Of all the things life has taken away in time, she remembers the details of that afternoon with surprising clarity: Bob Dylan’s voice drifting from the speakers, the faint sting of cigarette smoke in the air mixing with the sticky sweetness of malt, and Logan, sitting across from her, tracing the rim of his glass with a fingertip, watching her like he’d seen their movie play out twice over and still hadn’t figured out the meaning of the end.
She’d thought about it more times than she cared to admit over the years—why, out of all the places in London, he’d chosen that one that day. She still did.
It was the day before Christmas Eve, six months after Daisy had been toThe Horseman,when she ran into Logan once again. She would always remember it because it was snowing, and there he was, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, filling up his car when she pulled up next to him.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked, the question slipping out before she could reconsider.
He glanced at her and grinned. “Well, if it isn’t Miss Daisy,” he said as if no time had passed. “How long has it been this time?”
He’d been notably quiet on the email front, and she hadn’t received one since September, when he told her he had gone on a disaster date of epic proportions, complete with awkward silences, spilled wine, and a dramatic finale where the woman’s unhinged ex-husband had slashed his tyres.
She shrugged, tightening her scarf. “A few months.”
“And how’s life treating you?” he asked, blowing air into his hands to keep them warm. “Good, I hope?”
She hesitated. Idris and she had not long moved in together, and Logan didn’t know about him. How could he? She debated telling him, but instead, she pocketed her hands and forced a smile.
“It’s going well. And you?”
He shrugged and set the nozzle back into place before reaching into his back pocket. “I’m alive.”
She stood there awkwardly, waiting for him to continue. A part of her expected him to invite her for a catch-up and felt disappointed when he didn’t.
“Well, it’s good to see you,” he said, his eyes flicking to her with a warmth that didn’t quite reach his smile. “You look really great, Daisy. Truly. I like the hair.”
It caught her off guard how he’d noticed. Two weeks prior, she’d decided to cut off all her long hair, and a few hundred quid later, she’d re-emerged with blunt bangs and some barely noticeable lowlights. People who saw her every day hadn’t uttered a word, and yet,hedid.
He walked inside, leaving her standing there, watching as he paid for his petrol. Despite the compliment, something about hisdemeanour, the distance, the way he kept it so casual and forced, left a sour taste in her mouth.
Later that night, instead of preparing the Christmas ham as she should have, Daisy found her mind circling back to him. She wanted to email him to check he was okay, but something stopped her. Instead, she searched for him online, half-hoping to find a trace of something—perhaps a girlfriend to explain it all—only to find nothing to suggest that. What she did find was an article in an online newspaper that made her gasp.
Four days ago, Aiden, his best friend and business partner, had died. By the one thing Logan spent his days trying to prevent: suicide.
IV
LOGAN
He’d gone over Aiden’s autopsy a thousand times, and he still didn’t know why he’d died. It seemed unlikely science could provide the answer either. The autopsy was inconclusive, and the cause of death had not been determined. At first, they assumed he’d taken a concoction of painkillers, but his toxicology was clear. After that, they focused on the idea that he’d somehow died by self-inflicted asphyxiation, but there was no evidence of that either. The only thing that linked it to suicide was the carefully laid-out suicide letters he’d written one by one. Logan hadn’t read his one yet, and in his bitterness, he doubted he ever would.
In the wake of Aiden’s death, those in his circle had retreated into domestic life, and to no fault of his own, he’d been left behind. Then he met Anne.
She ticked the boxes his mother had drilled into him as a boy: educated, attractive, and unproblematic. But the sex was boring, mechanical, and forced, and so was the conversation.
He tried to warm to her, going on a half-dozen ill-fated dates and even introducing her to friends. In his head, he could grow to like her. Attraction didn’t always have to be instantaneous, and love could grow with nurture. He soon realised how questionable that theory was, and opposites didn’t always attract. She wasn’tThe One; she never would be.
After they ended their short-lived love affair, as much as he tried to avoid it, he found his mind reflecting back to Daisy. It wasn’t a superficial infatuation driven by looks and lust; he wanted to know her. Her story and all of her secret languages and desires she shielded from the world.
She hadn’t reached out in months. Her last email posed a question about whether trauma could be inherited, but she hadn’t included any context. He’d responded by asking why, hoping to steer the conversation into deeper waters. But she never answered, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was just nerves holding her back.
In one of her earlier emails, she’d called herself a habitual oversharer, desperate to find her own Mr Darcy, who could overlook her awkward shortcomings and ignite her soul. He’d laughed at that, genuinely amused by her candidness. It was the twenty-first century, after all. When he asked what a modern-day Mr Darcy might even look like, metaphorically speaking, she once again side-stepped the question.
When he saw her next, it was raining, and he’d decided to take the Stag he’d bought a month prior out to the supermarket.There she was, head down, trying to avoid the rain, when she walked right in front of the bonnet.
“Miss Daisy,” he called out.
She stopped, the briefest of pauses as she glanced around, unsure if he was speaking to her. Then her eyes met his and the world seemed to still. Time stretched and bent, and for a moment, it felt like nothing existed but the two of them.
What was it about her? He didn’t know. But whatever it was, she made him feel seen, and it terrified him, from the inside out.
