“I’m fine,” he said again, the lie tasting bitter in his mouth as he rubbed his hands together. “I’m just... I’m normal, Jane. I’m fine.”
But the lie shattered beneath the intensity of her gaze, and for a fleeting instant, Logan sensed the whirlpool of his own suffering, drawing him in, ready to drag him under. He could no longer sit still; too restless to hold back, he rose abruptly, taking several steps away, seeking to create space between himself and her.
“Logan,” she whispered, standing too. “You look like you’ve been drowning for months. You’renotfine. This isn’t you. You’re just… empty.”
Her hands reached for him, cupping his face gently as though trying to steady him against the tide of whatever storm raged inside him. The warmth of her touch was a lifeline, but Logan knew it wouldn’t save him. Nothing could save him now.
“I’m happy,” he said, though the words were hollow, swallowed by the vastness of the ocean inside him. It had been five hundred and ninety-three days since Logan Vaughn was happy.
Jane’s tears fell then, like raindrops on the surface of a storm-tossed sea. Logan felt them, each drop a sharp sting against the ache in his chest. Her pain wrapped around him, and for the briefest moment, he wanted to let himself be carried away. To let himself drown in her care, in the promise that he could be whole again.
But he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure who he was anymore, or if he could ever return to the shore.
He grabbed her hands, pulling them away from his face, taking a step back. “I’m really happy for you, Jane,” he said, his voice heavy, as if each word carried the weight of a thousand unspoken things. “You’re living the time of your life. You have a beautiful baby girl, and a husband who lovesyou.” His fingers pressed against his forehead, trying to rub away the ache that was building there. He took a breath, quiet and shallow. “I’m happy in my own way,” the words slipping from his mouth like a drowning man gasping for air. “Even if I’m not going all over the place showing it.”
But Jane didn’t let him off the hook. She stepped forward, her tears still falling, each one a quiet plea for him to speak the truth, to admit what they both already knew.
“Logan,” her voice cracked as she cupped his face in her hands. “That’s not you. This isn’t you.” She searched his eyes, as though trying to find the man he once was, the man she remembered. “I don’t know what you’re going through, but you can’t keep lying to yourself. It isn’t about Sandy, it’s about you. You hear me, Logan?You.”
He closed his eyes, squeezing the words back down, trying to drown the rising surge of everything he wanted to say but couldn’t. He wanted to reach for the truth, but it was too vast, too deep to pull from the ocean of silence he had surrounded himself with.
“Jane—”
“No!” Her voice rose, raw and desperate, her hands trembling as she wiped her tears away. “You listen to me, Logan! Hate me as much as you want, but I won’t let it go. You look like you’ve been sinking for months now. I’m not going to wake up when it’s too late.”
Logan’s chest tightened, his breath shallow, and for a moment, he thought the ocean inside him might finally consume him whole. “Please,” he whispered, his voice breaking in a way he had never let it before.
“I will help you, Logan. I swear to god, just talk to me!” Her voice was thick with urgency. “Please, I’ll do anything! Just tell me what’s wrong. Please…”
He could feel the tide rising inside him, the pull of everything he had buried crashing over him, but he couldn’t let it break through. He couldn’t.
“You’re overreacting, Jane,” he said, but the words felt like sand slipping between his fingers. “I’m fine.”
Her head shook in defeat, a slow motion that felt like the final breaking of a wave against the shore. She knew him too well. She could see the cracks, the storm that he was trying to bury. But even if he told her the truth, what good would it do? Adrian was gone, and the life he had chosen was a cage made of steel, lacking sand. What could he say? That he had traded his soul for a promise that was never his? That he was a ghost of the man he once was?
Maybe his father was right. Maybe, if he just waited long enough, time would smooth away the jagged edges of this life, and he would learn to love Sandy the way he was supposed to.
But deep down, he knew the truth. He would never love her. Not the way she deserved. Not the way he had loved Adrian. He would remain here, drifting, a shadow of himself, waiting for something to change, knowing nothing ever would.
On the drive back home, the silence between him and Sandy felt like the calm before a storm. Sandy had spoken again about babies, about the future. Her words were soft, but they burned with the heat of something he could never feel. “No,” he had said, his voice distant, like the far-off roar of thunder.
She cried. She yelled. But Logan said nothing. He only stared out ahead, watching the world move by, the familiar landscape blurring into a haze of colors. As soon as they reached home, Sandy opened the passenger doorand stormed off, and as Logan quietly followed her into the house, he could hear the door of the master bedroom being slammed shut, the sound echoing in the silence of the house.
The message was clear.
Logan sat in the dim light of the living room, the weight of the silence pressing down on him like the deep sea pulling a drowning man beneath the surface. The temptation clawed at him, gnawing at the edges of his mind. He tried to ignore it, tried to convince himself that tonight would be different. But it was useless. His feet moved on their own, leading him into the kitchen, where the liquor cabinet stood like a familiar old friend, waiting for him with an open embrace. He opened it, pulled out the bottle, and filled his glass, each pour a whisper of solace he could no longer resist. The amber liquid caught the light for just a moment, like a tiny flame flickering in the dark.
He carried the bottle back into the living room, his fingers tightening around the cool glass as though it could steady him, even as it pulled him further into the storm inside. He grabbed his laptop as well, thinking he could get some work done while he was up.
The cold glass sat on the table in front of him still untouched, as he clicked through his emails with mechanical precision. The minutes slipped one after another as he scrolled through messages, his eyes skimming the words but not truly seeing them. When he finished, he reached for theglass again, intent on numbing himself to the ache that was gnawing at his insides.
But then, something stopped him.
His thumb hovered over the glass, his hand still for a moment longer than it should have been, before he grabbed his phone instead. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. It was instinct, like the tides pulling him in a direction he knew all too well, though he never wanted to go.
He opened Facebook, his eyes scanning the blur of stories of strangers’ children, dinners plated like paintings, lives that seemed to move forward while his own remained stalled. But then, his pulse quickened, his breath catching in his throat as his gaze locked onto the very first post at the top of the page, like it had been waiting for him.
It wasAdrian.
