Brother’s Best Friend

by Kaylee, Katy

  Came home for summer break before my senior year. Matt and Lisa seemed just as excited to me that they did to see Jordan. It made me feel good on the inside. Jordan’s little sister, Amber, grew leaps and bounds and now looks like a full-fledged hottie walking into high school. It’s a good thing she is working so hard toward her goals, because all the guys would be trying to screw her. She is beautiful and there is something that I feel that I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s just a crush.

  Amber giggled after reading that, finding it interesting that he had been harboring his feelings for her the same way she had been doing for him. They were too young before, and she knew very well as a senior in high school she would have shied away from him immediately. She had been too busy planning for her future to notice that her future lived two-bedroom doors down from her. It had all worked out for the best, and he seemed to be even more committed to her than she thought.

  She continued flipping the pages, skipping over most of it. She came to one of two last pages written very recently.

  I just got back from a trip to Colorado to clean up the condo for Matt and Lisa. While I was sitting at the airport I got a call from Bloomberg. They actually offered me the internship that I wanted to get my feet on the ground with my own business. In the moment I said yes without hesitation but then I started to think about Amber. About how she had sacrificed so much to be with me. I ran things by Jordan, even though he doesn’t know who the mystery woman is. He told me to take the job, there would be plenty of women. But all I could think was that none of them would be like Amber.

  I had the whole plane ride to think it over with Jordan snoring in my ear. I have to take the job, if I want any chance at a future, a way to support myself and my own family one day I have to take the internship. I don’t want to leave Amber, but I will be no good to her without any prospects for the future. The thing is, I can’t figure out how to tell her. I can’t stand the thought of hurting her.

  So, after a long deliberation I decided what the best plan would be for me. It may be cowardly but I am going to get up early in the morning, and just leave before any one is out of bed. I will leave notes, and I will contact them once I land in New York, but I can’t watch Amber’s heart break while mine is shattering too. She deserved so much better than that but I know that if I don’t go I will regret it for the rest of my life. It is my only chance to fulfill my dreams. Hopefully I can bring myself to do it.

  “What are you doing?” Logan asked, walking into the room from the shower.

  Amber didn’t hear him get out of the shower, but she didn’t give a damn. She had read the words, and she was standing there trying to process them. She was trying to make sense of everything that had just crossed through her mind. While she was over here dropping out of Yale and making sacrifices, he was planning to leave her all along, and not in a good way either. He was literally planning walking out without telling a soul and just leaving a note.

  Logan walked over and snatched the journal out of her hands, pissed. Amber didn’t care if he was pissed, she was a lot more furious at him than he was at her. She watched as he looked down at the page she was reading and then up at her face, worry replacing the anger. She gripped her fists tightly at her sides, trying to calm down before she spoke, but she was having a really hard time doing it.

  “I can’t believe you,” Amber said at a whisper.

  Logan put up his hands. “Hold on a second, Amber. You read one entry and didn’t look at the others.”

  Amber knocked the journal out of his hands. “I don’t need to see the others. I read exactly what you are planning on doing. You took an internship in New York, and instead of facing me like a man you were going to just run out in the middle of the night. You weren't even going to show you cared enough to try to explain the internship to me! How dare you!”

  Logan looked desperate. “Amber, please, let me explain.”

  Amber shook her head, all the anger coming to the surface. “No! Fuck you! You had the opportunity to explain before, but you refused. Instead you hid behind your little fucking journal and made plans to just run out on me. You are such a fucking asshole! I am such a fool. I thought you really cared about me. I thought you were going to start a life with me. You stood by while I quit Yale and didn’t say a damn word.”

  Amber stomped forward toward the door, but Logan grabbed her arm. “Wait. Amber, please.”

  Amber spun around and slapped him hard across the face. “Enjoy your life, enjoy this internship that was more important than what we had. I want you to pretend that I never existed, because I don’t want anything to do with you. When you come back here for holidays, don’t even acknowledge me. You are nothing to me anymore, and I hope you leave really soon because I can’t stand to look at your face!”

  She pulled her arm away from him and ran from his room and down the stairs. She raced to her car and got inside, ignoring the fact that he was chasing after her. Her head was spinning so fast, she could barely see straight. She felt like someone had taken a dagger and stabbed her right in the heart. How could she have been so stupid to think she would ever be more important to him than anything else? He chose his career over what they had shared and even worse, he had continued sleeping with her and stringing her along for days after he made his decision.

  She started the car and raced down the drive, just wanting to get away from him. She made the first turn she could find and parked at the back of a shopping center parking lot. She leaned her head against her arms, propped on the steering wheel, and just let all go. Tears flowed rapidly from her eyes as she cried loudly, rubbing her hand across her chest. She had done it, she had played the fool, and it didn’t turn out good for her at all. In fact, it had turned out exactly the opposite.

  Now, she was stuck in a city she didn’t want to be in, going to a college leagues below what she had originally planned on, and everything she made for herself sat in ashes at her feet. She had broken the number one rule for girls, and had changed her entire life to be with a man. She would never let that happen, ever again.

