Free Before You Go (YA Romance) by Ella James Page B

all those things?”
“No,” he answered. “No.”
“Okay…” She waited, gripping the saddle horn. “So it’s true—you have been acting weird to me. Like, friendly at first, and now, and rude at all the other times. Is it because you have a girlfriend?”
Logan laughed at that. He seemed to think it was hiiilarious .
“Is that a confirmation,” she asked, “or a denial?”
Another laugh. “A denial,” he said. “Most definitely.”
She didn’t know whether to grin or punch him. As it was, she’d gone all warm and soft again. “You know what?” She glanced back at him. “You’re weird. Maybe it’s a good thing you don’t like me, because it means I’m normal.”
She could feel him smile. Then shrug. “Maybe.”
“ Aaa -hah.” She turned, even though it hurt her neck, and poked him. “So you do dislike me.”
And it was funny, because at that moment, she felt herself starting to float.
Logan must have been floating, too, because he laughed a lot more.
And then she laughed. It hurt her head. She said, “Crap,” and then he said, “What?”
“You don’t like me,” she said, oddly confident now. “Just admit it. Is it cooties, or did Jana mention that deadly disease I picked up? I knew I shouldn’t have traveled to that slum in Calcutta, but geez, those orphans were so cute.”
“They must have been.”
“Worth the virus. And the mandatory quarantine. And the loss of a potential friend named Logan. Who doesn’t want to room with me because I have cooties. The really fatal kind.”
“Are they?” he asked quietly. She could feel the sudden tension in him, in his chest and stomach and arms. The unhappiness.
Looking down at his hand, Margo had the strongest urge to wrap her own around it. Instead, she stared out toward the barn.
 
 
 
 

11
 
Logan felt sick as he listened to the Jeep crunch up the gravel path behind him. He saw Margo in his head—the way she looked buckled into the front seat: pale and smiling, just a little, lifting her hand to wave goodbye. She’d taken all the blame for the accident, telling Jana she’d come right into the stables and saddled Apollo without consulting anyone.
“He was so pretty,” she’d said, a little wistfully. Logan hadn’t said a word. He couldn’t confess what he couldn’t stand to think about: It was his fault she’d gotten hurt, his fault she was riding to the Isis Clinic for a MRI.
He began to unsaddle Gama, then realized he would need to ride to find Apollo. He turned back to the door, but his vision swam. Everything became a blur, and he lashed out, throwing his fist at the stall. The impact hurt, and Logan liked the way it felt. He slid down to his knees and tucked his arm to his chest, able to breathe for the first time in an hour. In the rhythm of panting, he shut his eyes.
He and Maggie were swinging on that old swing set—the one in the back with the candy-cane stripes and the baby chair that they were both too big for but always tried to fit into anyway. Logan was explaining the stars.
He was learning about them in his special Friday afternoon class, and about the planets, too. It was almost time for supper, and after that, he was going to take Maggie into the fields. The corn was getting tall, and they could lay between the stalks and watch it get dark without being seen.
Sometimes you could see Jupiter and Mars, and he really liked that. He liked the idea of going to a planet. He would be the only one up there, unless he wanted to bring anyone with him. Sometimes he thought maybe he might bring Maggie, when she wasn’t being a brat. He would probably bring his mom. And that was it. Just the three of them.
Right then, his mom stuck her head out the back door and called them in for supper. Logan was swinging really high, so he hit the pole with his tip-toes to slow himself down. If they were late for supper, his dad would get mad.
When he was close to the ground, he jumped off and turned around to Maggie. “Come on.”
Her