Logan nodded and swallowed hard again. He reached for his pop, but I knew he’d emptied it, so I passed him mine. He took a drink from it and passed it back. I grabbed not the paper cup, but his hand, and held on.
“And I hadn’t thought of that in a while. There were too many other things happening after that with my parents and family, and other friends. But when I saw that movie on the other night? It all came rushing back and I just froze.” He was looking at only me when he explained why he’d dropped my hand and become near catatonic while his housemates sized us up.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I get it now.” I squeezed his hand and then slid mine away, but he grabbed for it and held on.
“Do you? Do you understand? It had nothing to do with you, Megan.” His voice was scratchy and I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I only nodded. He released my hand and sighed with what felt like relief.
So did I. Relief and understanding. And pain. There was always the fucking pain lurking around in there.
“Yeah. I knew I sensed something going on with you two,” Connor said. He sat back once again. “I think sometimes grief gives you, like, a spidey sense or something.”
His words lightened the vibe a bit, and Logan cleared his throat. “Yeah? Think so?”
“Totally. I’m going to bring that up to Marlo next week. Maybe I’ll get, like, special credit or something?”
“You’re looking for extra credit for Grief Group?” I asked.
His eyes sparkled and then a grin unfurled on his mouth. He was really cute in a laid-back, “surf’s up, man” kind of way. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and gave me a half hug. “Oh, Megan, I’m always looking for extra credit.”
He kissed the top of my head and released me. He was up from the table and gathering his trash (and ours—classy move!) before I even started moving. “Stay. Hang out. I need to get to the library and get some reading in.”
Logan and I both stayed sitting. Once he’d deposited the trash in a nearby can, he came back to the table and laid his palms on it, leaning over us. “I think Marlo would have been proud of us tonight. May have even used the word breakthrough for you, Straw.”
“Yeah, it felt good to get that out there,” Logan said, looking at me and then Connor.
“I’ll bet. Okay, I’ll see you guys next week. And may I just say that maybe we had another breakthrough at this table tonight?” He looked pointedly from Logan to me and back again.
He was gone before either Logan or I could answer, but we both knew he was right.
I don’t know if I’d call it a breakthrough, but things between Logan and me had definitely shifted.
Chapter14
I letLogan walk me back to Creyts after Connor left us. He didn’t hold my hand or ask if I wanted to hang out longer, either at his house or my dorm room. He was drained and so was I, so we said goodbye at the corner of Sturgess.
He didn’t text me at all the next week. I got it. There wasn’t a lot to follow up his brother’s dying words being a recent trigger. He had to deal with that in whatever way worked for him. I almost reached out over the weekend, but ultimately didn’t.
We were in different stages. And they weren’t all grief based.
Over the weekend, Emily showed me on her iPad that the Bribury hockey team was having an inter-squad scrimmage (whatever that was?) on Saturday night. She asked if I was going, but before I could answer that I knew nothing about it, and probably wouldn’t go anyway, Chloe interjected.
“To a scrimmage? Talk about desperate to be seen. You need to play a little harder to get than that, Megan.”
“I don’t want to be got,” I said. “And I’m not playing any game.”
She rolled her eyes and flounced to her room. Emily told me to ignore her, but her words set me on edge.
* * *
Logan was already seatedwhen I got to Grief Group on Wednesday. Marlo had us make a list of the things we missed about the person we’d lost. And the things we didn’t miss.
“It’s important to not canonize the dead. They were human and fallible, and it’s easy to forget how much they could piss you off sometimes just because you miss them terribly. Those are all okay feelings to have.”
Logan grunted at that. I was sure he and his brother had gotten into it a lot over the years.
Just as I had with my mom over regular family “pick up your room” bullshit. Which all seemed so petty now.
Then the conversation took a turn that had everyone on edge, and I wondered if Logan would want to even walk home with me afterward. But he did, waiting at the door for me.