  25

  Logan

  Logan put his suitcase and duffel bag on the bed and stared down at it. He couldn’t wait any longer, he had to leave. Things had been silent in the house all day, and Amber hadn’t been home since she ran out on Friday. That slap did more than hurt his face, it broke his heart, and not because she was angry; she had every right to be angry. His heart was broken because he had hurt her so badly.

  He walked quietly over to his closet and pulled down his suit, zipping it into a hanging bag for the plane. He would have to buy more suits when he got to New York, but that would at least get him in the door for his new job. He went through his clothes, folding each piece carefully and setting it into his suitcase. Anything he wasn’t taking he consolidated into one drawer of his dresser. When he had packed all his clothes and toiletries, he reached up into his closet and pulled down a box.

  Sitting it on his bed, he opened the lid and pulled out a stack of photos. He slipped several of him and his parents into his suitcase and then sat staring of the one of him, Jordan, and Amber as kids. He went to put it in his bag, but stopped, dropping it back into the box and returning it to the shelf. He had just cut ties with Amber in the worst way possible, and after he left, he wasn’t sure what relationship he would have with the rest of them.

  He finished up with his luggage and walked down to the kitchen. Carefully, he wrote a note to each person in the family, thanking them for taking care of him for all those years. He apologized for leaving in the manner in which he was, but he didn’t want to hurt anyone, so he knew it was better that he did it that way. The tearful goodbyes and the sad words weren’t what he or any of them needed. He put each letter careful in an envelope and sealed them, writing their names on the front. He set them out on the counter, where he knew they would find them when they came down for breakfast.

  Logan stood, leaning against the kitchen island, looking around the q
uiet house. The sun hadn’t even come up yet, and there wasn’t a single sound echoing through the halls. It reminded him of the silence of his parent’s house after they were killed. It sent chills down his spine as he tried to push the memory away. All that pain he thought he had given up when talking to Amber and having her close in his life had flooded back to him without warning, and he was struggling to push it back. His mind was tired, and his heart was exhausted. Nothing had been that heartbreaking since their death, and he hated every moment of it.

  He grabbed another piece of paper and sat on the stool, writing one last letter to Amber. In that letter, he didn’t hold anything back. It was too late to keep trying to put up a happy face. He bared all of his feelings to her, he poured out his heart like he had never done before.

  Dear Amber,

  The days and weeks that I have spent in your arms have been the happiest ones of my entire life. I never thought in a million years I could love someone even more than I love myself, but then there was you. You could see through my fake smile and my good posture. You could see the man that I was on the inside and you allowed that man to be freed if only for a little while…

  Logan leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath, wiping a tear from his eye. He gripped the pen tightly and finished writing the two-page letter to her. He signed it with all his love, but he knew that would only anger her. He didn’t care. He had to let her know what had happened to lead to that point. When he was done, he wrote a second one to go with the others that simply said, “See ya, Amber.” It was just another lie, so that the family wouldn’t know what had happened. What was the purpose of them knowing at that point? It would only affect her, and she didn’t need any more pain or grief in her life.

  He took the long letter upstairs and slipped it under her door, knowing she would read it when she finally came back. There was no doubt that Jordan would call her to tell her he had gone. He went back to his room and looked around one last time to make sure that he had gotten everything. He put his duffel bag around his neck, hung his suit bag over his arm, and pulled his suitcase behind him. He paused briefly and looked back at the space which he had spent so much time turning into a home, before shutting off the lights and closing the door.

  He crept down the hall, glancing over at the picture of a pixie painted on Amber’s door from when she was a little girl. He could remember Jordan asking Lisa to do it for her as a surprise, not wanting to be the one to paint a fairy in fear of his masculinity being dented. The thought brought a smile to Logan’s face, but that quickly faded as he thought about Amber’s face as she stood there gripping his journal, hurt and anger blowing through her.

  Logan gritted his teeth and moved on, pushing the handle down on his suitcase and heading down the stairs. He grabbed the keys to his jeep, leaving the house key behind, and walked out the front door, unsure if he would ever come back, or if he would even be welcome back there, for that matter. As he drove down through LA, he took in the warm California air and the sights and sounds of the town he grew up in. There were so many memories there, some from his parents, some from Jordan, and even more special, the ones with Amber.

  He found himself driving faster and faster toward the airport, just wanting to get through it and get to New York. Maybe if he got out of there, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. When he arrived at the airport he put the key in the glove box, having left instructions for Jordan to pick it up and take it back to the house. He could have taken a cab, but he didn’t want to accidently wake up anyone in the house.

  “Name?” the attendant at the desk asked.

  Logan pulled out his ID and handed it over to her. “Logan Townley, picking up a ticket to New York.”

  She typed rapidly on the keyboard and nodded as she printed out the ticket. “You are first class on flight 2345 from here straight to New York. Your plane will be boarding at Gate 19, but not for about an hour and a half.”

  “I have luggage I would like to check.”

