“Annnnnd I should have considered the time difference. God, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Logan sighed. “I’m actually glad you called. I’ve been trying not to bother you, but I feel awful about what happened. All of it, I mean, like the whole last year, but especially my bullshit in Vegas. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me, Hanna.”
“I’m in the same pit of self-loathing if it helps. Logan?” She was afraid to ask him, afraid to crawl out onto a ledge and get knocked off one more by those piercing blue eyes. “I have something big to ask of you, but I think it will help us both.”
“Okay, shoot.”
She tried to picture him sitting on the edge of the bed, his hair disheveled and his t-shirt clinging to his back. She wondered if he still slept on the left side.
“I need you to come home.”
“To Phoenix?”
“Yeah, I need you to help me with something. I just need you to trust me, okay? I think it’ll be worth the trip.”
He was silent for a while, but eventually replied, “I’ll think about it, Hanna.”
She released her breath. It wasn’t a rejection.
“That’s all I ask. Let me know in a day or two?”
“I will. Thanks for calling.”
“Goodnight, Lo.”
“Night, Hanna.”
It took Logan two days to answer her.
By Saturday morning, he was sitting in her living room, fresh off a red-eye, sipping coffee from a shop down the street where they used to spend their weekends. It was very strange to see him sitting in the house she’d bought specifically to forget him, but it was important.
“I always loved this neighborhood,” Logan said, reaching for a pastry from the pink box she’d snagged when his flight landed.
Hanna shrugged. “Yeah, it’s been nice here. It’s not New York, but it does the job.”
“Eh,” he took a massive bite, crumbs falling over his polo shirt. “New York is overrated.”
“Ah yes, that’s what they all say,” she teased.
“I mean it, I’m not going to miss it when I move back to the Bay. I miss being around family, you know?”
She nodded. She knew.
“Anyway, not to be so to the point, but I’d love to know why you needed me to get my ass on a cross-country flight so suddenly.”
“Yes, that.” She folded her legs beneath herself, biting at the edge of her coffee cup, trying to recall the speech she’d practiced in her head for two days. “I’ve been re-examining a lot about my life lately, and something that keeps coming up is how I treated you when Mom got sick.”
It was like she’d thrown a brick. Logan winced, the pain he’d been harboring rushing to the surface of his skin. She’d forced herself not to see it before, to believe it was unearned, but she’d been wrong.
She continued, “I really regret cutting you out like that. I had my reasons, but… they were wrong. I know I can’t go back and fix any of it, but what I can do is include you in how I want to move forward.”
His apprehension was understandable.
“I appreciate that, Hanna. Really.”
“There’s something I promised my mom I would do and I’ve been dragging my feet on it for over a year.” Her eyes swept over the black box on her coffee table, the one she’d kept in a closet, haunting her with each passing milestone. “I was wondering if maybe you’d come with me to spread her ashes at the Grand Canyon.”
Logan’s eyes widened. She couldn’t tell if he was horrified or honored, maybe both. But she also knew that he understood how much it took to ask him to be part of it and, despite all the bullshit, they were always going to be two people who had been in love.
