Six classes.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that I’d sat next to Megan that first time, thrilled that the girl I’d had in my room the Friday before would be sitting next to me for the next semester.
And now, she was mine.
Oh, we hadn’t had the official “talk” about status yet, but I was sure Megan and I were on the same wavelength. We’d spent every night together since Friday. Sunday in her room, and then Monday and Tuesday nights at my house. Megan even brought clean clothes to go to class the next day.
We were a couple. No others. Just us.
“Logan? You seem lost in thought. Is there anything you’d like to share?” Marlo asked me, pulling me out of my “Megan’s my girlfriend!” thoughts.
I cleared my throat, hoping the lust I was feeling didn’t make me choke. It was hard enough to not get, well, hard with Megan right next to me. Seeing her hands on the arms of her chair, thinking about all the torturous things she did to my body with those hands. Smelling her hair. She’d used my shampoo this morning before we left my house for our classes. I liked that, even if it made her groan about how frizzy it made her curls. They looked great to me.
“I was just thinking about how fast things can change,” I said.
Marlo leaned forward from where she sat perched on the wide arm of the chair she rarely sat in. “In terms of losing people?”
Right. Grief Group. I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about how quickly my life had changed when Megan entered it.
Re-entered it.
“Yeah. That. Sure.” I motioned toward Dustin and Connor to my right. “Medical emergencies and car accidents, of course. Changes everything. But even, like, I don’t know, life, right?”
Marlo’s smile was soft and encouraging. Even though my thoughts were scattered, I soldiered on.
“Right. Of course we’re in college, and that’s a huge life change. And one night with your buddies can change the course of a lot of lives.” Connor twitched a little, and I tried to think of other examples. Ones less triggering to him. “Like, you’re just going along, listening to the Intro to Philosophy prof lecture, and suddenly someone’s at the door calling your name.”
Megan’s head came up, her curls falling further down her back, and I had to resist the urge to put my hand there, to soothe her and just to feel her.
“Or you find your brother in the locker room flat-out winded when we haven’t even started practice yet.” I encompassed with my hand Dustin, Paige, and Bailey, whose specific life-altering events I hadn’t mentioned. Bailey had still not divulged anything about her boyfriend’s death beyond “a freak accident,” which she’d said in our first session. “Those are the big ones. The ‘everything in my life has changed’ events. And for all of us, those events have been crushing. But there are little things that we don’t even realize are going to change our lives. They seem small and inconsequential at the time, maybe not even noticed. But they’ll affect everything.”
Marlo tilted her head the way she did when she was interested in what you had to say next. The problem was I didn’t want to say how much my life had been altered by Megan’s being in this room.
I thought she felt the same way about me. Iknewshe did. But I didn’t need to wave that around to a bunch of people who were grieving. It was just a small sliver of happiness during a shitty time in life for us both.
“And some of them are good. And we should, I don’t know…” I was losing my steam on the topic.
“Acknowledge those moments? Celebrate them?” Marlo asked.
I shrugged and sat back in my chair. “Yeah, I guess. I’m not sure I know what I’m saying.”
Marlo stood and walked toward the table with the clipboards and papers. It must be a session where we’d do an assessment. “I think Logan brings up a good point. This isn’t exactly what he was saying, I don’t think, but the bigger point I want to make is this: During this period of heavy, new grief for you, there will be things that bring you joy. That make you happy. They may have a positive change in your life. Be aware of those things. Hang on to them. Don’t feel guilty about enjoying them.” She looked at Paige, who by now had so much blue on her jeans, it looked like a little lake. “Easier said than done, I know. But it’s important to be aware of these things.” She handed out the papers and clipboards. “And, as always, be gentle with yourselves during that process. Remember your self-care tools we’ve talked about in here.”
Megan got through her assessment before I did (she always did; it took me forever to come up with the words to answer some of the questions) but was waiting for me outside the door when I left the meeting room.
“Hey,” I said, and leaned in to give her a kiss. “Let’s go back—”
Her hand was firm on my chest, stopping me.
“What the hell is going on, Logan?” she said, confusion and a little hurt on her face.
I looked behind me at the room we’d just left. Connor and Bailey were still in there, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “What? What do you mean?”
“Getting pulled out of Intro to Philosophy?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d mind me bringing that up. I mentioned Connor’s accident and finding J in the locker room. I didn’t think you’d—”
“Intro to Philosophy?” she said again, a little louder.
