“I’m leaving,” he said, pulling himself together, wiping his eyes dry.
I sat up, alarmed. “What?”
“I’m leaving. I’m going to a rehab clinic in Iowa.”
My eyes lit up with anticipation. Earlier Kellan told me about the rehabilitation clinic, and we both really hoped Logan would take the ninety-day course. It wouldn’t take away the pain that we were both suffering through, but it would help him learn to handle it in a better way. “This is good, Lo. This is good news. And then when you come back, we can start over again. We can be us again,” I swore.
He frowned, shaking his head. “I’m not coming back, High.”
“What?”
“When I leave True Falls, I’m not coming back. I’m never coming back to Wisconsin, ever, and I’m never coming back here.”
I slightly pushed away from him. “Stop it.”
“I’m not coming back. I always end up hurting people. I ruin lives, High. And I can’t keep messing up yours, or Kellan’s. I need to disappear.”
“Shut up, Logan!” I yelled. “Stop saying that.”
“I’ve seen how these things happen. We’d get on a routine, on a hamster wheel where we go round and round, and I keep screwing up your life. I can’t do that to you. I won’t.” He pulled himself up from the bed, then he stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. He shrugged once, giving me a broken smile. “I’m sorry, High.”
“Don’t do this, Lo. Don’t leave me like this,” I begged, taking his hands and pulling him closer to me. “Don’t leave me again. Don’t run. Please. I need you.” I couldn’t get through this without him. I needed him to help me learn to stand again. I needed his voice late at night, I needed his love early in the morning. I needed the one person who had lost what I lost to mourn with me. I needed my most painful low to stay by my side.
His lips kissed my forehead once, and then he whispered against my ear before turning around and leaving me shouting his name.
The last thing he said to me were words that played over and over again in my head. Words that cut me deeper than anything else could’ve. “I would’ve been shitty,” he whispered against my ear, sending chills down my spine. “I would’ve been a shitty father. But you?” He swallowed hard. “You would’ve been the best mother. Our child would’ve been honored to be loved by you.”
And he was gone.
With those simple words, and his fading footsteps, I found out what it meant for a heart to truly break.
Part II
From the ashes, they rose,
And burned once again.
He never forgot her glow,
And she never forgot him.
Message #1
Hey, Logan, it’s Alyssa. I’m just calling to see how you’re doing. I just… I hate how we left things. I hate how the last times we were near each other weren’t the best. I hate how I miss you. I hate how much this hurts.
I’m going to call you though, every day, even if you don’t answer. I want you to know that you’re not in this alone. No matter how bad it gets. I want you to know you’re not alone.
I’ll see you soon, Lo.
Message #5
Hey, it’s me.
You’ve been at the clinic for five days now, and I wish I could hear your voice. Kellan said he spoke with you, and that you’re doing okay. Are you doing okay? I really hope so. I miss you, Logan. So, so much.
I’m glad you’re working on yourself.
You deserve it.
I’ll see you soon, Lo.
Message #14
Two weeks. You’ve been there two weeks, and Kellan said you’re doing okay. He said you’re struggling a bit with withdrawal, but I know you’re stronger than your biggest demons.
I lay in bed last night, listening to the record on the vinyl player skip every few seconds, and it reminded me of you. Remember the first time we…
Never mind.
I just miss you, that’s all. Some days are harder than others.
I’ll see you soon, Lo.
Message #45
You’re halfway through the program. How are you? Are you eating enough? Is your mind staying clear? I hope they have documentary DVDs there for you to watch. If you want, maybe I can come out there and bring you some DVDs. I saw a new documentary on the Beatles that I thought you might like.
Do you want me to bring it?
Because I will.
Just say the word.
I’ve been leaving you voicemails every day for the past forty-five days, and I’ll keep leaving the messages. I just wish I could hear your voice. I wish you’d answer the phone.
Lo…
Please.
Gosh. I miss you.
I’ll see you soon, Lo.
Message #93
Hey, it’s Alyssa.
You finished the program, and I can’t help but want to cry. I’m so, so proud of you. This is good. This is the best…
Kellan said you’re doing okay. That you’re healthy and in good spirits.
He also said he took you some DVDs. Why didn’t you ask me? Why will you answer his calls but not mine? What did I do wrong?
I would’ve brought them to you, Logan—the DVDs. I would’ve brought them to you.
That doesn’t matter though.
I’ll see you soon, Lo.
Message #112
He said you’re not coming back to True Falls. He said you’re staying in Iowa. I didn’t believe you when you told me. I didn’t want to believe you.
He said you found a small studio apartment and a job…
This is good. If you need anything, furniture, food…company.
I just miss you, that’s all.
I can’t believe you’re not coming back.
