In his first year of college, he felt only half alive. He went to school. He got all A’s in his classes. He found a job, ironically, at a restaurant/bar that was close to campus. The full-ride scholarship helped, but he still had to work. He’d always worked. Why change that? He didn’t feel safenotmaking money.
He made friends—two friends in particular, Kelson Halloway and Damon Zelder. Kelson was wildly wealthy with a last name that was recognized all over the country, and Damon’s family owned thousands of acres in the Midwest. Kelson was an artist, and Damon was majoring in literature and history. And then there was Logan, with no money to speak of at all.
At the end of the year, when he knew he could trust both of them, he told them that his girlfriend, Bellini, had broken up with him before college. He said it casually, but Kelson and Damon could tell he was upset. They all went on a long run together, then they played pool. It was the way guys handled things like this.
Logan contacted Bellini several times, but she wouldn’t reply, and he gave up. He wasn’t a stalker, he didn’t want to freak her out, he didn’t want to be pathetic, and he knew she had aright to do what she did. But every time he thought about what happened, it was like someone shot a spear into his gut.
He’d lost his mother, and he’d lost his girlfriend and best friend.
Logan was young in years, but old in life experiences, and he landed in a dark and depressing place. All that saved him was that he was constantly busy—school, work, sports, studying, new friends. He hardly had time to think, but when he did, he felt the same way—shocked and depressed.
When he found out years later that Bellini was getting married, which finally made it clear to him that they would never be together, he thought his mind might snap. He took off for three weeks that summer, drove into nature, and camped. He cried beside his campfire, cried while hiking. He felt the same level of grief he’d felt when she’d broken up with him.
When Christmas rolled around each year, if he was in town, he knew he would be welcome at her family’s Christmas events. A bunch of her cousins, many of whom were his close friends, always invited him. He didn’t go if Bellini was there. He and Bellini weren’t together anymore. He didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. The O’Donnells were her family, not his. His Christmases became a mass of pain without his mother and Bellini.
He didn’t even want to celebrate. Sometimes he didn’t return to Montana for Christmas at all because he didn’t want to risk running into her and enduring a new avalanche of loss and grief. He would go skiing on Christmas with friends, or he would visit a friend’s family, but it always felt…awkward. He felt he should be somewhere else—he should be with Bellini—but he laughed and smiled and made jokes, and the families he was with thought he was a jolly fine guest and invited him for the next year.
When Logan heard Bellini divorced, he wanted to call her to talk, but he didn’t. She knew where he was, so she could contacthim if she wanted to. He hoped she would, but every day that went by, when she didn’t call, or email, or text, he eventually accepted that she never would.
Bellini was the love of his life, he knew that, and she was gone. Forever gone. A pain lodged in the depths of his soul.
Hard to live through a thing like that.
32
Bellini
I watched Logan flick on his gas fireplace. He was tall and strong and wide and huggable. I almost giggled but resisted. The curtains were closed, and it felt like we were in our own private space of heaven, the lights low, a candle flickering. We’d had a busy night.
We’d had another dance lesson with Mrs. Kerns. The routine was four minutes, but still, we needed help. She told us that we were “not bad, but not good either. Stand up, get into position. Ready? You don’t look ready. Logan, why are you standing like a football player? Are you going to tackle Bellini? Bellini, your arms are not spaghetti, are they?!”
Afterward, Logan had bought Thai food, but before eating, we had to head to the couch, where we’d had a rousing sexual interlude. Then I pulled on my blue sweater and red lace panties, and he pulled on his sweats, and we ate.
Sitting together on the couch holding hands felt so…normal. And in that normalcy, I felt nothing but peace. And gratefulness.
Until Logan asked the question I’d been expecting.
“Any chance you’ll stay in Kalulell after your mom’s better, Bellini?”
“No.” In one second, my whole body tightened up. I wanted to stay. I so, so wanted to be with Logan.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Okay.”
I closed my eyes and pulled the blue furry blanket we shared tighter around myself, as if the tighter it was, the less this would hurt.
“I… Logan…”
“You don’t owe me an explanation.” His voice was gentle but tired.
“I do.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I owe you an explanation because we are…” How to say it?
“Dating? Sleeping together? In a relationship, yet again, where we laugh and talk and dance and play chess?”
We’d played chess the other night. He won.