  They went through the process and then Logan slumped along through the security check, barely anyone in line that early in the morning. He was just lucky that the company had booked him an early morning flight, otherwise he would have had to sit in the airport all day. When he was through security, he grabbed a coffee and a Danish like Jordan always did and sat down in the empty loading area where, eventually, his plane would pull in.

  An older gentleman was two seats down and smiled kindly at Logan. “Traveling all alone?”

  Logan smiled. “Yeah, heading to New York for a new job.”

  “Well, that sounds exciting!”

  Logan shrugged. “I guess. I am leaving on not the best terms, so I think the excitement got overlooked.”

  The old man stood up with the aid of his cane and looked out the window. “You know what my father used to tell me? He told me that no one wanted to be the fool, but sometimes it took being the fool to get everything you ever wanted. Seems to have worked for me until now.”

  Logan nodded his head, shocked at what he was hearing. How many people were going to tell him to be the fool? Besides, he felt like he had long surpassed foolery. He had dabbled on the edge of complete insanity, and it did nothing but hurt everyone around him. He needed to lead the life that he wanted, to work hard and achieve his goals.

  The old man picked up his bag. “You have a good flight, young man. And remember that it may seem tough now, but the longer you live, the smaller these things seem. And if they still seem big later on, well, you know what you need to do.”

  Logan gave him a half smile. “Thank you, sir. You have a good flight, too. And be safe out there, acting like a fool. I’ve come to find out it doesn’t always turn out the way that you want it to. Then again, I probably don’t have to tell you that.”

  The man tilted his hat and grinned, walking off down the hall. Logan shook his head and finished off his coffee, throwing the cup in the trash can. Now, all he could do was wait, and he didn’t even know if that would help him anymore.

  Logan sat there, staring out the window, daydreaming the entire time. When his plane finally arrived and they called his boarding, he got in line. The woman smiled sweetly at him, taking his ticket and giving back the other half. “Have a wonderful flight.”

  Logan nodded. “Thank you.”

  Logan pulled his carry on down the terminal, stopping and stepping to the side as his phone buzzed in his pocket. He was getting texts from Jordan, Lisa, and Matt all worried about him. They didn’t even seem mad, just concerned that something had happened that they could have prevented. Logan didn’t want them to feel that way, so he put together a group text and sent it over explaining it was nothing they did, he knows they are hurt, but he promised that when he got to New York he would call and explain things.

  He went back to the text screen, but there weren’t any other messages. Either Amber didn’t know, or she no longer cared enough to text him. He didn’t blame her in the least, though. She had been the one to get hurt the worst out of all of it. He turned his phone off and shoved it in his pocket, making his way down to the plane. He found his seat by the window and stowed his carryon underneath the seat in front of him. The flight was pretty empty, which was surprising since it was going to New York, but Logan was happy about it. He didn’t have to share his row with anyone.

  As the plane taxied down the runway and then sped up, lifting off the ground, Logan looked out the window at Los Angeles in the background. He put his hand up on the plexi glass and felt the cold air on the other side. There was his home, moving off into the distance. But it wasn’t even that part that hurt his chest, it was the visions of Amber, so beautiful and so sweet, her heart broken and left behind.

  He leaned his forehead against the window and closed his eyes, feeling the heat of tears in the corners. His heart was shattered into a million pieces, and it was so bad that he wasn’t sure he would ever recover. He wasn’t sure if he would ever see her again.

  26

  Friday (Five Years La
ter)

  “Mr. Townley?” Logan opened his eyes to see a middle aged, perfectly pressed stewardess staring down at him.

  “Yes. I’m sorry, I must have dozed off,” he replied, sitting up in his chair and straightening his tie.

  “It’s no problem at all. Most do, especially in first class. I just wanted to let you know that the captain will be turning the seat belt sign on in about three minutes as we make our decent into Los Angeles,” she replied with a smile.

  Logan nodded. “Of course, thank you.”

  The stewardess walked away and Logan buckled his belt, gazing out the window at the beautiful bright skies of California. It never failed; every time over the last almost five years that he had flown back from New York, he got butterflies in his stomach. Usually to calm those nerves he took his private jet, but the luxury of it all was getting to be too much for him. He was still first class, but it felt more normal, more human.

  He sat quietly and comfortably as the plane descended and touched down on the runway. He could feel the huge plane bounce along the cement, something he didn’t feel in his private jet. It woke him up and brought him out of his thoughts. The thoughts he was having were about Amber, anyway, and he knew that wasn’t healthy. He hadn’t seen her since the day before he left, almost five years earlier. It was difficult for Logan to come to terms with, so he had thrown his whole self into work, making the life he wanted for himself.

  As the plane taxied along the runway and began to slow, Logan shut the panel on his window and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out his phone. The captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “This is the captain speaking. I wanted to thank everyone for flying with Delta, and have a wonderful stay in Los Angeles or wherever your next plane takes you. As we pull up to the gate, feel free to turn your electronics back on. And as always, thank you for your patronage.”