This is good, though. This is good for you.
I love you.
I’ll see you soon, Lo.
Message #270
Do you know this month the baby would’ve been born? I’d be in the hospital, and you would’ve held my hand. I know it probably sounds like I’m crying, but I’m not.
I’m just a little drunk tonight.
I don’t drink, so it doesn’t take much. A friend took me out to help me clear my mind.
Hearing your voice would help even more.
But you haven’t called me.
Maybe this isn’t your number anymore.
Maybe you’ve moved on.
Maybe you don’t fucking care anymore. I don’t even care that you don’t fucking care!
It doesn’t matter.
Fuck you for not calling me, Logan. Not once. You haven’t called me.
Sorry.
I’m a little drunk tonight.
I’ll see you soon, Lo.
Message #435
What do you do during the night when it rains?
I lie in bed and think of your voice.
I’ll see you soon, Lo.
Message #756
I decided that I hate you. I hate everything about you.
But still, I hope I’ll see you soon, Lo.
Message #1090
I’m waving the white flag, Logan. I’m tired, and I give up. I’ll stop now.
Five years.
I’ll stop with the messages.
I love you.
I miss you.
I wish you the best.
Message #1123
Logan, it’s Kellan. Listen, I know you’ve made your life out in Iowa, and things are going well for you. And I wouldn’t ask you to ever come back to this crappy town unless I really needed you and…
Erika and I are getting married. But I can’t get married without my brother. I can’t stand at the altar, without the only family I have beside me.
I know this is asking a lot.
But I promise to never ask for anything else.
Plus, I bought you the documentary on NASA that we spoke about a few weeks ago.
You only get it if you’re my best-fucking-man.
Yes. I am trying to buy your love and I d
on’t feel guilty at all.
Chat soon.
14
Logan
Five Years Later
Each night I lit a cigarette and sat it on my windowsill. As it burned, I allowed myself to remember my past. I allowed myself to hurt and to mourn up until the moment the flames hit the filter. Then I shut my brain off, and allowed myself to forget, because the pain was too much to swallow. When my brain was shut down, I kept busy, making sure memories wouldn’t slip in. I watched documentaries, I worked dead-end jobs, I worked out—I did everything possible to keep from remembering.
But now, my brother had called me back to the one place that I’d spent the past five years running from. The moment I made it back to True Falls, I sat in the train station, debating if I should’ve found a way to collect money to get a one-way ticket straight back to Iowa.
“Coming or going?” a woman asked, sitting two seats away from me. I turned to her, somewhat taken back by her intense green eyes. She gave me a small smile, and chewed on her thumb nail.
“Not sure yet,” I replied. “What about you?”
“Coming. Staying, I think.” She kept smiling, but the more she did it, the sadder she appeared. I didn’t know smiling could look so heartbreakingly sad. “I’m just trying to waste some time before I head back to my life.”
I could understand that.
I sat back in my chair, trying to keep from remembering the life I’d left behind all those years ago.
“I even booked a hotel for tonight,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “Just so I could have a few more hours to forget, you know? Before I returned to the real world.” I nodded once. She slid two chairs closer to me, her leg brushing against mine. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Tilting my head her way, she gave me that sad grin again, and combed her fingers through her long hair. “Am I supposed to?”
Her head shook back and forth. “Probably not. My name’s Sadie.” She blinked once, almost as if knowing her name was supposed to mean something to me. Her lips curved down. “Anyway. You seem like a guy who’d like to forget for a while, too. If you want, you’re welcome to come to the motel with me.”
I should’ve told her no. I should’ve ignored her invite. But there was something about how sad she looked, how her pained soul seemed to burn like mine. So I grabbed my duffle bag, tossed it over my shoulder, and I followed Sadie to the land of forgetting.
“We’ve attended the same schools for years,” Sadie said as we laid in some piece of shit motel room. I’d been in the motel before, many moons ago, passed out in a filthy bathtub. Being there didn’t bring back the best memories, but I figured since I returned to Wisconsin after five years, everything would be covered in crap recollections.
Her wine-stained lips moved as she stridently smacked on her gum. “Senior year you copied my test for every math exam. I was legit the reason you graduated.” She pushed herself up on her elbows. “I wrote four of your English essays. You can speak Spanish because of me! Sadie? Sadie Lincoln?”
Not a clue.
“I can’t speak Spanish.”
“Well you could. You really don’t remember me?”
Her eyes were saddened by this, but she shouldn’t have been sad. It was nothing personal. There was plenty that I didn’t remember.
Then there was everything I wished I could forget.
“To be fair, I spent most of my high school career fucked up.”
That wasn’t a lie.
“Or with that Alyssa Walters girl,” she remarked.
