t nervously adjust his stance, doesn’t shift his feet, doesn’t drop his gaze for even a second.  I’m frozen in indecision.  I don’t know why he would want to, I’m certain I didn’t prove myself to be great company the other night, and his face gives me no answers at all.  But I feel pulled to him, to the comfort I associate with him, the safety he’d offered me, selflessly, just a few nights before.
                  Logan finally moves a bit, just a slight shift, and I realize he’s pulling his phone from his pocket.  He doesn’t look at me as his thumbs move swiftly over the screen, and then he’s shoving it back in his jeans, his expression unchanged.
                  I hear a trill in my backpack.  Pause a moment.  Hold his gaze as I sling it around to unzip it.  I fish the phone out with my hair hanging down over my arms and read, Okay?
                  Just that one word again, and once again I’m surprised to feel a smile touching my lips.  He’s watching me expectantly, and I nod.
                  Logan holds the door for me, walks behind me to the shiny black Dodge in the drive, and then reaches around me to open the passenger door.  He waits, closing it once I’m safely inside.  Then he drops into the drivers’ seat and turns on the car, reaching smoothly to turn down the radio once the engine