How to use an I2C chip? (Adafruit MMA8451)

Lol ... so working on that theory, I changed the logIt function to look like this

logIt() {
    this.i2c.writeTo(this.MMA8451_ADDR, this.MMA8451_REG_OUT_X_MSB);
    let buffer = this.i2c.readFrom(this.MMA8451_ADDR, 7);

    let x = buffer[1];
    x <<= 8;
    x |= buffer[2];
    x >>= 2;
    let y = buffer[3];
    y <<= 8;
    y |= buffer[4];
    y >>= 2;
    let z = buffer[5];
    z <<= 8;
    z |= buffer[6];
    z >>= 2;

    const divider = 2048;
    let x_g = x / divider;
    let y_g = y / divider;
    let z_g = z / divider;

    console.log('x_g', x_g, 'y_g', y_g, 'z_g', z_g);
    console.log('buffer', buffer);
  }

Essentially I'm just ignoring the first byte of data and grabbing 1 extra, and now the data at least seems relatively stable, though I think it's the tilt of the sensor, but for some reason in a range between 0 and 8 o_0, but it really doesn't fit with how I've understood I2C to work.

From what I understand you send a write, telling what you want from the device, when you call read the first data you get back is the data you requested. I am rather confused ... xD