My chest tightened right along with my jaw. Just hearing her name made my mind flood with memories.
“Is she still in town?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Alyssa stopped leaving me messages months ago, and whenever Kellan called me, we didn’t speak on the subject.
Sadie nodded. “Working at Hungry Harry’s diner. I saw her working at Sam’s Furniture store, too. She plays piano at some bars. I don’t know. She’s been all over the place. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. You two were pretty much glued to each other, which was weird because you had nothing in common.”
“We had plenty in common.”
A sarcastic chuckle fell from her. “Really? The straight A music kid and the straight D—thanks to me—druggie with a crackhead mother had a lot in common?”
“Stop talking like you know shit,” I hissed, growing annoyed. Back then, Alyssa and I had more in common than any two people on this earth. Plus, Sadie didn’t know a damn thing about my mother. Screw her for thinking that she did.
I should’ve walked out of the motel room. I should’ve told her to piss off and find another person to harass, but I really hated being alone. I’d spent the past five years alone, except for the occasional mouse that came to visit every now and then.
Sadie stayed quiet as long as she could, which wasn’t long at all. She didn’t know what peaceful silence was. “So was it true? That you were in rehab?”
She was talking more than I was comfortable with. I hated talking about rehab because half the time I wished I was back at the clinic. The other half of the time, I wished I was back in the alleyway, with a line or two on a garbage can. It’d been so long since I’d used, and I still thought about it almost every damn day. Dr. Kahn said it would be a tough transition coming back to the real world, but she believed I could handle it. I promised her whenever I felt like using, I’d snap the red rubber band she gave me against my skin, as a reminder that the choices I made were real, just like the sting against my skin.
The band read, ‘strength’, which was weird because I felt like I had none.
I’d been snapping the band against my arm since Sadie began speaking.
“There was a bet going around town that you were dead. I think your mom started that one,” she said.
“Do you know how beautiful your eyes are?” I asked, changing the subject. I began kissing her neck, listening to her moan.
“They’re just green.”
She was wrong. They were a unique shade of celadon, holding a bit of gray and a touch of green to them. “A few years back, I was watching a documentary on Chinese and Korean pottery. Your eyes are the color of the glaze they used to make pottery.”
“You watched a Chinese documentary on pottery?” She muttered with a chuckle, trying to catch her breath as my lips moved to the curves of her collarbone. I felt her shiver against me. “You must have been pretty messed up.”
I laughed because she has no clue.
“They call it celadon in the west but over there, it’s qingci.” I pressed my lips against hers. She kissed me back, because that was the main reason we were there in the dirty motel room. We were there to mistake a few moments of touch with the idea of love. We were there to mistake kisses for some kind of passion. We were there to mistake loneliness for wholeness. It was crazy what people would do—who people would do—to avoid feeling so alone.
“Can you stay the night?” she whispered.
“Of course,” I sighed, rolling my tongue against her ear.
I wanted to stay the night with her because loneliness sucked. I wanted to stay the night with her because darkness spread. I wanted to stay the night with her because she asked me to. I wanted to stay the night with her because I wanted to stay the night.
She slid my shirt over my head, and her fingers rolled against my chest. “Oh my gosh!” she squealed. “You’re buff!” Then she giggled. Fuck. Did I really want to stay the night?
Without replying, I took off her pants, and removed my own. As she lay down, I hovered over her, moving my lips from her neck, down to her chest, across her stomach, and pausing at her panty line. As I rubbed my thumb against her panties, she moaned.
“Yes…please…”
God, she was my addiction that night. I felt a little less alone. I even daydreamed about calling her tomorrow, meeting her back at the motel and screwing her again in the crappy bed.
It didn’t take long for my boxers to come off
and for me to climb on top of her. I tossed on a condom, and right before I slid into her, she yipped.
“No, wait!” A fear shot through those qingci eyes. Her hands flew over her mouth, and tears welled up in her eyes. “I can’t. I can’t.”
I paused, frozen over her. Guilt sucker punched my stomach. She didn’t want to have sex with me. “Oh God. I’m sorry. I thought—”
“I’m in a relationship,” she said. “I’m in a relationship.”
Wait.
“What?” I asked.
“I have a boyfriend.”
Boyfriend?
Crap.
She was a liar.
She was a cheater.
She has a boyfriend.
I removed myself from over her, and sat up on the edge of the bed. My hands gripped the sides of the mattress, and I listened to her moving around. The sheet winkled with her every move.
She softly spoke, “I’m sorry. I thought I could do it. I thought I could go through with it, but I can’t. I thought it would be easy with you, ya know? To let go, and let loose. I just thought I could forget for a while.”
The Elements Series Complete Box Set Page 36
